* Curtin seemed to be surrounded by ineffectual men, stooges for Churchill, and plain disloyalty. He had to reprimand Earle Page sharply, after Page failed repeatedly to stress Australia’s predicament to London, ‘We fear that you cannot have sufficiently emphasised the very unsatisfactory state of our own defences…We lack adequate air support. We have little naval strength…Japan has command of the relevant sea approaches. We have no fighters whatever and our bombers and reconnaissance planes have been reduced to about 50. Our militia is small and is very short of equipment.’