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  • All in—The Australian homefront 1939–1945

Aliens

Some of the original members of the Adelaide branch of the Nationalist Socialist Democratic Workers Party (NSDWP) with their Swastika flag, Tanunda, South Australia
Some of the original members of the Adelaide branch of the Nationalist Socialist Democratic Workers Party (NSDWP) with their Swastika flag, Tanunda, South Australia. Many members of the party (including some of these men) were later interned as enemy aliens. The photograph was amongst papers confiscated from the party at the outbreak of war in 1939. [AWMP01738.003]

In November 1941, just weeks before Japan entered World War II, Japanese nationals were among the ‘Aliens’ travelling around Australia with Wirth’s Circus. In a letter to the Commissioner of Police in Sydney, Captain George Newman, Intelligence Section, Australian Military Forces – Eastern Command, requested that the registration files of all alien members of Wirth’s circus be forwarded ‘through the usual channels’ in order to ‘investigate the history, sympathies, etc of all Alien employees of Wirth’s Circus.’

An alien travel permit belonging to Namba Kaichiro a theatrical artist touring with Wirth’s Circus
An alien travel permit belonging to Namba Kaichiro a theatrical artist touring with Wirth’s Circus. [Item J101 Series C320/Pl NAA]

The fate of Wirth’s ‘enemy alien’ employees is unknown but between 1940 and 1945, several thousand supposed enemy aliens were interned all around Australia. Japanese pearl fisherman from Broome together with Australians of Italian and German origin, many of whom had been born in Australia or had lived in Australia for years, were forced to leave their homes and their livelihoods.

Entire families were moved into internment camps around the country: Yanco, Hay and Cowra in New South Wales; Loveday and Nangwarry in South Australia; Gaythorne in Queensland; Dhurringile, Murchison and Tatura in Victoria; and Harvey and Northam in Western Australia. In many of the camps they were joined by prisoners of war captured in the Middle East or closer to home in the Pacific. Many Japanese civilians from the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) were also interned in Australia.

Japanese internees using a cross cut saw to cut firewood at the 14th Australian Prisoner of war and Internment camp, Loveday, South Australia, 17 March 1943
Graves of Italian internees in the Prisoner of War and Internment section of the local cemetery, Barmera, South Australia, March 1943
German internees enjoying coffee in their garden at No 1 Camp, Tatura, Victoria, 10 June 1943
Japanese internees and guards crowd the deck of the paddle steamer Ulonga as they prepare to disembark into trucks at Berri
A group of local children booed and hissed as the Japanese repatriation ship, the Daikai Maru the first Japanese merchant ship to enter Sydney Harbour since the outbreak of war with Japan in December 1941, Balmain, New South Wales, 2 March 1946

In November 1941, the German crew members from the Kormoran who survived the action with HMAS Sydney were interned first in a section of Harvey Internment Camp in Western Australia before being transferred to Victoria some weeks later. The officers and their servants went to Durringhile camp and the non-commissioned officers to Murchison Camp in Victoria where they spent the remainder of the war.

Mr and Mrs Erasmo Riboni and their children Eleonora, Feerica and Paolo, at No 3 Camp, Tatura Internment Group, Victoria, 24 June 1943
Mr and Mrs Erasmo Riboni and their children Eleonora, Feerica and Paolo, at No 3 Camp, Tatura Internment Group, Victoria, 24 June 1943. [AWM052597]

Many of the POWs and enemy alien internees were employed by local farmers and industries who came to depend on their labour. Their assistance was sorely missed at the end of hostilities when internees and POWs were either repatriated to their countries of origin or permitted to return to their Australian homes. Accounts of their experiences differ and a number of former ‘enemy aliens’ who were repatriated at the end of the war, later returned to live in Australia.

Related content

POW repatriation [AWM F07436]

On 2 March 1946, 2500 Japanese, Formosan and Korean nationals – former prisoners of war and internees – embarked on the Daikai Maru. The prisoners arrived at No 1 wharf Balmain in Sydney’s inner west and were immediately taken on board after an identification check.

Major General Eric Plant and Lieutenant General Frank Berryman accompanied by Commander Knight, Royal Naval Reserve, carried out an inspection of the Daikai Maru and watched the prisoners go aboard.

Italian POWs arrive [AWM F00529]

Japanese civilian internees are harvesting the pyrethrum daisy grown at the No. 14 Prisoner of War and Internee Camp.

Harvesting pyrethrum, Loveday Internment Group. Max Ragless, November 1945.

[Oil on canvas, 61.4 x 76.8cm, AWMART23423]

PDF icon Intelligence reports and other correspondence (pdf 631.31 KB) (631.31 KB)
PDF icon Children in internment (pdf 317.32 KB) (317.32 KB)
PDF icon Nauru to Mt Isa—The employment of Chinese miners (pdf 315.67 KB) (315.67 KB)
PDF icon The surveillance and internment of aliens (pdf 1.15 MB) (1.15 MB)
PDF icon Tei Shin Ho's report on POW (pdf 467.78 KB) (467.78 KB)
This memorandum written on 15 December 1920 advises that five Japanese acrobats travelling with Wirth's circus had not contacted Aliens Registration in Adelaide despite having left Melbourne for Adelaide two weeks earlier.

Surveillance of Japanese acrobats, 15 December 1920.

Authorities insisted on the registration of Japanese nationals travelling in Australia long before World War II. This memorandum written on 15 December 1920 advises that five Japanese acrobats travelling with Wirth's circus had not contacted Aliens Registration in Adelaide despite having left Melbourne for Adelaide two weeks earlier.

[Item SA107 Series D1915 NAA]

Some of the officers from the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran interned in No 13 POW Group at Dhurringile near Murchison in Victoria 11 February 1943

Some of the officers from the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran interned in No 13 POW Group at Dhurringile near Murchison in Victoria 11 February 1943.

Back row, left to right: Oberleutnant zur See Joachim Greter, Oberleutnant zur See Edmond Schafer, Oberleutnant Joachim von Gossein; Oberleutnant Wilhelm Brinkman. Front row: Kapitanleutnant Henry Meyer; Kkapitanleutnant Kurt Foerster; Fregattenkapitan Theodor Detmers (Commanding Officer); Oberleutnant Heinz Messerschmidt.

[AWM030185/05]

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