Royal Australian Navy 1939-42, the first of the two volumes in the Australian Official History of the 1939-45 War, told of Australia's naval policy, and of the part played by her navy in the war in the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Indian Oceans, and in the Mediterranean, from the outbreak of war until March 1942.

This volume continues the story and chronicles the activities of the ships and men of the Royal Australian Navy alongside those of their British and American Allies, once again in near and distant seas. These activities are seen against the background of the political and military policies of which the R.A.N. was one of the naval instruments, and which ultimately decided the victory with which this story closes.

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.