The newly appointed German Chancellor Adolf Hitler addressing a vast parade of storm troopers in 1933, in the crowded city square in Dortmund, Germany. In 1934, a year after he became Chancellor (Reichskanzler) of Germany, Adolf Hitler also became the German leader (the Führer). He is credited with starting the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi party) and he determined to restore Germany to pre-eminence in Europe. At the post war Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Germany was heavily penalised for her role in WWI and ordered to pay huge war reparation to the Allied countries. After gaining supreme power in 1933, Hitler repudiated Versailles, did away with the Reichstag (German Parliament) and ruled Germany as a dictatorship. The armed forces were reinvigorated , nationalism stimulated and an active foreign policy implemented which saw the incorporation of Austria into Germany in 1938. Czechoslovakia was also dismembered and taken over. Finally, Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September1939 triggered World War II.

Japanese soldiers on foot and on horseback march through a viaduct into the city of Nanking, in December 1937. The Japanese troops, under the command of General Matsui, unleashed weeks of atrocities on the Chinese inhabitants and an estimated 250,000 civilians were murdered during the so-called ‘Rape of Nanking.’In 1928, Nanking had become the capital city of China under the Chinese Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek. After the Japanese invasion of the city, the Chinese government withdrew to Hankow and Nanking became the seat of the puppet regime established by the Japanese. Many Japanese continue to dispute the extent of the atrocities, claiming that it was a military action with far less casualties than claimed by the Chinese.

Four of the original Sunderland aircraft captains of No 10 Squadron RAAF. Left to right: Flying Officer Ivan Podger, Flight Lieutenants William (Bill) Garing, Charles Peace and William (Bill) Gibson. Pembroke Dock, Wales, December 1939. The first Australians to take part in operations against the enemy were members of 10 Squadron, a RAAF Sunderland flying boat squadron, which was attached to Royal Air Force Coastal Command from December 1939 until the end of the war. Other Australians served as individuals in RAF Coastal Command squadrons. Some Australians in other RAF units were involved in the four-month air campaign fought between the German Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force between July and October 1940.

Recruits for the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) at the Melbourne Showground in 1939 after Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced the formation of a volunteer force. The force was to be approximately 20,000 men to be utilised at home or abroad but would grow considerably. The men in the voluntary militia who had received military training during the 1930s were also to be called up in two drafts of 40,000 to receive training for home defence. The first call-up was effective from the beginning of 1940 when men between the ages of 18 and 35 were called up.

Royal Australian Navy (RAN) cadets during a general seamanship class during their training at HMAS Cerberus in Victoria in December 1939. Notice the age of these cadets. During this era of the RAN, cadets as young as 12 years old started their naval training.

Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator raises his hand to the troops forming a guard of honour during his visit to Benghazi in Libya. c1940. Benito Mussolini, the Italian prime minister between 1922 and 1943, established a fascist regime and became a close ally of the German dictator, Adolf Hitler. Mussolini’s Italy entered World War II in June 1940 on the side of Nazi Germany. The Allies invaded Italy in 1943 and in April 1945, Mussolini was captured and killed by Communist resistance fighters when he attempted to flee the country.

Fighter pilots of No 87 Squadron RAF (Royal Air Force) based in France, race to their Hurricane aircraft to attack invading German aircraft. C.1940. Australian pilots, flying in RAF squadrons, flew in the air war against Germany leading up to and during the German invasion of Belgium, Holland and France in June 1940.

These nurses in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) departed for the Middle East in February 1940. Members of the AANS served in Britain, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Greece and Crete and later, during the Pacific war, in Malaya, Singapore, New Britain, Papua, New Guinea, as well as in every State and Territory of Australia.

After Australia declared war with Germany, pilot recruits in the Royal Australian Air Force were sent to bases in Australia, Canada, Britain and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) for flight training under the Empire Air Training Scheme.

Pictured here are men with the second contingent of the Empire Air Training Scheme as they departed for Canada on 3 October 1940. The three airmen at the rail on the right are from left, Charles Crombie, Jack Ross and Kenneth Gray. They later served together on Malta with No 89 Squadron RAF flying Beaufighter night-fighters. All became Squadron Leaders. Crombie was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and Gray was awarded the DFC. Crombie was killed in a flying accident at Williamtown in New South Wales just 11 days after the end of the war.

A worker at an Australian explosives factory fills trench mortar bombs with high explosive, September 1940. Full mobilization of the Australian workforce for war was gradual and really only became comprehensive once the Japanese threat in the Pacific materialized in 1941.

Members of the Photographic Squadron of the Women’s Air Training Corps (WATC) with their cameras on their first field day. The WATC, a civilian voluntary organisation, was formed in January 1940. The women were trained in a variety of roles including signalling, first aid, aircraft engine maintenance and driving cars and trucks. Many of the women in the WATC went on to join the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) when it was established in March 1941.

Despite their expectations, the 6th Division didn't go to Berlin but fought against the Italians and Germans in the Middle East and Greece. The 6th Division penetrated the Italian defences at Bardia, Libya on 4 January 1941, in the AIF's
first offensive action during the Second World War. On 6 February, the 6th Division captured Benghazi in Libya. At the same time, a RAAF fighter squadron provided tactical air support for Allied armies operating in Libya against the Italians and Germans.

A RAN Petty Officer from HMAS Perth with his family at the dockside on the day his ship arrived in Australia, 31 March 1940. Formerly, HMS Amphion, the British Leander class warship had been extensively modified before being re-commissioned HMAS Perth in June 1939. The new RAN warship sailed from Britain in July 1939 and in August was in the Caribbean on her way to Australia when, as a result of impending war with Germany, she was assigned to assist the Royal Navy in the Atlantic. In February 1940 she resumed her voyage to Australia.

14 February 1941. 8th Division troops in the main dining room of the Queen Mary just before their departure for Malaya from Sydney. Statistically, between one-third and half of the men in this photograph would either have been killed in the campaign up to the surrender of Singapore or died later as prisoners of war.

Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, left, translates the inscription on a samurai sword for German Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch in Berlin in 1941. Yamashita was part of a Japanese Army and Navy delegation studying war strategy in Germany. Eight months later on 8 December 1941 he led the Japanese armies in their invasion of Malaya, the campaign which ended with the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942.

The newly appointed Japanese Minister to Australia, Mr Kawai, together with the Prime Minister John Curtin and other dignitaries attended the opening of the Australian War Memorial on 11 November 1941, less than four weeks before Japanese forces attacked Australian and other British Empire troops in Malaya on 8 December 1941.