Is there any way for the veteran soldiers of the AIF, after the 9th Australian Div's participation at El Alamein and withdrawal back home in Jan 1943 to fight the Japs in New Guinea, to have been able to stay on in the European theatre in order to continue fighting Nazism ? Would the largescale participation of Australian soldiers in mopping-up ops in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily and Italy, and Op OVERLORD have been feasible, or would the AIF have inevitably been evacuated in whole back to Australia in order to fight the Japs ? OTL, Australians were well represented in ETO after 1943 in the RAN and RAAF contingents serving in Britain and the Med, esp with the large proportion of Aussies in RAF Bomber Command flying bombing missions over Germany and in tactical squadrons supporting OVERLORD, but there were only a few tens of Aust army officers serving mainly as observers with the British Army in northwest Europe from June 1944 until May 1945.
Could the Curtin govt's policy have allowed say the retention of the 9th Div to fight against Germany, and its possible participation in OVERLORD as part of Monty's 21st Army Group ? I remember reading an article in the D-DAY ENCYCLOPEDIA that Monty or some other British gen actually wished he'd had the 9th at Normandy- how would these Diggers have fared had they landed along the British beaches and fought in the BOCAGE alongside their British and Canadian colleagues ? What about the deployment of the 1st Aust Armd Div to join the invasion forces in the UK, instead of OTL never being used in combat ? Could a largescale Aust participation in ETO, similar to Canada's, have allowed Aust to play a larger role in shaping the postwar order ?
Could the Curtin govt's policy have allowed say the retention of the 9th Div to fight against Germany, and its possible participation in OVERLORD as part of Monty's 21st Army Group ? I remember reading an article in the D-DAY ENCYCLOPEDIA that Monty or some other British gen actually wished he'd had the 9th at Normandy- how would these Diggers have fared had they landed along the British beaches and fought in the BOCAGE alongside their British and Canadian colleagues ? What about the deployment of the 1st Aust Armd Div to join the invasion forces in the UK, instead of OTL never being used in combat ? Could a largescale Aust participation in ETO, similar to Canada's, have allowed Aust to play a larger role in shaping the postwar order ?