2/2nd Machine Gun Battalion (Australia)
The 2/2nd Machine Gun Battalion was an infantry support unit of the all-volunteer Second Australian Imperial Force that was raised for service overseas during the Second World War. Formed in mid-1940 in Sydney, from personnel drawn from the states of Queensland and New South Wales, the battalion was allocated to the Australian 9th Division. After completing training in Australia, the battalion operated in the Middle East between early 1941 and early 1943, seeing action against German and Italian forces at the First and Second Battles of El Alamein, and undertaking garrison duties in Syria as part of the Allied garrison that was established there after the Syria–Lebanon campaign.
2/2nd Machine Gun Battalion personnel operating a captured Japanese machine gun on Tarakan in 1945
Machine gunners from the 2/2nd at Tel el Eisa, August 1942
A machine team from the 2/2nd around Scarlet Beach, October 1943
Members of B Company of the 2/2nd Machine Gun Battalion moving along a road between Brooketon and Brunei during the Borneo Campaign
The Huon Peninsula campaign was a series of battles fought in north-eastern Papua New Guinea in 1943–1944 during the Second World War. The campaign formed the initial part of an offensive that the Allies launched in the Pacific in late 1943 and resulted in the Japanese being pushed north from Lae to Sio on the northern coast of New Guinea over the course of a four-month period. For the Australians, a significant advantage was gained through the technological edge that Allied industry had achieved over the Japanese by this phase of the war, while the Japanese were hampered by a lack of supplies and reinforcements due to Allied interdiction efforts at sea and in the air.
A Matilda tank, named "Clincher", moves towards Japanese strong points near Finschhafen, on 9 November 1943.
A Boomerang fighter and ground crew from No. 4 Squadron RAAF in October 1943
The Salamaua–Lae area.
Troops from the Australian 9th Division land near Lae in early September 1943