On this day, 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies declared that Australia had entered the war against Germany.

‘Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially, that in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war. No harder task can fall to the lot of a democratic leader than to make such an announcement’.