Princes Pier - Australia At War
This pier has four plaques describing the history of the pier, not sure I have the will to transcribe them all.
The plaque reads:
Port Melbourne's piers served as the last link with home for Australian service personnel through two world wars in the twentieth century.
Within months of the declaration of World War One in 1914, members of the first contingent of the Australian Imperial Forces 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 four long years of distant war. At war's end returning ANZACS found a welcome at Princes Pier.
The rituals of departure from Port Melbourne were repeated when World War Two began in 1939. Japanese advances in the Pacific brought this war much closer to home. Relieved Australians gathered at the Port Melbourne piers as men of the 6th and 7th 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 piers played a strategic role in supplying troops, equipment and supplies for the war effort.
Submitted by: @ianthorp