Why are Australians commemorating our war dead so enthusiastically? Why are we digging up the dead heroes of Frommelles and reburying them 90 years on? Why is a dawn service at Gallipoli as much part of the European Tour as the Oktoberfest in Munich? Wouldn't it be better to have a memorial day for those who were damaged by being part of the Vietnam conflict? Or involved in the 1992 Iraq war?

Given that the Japanese did not intend to invade Australia we should have been even more parochial and kept out of WW2 entirely ( and WW1 as well) instead of wasting Australian lives in Britain's wars. An ungrateful, arrogant and ignorant Britain I might add, at least in my experience.

There is a duel mythology occurring one that denies this country was invaded without resoltion with original owners and then justifying protecting this 'nation' on the basis of a Japanese invasion that was never going to happen.

Protecting stolen property is much more emotionally attractive to thieves in denial/ creating an imagined community / grand nationalist narratives and sentiments.

What a bloody mess!

Protecting stolen property is much more emotionally attractive to thieves in denial/ creating an imagined community / grand nationalist narratives and sentiments.
Rainier,
Forgive my ignorance after being in Australia for 40 years but I always believed that the invaders had been compensating the indigenous occupants for a hundred & more years by way of housing, health, education & commodities for which any non-indigenous have to work & pay for.
Yes, the inhabitants of this land at the time of european occupation have been dealt with as harshly & unfairly as every other inhabitant of a country that was invaded. Other countries not only suffered the indignity of being conquered but also lost hard worked for property. At least in australia that didn't happen

40 years later and you still don't know the social history of the land you stand on, or its people. Far be it for me to re-educate you and anyway I doubt you would relinquish your comfortable ignorance in exchange for greater knowledge and understanding.
But just in case you miraculously decide otherwise check this out: http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/library/subject_guides__bibliographies/stolen_wages

Rainier,
I have actually experienced (& still do) this so-called stolen wages. I am in a position where my work responsibilities include training indigenous workers. Thirty years ago, the "locals" were paid less for several reasons. Housing was provided at no cost, so was health, travel, school, flying school kids home every holiday & pocket money for school kids who were sent to boarding school.
I believe that these expenses & the level of performance were taken into consideration as part of the total remuneration.
From what I witness, most indigenous workers are on this ghastly CDEP because their indigenous bosses have bled the council coffers dry & hardly any got reprimanded.
Our blokes get 40 hours pay @ $15hr & 40 hrs pay @ $9.80. I rang up & found out the the australian minimum wage is $13,95 hr so, I can understand why most only attend work sporadically. The councillors got $ 3000 per fortnight topped up by constant cruising around the country at their communities expense. Now after amalgamation all these councillors are not answerable as are all the useless bureaucrats
who never gave a hoot about the community. Many of these bureaucrats are indigenous. So Rainier, if your being upset about the treatment of indigenous people is indeed more than just indoctrinated bandwagon guilt industry material then go & pursue those responsible for it & not accuse the those of us who do care & pull our weight.I'm more than willing to help you get those mongrels.

A really fine, well written article.

I always thought Japan made a tactical error siding with the Germans and the Germans made an even bigger error declaring war on Japan - but that is by the by.

It's understandable why Curtin would not have let the 'no invasion' cat out of the bag as the fighting in PNG and Bouganville was brutal. Men fight harder when their backs are against the wall.

It would be interesting to compare Hitler's revised plans for invading England with Japan's plans not to have a crack at Australia. Was the cost too high or was it simply that both nations did not have enough strategic value?

Peter Stanley does well to point out that the celebration of a non-existent battle detracts from the value that rightly should be accorded to Australia's contribution to the outcome of WW2. Rudd appears to have got the day and month right for the commencement of the real battle, but the year wrong. It was 1939, not 1942, and lasted exactly six full years, ending on 2 September 1945 on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

By mid-1940 Australia stood, with the rest of the British Commonwealth, alone in opposition to an incipient global tyranny of totalitarian powers. Menzies and Churchill were indeed at war, but not with each other. They both knew the absolute necessity of involving the United States in this war against world-wide totalitarian tyranny. I strongly suspect that between them, almost single-handedly, they did orchestrate that involvement.

From September 1940 Germany and Japan were in formal alliance, but Japan was not at war except with China.

What had to be arranged was for Japan to attack the US. Emboldening Japan to just attack the US, leaving British possessions untouched, may not have ensured US involvement in an alliance with the British Commonwealth. Japan had to be sucked into attacking both the US and the British Empire SIMULTANEOUSLY.

To do this, it was necessary for Japan to be persuaded as to British WEAKNESS in SE Asia. I suspect this was done, using Germany as the conduit for the information; information which, when put to the test by Japan, proved to be correct in every detail, and may well have been instrumental in further cementing the German-Japanese alliance, and in due course making it easier for the US to enter the war against Germany once it had been attacked.

In what I suspect was a masterful misinformation operation, Churchill set the trap. Menzies had to place the bait, then leave. He did: The 8th Division and the crew of HMAS Sydney constituted much of that bait.

On 7 December 1941 Japan took the bait. The rest is history.

Apols, error in my post, first para should read Germans made an even bigger error declaring war on USA.

I think you'll find that the US government desperately wanted to enter WW2 but public opinion was strongly against it.

The attack on Pearl Harbour was the result of deliberate provocation resulting from shipping embargos against Japan (because of their invasion of China) that cut them off from their oil supplies.

It's the same strategy that was used in the sinking of the Lusitania in WW1 and the Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam plus several other staged incidents throughout history.

Because Japan was allied with Germany, being at war with Japan was the same as being at war with Germany so no formal declaration would have been necessary - just as Australia was at automatically war with Germany because Britain was.

Despite the suspect methods used to involve our troops in conflicts it shouldn't detract from their efforts. Courage and sacrifice don't depend on circumstance.

ANZAC day should also be a day to be aware of how easily one generation sacrifices another on it's behalf.

The Lord Wardenship of the Cinque Ports is Britain's oldest and highest award in recognition of service to the Crown, generally awarded for wartime service at the highest level when the nation is most threatened, and is in the gift of the Sovereign.

In its history, it has only ever been held by three commoners.

Two such held it in succession: Winston Spencer Churchill, and Robert Gordon Menzies. Upon Menzies' death the Wardenship passed to the woman considered by Hitler the most dangerous in Europe during WW2, Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

The retention of the award within the royal family after the death of Menzies only emphasises the perceived significance of the service of the the two preceeding commoners. The contribution of Churchill in that context is self-evident. What, however, at that level and in that context, was Menzies' contribution?

I suggest it may have been for maintaining the secrecy of, if not actually helping design, a grand deception that became in large measure responsible for ensuring a successful outcome of WW2 for the entire British Commonwealth, if not the world: the orchestration of the Japanese attack upon the US and the British Empire. Part of the sustenance of that grand deception involved the foreknown necessity for the relinquishment of his position as Prime Minister, and that of his parliamentary coalition, of government, in Australia. No better way to dodge Question Time! And no less questioning a lot than a mob that had just been handed government on a platter without even need to win an election!

The other part of the grand deception had involved the deliberate placement of very well trained, equipped, and led Australian troops right where the Japanese had already been told the British forces were weakest, in order to convey the impression of a desperate bolstering of defences with what were recognised by the Germans and Japanese as crack troops. The 8th Division under General Gordon Bennett.

Everything symbolically corroborated frome the throne.

Of course, it was from the Yanks the secret had to be kept.

You seem to trot out your CV a lot here? Is it because really made up BS?

The only credentials and recommendations that i take notice of (about people like you) are from my fellow Aboriginal people.

Self promoters like you are part of the problem in our communities, not part of the solution.

Self promoters like you are part of the problem in our communities, not part of the solution.
Rainier,
Ok then, what is the solution ?

Very interesting summary of what promises to be a very good book, which I will certainly pick up. However, the article seems to pose a question, but then not really answer it. Why have these events been presented to the public by succesive generations in a way that does not accord with the historical record? Quite clearly, one reasonable inference to make is that this is all tied up to the ANZUS "alliance" with the US. This "alliance" is one of the sacred pillars of Australian politics, largely unquestioned amongst the political class, and this pillar can only stand with the manufacturing of public support.

By October 1941 the joint grand deception (let's call it Operation Rising Sun) was fully in place.

Menzies could now walk the plank.

Menzies did, fortunately just a matter of weeks before the loss of HMAS Sydney on what is now known to have been the night of 19/20 November 1941. That event may well have posed both an immediate threat to the objective of Operation Rising Sun, and to the necessarily sustained secrecy that had to surround it, if that loss was to ever be thoroughly investigated.

The Mushroom People that had been promptly installed in government in Canberra upon Menzies' resignation little knew that the political manna they had received at the hands of Pig Iron Bob was to be shortly blessed by the Son of Heaven himself, Emperor Hiro Hito of Japan. In the mean time, newness to government and the perplexing loss of the Sydney kept the Mushroom People, good patriots almost all, well and truly occupied.

The battle, for Australia, had now been going on for over two years. Just a few more weeks and the serious peril for Australia would be over. Once Japan had attacked Pearl Harbour and Malaya, a favourable outcome to the real battle for Australia that had started on 3 September 1939 would be virtually assured. There would still be a price to pay, but enough had been standing ready from the outset, if required, to pay it.

Operation Rising Sun 1940-1941. Charade and deception. Menzies and Churchill at war.

In Britain the Cinque Ports had been kept secure to the King.

In Australia, the reins of government had had to be left in the hands of the, in a sense, unelected Mushroom People. Those who had long fostered the development of the Mushroom People's Party, and stood behind it in the shadows, saw the opportunity of having their factota in government as an absolute godsend. While the Australian people focussed upon WW2, those grey eminences could pursue their own legislative and constitutional agenda risk free, with an excuse, if challenged, of 'exigencies of war'.

It appears the German High Command had had certain British maritime codes since at least February 1941, when they had been captured during the interception in the Atlantic ocean of the British freighter Afric Star, out of Buenos Aires, by the German raider Kormoran. Those codes had been yielding consistently accurate intelligence, of a sort especially useful for Germany's ally since September 1940, Japan.

By November 1941 Kapitan Theodor Detmers of the Kormoran may well have been advised of the likely movements of HMAS Sydney and ordered to position his ship where the Sydney would believably soon 'come across' him. Detmers would in such circumstance have been very well prepared for an encounter with a British warship, an encounter he would normally have been under standing orders to avoid. Perhaps Detmers had one, or a number of aces, in addition to the one constituted by foreknowledge, up his sleeve for such an encounter. Some Japanese 'Long Lance' torpedoes from the then recent Kulmerland replenishment, for example. The Kormoran's schnellboot already deployed, for another.

The Captain of HMAS Sydney may well have been under orders to display apparent complacency and no expectation of coming upon a German raider in that part of the Indian ocean where he in fact encountered the disguised Kormoran on the afternoon of 19 November 1941, in order to help maintain German confidence that there was as yet no British suspicion that those 'captured' codes had been compromised. 645 Australian men may well have paid the ultimate price for their obedience to lawful orders that evening, but not in vain. Sydney had turned up right where and when the Germans had every right, by virtue of their code intercepts, to have expected her to. The British evidently, to the German view, didn't yet suspect a thing. It was worth the risk of the loss of the Kormoran to confirm that.

HMAS Sydney and her entire crew - a 'facilitation' payment in advance for a succesful climax to operation Rising Sun, but not the last Australia would have to make by any means. Lest we forget.

Since Australia's Prime Minister has seen fit to endorse the re-writing of history so as to memorialise a battle that never actually happened on the date claimed, and in the process diminished the honour due to many Australian servicemen and women who served elsewhere than in the New Guinea campaign, it has made necessary this telling of the likely true story. Its time.

An old piece of satirical verse from those perilous times comes to mind as a lead-in to an easily remembered outline summary of events. I have added (with apologies to the original author) the two verses that follow the first. Joseph P. Kennedy was US Ambassador to Britain in 1940.

Joe, Joe, Kennedy, Kennedy,
went to the Court of St James,
where he was frequently seen with the King and the Queen,
at cricket, and other games.
Said Joe, Joe, Kennedy, Kennedy,
Before Britain went to war,
swapping stories with Dukes or tories
is what God made me for.
But when the bombs began to fall
all over London town,
Said Joe, Joe, "I must go."
Britain had let him down.

Now Joe, Joe, Kennedy, Kennedy,
(Who'd been to the Court of St James)
Could hardly really complain
that his hoped-for next job, arming up his own mob,
Was something he should disdain.
For if truth but be known, (its direct from the Throne),
Hiro Hito nor Tojo qualified for the mojo:
that was all down to Winston, and Bob!

So Ted, Ted, Kennedy, Kennedy,
US Senator, (MA? Is that Maine?)
Before youse all ban us, and get rid of ANZUS,
Please give us a chance to explain.
A trick in the trenches we learned from the Frenchies
was if troops all stood back, or failed to attack,
you just shelled your bloody own lines!
(and didn't it work half a treat!)
But though it was loud, youse Yanks can be proud,
(Yes, you and your Dad, and the rest of your crowd)
Nudged by Winston and Bob, you pulled off the job,
and made the world safe for our times.

The thing that Prime Minister Curtin could not tell the US in 1942 was that Australia had been fully complicit in securing the entry of Japan into the war. That may well have been disastrous then, or in the immediate aftermath of the war, for entire British Commonwealth-US relations.

Curtin could not tell what he did not know.

Robert Gordon Menzies, Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, one time Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, probably kept that knowledge from Curtin in Australia's interest, and carried the secret of Britain's grand deception to the grave.

So what of Pearl Harbour? What of that Day of Infamy?

All true Samurai velly velly solly. Necessity of war. Many true Samurai do Bushido for that. Man for man, blood for blood. On Montevideo Maru and other ships in South China Sea. Most legletable. So velly, velly sad.

Apologies? Lets all abort 'em!
Let's parody old poems instead.
Let's listen to Banjo, post-mortem
Raise glasses, and toast our war dead.

Let's hear from his poem 'The Pearl Diver'
Warnings for times then ahead.

Banjo! The Scribe, the Recorder.
(Yes, we all learned at his hand)
On the beach of another pearl harbour,
sat, as he wrote, on the sand.

At Broome Banjo wrote for us buggers,
including the bloke here called Bob.
'tween tides in '02 'midst the luggers,
and did, well, a very good job.

Learned from Joe Nagasaki, Bushido:
the military mind of Japan;
how to to goad, and to bait, and confuse it,
and when to lay out your trump hand.

To know that your chances were Buckley's,
unless you had won beforehand.

Researcher's Note.

Just as in the time of the Emperor Nasi Goreng there had been too many rabbits in China, so too in 1941 there were too many Japanese soldiers in China. Australia did something about that, though it did take three and a half years. It was probably in everyone's best interests, Japan's included.

Regards,

Daniel, on Bigpond Broadband

First I must thank the author for further exposing the hidden truth of australian politics.
Secondly I want to ask ' individual' to please get yourself an education in austalian white/aboriginal history " henry reynolds"
is a good place to start.
Your comments about your work related experience do not carry any weight in the light of history of the last 200 years, there are those that have succumbed to the 'anglo capitalistic greed society's' ways in all countries infected with 'white english speaking anglo saxon christian disease'
I think you could do better to educate yourself, with respect.
Cheers Neil

Further to the subject of Pearl Harbour dealt with in my previous post, for those who may still be in doubt, last night as I lay sleeping, these words (perhaps from old Banjo?) came to me.

Now Winston, in late 1940 (November eleven's precise),
With the Imperial Japanese Navy, had duly held a discourse.
In mute Esperanto, at night, at Taranto,
showed just what could be done, in due course.

Now meet the Australian component of the real Samurai of 7 December 1941.

On parade is a ghostly contingent of veterans of operation Rising Sun, all of whom had volunteered for service with their eyes wide open, but had, as a necessity of the grand strategy of war, along with very many more of their British and Indian army comrades in arms (140,000 or so, not counting the poor innocent Dutch), been deployed with their eyes wired shut. They can now proudly march off into history with the crucial significance of their service in the real Battle for Australia 1939-1945 better understood.

Behind the Brunswick Salvation Army Citadel Band (enlisted en masse in the band of the 2/22nd Battalion AIF, perishing en masse as POWs upon the sinking of the Montevideo Maru on 1 July 1942) the parade is led by men in the white uniforms of the senior Service, the 645 strong crew of HMAS Sydney, in two columns flanking a smaller formation in a somewhat different naval uniform as if the subject of a guard of honour: the crew of HK Kormoran, faithful bearers and testers of the code for all this Bushido.

After them come the 14,000 or so men of the 8th Division AIF, followed by other supporting troops and detachments that served in the region, nigh on a quarter of Australia's front line combat strength in 1941, that had to be deliberately thrown to the wolves. Every here and there, except in the Sydney contingent, are strange gaps in the ranks: they represent men still living. You can still talk to some of them.

To be continued.

Continued from above.

In honour of their service at places like Gemas (the Sungei Gemencheh bridge), Parit Sulong, Singapore, Hellfire Pass, the River Kwai, and the coal mines of Japan, the ghostly band is playing that old hallmark march, 'Colonel Bogey'. To the possible chagrin of the band, the diggers are all singing the words that go to that tune.

"Bullsh!t was all the band could play,
Bullsh!t, they played it night and day....."

The music and singing is momentarily drowned out by the roar of a ghostly low-flying RAAF Catalina flown by F/O Bedell and his crew. Appropriately enough, as Australians, they were to be the very first casualties as operation Rising Sun reached its climax and Japan opened hostilities on 7 December 1941 with attacks at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, and Kota Bahru, Malaya.

The parade slowly disappears into the distance.

Let's give them all three cheers.

Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!

The old Australian saying is, "bullsh!t baffles brains". It certainly did in 1940 and 1941.

A Footnote for Today

An interesting observation has recently been made by Koichi Kaizawa, 60, an official at the Biratori Ainu Culture Preservation Association in Japan. (Presumably the otherwise seemingly off-topic posters in this thread will know that the Ainu are an indigenous people of Japan.) His observation was: "....I think it's a good thing Japan lost WW2. If Japan had won, so many others would have lost their language and culture." (See article 'Rebirth of a nation', Sun Herald 20 July 2008, pp 48-49.)

So what should all the real samurai of this 'revisionist' history have said with respect to their efforts? Sorry?

Even Daniel, on Bigpond Broadband, knows better than that.

Just shows many are influenced by slogans and buzzwords ('invasion'), I suppose, to think the article had anything to do with the suppression of indigenous cultures in Australia. I wonder if those posters would have preferred shoguns?

Well, Peter Stanley, you're the historian. I given you my take on it. All you've got to do now is document it.

Obviously we need to cut to the chase immediately and answer the biggest question of all...will there be a public holiday declared. If not, I can't see any benefit at all....

Peter

Thank you for your article.

Yes, Japan did not intend invading Australia after early 1942, but then again Germany did not intend invading the UK after September 1940. Both Germany and Japan had other theatres to get involved in, but both had an interest in neutralising, as much as possible, the military threat that the places that they chose not to invade would have against them.

Both Australia and Britain were invaded in WW2, of course: By North Americans in both cases. In Britain it was the situation that England was to be defended to the last Canadian... Then of course the USA entered the war and in both the UK it was over paid, over-sexed and over here.

At least the Americans didn't intend to stay permanently.

As Sean Brawley has pointed out only two countries made a profit out of WW2, one was Argentina, the other Australia: feeding US forces in the Pacific - no bad thing.

This is not to dismiss Australian sacrifice in WW2, much of it sacrifice on the altar of high command stupidity. But such is what wars are made of: military staff fighting the last last war, whilst the boots are being ground into the soil of today's battlefields.

Construction of the Tocumwal air base, claimed to have been the largest such base in the southern hemisphere, commenced on 19 February 1942, the day the Japanese first bombed Darwin, expressly for the US Army Air Corps. One would expect, since it was built expressly for USAAC requirements, that US strategic assessments would have figured significantly, if not overwhelmingly, in deciding its location.

A careful consideration of its location would indicate that it was a preparation against Japanese naval raids directed against SE Australian coastal targets, rather than against an expectation of invasion from the north. Its position, effectively just out of carrier-borne aicraft range from the Tasman, Bass Strait, or the Southern Ocean, is indicative of an expectation that the concentration of resources that it represented was not seen as likely to have been threatened by any overland approach. Stated more precisely, that there was assessed to exist no invasion threat.

Since the construction of the base was undertaken by the Australian government, one would expect that government to have known, before commencement, that such was the threat assessment made by the only significant contributor to Australian defence then available, the US forces. It would have been blatantly obvious, even at that early stage, that war in the SW Pacific was going to be, and remain, primarily influenced by naval strategic and logistic considerations.

Even with the Japanese holding Rabaul, all of the naval support facilities in Australia were a hell of a long way from anywhere except New Zealand, even for the Japanese. Sustained raids, or spot invasions, would have been a logistical nightmare even without the intervention of air power. Had such nevertheless been sustained, the Japanese would have remained threatened, or threatenable, at the end of this very long supply chain, from NZ. So the invasion bill, for the Japanese, could only keep rising. Bases too far! Spread too thin! And of what use against the US, which would in that unlikely envisioned invasion scenario have remained throughout Japan's major concern.

In January 1942, the Australian government knew 'he' wasn't heading far south.

Secondly I want to ask ' individual' to please get yourself an education in austalian white/aboriginal history " henry reynolds" is a good place to start.
neillium,
I only just arrived home after two weeks holiday, hence my late reply. I am very serious about my statements on this forum. So, can you please do the same ? To bring up henry reynolds in this debate might be your idea of a joke, but it isn't mine. So you'd be well advised to get an education yourself.

So you'd be well advised to get an education yourself.
neillium,
perhaps get some real-life experience might be a better choice of words.

Some insight into the relationship of the invasion myth to the selection of 3 September as 'Battle for Australia Day', may be obtainable from a study of what was on the Commonwealth Parliament's legislative program at around that date in 1942.

It seems to me that there was a surprising focus upon constitutional matters, rather than upon a legislative program built around the requirements for facilitation of a war effort in as an as yet unresolved conflict in which invasion was thought to still be a real possibility.

The Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 provides a case in point. This Act, No. 56 of 1942, received the Royal Assent on 9 October 1942. Given the criticality of legislation impinging in any way upon the Constitution, it is to be expected that this legislation was being planned, drafted and debated in September 1942, if indeed not earlier.

Both the full title of the Act, and its Preamble, are indicative to me of there having been a very strong focus upon a very extensive legislative program over preceding months. Its being as Act to resolve doubts as to the validity of certain Commonwealth legislation, that is, then recent, or even only proposed, legislation that had ALREADY passed through the Parliament pushes the date by which the real threat of invasion had been seen to have faded even further back into 1942.

Could it be that the government in 1942 NEEDED a continuing invasion threat to justify an otherwise unjustifiably wide-ranging expansion of Commonwealth powers, an expansion that may well have been in some respects unconstitutional?

The proposed Commonwealth Powers Act, submitted to the States in a seeming attempt at circumvention of the Constitution in December 1942, by having the States refer powers to the Commonwealth, seemed more to be laying a framework for post-war reconstruction than providing for an ongoing war effort in a conflict the outcome of which was not yet then foreseeable.

The failed Commonwealth Powers Act was effectively the proposal submitted to the people in the Post War Reconstruction and Democratic Rights referendum of 1944.

In reply to Individual Tuesday, 19 August 2008"
I only just arrived home after two weeks holiday, hence my late reply. I am very serious about my statements on this forum. So, can you please do the same ? To bring up henry reynolds in this debate might be your idea of a joke, but it isn't mine. So you'd be well advised to get an education yourself."

Dear Individual, I would have thought that Prof Henry Reynolds several books upon the subject of early australian history are compulsory reading if one is to have any insight into our early settler history concerning contact with indigenous australians, as it's a fact that the truth has been omitted from the official history of the time by it's recognized authors. I must admit that it's been more than twenty years since I made a concerted effort to educate myself with early australian history, as I needed to know for myself why it is that this country's white population hate aboriginals so much yet live off their backs in every way possible, Doublespeak Double standards and now Double history... the white version.. and the real history, it seems ' what isn't written is how to find the truth in our white culture' Henry Reynolds has partly filled that gap for me. There are also a few indigenous autobiographies that may help paint a picture of ' on the otherside of white'.
I hope you enjoyed your holiday.
Cheer

Living off aboriginal's backs? By what stretch of the imagination do you draw that conclusion? The white population hates aborigines? No we dislike bludgers intensely, regardless of ethnicity.
As much as you might wish to espouse the wickedness of early white settlement, it would seem that were insufficient atrocities committed(shame upon the perpetrators) to completely annihilate the population which leads you to the obvious conclusion that the greater percentage of white setllers were of a benevolent, or at worst, an indifferent disposition to their(aboriginals) survival. Live and let live if you like.
Having said that, my European heritage predisposes me to discourage the efforts of any individual, black, white or otherwise, who seeks to impose his/her will over me without cause, using whatever means are necessary to do so. I daresay similar feelings existed from the time of settlement onwards. It doesn't mean I go looking for agro, but if it's brought to me there'll be snot, blood and tears, trust me. Why should early settlers be criticised for the same?
And still no word of a day off...

Neilium,
I can not help but feel dismay that many people have been led to believe that just because someone is educated & has an academic title they must be correct. I have seen several non-indigenous authors of history get sponsored by communities to write the "truth". No-one can say with certainty what the truth is as no-one alive today has witnessed those early days. What I can say though is that there are respected historians who'll create quite a %age of history if the money is right. One writer once pointed out how romantic the sunset was & when I pointed at all the rubbish along the beach she replied "I don't see it that way".'A video producer asked me if I knew any interesting indigenous characters & I replied that I didn't think that men whom I worked alongside with & performed the same tasks didn't really fall in the interesting category in my view. He replied "we can soon colour it in a bit"
When someone gets funded to present a particular view than it will most certainly be more biased than factual.

Individual, in the preceding post raises an interesting point in saying "No-one can say with certainty what the truth is as no-one alive today has witnessed those early days." Granted that comment is tangential in its context to the subject of this thread, 'Understanding the Invasion Myth', but it brings to mind a possible means by which more light may be shed upon this subject.

Peter Stanley, in his paper "He's (not) Coming South: the invasion that wasn't" (See: http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:TCdzzBjgp6gJ:www.awm.gov.au/events/conference/2002/stanley_paper.pdf+%22He%27s+(not)+Coming+South%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au ),makes reference to the Committee on National Morale and the "mysterious Alf Conlon", its chairman, also the head of the Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Conlon

The lawyer, John Kerr (subsequently to be knighted and serve as Governor-General), was involved with Conlon's work. Afterwards, that directorate morphed into the Australian School of Pacific Administration. Sir David Hay, one time Administrator of the Territory of Papua New Guinea, served in New Guinea during WW2. He had earlier served as Intelligence Officer in the 2/6th Battalion, AIF. His being a contemporary of John Kerr and association with post-war PNG administration pre-independence would indicate his likely possession of background information relevant to this period of history.

Sir David Hay was alive in 2005. I have not seen any subsequent reports of his death. He would be 92 on 10 November this year. If he has not already done so, Peter Stanley could well elicit potentially useful background information relevant to the invasion myth, should Sir David be willing and able to talk.

He might also gain insights into other matters of national historic interest in the process.

Forrest Gumpp,
I have in my possession a copy of a hand-written report by a British marine who stated that he & his men shot six Aborigines because they clearly recognised them as the perpetrators of an attack several weeks earlier. In another copy of a hand-written paper a surgeon refers to the very same incident that the six were shot with delight by a Police Magistrate.
Who do we believe ?
I have personally witnessed incidents (luckily of not serious a nature) which were then described by a higher ranking individual who had not even been there & yet was given all credibility to this incident & I was portrayed as not knowing anything.
That is why I am very, very cautious at believing anything recorded for a well-paying client.
I know of one author who wrote the story of an indigenous community & that book did not receive a favourable review by the Australian Aboriginal Studies Press for the afore-mentioned reason.

This is part of a myth that has grown out of Australians need to believe Australia played a larger role in the outcome of WW2 than we did. The truth is that Australia's forces generally fought well in the theatres of war they served, but these were generally fought in operations which were outside the major theatres of the war (especially from 1943 to 1945 when MacArthur left the Australian army to keep an eye on Japanese garrisons cut off from supplies).
Kokoda has become part of this myth. This myth is that part time militia were the last line of Australia's defences and defeated a large and up to that point invincible Japanese army that would occupy Port Moresby and then attack Australia. It was therefore these few soldiers who saved Australia. The truth is that the Japanese forces on the Kokoda Track were exhausted and could have gone no further than Port MOresby. They had no shipping and the Japanese forces in New Guinea on the Kokoda track were too small to have done much more.
The truth is that the Pacific war was won by the American Navy. The Battle of Coral Sea (which prevented an earlier occupation of Port Moresby) and much more importantly, the Battle of Midway in which the US navy destroyed the Japanese Navy's offensive capabilities and air arm before the events on the Kokoda Track took place. Guadacanal was more important than Kokoda but doesn't receive the attention because it was won by US marines.

Anthony P: "The truth is that the Pacific war was won by the American Navy."

Not in question Anthony P! That was exactly what Winston and Bob were orchestrating in their sooling of the Japanese onto the Yanks! From the opposite side, this was exactly what Isoruku Yamamoto strove to warn his Emperor about, not to attempt to challenge US power in the Pacific. But other, more skilfully misinformed, Japanese voices prevailed.

There is an old saying, with resperct to the war in the SW Pacific, that the Yanks were our allies but not our friends in that theatre; that didn't say the half of it! At the conclusion of WW1, at the peace conferences, President Woodrow Wilson of the US took it upon himself to propose the offer of the former German colonial territory, New Guinea, to Japan! (The Germans had been thrown out of New Guinea by Australian forces in 1914 in one of the first and most succesful actions of that war on the part of British Imperial forces.)

Australian forces had suffered an 87% casualty rate in WW1 fighting mainly Germans. More Australians had died fighting in that war than Yanks. And here we had a US President proposing to hand off a territory on our doorstep that had been won by Australian arms to a nation that had merely provided convoy escort support during WW1. In an apocryphal exchange during the Peace Conferences, Woodrow Wilson is claimed to have asked Billie Hughes, the Australian PM, whether " in the face of the entire civilized world, Australia stood alone against the award of the former German territories in New Guinea to Japan", Hughes is said to have fiddled momentarily with his hearing aid, and then said, "Yes, that's about it, Mr President!"

Billie Hughes was still a member of the Commonwealth Parliament in 1942.

There may have been a concern within the Commonwealth Parliament that if Australia didn't turf the Japanese out pronto, any early peace settlement with terms decided mainly by the Yanks might see the Japanese retain New Guinea.

Further indication that the Federal government knew by around September 1942 at the latest that there was no Japanese invasion threat is given in a clause of each of the Commonwealth Powers bills submitted to the State Parliaments.

Under the heading 'Duration of Act', Clause 4. stated "This Act, ......., and shall continue in force for a period ending at the expiration of five years after Australia ceases to be engaged in hostilities in the present war; ....". (The text of these bills is reproduced in the Commonwealth of Australia Year Book 1942-43, at pages 63-64.)

Hardly a wording that betrays any lack of confidence, as at around September 1942, as to what the outcome of the war was going to be!

What that wording does betray is political opportunism of the most blatant kind, smokescreened behind understandable but misinformed public fear of invasion, taking advantage of a believable preparedness of the public to accept the wholesale setting aside of the Constitution that was at the heart of the legislation, as a neccessary exigency of war.

It is not hard to understand why, today, an Australian government that is believably heir-presumptive to such opportunistic evaders of the Constitution would try to thicken the fog of a past war by inventing a battle that never actually took place in order to somehow bask in the reflected glory of it. In the process it has dishonoured the heroism and sacrifice of both all who fought in the New Guinea theatre in the sincere belief that Australia was under direct threat of invasion, and all other Australians who served elsewhere during WW2.

To be fair, if the Commonwealth government in 1942 had sat back with apparent equanimity and just let the Yanks effectively defend Australia on their own, such a posture may have had a negative effect upon US public opinion with respect to the prosecution of the war and the terms upon which the war would be ended. Someone may have smelled a rat at a time when it may have mattered.

Nothing excuses the attack upon the Constitution, though.

Of course the Japanese didn't have the battle plan to invade Australia.
But that was their intention. Why sweep down to Papua New Guinea and stop there? They would have to have supply lines and build up their forces before invading Australia. Why take on the Kokoda Track to Port Moresby if they were not going for the biggest prize of Australia.??
No, No, Peter Stanley, don't rewrite history just to sell a book.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Go and walk the Kokoda Track and then I may listen to you.

I'll never buy that book.
Bevleecross.

Further indication of what had all along been the opportunistic focus of the Australian Labour Party Federal government, one that had been confirmed in office at the Federal elections of 1943, is given by what happened in the case of a Japanese war criminal arrested by the British at the time of the Japanese surrender.

Lt Gen Takuma Nishimura was claimed to have directly ordered the massacre of Australian and Indian POWs at Parit Sulong, during the advance down the Malay peninsula in 1942. He was still in British custody in Singapore, serving a life sentence for other war crimes, in 1949, and Australia still had an ALP Federal government in the run up to the December 1949 Federal elections.

The US, anxious to move on with respect to US-Japan relations, had pressed for the return of some convicted senior Japanese officers to serve out their sentences in Japan. Whilst the US had already convicted and executed General Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, for war crimes subsequent to his capture in the Philipines, that did not settle the account so far as Australia was concerned.

Britain, complying with US desires, was in the process of returning Lt Gen Nishimura to Japan via Hong Kong when Australian Military Police boarded the vessel, took Nishimura into custody, and returned him to Australian territory at Manus Island, New Guinea. He was subsequently tried and convicted in what is claimed by some to have been a travesty of Australian jurisprudence. He was eventually hanged at Manus Island in 1951.

The point to all this being that, as of 1949 there was still no official peace agreement between Australia and Japan, and there may well have been hope of rescuscitation of the rejected Post-War Reconstruction and Democratic Rights proposals together with its little sleeper of "five years after the cessation of hostilities in the present war". Dragging out the Nishimura case and then hanging him may have created an excuse for delaying a peace treaty with Japan still further, thus giving more time to bed in hoped-for irrevocable constitutional change in Australia.

It would be a pity to let the 3rd of September pass without a last post.

Sixty nine years ago today it was Prime Minister Menzies' melancholy duty to inform Australians that the country was at war with Nazi Germany.

History duly repeated itself. The same gun, in the same place, at Point Queenscliff at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, as fired the first shot on behalf of British Imperial Forces in the First World War, fired again the first shot of the Second World War in the same cause. In each case warning a departing German merchant ship to return to port, and internment.

The Battle for Australia had begun.

Sixty six years ago on the same date, Australia was entering upon its fourth year of war in the latter conflict. Australian troops were heavily engaged in the fighting that had been going on along the Kokoda Trail since 22 July 1942, and were about to inflict the first defeat upon Japanese forces on land in WW2 at Milne Bay on 7 September 1942.

It is a pity to see Peter Stanley's article so misunderstood by poster Bevleecross. One of the first casualties of war is truth, as we all know. From his vantage point as a historian who worked for twenty years at the Australian War Memorial, he is probably one of the most qualified, with all the advantages of hindsight, to lift the fog of war and let us all see what the real situation in all likelihood was. He has defended the truth based upon evidence AGAINST those who would, in his own words, "[seek] to use unworthy means (essentially, “inventing” a battle) to achieve very understandable aims".

The real Battle for Australia started three years earlier. To pretend otherwise is to deprive many Australians whose war was over by 3 September 1942 of their rightful share of honour in what was, for Australia, a very perilous venture from the outset.

Peter Stanley has no cause to feel ashamed in assisting Australians to see what really was the situation at that time.

Interesting to see Peter Stanley's concluding observation in his article coming true so soon. See: OLO article '1942, Australia's greatest peril' http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7859

That concluding observation was:

"As 'Invading Australia' shows (drawing upon both primary sources and on the historical literature) the Japanese did not plan to invade Australia, though it also explains why such an idea should have such a tenacious longevity. The invention of the Battle for Australia detracts from the real significance of World War II for Australia, obscuring the importance of the great contribution Australia made to Allied victory far beyond Australia’s shores.

Small minded parochialism for the time being seems to have trumped clear sighted, evidence-based, historical scholarship. The debate continues, as it must."

In the 16th post in this thread reference is made to the capture of British maritime codes by HSK Kormoran at the time of the interception, and subsequent sinking, on 29 January 1941, of the British merchant ship 'Afric Star' in the Atlantic ocean.

A claim with respect to this capture of codes is made here: http://www.scharnhorst-class.dk/hilfskreuzer/kormoran.html The reference is in the addendum under the heading "Additional Information about the Ships engaged by Kormoran", against the entry relating to the 'Afric Star'.

It is particularly interesting that the 'Afric Star' was out of an Argentine port on the voyage upon which she was sunk.

One of the SBS TV 'As it Happened' series of broadcasts, on 29 February 2008, dealt with the Battle of the River Plate. In that program it was mentioned that British diplomatic channels in Buenos Aires were particularly effective in conveying misinformation that characteristically ended up in German hands. There was a particular member of the British diplomatic staff in Buenos Aires at the time of that battle (December 1939) that was one of Britain's acknowledged experts in misinformation dissemination.

It is not difficult to imagine such an entry point for deliberate misinformation having been used again in setting up operation 'Rising Sun'. Doubtless information as to Afric Star's course and speed intended could also have been 'let slip' in order to help assure a successful interception by Kormoran.

The very presence on the Afric Star of the two attractive young female passengers on its last voyage is itself intriguing.

Further to the mention in the 16th post to this thread of the possible deployment of a schnellboot (an on-board motor torpedo boat) by Kormoran prior to the engagement with HMAS Sydney, it is interesting to note the claim here: http://www.scharnhorst-class.dk/hilfskreuzer/kormoran.html that the Kormoran had no schnellboot. However, in the ship's history section on this same web page is this statement: "As the dockyard workers gradually completed the on-board repair work, the Kormoran’s Motor Torpedo Boat, LS-3, arrived from Friederichshafen … by train! Capable of a top speed of twenty-two knots, and of ten hours of independent action, it could also carry four mines." It appears Kormoran did in fact have a schnellboot.

An article, 'Remembering Anzacs and not forgetting HMAS Sydney' published on OLO on 24 April 2007, had some interesting content. See: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5760&page=0

Whilst there were many speculative claims made in that article, the claimed eyewitness testimony of one Heinz Grossman as to HMAS Sydney having been sunk by torpedo from a range of two and a half miles is interesting. It is especially so in conjunction with the claims of intercepted radio traffic thought to have been that of a raider operating just off the West Australian coastline during the preceding ten days.

Hey Forrest!Enough already! I think you should go for a run now...a really, really long one...;-)

Been for that run you suggested, tRAKKA. Back now.

Sorry about all the detail.

Its just that if one is trying to give a different perspective upon the recorded facts of history, one is beholden to quote the references and understand the symbolisms that may act as pointers to otherwise previously untellable possible truths.

I haven't expressly mentioned it in this thread, but Prime Minister Menzies spent quite a considerable amount of time in 1941 in Britain. I understand his wife warned him that if he went, the knives would be out behind his back whilst he was away, and that he had little hope of remaining in government if he continued on that course. There is no record of Menzies ever having replied to this most trustworthy source of warning, either at the time, or subsequently. He continued on that course.

It is also interesting how little publicity subsequent to the finding of the wreck of HMAS Sydney there has been, especially with respect to the torpedo damage sustained, the likely size of the warhead used, and the physical evidence as to from which side the torpedo(s) struck and direction from which it/they could have come.