The domino theory was not malarkey in it's time for the simple reason that communist expansion in SE Asia was a real and present threat.The Malayan campaign was a success probably due to geographical and cultural factors and also because the British,supported by some of the Commonwealth,were able to mount sustained and fairly intelligent counter insurgency tactics.

Vietnam was a different problem but that war was winnable over the long term with the commitment and correct tactics.That it was such a stuff up was largely due to the US military attempting to fight it as a conventional war.

However,what Vietnam did achieve on the positive side was to put a stop to communist expansion outside of Indochina.

Re Japanese expansion before and during WW2,your comment that Japan was not intending to invade Australia can't be proved and is very likely false.This is because the Pacific campaign which the Japanese embarked on after Pearl Harbour was a monumental gamble and evidence of extremely poor judgement.Like most gamblers,once on a roll,the Japanese would have kept going,double or nothing.

Australia at that time was virtually defenceless.The 1st AIF was in the Middle East and it needed some very strong words from Curtin to get Churchill to release them.There were Australian troops in Malaya and Singapore and we all know what happened to them.

I challenge you to do some research on what the people of Australia in the early 1940s thought about the chances of a Japanese invasion.My parents lived in the inland North of the Brisbane line.My father volunteered to fight at this time even though he had a wife and 2 children and was in an essential occupation - farming.

The fact is that the only thing that saved Australia from a Japanese invasion was the draw in the Battle of the Coral sea,the stand of Australian troops in New Guinea and the rapid response of the US in largely destroying Japanese naval power then embarking on a very costly island hopping campaign in the South and North Pacific.

A pity that you haven't grown up from your student activist days.

Manorina...

I did do the research! You are right to say people at the time feared invasion...they did, that's not in dispute. But was the fear justified? I devoted my Honours Degree thesis to that question and found it was not.

But you don't have to believe me. How about Dr Peter Stanley, a senior historian at the Australian War Memorial. Would he be good enough for you, or are you one of those with a closed mind on the subject? If you actually want to learn, take a look at

http://www.awm.gov.au/events/conference/2002/stanley_paper.pdf

which is as succinct as anything on the subject. You cd also find my own 1971 thesis "The Kokoda Trail: Myth and Reality" in the Memorial Library, and an article by me in the March 1977 issue of the UK Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Journal. But Peter Stanley's work settles this question...he researched the subject meticulously. Japan did not seek to invade Australia.

Thanks Gary

Your bio-snippet is an interesting tale just begun, I hope.

In the next of your trilogy (?) what did you make of Canberra as you touched down in in a DC3 or 727 on the tussock covered Aerodrome at Fairbairn.

Did the Parliamentarians ask intelligent questions, have reasonable expectations and did they accept what they might not want to hear? 1973 must of been a time of hope, even delusions?

Pete