The Eighth US Army had occupied Japan for six months when the first Australian troops arrived at Kure from Morotai [then an island off Dutch New Guinea] on 22 February 1946. The long delay had a detrimental effect on their morale as well as causing a loss of political and public enthusiasm. From the beginning, the Australian press was critical not only of the arrangements made for the reception of the BCOF [British Commonwealth Occupation Force] troops but of the men themselves. There were insufficient blankets for troops suddenly plunged into extremely cold conditions after the tropical heat of Morotai. Their barracks were not always floored; such heaters as existed were far from efficient; hot water was not readily available; and labor problems on the Australian waterfront resulted in gluts and famines of fresh food. The conditions under which the Force was living were primitive. Amenities were almost non-existent. It was not surprising that the non-fraternization rule which was insisted upon by the Australian government was ignored by many of the troops who had little to do in their off-duty hours and almost no women of their own nationality to join them in their few social activities. Many of the servicemen sought the companionship of those Japanese women who, often because of hunger and poverty, were prepared to accept their friendship. Some of these women were prostitutes and the cost to the Force of the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases was high.

As well as numerous US servicewomen, American civilian women were working with the US occupation forces, and the other participating nations in BCOF had servicewomen and women welfare workers in their contingents, but the Australian government remained adamant in its refusal to allow servicewomen (other than nursing and medical) to serve with BCOF. This was in spite of the numerous requests that were made by the Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General J. Northcott, and by his successor from April 1946, Lieutenant-General H.C.H. Robertson, for members of the Australian Women's Army Service and the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force to be included in the Australian contingent. As well as correcting the dearth of skilled clerical and signals personnel which was `absolutely crippling [their] working efficiency' ,24 it was thought that a secondary benefit would be the “civilizing influence” that the women would have on the troops. General Robertson wrote:

Many of the first Australian soldiers to arrive in Japan had come straight from service in the Pacific, and the Commander-in-Chief apparently felt that the troops would gain from being able to socialize and discuss problems with women who were familiar with their backgrounds and cultural norms.

Because the use of Australian servicewomen would have released servicemen who were anxious to be discharged and would not have increased the ceiling establishment of BCOF, it is difficult to understand the obstinacy of the Australian government in refusing to allow more women to serve in Japan. Perhaps it was paternalism on the part of the Cabinet, or perhaps it was the desire to reduce costs by demobilizing the Women's Services, other than nursing and medical, as quickly as possible. However, following assurances that the cost would be borne by their respective organizations, the permission given during May 1946 for eight civilian women to work with the Australian Army Canteens Service in Kure was later increased to a total of forty-seven. Members of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and additional representatives of the Red Cross were permitted to proceed to Japan to work in hospitals, hostels and clubs.

The inclusion of members of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) and of the Australian Army Medical Women's Service (AAMWS) was ensured by the high priority given to hospital facilities, and by the Nurses' proud history of involvement in Australia's military commitments. These commitments had begun when members of the Army Nursing Services from New South Wales and Victoria had accompanied the Australian troops who sailed for South Africa during the Boer War (1899-1902). Members of the Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachments had also worked in military hospitals in England and France during World War One. During World War Two, they had worked as nursing aides in military hospitals until January 1943, when the Detachments were absorbed into the newly-formed AAMWS and the work extended to clerical and ancillary duties.

The women were chosen from hundreds of volunteers aged between twenty-one and thirty-five years (with an extension to forty years in the case of officers) who were required to serve for twelve to eighteen months. The first draft of thirty-four Sisters and fifty-three AAMWS, one pathologist and two Red Cross Field Officers sailed from Sydney on 9 March 1946 on the hospital ship Manunda. Accompanying them was a senior reporter with the Australian Women's Weekly. Their voyage was generally uneventful, but because ships used for the transport of troops had not been equipped to carry women, this was not always the case. Eleven AAMWS travelling with three Sisters on the troop ship Kanimbla, each with a tin trunk, a case, two kit bags, a bundle of seven blankets (which were needed at the hospital), their own knife, fork, spoon and enamel plate, plus a water bottle, embarked to find that there was nowhere for them to go.

During the entire voyage the water in the washbasins and showers was turned on only for brief periods twice a day. The mess problem was solved by the AAMWS being assigned a small room between the men's mess deck and the top deck where the girls slept in one big cabin equipped with double bunks. During the day they were permitted to mix with the troops, but while they were on the men's deck they were not allowed to sit or stand still for more than a few minutes.

The Inland Sea displayed a fairy-tale beauty, with its myriad islands, many no more than rocky outcrops with twisted trees perched at odd angles; terraced, pine-capped mountains rising almost straight from the sea; numerous fishing boats with their snail-like canopies; the patterns of the rice paddies; infinite variety of blues and greens; and the picturesque houses blending into the landscape. These sights did nothing to prepare the new arrivals for the grubbiness and poverty of Kure. Their first impressions were of a totally devastated city, the waterfront lined with miles of bomb-blasted, fire-gutted workshops, and the harbor, which was capable of providing anchorage for the entire Japanese fleet, littered throughout its length and breadth with the broken hulks of all types of naval vessels. To the newly-arrived women, the foreignness of the city was intensified by the sight of Japanese men urinating in the streets; by the rice-straw rain capes and cloth face masks they wore; by the old women, bent double and with bundles of firewood strapped to their backs. Women were also laboring on the roads and clearing bomb sites. There were ubiquitous, malodorous, oxen-drawn “honey” carts carrying nightsoil to the paddy fields, and a total lack of motorized vehicles other than those of the Occupation Forces. There was an all-pervading stench of decay.

Disembarking from the Manunda on 25 March 1946, a crisp, cold day with snow on the terraces, the women walked the short distance to catch the ferry to Eta Jima, the island on which 130 Australian General Hospital (AGH) and BCOF headquarters were located. Eta Jima had the best climatic conditions in the BCOF area, and the hospital was established within an enormous building that had previously housed the administrative offices of the Japanese Naval Academy as well as accommodating its 4,500 cadets. They arrived at a huge, three-storey, stone building with large wings and courtyards, `echoing ceilings and twenty foot wide flights of stone stairs', but no lift (patients had to be carried up to the operating theatre). The nurses found the central quadrangle piled with equipment while workmen swarmed over the ninety rooms, most of which were 100 feet square. The furniture in the women's twenty-bed dormitories consisted of iron bedsteads and steel cupboards, and the building was icy. In one dormitory occupied by the Sisters and the AAMWS officers, enamel dishes were placed around the room to catch the drips from the roof, and the beds were pushed close together and covered with ground sheets. The little warmth radiating from the wall heaters was lost in the immense rooms.

Their army experience helped the women to adjust quickly to the difficult conditions under which they lived at first. They showered together in one large room that contained thirty to forty sprays attached to a mass of overhead pipes.

The latrines were often unusable as the floor level, Japanese-type, were being converted to the Western-style: “It was a big place, and we had to run around one floor, [then the] next floor.” It always took “a long search round to find one that was available.” Then the new latrines were set much too high and had to be lowered, and the rough pine wood used for the seats splintered easily!

One of the more unpleasant aspects of life in Japan was the presence of rats. Before effective steps were taken to reduce the numbers, the women's quarters were infested. The rats would scamper across their beds at night, and “even chewed the buttons on shirts and skirts.” During the day in summer, mosquito nets had to be securely tucked around the beds to prevent the huge beetles getting into them. The meals also left much to be desired. Accustomed to army food, their expectations were not high, but in the Sisters' Mess the food was meager and there was a shortage of butter and jam. An AAMWS recalled that:

Although some doubt was expressed, the excuse of the kitchen staff that they were unable to read labels was accepted when meat was served with a white sauce made from sweetened condensed milk. The women quickly became aware of the hunger and poverty of the Japanese when they noticed the “housegirls” eating the scraps of food left on the plates they removed from the tables.

Among the women there was an antipathy towards the Japanese men, but in most cases mutual respect and liking soon developed between the Australians and the female domestic workers, known as housegirls, one of whom was allocated to every two women. There were, of course, occasional misunderstandings such as washing instead of sponging a greatcoat in the depths of winter when it took days to dry. Payment of any kind to the Japanese by occupation personnel was forbidden, but presents were often exchanged. The Australian women found it hard to adjust to the Japanese custom of always returning a present with a present. At the hospital the housegirls were checked when they went off duty so it was difficult to give them the canteen goods that they needed so badly, but some of the women had knitting wool sent up for them from Australia. One woman, noticing her housegirl shivering with cold, gave her two sleeveless, khaki jumpers that had been acquired from discharged patients. “She didn't wear them for a couple of days and when she did they had been reknitted...They'd pulled them out and knitted another jumper for her and a younger member of the family.”

Each national contingent had its own hospital and all were soon very busy. Due to the strict enforcement of the inoculation and vaccination programs, the chlorination of all water supplies, the bans on the consumption of Japanese food and on swimming in rivers and streams, the health of the Forces generally was good. However, there were numerous respiratory tract infections as well as the usual accident cases, and the change of climate and slacker medical discipline resulted in Malaria relapses amongst troops who had served in the Pacific . There were plenty of staff, and everyone worked well together, but until medical equipment was found among goods hidden by the Japanese in caves, many items, from oxygen to silk for tying haemorrhoids, were in short supply. These problems were gradually overcome; the hospitals were soon running smoothly, the living conditions of the women improved dramatically, and by November 1946 all of the rooms at 130 AGH were adequately heated.

Occupational therapy, physiotherapy, educational and rehabilitation services, as well as the usual medical specialties and staff and patient amenities, were available at 130 AGH. The nurses worked eight to ten hours a day--more if an emergency arose--and ten hours on night duty. They had one day a week off, then four to five days leave about every two months. Off duty, some of the Sisters voluntarily gave instruction to Japanese nurses working in the poorly-equipped civil hospitals where the families lived in the ward along with the patients and cooked their meals. When contracts expired many of the women signed on for a further term, and the number of Sisters and AAMWS reached its peak in 1948 when there were fifty-five AANS and seventy-three AAMWS working with BCOF.

The AAMWS provided a wide range of skills which, as well as ward duties, included diet supervision; clerical, pathology and dispensary assistance; chiropody; hairdressing; and interpreting. Two of the three interpreters, all of whom had lived in Japan and spoke the language fluently, acted as observers of the Japanese Elections held during April 1946. The election was seen by many as the transition of Japan from a “feudal” to a more democratic state and was the first time that Japanese women were able to vote, a change that resulted in thirty-nine women being elected to the 460-odd seats in the House of Representatives. Although voting was not compulsory and it was expected that the women who did vote would do so as directed by their husbands, on the morning of the election long queues of women formed outside the polling booths and, on average, cast their votes in about half the time taken by the men. Japanese conducted the elections. The responsibility of the unarmed and unescorted observers was limited to reporting any violations of the electoral laws. In spite of wearing armbands inscribed with the Japanese equivalent of “Election Observer,” one official, perhaps not believing that women would be given such authority, confronted the two AAMWS. He bowed politely and tendered a placard on which was printed in English: “Allied personnel are requested to please refrain from entering this building as a General Election is in progress.”

The assistance given to the hospitals by the Red Cross Field Officers, both in the entertainment of ambulatory patients and in the supply of equipment and food supplements was invaluable. Their duties were different from those they had become accustomed to during the war, largely because the lack of facilities for treatment in unit lines often made hospitalization necessary for comparatively minor complaints, and the location of the hospital on an island meant that few of the troops had visitors:

Nor was their working environment any better. During December 1946 the Red Cross officer with the 80th British General Hospital at Okayama reported that:

As late as November 1947, the Field Officer at the hospital at Iwakuni was still complaining that the Red Cross room was far too cold for the patients. However, in August 1948, a hot, humid month, the heating in the new Red Cross room at the same hospital could not be turned off. It was only following a desperate threat to “tear it out” if something were not done that the Japanese workmen managed (within fifteen minutes) to turn it off. “The relief!,” the Field Officer wrote. Often the problems were not with the supply of appliances but with the fact that “Japanese installations here, the working variety, are the exception rather than the rule.”

The Red Cross Field Officers worked long hours--from 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., six days a week, sometimes remaining on duty at night. All welfare enquiries concerning patients and their families were their responsibility. Their duties included writing letters for those unable to do so themselves; providing handcrafts; maintaining a library containing 1,800 titles; shopping for the patients; taking them for walks; organizing weekly movie shows; and, during the summer months, arranging launch picnics. Their Centers sometimes served as the venue for weddings, particularly when the reception could not be held in the Sisters' Mess because the bridegroom was not an officer, and occasionally they were called on to help British nationals who had lived in Japan throughout the war years. Among these were two very elderly Australian women who had taught English to the Japanese. Although they had not been interned they had no rations, the only food available to them being given by Japanese friends who had little enough themselves.

The value of the work and the dedication of the Field Officers were not reflected in the salary they received, but it was an era when money was not talked about.

The women accepted the prevailing attitude that working with these organizations was usually voluntary, or at the most, that only expenses were paid. This, of course, did not apply to the men. Nevertheless, the women felt no resentment. After the restrictions on even interstate travel that had applied during the war years, the adventure of living in Japan was perhaps sufficient compensation. Their job satisfaction was high, the patients were appreciative, and in common with all BCOF personnel, they received free board and lodging, free medical attention, free entertainment and travel, and free accommodation on their two weeks annual leave.

The first eight Australian civilian women to work with the BCOF Canteen Service arrived at Kure on 22 August 1946 and joined the members of the British Women's Voluntary Service (WVS). These women were already living in the “White House,” a former Japanese naval court house that had been acquired by Canteens for its female employees. The Australian women were employed as stenographers, comptometrists, and clerks in the offices of the Canteen Service, while the WVS were working in its clubs as hostesses and organizers of recreational programs. After approval was given for an additional thirty-nine Australian civilians to join BCOF Canteen Service, their work broadened to include managing and assisting in the Gift Shops and Dependants' Stores, supervising and acting as receptionists in BCOF coffee shops and hotels, and acting as hostesses in the two Officers' Clubs and eight Other Ranks' Clubs throughout the area.

With the imminent arrival of representatives of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) the accommodation provided at the White House was no longer adequate, and when the Muriel Wilson Hostel (with accommodation for eighty women in two two-storey wings) was opened there was chaos in the bathrooms. Steam flowed from the chain-operated cisterns and from the cold water taps, and the hot water taps ran cold. As was usual at the time, this was put down to incompetence. Incompetence was also held responsible when the roof of the newly-extended Dance Hall at the Hiro Club run by the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) collapsed during April 1949. Fortunately the staff had left, so no-one was injured. It was an unusual day if the electricity, plumbing or other equipment in the various BCOF facilities did not break down, and repairs were not made easier by the necessity to use sign language to communicate with the Japanese trades personnel. When the Kookaburra Club, run by the YWCA, opened at Iwakuni for the use of the men and their families, the kitchen appeared to be perfectly equipped, but the floor was soon awash from the leaking water pipes; the elements in the electric stove blew up regularly; the oven door and the door of the inefficient refrigerator fell off; and the hot water service was unreliable.

The YWCA women supervised leave and transit hostels, ran coffee shops that were noted for their delectable food, and organized entertainment in the YWCA and YMCA clubs. Much of their work might have seemed pleasurable but was, in fact, hard and demanding. They played billiards, table tennis, darts, card games; organized picnics, concerts, crazy whist nights, treasure hunts, dances; prepared and cooked snacks. Even at dances they always wore uniform, and in the extremely humid summer “the boy's hands would be wringing wet and our backs would be wringing wet,”, and the women's feet suffered from the army boots worn by their partners. With so few women present, by the end of the evening they would be exhausted. Much of their time was spent talking to the troops about home and listening to their problems. Although they worked mainly with Australian troops, they also “talked, advised, admonished and danced with black, white, English [and] American.” They often worked later than specified by their official hours, which were between 8.30 a.m. and 9 p.m., six days a week, in broken shifts to allow for the frequent night work. They sometimes worked straight through, but “you just didn't stand up for rights at any time, you just did what you were supposed to do.”

Their work brought them into more direct contact with Japanese women than was possible for most of the BCOF women. After observing the appalling poverty and the threadbare clothing of the nuns and children at the orphanage at Beppu, the BCOF YWCA bought material to replace the badly frayed habits, and sent regular gifts of clothing as well as weekly parcels of soap, milk, sweets and sugar. An orphanage at Kure was provided with much-needed flour and sugar. They also established a Japanese branch of the YWCA at Kure. The YWCA at Yokohama had functioned in a small way during the war, and in Kure some fifty women were still members of the YMCA. When it was suggested that they should form an organization for women, run by women, they were reluctant to do so at first but during December 1947, ten Christian women expressed their interest. As a result, during May 1948 permission was given for an abandoned building to be used, and it was not long before it contained a simple chapel, several sitting rooms, a kitchen, five bedrooms, a Japanese bathroom and an assembly room (There was no report of malfunctioning equipment.). The BCOF YWCA women paid from their own pockets the salary of the Japanese secretary and, helped by some of the wives and school teachers organized a wide range of activities. Although Christians in Kure constituted only two per cent of the population, the membership grew rapidly to 390 members.

With most of the women of BCOF being stationed at the hospital at Eta Jima, away from the bulk of the Australian troops, and the remainder being scattered over a wide area, there were too few to provide the “civilizing influence” that the Commander-in-Chief and the Chaplains-General considered essential. The women did their best; they attended the dances and the parties, entertained in their quarters, went for picnics and joined in sporting activities, but their influence was necessarily limited. They, too, were there to work and the numerous social demands made on them sometimes conflicted with their duties. Off duty, however, was a time of ease and privilege. The only work they did was the work they were paid to do. Nevertheless, some found life with BCOF to be both artificial and superficial. For safety reasons the women were less likely than the men to flout the non-fraternization order, with the result that most saw only the physical Japan and, except for such contact as their work allowed, little of its people and customs. If there were culture clashes, it was the Japanese who had to adjust, but the women remember the gentleness of the Japanese housegirls and the beauty of Japan—the cherry blossom, the maple trees clothing the hills with color, the wild azaleas and the little shrines in unexpected places. They also remember the endless round of parties, the free-flowing alcohol, and in the early years, the hunger and poverty of ordinary Japanese.

The isolation of the troops from a normal social environment ended when approval was granted for the dependants of BCOF servicemen to move to Japan. Eligible family members were restricted to the wife, children under sixteen years of age, and dependant, unmarried daughters, with special approval needed for the movement of sons over sixteen years of age. A points system was devised to determine the priority by which the families should be called forward. No preferential treatment was accorded to rank, and there were few discernible differences between the houses, furnishings and fittings provided for officers and for other ranks. The houses were built to a standard design, simply but comfortably furnished, steam heated, and fully equipped with a range of electrical appliances,'' and as babies were born, the families were upgraded to a larger house.

A total of 492 Australian wives and 624 children went to Japan, and by July 1951, 175 babies had been born. The first big movement of Australian families occurred during August 1947, with most of them housed in the newly built village at Nijimura.

Protected by local police, it was a self-contained township complete with church, school, library, shop and cinema as well as a fire brigade, medical post, sporting and playground facilities. Unlike the British dependants' area, Nijimura was not divided according to rank. The Brigade Commander wrote that:

There were complaints about the cost of living in Japan. However, the rent, which was never more than ten per cent of the serviceman's combined pay and allowances, the small unmetered charge for electricity and heating, and the high cost of canteen goods were offset by the lack of any local rates or taxes, a taxation zone allowance, free transport, and a nominal charge only for the dependants' accommodation at leave hostels. In addition, there were no charges for medical and dental treatment, hospitalization, entertainment, excursions and schooling; nor for the allotted number of servants who, without exception, were engaged (three for officers and two for other ranks, one more in each case where there were children)." A few of the wives in all ranks found the freedom from domestic routine unsettling:

With the advent of the dependants, some of the units became like extended families and all ranks entertained the young soldiers belonging to the units, attending their mess functions and dances, as well as supporting their sporting activities. Many of the older children found employment in BCOF offices, and wives were permitted to work providing it was not with the husband's unit. Apart from the lack of household chores, for most life in Japan was little different to life in Australia. They shopped, played tennis, attended some of the numerous courses organized by the Army Education Service, and joined amateur theatrical groups. Committees were formed to help entertain convalescent patients; to staff a preschool center; and to organize various Scouting and Guiding activities. Inevitably there was some social stratification based on rank, although it was not as marked as among the British dependants. Between a few groups a competitive social life developed which resulted in some financial strain, particularly for the more junior ranks. However, as one wife wrote:

The benefits extended beyond the immediate family. A new dimension was brought into the life of the troops in Japan through women and children of their own nationality becoming part of everyday life, participating in their social functions and inviting them into their homes.

A small group of parents gave constant support to the schools, raising funds to provide trophies and prizes for the various sports and swimming carnivals, and gifts for each child at Christmas. The schools operated on a term basis and followed the British practice of closing for two weeks only at Christmas, and the syllabus was based on that of Victoria, with additions which attempted to satisfy the main educational requirements of all Australian states. Classifying the children presented difficulties; not only did the standards of education differ from state to state, they also differed between the various types of schools within the one state. The problem, which was exacerbated at Nijimura by American children being enrolled from the beginning, was overcome by using standardised tests developed by the Australian Council of Research. At the Royal Australian Air Force school at 1wakuni all students were taught by correspondence courses provided by their home state, with teachers supervising their work. However, at Nijimura, to counter the artificial existence BCOF children were living, it was thought to be more important to teach by class instruction rather than by strict adherence to a particular state syllabus.

The short periods some of the children attended the school combined with the reluctance of the state Education Departments to extend the leave of absence of the four secondary and eleven primary teachers led to a lack of continuity that was very apparent at the annual Speech Day in 1950. Only one-third of the pupils and not one staff member had been with the school since its inception during December 1947. Over the years, twenty-five teachers were employed, six of whom were men. After some of the children returned to Australia, an attempt to evaluate the effect of the time spent in Japan on their schooling revealed that, for the thirty-two who responded, twenty-four were achieving results deemed satisfactory to excellent; five were in a lower grade; one child had shown marked acceleration; one child's progress had been retarded; and the result for another was inconclusive.

By April 1950, many of the families had returned to Australia and those remaining had been instructed to pack their belongings, but when the planned withdrawal of BCOF was put into abeyance by the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, they unpacked them again. Approximately 98 per cent of Australians in combat units volunteered for service with the Korean Task Force, and the Japanese government, prohibited under its new Constitution from maintaining armed forces other than for self-defence, adopted a policy of peaceful collaboration. The speed with which Japanese industry was revitalized and the quality of the goods produced astonished the Allies.

The Australians no longer outnumbered the other British Commonwealth troops and BCOF's main function became the provision of support for the Korean Task Force. All personnel became much busier, and before the hospital (now located at Kure) lost its Australian identity through the expansion necessary to cope with the casualties arriving from Korea, rest periods were cancelled and the nurses had to work very long hours.

It was a traumatic experience nursing soldiers with napalm burns, and others would come in with frost-bitten toes and fingers, (and fingers sometimes bitten off in the hand-to-hand fighting). The nurses appreciated the regular help in the wards voluntarily given by the wives and civilians working with BCOE.

The importance of Japan as a base for the Korean War hastened negotiations on the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The Treaty was signed on 9 September 1951 by forty-nine nations, with the USSR and delegates from Poland and Czechoslovakia refusing to sign, and India indicating its intention to negotiate a separate treaty. With the ratification of the Treaty on 28 April 1952, BCOF ceased to exist and was replaced by the British Commonwealth Force, Korea.

Memories of Japanese atrocities, particularly those at the prisoner of war camps were still very fresh, and the Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, voiced the views of many when he said that more and more Australians were returning home `to surprise and disappoint' their relatives with their favorable comments. But, as one journalist wrote, it was not just the politeness and deference shown by the Japanese civilians to the occupying troops that were responsible, but the realization that the Japanese at home were not very different from Australians: “many of them decent, honest, hard-working, very fond of their children, and loyal to those they serve.”

The inroads made by women during the war years into work areas that had been the exclusive province of men did not continue in BCOF. Their role was limited to the traditional female occupations, and perhaps the lasting legacy of the Australian women in Japan lies not in what they did but in what they were not able to do. The frequent requests made by the Commanders-in-Chief for servicewomen (other than nursing and medical) to be included in BCOF made it clear that their absence added considerably to the problems of command; the skills of both male and female personnel were required for the efficient functioning of a modern army, whether combat or garrison. Although the wartime Women's Services (other than nursing and medical) were disbanded, it was not long before women were again being recruited—this time on a permanent basis.

Overshadowed by the Korean War, the women of BCOF have become the forgotten women of the forgotten Force, even by Australians. But this is not surprising. General Douglas MacArthur so dominated what has come to be regarded as the American Occupation of Japan that the period from August 1945 to April 1951 is often referred to as the “MacArthur Era” with little, if any, acknowledgement of BCOF's contribution. While BCOF did “represent worthily the British Commonwealth in the occupation of Japan,” its influence on Occupation policy and upon the Japanese was minimal, and the success of its aim to further British Commonwealth defense co-operation and British Commonwealth trade was questionable. However, there is little doubt that it was successful in strengthening the ties between Australia and the US through the friendly support and co-operation that existed between the two Forces.

Donnelly, Roma. Excerpt, “The Forgotten Women: Women In The British Commonwealth Occupation Force In Japan, 1946-1952.” Relationships: Japan and Australia, 1870s-1950s. Eds. Paul Jones and Vera Mackie. Melbourne, Australia: University of Melbourne History Department, 2001, 193-211.