This volume tells the story of Australian Navy policy between the wars, and records the part played by the ships and men of that Navy on every ocean - and particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Pacific Oceans - from 1939 until the end of the first quarter of 1942. When the volume ends most of the surviving ships are on the Australia station again and the Japanese fleets dominate half the Pacific Ocean and the seas to the North of Australia. The historian describes not only the actions of the Australian ships but the problems and policies of the British fleets of which they often formed a part, and discusses the strategical and administrative questions encountered by the senior leaders in Australia. G. Hermon Gill wrote both the volumes in the series on the Royal Australian Navy's activities. Gill was a journalist who had served in the RAN's Naval Intelligence Division and Naval Historical Records section during the war. He was successful in placing his subject in the global context in which it operated.