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...;-)