This chapter traces the growth of support networks between unions and ethnic groups during the war until the formation of the ISUiA on 4 November 1945. The following two chapters address, first, how the Boycott of Dutch shipping in support of the Indonesian Republic was represented in the Australian media, and second, the perspective of the Indian participants and media.

The social clubs set up in Australia for Indian and Indonesian seamen offered more than a way to pass the time and practise English. It was certainly not only the young Australian volunteers who were ‘do gooders’, as Phyllis Johnson joked. There were also intensely politicised seamen and activists, like the Indonesians who had been imprisoned in Boven Digul, Chinese and Australian activists who opposed the war in China, and Indian members of the Communist Party and unions, who were able to meet in such venues and learn more about each other.

The Chinese Seamen's Union (CSU) had managed to negotiate better wartime conditions for its members than other groups had, largely because of the Chinese Youth League (CYL), a longstanding organisation among Australians of Chinese descent. While many Chinese were heavily involved in the Australian branch of the Kuomintang and the CYL had strong links to the Communist Party, both groups were very active in publicising the war in China and seeking support against the Japanese. The CSU and CYL jointly operated a social club for seamen that drew not only Chinese members but also others, particularly Javanese sailors, a transnational interaction which alarmed the Australian security service. The Indonesian Club also drew seamen from other nationalities, but did so largely along class lines, appealing to petty officers rather than ordinary seamen. It seems that the Indian Seamen's Social Club was more successful in drawing together ordinary seamen from equivalent working-class groups: the Javanese in Indonesia, Muslim seamen who shipped through Bombay and Bengal, and Konkani-speaking Goans. What is particularly important is that this experience brought together people who had not previously been in contact, as the Indian seaman's picnic speech quoted in Chapter 5 demonstrates.

Visions of new worlds –Abdul Rehman, Dasrath Singh

The war in Europe ended with the military defeat and surrender of Germany in May 1945, but the Japanese did not surrender until 15 August after the atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.