Your avatar coin, the 1943-D, did you know those were minted in Denver, and the 1943-S was minted in San Francisco? There are collectors who will swear those mintmarks were for Darwin and Sydney (Australia), but not so, Krause confirms.
Oh yes! I did a bit of Googling after I bought it, (which really was only a few days ago)! I thought it was fascinating. And it also makes sense. I spoke to an Aussie buddy about it and he didn't know that particular bit of trivia. However he said it made a lot of sense for coinage to be minted in Denver considering what was going on at the time. (Said event was understandably taking up other resources that Australia needed...)
In 1942, when the outcome of the war in the Pacific was still in question, Australia decided they didn't want to keep all that silver bullion (for minting) on hand, so off it went to the U.S. Any book about the convoy (or flight?) would be fascinating. Probably shipped in big wooden crates marked "flashlights" or something.
