CRITICS of yesterday’s Battle for Australia observance have missed the point and run the risk of understating the contribution to Australian freedom made by hundreds of thousands of Australian and American servicemen and servicewoman.

The Federal Government gazetted the day earlier this year to commemorate the dark days of 1942 and 1943 when, for a space, it was feared this country was at high risk of being invaded by the Japanese.

While subsequent events were to prove the Japanese were already overextended in South East Asia and the Pacific and not in a position to attempt an occupation of Australia, the fear was very real at the time.

Events such as the mini-submarine attack on Sydney Harbour, the shelling of coastal cities and repeated bombing attacks on Darwin all fed an atmosphere of alarm.

The Government even went so far as to suppress the news of the first attacks on Darwin in order to prevent the risk of panic in the streets.

Yesterday – September 3 – was chosen as the date on which the Battle for Australia should be commemorated on the grounds it is the anniversary of the fiercest fighting during the battle of Milne Bay on the southeastern tip of New Guinea.

Milne Bay marked the first time a Japanese army had been defeated on land during the war up until that point.

It is just one of a number of events and campaigns that could have been singled out with both the bombing of Darwin and the struggle for Kokoda springing to mind.

Whatever, Australian nerves were sorely tested – but not broken – in a conflict that determined the future of the world.

If the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese had been successful in their campaign for global domination between 1939 and 1945 we would be living in a very different Australia – regardless of whether or not a physical invasion had taken place.

September 2 marked an even more significant event than Battle for Australia day.

It was the 63rd anniversary of the official surrender of the Japanese to Macarthur in Tokyo Bay.