The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) was a small volunteer force of approximately 2,000 men, raised in Australia shortly after the outbreak of World War I to seize and destroy German wireless stations in German New Guinea in the south-west Pacific. The German wireless installations were ordered to be destroyed because they were used by Vizeadmiral Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy, which threatened merchant shipping in the region. Following the capture of German possessions in the region, the AN&MEF provided occupation forces for the duration of the war. New Zealand provided a similar force for the occupation of German Samoa.

HMAS Berrima was a passenger liner which served in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) during World War I as an armed merchantman and troop transport. Launched in 1913 as the P&O liner SS Berrima, the ship initially carried immigrants from the United Kingdom to Australia via Cape Town. In August 1914, Berrima was requisitioned for military use, refitted and armed, and commissioned into the RAN as an auxiliary cruiser. The ship transported two battalions of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force to the German New Guinea colonies in September.