File:Information Board, Princes Pier, Melbourne Australia.jpg

English: Pier. Port Melbourne. Australia at war

Port Melbourne pier is served as the last link with home for Australian service personnel in the world wars in the 20th century. Within months of the declaration of world War one in 1914 members of the first contingent of the Australian Imperial force sailed from Port Melbourne to join a convoy of Australian and New Zealand troops bound for the Middle East. It was to be the first of many emotional departures from Port Melbourne during the four long years of distant war. At wars end, returning Anzacs found a welcome at Princess Pier. The rituals of departure from Port Melbourne were repeated when World War II began in 1939. Japanese advances in the Pacific brought this war much closer to home. Relieved Australians gathered at the Port Melbourne peers as men of the fifth and seventh brigades returned safely from the Middle East to help defend Australia from the Japanese. As US troops joined with Australians to fight in the Pacific, the Port Melbourne peers played a strategic role in supplying troops, equipment and supplies for the war effort.

Picture: Troopship Orontes is farewelled from Port Melbourne on 18 July 1940. Picture: Men of the 8th Light Horse Brigade about to embark for overseas duty from Port Melbourne on 25February 1915. Two berths at the newly completed Prince Pier were reserved for troop transorts. At War's end, most troops returning to Victoria disembarked at Princes Pier.

Picture: Welcome home signs on th eouter sheds at Princes and Station Piers greeted returning servicemen as they returned from victory in Europe and the Pacific in 1945.