I’ve been reading and watching WWII documentaries lately and as an American, I’ve been surprised about some of the awesome heroism and tales of the ANZAC soldiers and commandos I’ve read about, and who I never heard mentioned in my HS and college history courses.
Can someone explain to me what the specific roles the ANZAC troops were used for in WWII and any other notes or anecdotes about their significance in the war as a fighting force? Thanks.
ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) is actually mostly a WWI term which didn't have a whole lot of application to WWII. However, it is commonly used as a moniker for all Australian and NZ land forces in WWII.
As part of the British Empire, Australians and New Zealanders were deployed alongside other Commonwealth forces, mostly in two theatres: they served in North Africa with the Eighth Army and then in Italy with the same unit. They served in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, the latter theatre mostly being in defensive dispositions.
Some major and famous battles involving large ANZ forces are:
(1) Tobruk: the Australian 9th Division was surrounded by the German Afrika Korps in the harbour town of Tobruk where it survived a seven month siege April 1941 - November 1941.
(2) Battle of Second El-Alamein: the above Australian unit and the New Zealand 2nd Division were closely involved in major parts of this battle, in which British General Montgomery broke through Rommel's (Stumme's) defences and reversed the Axis offensive momentum in North Africa.
Rommel was very complimentary to the New Zealand troops in North Africa, and the Australians too. They say that Rommel said that if he had to capture hell, he would use Australians to take it and New Zealanders to hold it. But I am not sure if he ever really did say that.
(3) Battle of Greece. Big disaster, but not their fault. It was a bad move.
(4) Australian troops were deployed to defend Singapore from the Japanese. These units did not perform very well. Many were captured with some dishonour (if you want to think about it that way). The Australian commander in this battle escaped Singapore while his troops marched into captivity and became quite an unpopular person for this.
(5) Australian troops protected the city of Port Moresby in New Guinea, which was the closest port facility to Australia that Japan could reasonably occupy. When US carrier units forced the Japanese away from an amphibious landing, they went overland, through dense jungle, along the Kokoda Track. Australians repulsed them in very difficult fighting.
A lot of people seem to be prone to saying that Australia/New Zealand troops were the "shock units" of the British Empire (they also say this about Highland troops, Gurkhas, Canadians, et cetera). There's not a lot of evidence to support this. If you look at the Australian Army in WWII you find units of varying calibre. Some were excellent, some were not. The British deployed the Australians and New Zealanders were they were needed and they went to those places and fought the Germans, Italians, or Japanese there.
However, as Japan got closer to Australia, significant Australian units were withdrawn to protect Australia, a military decision the British were not too happy with but that they couldn't politically resist. Australia raised large military forces, but many were simply used for the defence of Australia against a potential Japanese invasion.
/u/sirlarrysadfrenchman asked a similar question a few months back and I posted a quite comprehensive answer to it in this thread.
If that doesn't answer all your questions, let me know if there is something else I can answer for you.