Australia was not prepared for war in 1939. It was not much better prepared when the war came to Australia's shores at the beginning of 1942. In between, the country raised four infantry divisions and assorted corps and army troops and sent them overseas, three to the Middle East and one split between Malaya and the islands to the near north. Ships of the RAN operated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean in concert with the Royal Navy. Under the Empire Air Training Scheme (known also as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan), thousands of young men were ‘surrendered’ to the control of the RAF, and fought their war in the skies of Germany in the strategic air offensive. Meanwhile the air defences at home were in a pitiful state, and remained that way until after the entry into the war of the Japanese and the Americans.

As part of the hurried preparations for the war which everyone felt was imminent, in early 1939 the government had produced the Commonwealth War Book. This gave the administrative and organisational details necessary for co-ordinating the transition of civil government from peace to war, on the basis that such a war would require the mobilisation of all national resources in waging it. It was published without chapters on either manpower or supply. Some government departments were closely involved in its production; others played little part.