Australian Capital Ship, 1938

[RNfanDan]

...the US would undoubtedly demand concessions from Australia in terms of its relationship to Britain that would probably not go down well in London at all at the time.

This is one of the reasons I challenged your notion of negotiating with the US, earlier. To go even further, Australia was not an autonomous, sovereign entity but rather a Crown Territory. Australia's leadership was responsible to the Crown and, like Canada, was tied to Britain a bit more strongly than mere allegiance to the Union Jack.

Beyond p****ing off London, the question of legality can be raised i.e., was Australia even capable of negotiating her own terms without Crown involvement or, at the very least, approval? Not long into the Pacific War she did just that, mainly because Britain had hijacked most of her troops and land defense capabilities in Burma, and the Australians were reluctantly coming to the realization their contributions, naval as well, were not to be reciprocated.

But, none of this applied in 1938 and Australia was still very much a member of the British Empire. Would anyone in her government have had the political will (let alone, authority) to go against the grain in such a manner? I cannot imagine a Sydney equivalent of the Boston Tea Party.

[chuck]

Although the penalty as far as relationship with Britain is comparable, the gains are vastly different. In the case of buying warships from the US, the security gains for Australia, while not insignificant, is small in the greater scheme of things. Japan could still easily overwhelm Australia and US would still by no means to guaranteed to defend Australia. In the case of convincing the US to base the pacific fleet near Australia, the security gains for Australia would be of the largest magnitude imaginable. There are no other practical steps Australia could take that would secure Australia against Japan more.

[Lesforan]

The Australians confident that the US would not allow the Japanese to launch a full-scale invasion of their country? In the time frame discussed (pre-1943) the US was in no position to protect their own possessions in SE Asia and the DEI, much less the Australian continent. The best we could do was blunt Japanese attacks on New Guinea and the Central Pacific.

The Australians had to depend on their size and remoteness to delay the Japanese. Still, Darwin was subject to attack. While Japan was not up to a full-scale invasion, they were more than able to make long-range strikes, such as the attack on Ceylon that resulted in the loss of Hermes.

Little defenseless Hermes can hardly be used as a representative example of a modern carrier of the time. Any British fleet carrier with reasonable endurance and a competent air wing could have helped Australia by providing a mobile source of reinforcement for land-based air. Such as ship could draw the Japanese within range of land-based air power, as well as launching hit-and-run raids ala' Halsey.

A big surface unit to serve as a fleet in being to intimidate the Japanese? I thought that was the idea behind sending PoW and Repulse. We all know how well that went. If we follow the Panzerschiffe model, remember these ships were not designed to engage capital ships: rather, they were to be commerce raiders.
Such a ship might be able to knock off an occassional individual warship, but the Japanese employed carrier strike groups, not surface units operating independently.

A major problem at the start of the war would be suitable aircraft for any carrier operating against the Japanese. The US had some catching up to do: Buffalos, Wildcats, Devestators. What would the UK bring to the table? Gladiators, Fulmars, Swordfish. Not a happy prospect.

[Werner]

History teaches that the Japanese planners attempted to cover all the bases, not just the important ones. An Australian carrier would have demanded a critical division of forces at the outset of the war. The upshot might not be what you expect, though. The announcement of an Australian carrier program might have caused Japan to summon forth two or four more Japanese carriers through one of their characteristically herculean efforts.