Formation The 9th Division was the fourth AIF division raised, being formed in the United Kingdom in late 1940. Initially it consisted of only two infantry
brigades which had been formed in Australia and dispatched to Britain in order to defend against a possible invasion following the
Fall of France—the
18th and
25th Brigades—under the command of Major General
Henry Wynter. Later, the
24th Brigade was also assigned to the division.
North Africa Cyrenaica After completing its initial training in Australia, Great Britain and Palestine, the units of the 9th Division were sent to
Cyrenaica in
Libya in early March 1941 to complete their training and equipping as part of the garrison of this region. Short of equipment such as
machine guns,
mortars,
anti-tank guns and
carriers, most of the division's artillery and cavalry units did not accompany the infantry brigades to Cyrenaica at this time. The 20th Brigade was the first unit from the division to move, departing on 27 February. It was joined shortly by the other two brigades. It was during this time that the division suffered its first casualties when German bombers attacked the transport column in which the
2/13th Battalion was travelling, killing two Australians and wounding one other. By 9 March the 20th Brigade relieved the
17th Brigade from the
6th Division, along the Cyrenaican frontier. The offensive began on 24 March, quickly forcing the British units along the frontier back as it drove towards Benghazi. Two days later the 26th Brigade took up positions in the west near the coast to support the 20th Brigade which was holding the pass at Er Regima. Lacking their own transport, they had to rely on that provided by other units and thus the withdrawal had to be undertaken in stages. In order to achieve this, the 2/13th Battalion was used as a
rear guard and late in the afternoon of 4 April it undertook the division's first action of the war when the Germans attacked their positions in the Er Regima Pass. Supported by British artillery, the battalion, spread out across an front, managed to delay a German force of about 3,000 personnel mounted in lorries and accompanied by armoured cars and tanks. Only lightly armed, however, they were unable to prevent the Germans from outflanking them, and gradually they were forced to pull back before. At 2200 hours, their transport arrived, and they were able to withdraw just as they were faced with encirclement. In this action, the 2/13th Battalion suffered five killed and 93 wounded or captured. The 7th Division's 18th Brigade had arrived two days earlier and together with a number of British artillery and armoured regiments and an Indian cavalry regiment, the
18th King Edward's Own Cavalry (now 18 Cavalry), they were placed under the command of Major General
John Lavarack and ordered to hold the port for at least two months while a relieving force from Egypt was organised. For his part in the attack Edmondson was posthumously awarded the
Victoria Cross, Over the course of the next six months the 9th Division and the rest of the garrison repelled repeated attempts by Rommel's forces to capture the port. The Australian defence of Tobruk was anchored on three factors: the use of the pre-existing Italian fortifications around the port, aggressive patrolling and raiding of Axis positions and the firepower of the garrison's artillery. Fighting from fixed positions, the Australian infantry successfully contained and defeated repeated German armoured and infantry attacks on the fortress. After the failure of the British attempts to relieve the fortress in May and June 1941 the 9th Division was successful in gradually improving Tobruk's defences through aggressively raiding Axis positions. Upon the request of the Australian War Cabinet, the bulk of the 9th Division was withdrawn from Tobruk in September and October 1941, and handed over to the British
70th Division The defence of Tobruk cost the 9th Division 3,164 casualties including 650 killed, 1,597 wounded and 917 captured.
El Alamein ;Syrian interlude After its withdrawal from Tobruk the 9th Division enjoyed only a brief period of rest in Palestine before being redeployed to northern
Syria where, as part of the
British Ninth Army, it was responsible for guarding the Turkish–Syrian frontier. Here they were rejoined by the
9th Division Cavalry Regiment, which had been detached in June 1941 to take part in the
Syria–Lebanon campaign. This deployment was the first time all the elements of the division had been concentrated in one area, albeit an area that stretched . In early 1942
Australian I Corps, including the
6th and
7th Divisions, was withdrawn to Australia in response to
Japan's entry into the war. ;First Battle of El Alamein During early 1942 the Axis forces advanced steadily through north west Egypt. It was decided that the
British Eighth Army should make a stand just over west of
Alexandria, at the railway siding of
El Alamein, where the coastal plain narrowed between the
Mediterranean Sea and the inhospitable
Qattara Depression. On 26 June 1942 the 9th Division was ordered to begin moving from northern Syria to El Alamein. On 1 July, Rommel's forces made a major attack, hoping to dislodge the Allies from the area, take Alexandria, and open the way to
Cairo and the
Suez Canal. However, the Eighth Army had regrouped sufficiently to repel the Axis forces and launch counterattacks. On 6 July, the lead elements of the 9th Division arrived at Tel el Shammama from the front, from where they would be committed to the fighting in the northern sector. In the days following, Rommel redirected his forces against them, in a series of intense counterattacks, but was unable to dislodge the Australians. On 22 July, the 24th and 26th Brigades attacked German positions on the ridges south of Tel el Esia, suffering heavy casualties taking positions on Tel el Eisa Ridge and Makh Khad Ridge. The final phase of the First Battle of El Alamein was a disaster for the Allies and the
2/28th Battalion in particular: an attempt to capture Sanyet el Miteiriya, known as "Ruin Ridge", on 27 July. The operation was part of a complex series of night attacks. The 2/28th suffered significant casualties and vehicle losses in its advance, but achieved its objective. However, the battalion was soon surrounded by German infantry. A planned advance by British tanks failed and German tanks arrived. The 2/28th's positions came under a prolonged and methodical attack by the Axis forces. By the time they surrendered, 65 Australians had been killed. Although the vast majority of the 2/28th had become prisoners of war, 93 members of the battalion remained behind Allied lines and it was subsequently rebuilt. ;Second Battle of El Alamein Following the fighting in July, the 9th Division remained in front-line positions around El Alamein, but were engaged in mainly static defensive duties for the next three months. Nevertheless, patrols were maintained and some raiding was undertaken, including a raid on 1 September undertaken by the
2/15th Battalion to seize a point south-west of Tel el Eisa in which 150 Germans were killed and another 140 taken prisoner, against which the Australians lost 39 killed, 109 wounded and another 25 missing. By late October 1942, the Eighth Army, now commanded by
Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, decided to launch its own offensive in the Western Desert, amassing a force of some 220,000 personnel supported by 1,100 tanks and 900 artillery pieces. The 9th Division was positioned in the northern sector of the Eighth Army's front at El Alamein, nearest the coast, as part of
British XXX Corps. This sector was to effect the main thrust of the Allied attack. While
XIII and most of XXX Corps failed to meet their objectives on 25 October, the 9th Division gained considerable momentum, attacking both frontally and executing a wide "left hook" from their original positions, in their sector, with one Axis outpost after another falling to them. Together with the
51st (Highland) Division, and the
2nd New Zealand Division, they had mauled the
Italian Trento Division and the German 164th Division. By the following day the 9th Division had managed to further slice through the
German 164th Division and trap the greater part of it against the sea. This caused the Axis to rush reinforcements to their sector. As events unfolded, it was on the 9th that Montgomery, the Eighth Army commander, pinned his hopes on a breakthrough. On 2 November, Operation Supercharge—as the breakout was named—began and the final phase of the battle began. The British armoured formations suffered heavily in the initial stages, before on the second day the 51st Division managed to force a gap through the Axis lines, creating a gap of over through which the armour was redirected. The result of this was that the pressure was taken off the 9th Division as the focus of the fighting shifted to the south of Tel el Eisa. After this the 9th Division ceased offensive action, The four months that the 9th Division had been involved in the fighting around El Alamein cost them 1,225 killed, 3,638 wounded and 946 captured, for a total of 5,809 casualties. Although both the British prime minister,
Winston Churchill and the American president
Franklin Roosevelt advised against this, the Australian prime minister
John Curtin insisted and by mid December the decision to bring the division back to Australia was confirmed. The 9th Division began embarking for its return to Australia on 24 January 1943. Welcome-home parades were held in every Australian capital city, after which the 9th Division began reforming in April 1943 in the semi-tropical
Atherton Tablelands region of
Far North Queensland where it began re-organising and re-training for jungle warfare. As part of the conversion to a
Jungle Division many of the division's units were either separated from the division, reorganised into new roles or disbanded. Of note, the division's cavalry unit, the 9th Division Cavalry Regiment, gave up its vehicles and was converted to the
commando role, becoming the
2/9th Cavalry Commando Regiment. departed for
Milne Bay in
New Guinea in late July and early August 1943.
New Guinea ;Lae The 9th Division's first task in New Guinea was to
liberate the town of Lae in a joint operation with the
7th Division. The 9th Division would carry out an
amphibious landing to the east of the town at
Malahang—the first large scale seaborne landing by an Australian formation since the
Gallipoli campaign in 1915—while the 7th Division would be flown into the
recently secured Nadzab airfield, to the west of
Lae. The 20th Brigade, now under Brigadier
Victor Windeyer, was chosen as the lead assault unit and on 1 September it began embarking at Milne Bay. Departing the following day, they were transported to the Buna–Morobe area where it linked up with the 57 landing craft that had been assigned to the operation. On the night of 3/4 September they began the run to the landing beaches, arriving just before dawn. The following day, the 26th Brigade passed through the perimeter that had been set up by the 20th Brigade and began to advance along the coast towards Lae, crossing the Buso river before nightfall on 5 September. That night, the 24th Brigade, which had been held back as the divisional reserve, landed at the beachhead. After establishing their supply bases the two Australian divisions raced each other to Lae. The 7th Division entered the town several hours ahead of the 9th Division on 16 September. The 9th Division's advance had been held up by Japanese resistance and difficulties with crossing the rivers between the landing beaches and Lae. ;Huon Peninsula campaign The capture of Lae ahead of schedule meant that the focus of Allied operations could then be shifted upon an advance up the Huon Peninsula, which was strategically important to the Allies as it would allow them to establish air and naval bases for future operations. Allied intelligence estimates of Japanese strength around Finschhafen were also faulty, with an expected force of between 500 and 2,100, although the Japanese really had around 5,000 personnel in the area. Nevertheless, after a week of heavy fighting against well-entrenched Japanese troops, the Australians captured the town and airfield of Finschhafen, declaring it liberated on 2 October. However, most of the Japanese that had been around Finschhafen managed to retreat to a mountain around Sattelberg. On 16 October they launched a
counterattack from there. It was during this final assault that Sergeant
Tom Derrick carried out the actions that led to him receiving the Victoria Cross.
Borneo In January 1944 the 9th Division was relieved by the
5th Division around
Sio and progressively over the following two months they were brought back to Australia. After a period of leave the division once again re-formed on the Atherton Tablelands. Due to high personnel turnover in this period as personnel were discharged or transferred to other units, many of the division's units had to be virtually rebuilt from scratch. these plans were dropped, and the Corps was instead tasked with the liberation of
Borneo. This would be the division's final involvement in the war and its participation in the campaign was broken up into two primary operations: a landing on
Tarakan and another on
Brunei and
Labuan. ;Tarakan The 26th Brigade group was assigned the task of capturing
Tarakan Island and destroying the Japanese garrison. Japanese forces on the island were estimated at 2,000 personnel along with around 250 civilians working in the oil plants. On 30 April 1945 a small force of commandos from the
2/4th Commando Squadron, along with a
battery of
25-pounder field guns from the
2/7th Field Regiment, were landed on Sadau Island off the coast of Tarakan, from where they would provide indirect fire support during the landing. The following day, 1 May, at 0640 the battery on Sadau opened the preliminary bombardment along with two
cruisers and six
destroyers stationed offshore. At 0656 hours the main assault began as the LCIs carrying the two battalions that would lead the attack—the 2/23rd and 2/48th—crossed the
line of departure and headed towards the landing beach at Lingkas. Although initially Japanese opposition to the landing was light, as the Australians advanced inland from the landing beach, the resistance grew in its intensity and it was mid June by the time that the main Japanese force was broken up and mopping up operations began. These operations continued throughout July until starvation forced the majority of those remaining to surrender. ;Brunei and Labuan The remainder of the 9th Division landed in the Labuan and Brunei area on 10 June 1945. Tasked with securing Brunei Bay in order to establish a naval base and secure vital oil and rubber production facilities, 14,079 personnel from the division took part, just under half of a total of 30,000 that were assigned to the operation. Following a preliminary naval and aerial bombardment, the 24th Brigade landed at the southern end of Labuan island, which situated as it was at the entrance of Brunei Bay, commanded the approach to northern Borneo. At the same time, the 20th Brigade landed near Brooketon, on a small peninsula in the southern end of the bay. A third, albeit smaller, landing was made by one of the 20th Brigade's battalions—the 2/15th—on the small island of Muara. The island had not been garrisoned by the Japanese and all the Australian landings went in unopposed. The 24th Brigade, however, encountered greater opposition in taking the island of Labuan, The
2/32nd Battalion landed at Padas Bay and seized the town of Weston, before sending out patrols towards Beaufort, inland. Held by 800–1,000 Japanese, on 27 June
an attack was carried out there by the
2/43rd Battalion. On the night of 27/28 June the Japanese launched six counterattacks which devolved into hand-to-hand combat. Amid appalling conditions, one company became isolated and the next morning another was sent to its aid to attack the Japanese from the rear. Fighting its way through numerous Japanese positions, the company killed at least 100 Japanese and one of its members, Private
Tom Starcevich, was later awarded the Victoria Cross for his efforts. Following this, the Japanese began to withdraw from Beaufort and the Australians began a slow, cautious advance using indirect fire to limit casualties. By 12 July they occupied Papar, and from there sent out patrols to the north and along the river until the cessation of hostilities. By August the fighting came to an end. The division's total casualties in this operation were 114 killed and 221 wounded, while the Japanese lost at least 1,234 personnel.
Disbandment Following the end of the war the 9th Division remained in Borneo and performed emergency relief and occupation duties until the arrival of
Indian troops in January 1946. The 9th Division began gradually
demobilising on 1 October 1945 with soldiers with dependants or long service being the first to be discharged. The division's headquarters was disbanded on 10 February 1946 and the last unit of the division was disbanded in May 1946. While the majority of the division's personnel returned civilian life after the war, some continued to serve with the
British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan, joining the
66th Infantry Battalion. ==Casualties==