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fear of Japan, that the Australian government sought a military pact with the United
States late in 1949. (Lawrence et al., 1986, p. 370, emphasis added)
Further examples demonstrating Menzies not basing decisions of Australia’s strategic
national importance around his personal loyalty to Great Britain is the insistence that
Australian troops sent to contribute to battles in Europe as part of WWII would do so as
Australian soldiers, not subsumed within a British force. The extract from a section
discussing the Menzies government building of Australian defence capabilities reads:
Menzies appointed Brigadier Thomas Blamey to be in charge of the new army.
Blamey insisted that the Australian troops must keep their own identity and not be
absorbed into the British forces. (Lawrence et al., 1986, p. 336)
However, despite this insistence, Australian troops did come under command of the British
forces, with the following extract indicative of Australia’s close military relationship with
Great Britain during this period of the 20 th century:
The 6 th division of the AIF had already been sent to the Middle East, where, as in
World War I, the British commanding officers made the major military decisions for
the Australians. When the 7 th Division was also sent overseas the British decided to
use these troops, together with others from Britain, India and New Zealand, to attack
Italian positions in Egypt and Libya. (Lawrence et al., 1986, p. 338)
It is unclear why the textbook authors make such an effort to highlight aspects of Menzies’
policies that were directed away from British control, as popular Australian folklore
concentrates on Menzies’ allegiance to Great Britain. Menzies is not held up as any special
hero distinct from the other prime ministers profiled throughout the textbook. What it does
point to is a commitment by the textbook authors to be as factual and straightforward as
possible, selecting relevant facts to balance out any misconceptions students may have
formed from popular representations of issues. Interestingly, other aspects of Menzies’
loyalty to Great Britain, such as his government’s decision to allow nuclear testing in
Australia causing extreme ill health to servicemen who were used for trials (not privy to the
full facts of the experimentation), and on the local Indigenous populations who were not
properly informed of what was happening, that has (and continues to have) had an enormous
impact on these people’s health and wellbeing and on the safety of the land around the area is
not mentioned anywhere in this textbook (the area is situated in the Australian outback of
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