Somewhere among my belongings I have some Japanese paper money that came into my possession whilst in New Guinea during WW2.This "money" is of a very low denomination (halfpence & pence).Some of it is clearly marked either with "OA" which I took to mean "occupied Australia",or "OC" which I took to mean "occupied country", This,obviously bogus money had been removed from Japanese soldiers,I believe.
All of which raises the question; Was it meant to be used in the occupation of Australia,perhaps to pervert the Australian currency ?
Whatever the reason, it seems to add weight to the "Invasion Theory"

There is one claim in this article with which, despite what I said in my earlier post (the fifth in the thread), I am now prepared to agree; that of the title:

"1942, Australia's greatest peril".

It's true Australia's greatest war peril began not in 1942, but on 3 September 1939, with the outbreak of WW2. By mid 1940 Australia stood alone with Britain and the other Commonwealth nations against an incipient world-wide tyranny.

The war peril began not because of Australia's being nominally part of the British Empire, but because of the virtual identicality of world view with that of Britain arising from our common heritage, expressed in this nation's preparedness to go to war in such adverse circumstances.

The war peril may have indeed been perceived by the Australian public to have reached its zenith in 1942, but by then the real peril was not so much from external military threat as from internal political opportunism and attempted subversion of the Constitution. That same peril exists today, having relatively recently intensified. I have given some indication of its precise nature here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7725#120548 and in subsequent posts in the comments to the article 'Understanding the invasion myth'.

(That article has in recent days dropped off the default OLO index page, but can be easily found by clicking the 'one quarter back' option on the index page, and even more easily, at around the present time, by then clicking on the 'last post' button to display the index page in order of recency of posts.)

Many thanks, Forest Gump.

Must say, that because Ambon owing to its location, was suited more for West Australian gunners being sent to Ambon rather than other locations such as Rabaul where a standard 9.2 heavy battery was located.

Another type of heavy artillery used was the tyred mobile Puteaux 155 millimetre used extensively after Pearl Harbour.

Further, it seems that two types of artillery gunners were sent to Ambon - both anti-aircraft and anti-ship, the latter called coastal defence.

Harry Holder, as I mentioned was in charge of the rookie section me and my young brother trained under. And the last I heard of Harry was that he became a war prisoner captured by the Japs.

I must say that for the rest of the war we spent much of the time on Garden Island, WA, where Z-force did much of its training at the time, and who were also part of our Australian Defence Force, by means of mini-submersible attack.

However, it seems the true story of Ambon has been kept from us till recently and must say it has left me distressed remembering how young those rookie kids were at the time.

Finally, there is also anger over the report that our gunners were left to keep on firing while the rest of Gull Force including aircraft were ordered to get out.

PS. Talking about the Japanese mine-sweeper, there is also a report that after it became damaged by the Dutch mine, it was sunk by our so-called heavy artillery battery, no doubt really annoying those Japanese bastards.

Regards, BB, WA.