A more powerful Curtin Call - The Australasian Federation and World War 2 1755 5 September 1939 Prime Minister John Joseph Curtin waited to give the broadcast that would announce that Australasia would be at war. It was not an unexpected war, indeed, it had been foretold by "Billy" Hughes as early as 1935. He had used the last two days to contact all nine state premiers and all three governors. It had also helped to assert Australasia's own independence to wait a few days. He reflected on what this would mean for Australasia's eleven million people, not including Papua and New Guinea or the Solomons. He reflected on the state of his armed forces that he hoped to be able to use to assist Britain in it's struggle against the old enemy. The healthy defense budgets that Australasia had been able to maintain through most of the 1930's from 1933 onwards and the awareness of the threat at hand had helped somewhat. The Keynesian economics practiced by the government through the 1930's had saved Australasia from the worst of the Great Depression. Defense expenditure had played it's part in the government stimulus necessary to ride out the worst of it and the country had continued to attract migrates under it's "populate or perish" immigration policy. The Navy would seem, on the surface, to be the best equipped of the three services. Consisting as it did of three Melbourne Class light aircraft carriers Melbourne, Wellington and Christchurch. Denied the battleships that it craved after the Washington Treaty locked Australasia out of capital ship possession, the navy had purchased two Hawkins Class cruisers from the R.N in 1930 and converted both to light aircraft carriers, followed by a third in 1936. Also on list were two County Class heavy cruisers, Perth and Auckland, 3 Amphion Class light cruisers Sydney, Launceston and Hobart, 3 Arethusa Class light cruisers, Suva, Darwin and Brisbane and the old cruiser mine layer Adelaide, 1 seaplane carrier Albatross, 12 destroyers(including six new Tribal Class, with 4 more building), 4 sloops, 5 frigates, 8 submarines and 3 minesweepers(with 6 more building). The Army was less strong, on paper, but well filled out in reserve ranks by men that would answer the call. It consisted of one active and 3 reserve divisions. The only armour consisted of locally produced armoured cars, but a locally designed tank based on truck engines, the Sentinel was at the almost completed design stage and could be ordered relatively rapidly. The aircraft and indeed aircraft production was the area that had undergone the greatest transformation in the last 15 years. The emigration to Australasia of Camillo Castiglioni in the aftermath of World War One had also led to the emigration to head up his aircraft manufacturing and design facilities of what was always his first love, aviation, of Ernst Heinkel, his old protegee. Heinkel, disillusioned by the possibility of aviation in Germany post World War 1 and unable to go to either Britain or France, chose to follow his old mentor out to Australasia and had Anglisised his name to Ernest Hencall. In the early 1930's he was followed by the Gunter brothers. Thankfully the act the restrict immigration from the former Central Powers was not put into law in 1922. The R.A.A.F possessed 12 squadrons of Avro Ansons, 2 of Vickers Wellingtons, 1 of He 70's, 7.5 of Hencall's new fighter, the He 112 "Kangaroo", 3.5 of old Hawker Demons, 3 of Wirraways, 2 of Short Sunderlands and two of old Supermarine Seagulls. These did not include three squadrons in the R.A.N of navalised He 112's, three of Fairy Swordfish and 3 of Blackburn Skuas. There was also a new bomber on the drawing board, the He 111, a new fighter, the He 100, and plans to use the Wasp engine to produce local fighter-bombers, called the Boomerang. The air side of things was looking healthy. The announcer came out. It was time to make the broadcast. First of a new thread that will flick backwards in time to explain how we got here and forwards to continue it. I won't be updating as regularly as the last one though. Any thoughts are appreciated.