'We are the last bastion between the Japanese and the west coast of America. If you let us fall, America itself is in danger.' This appeal, broadcast by Australia's Prime Minister John Curtin to the United States in 1942, signalled the greatest crisis in Australia's history. When Japan entered WW2 in December 1941, she moved so efficiently that she had captured all the territory she had planned to take in less than four months. In February 1942 Singapore fell, Rabaul was captured, Port Moresby was bombed, and Darwin suffered the first of sixty-two bombing raids...