Karl James

Courage. Endurance. Mateship. Sacrifice. These values, engraved in stone at the Isurava war memorial, have become synonymous with the Australian experience during the Kokoda campaign of 1942. The story of Kokoda and of the fighting in Papua has been told and retold in books, films and documentaries, but these popular narratives rarely explore beyond this one campaign.
Kokoda: Beyond the Legend critically assesses not only the campaigns in Papua and their context in the wider lengthy Pacific war, but also the actions of senior Australian, American and Japanese military leaders. Moving beyond the legend, this book addresses the central question of why Kokoda holds such a significant place in Australian military history.

In this book, Karl James brings together eminent military historians and scholars from Great Britain, the United States, Japan and Australia, including Sir Antony Beevor, Richard B. Frank, John B. Lundstrom, Edward J. Drea, and David Horner, to reassess the principal battles from both Allied and Japanese perspectives, providing readers with a more complete understanding of one of the major turning points in the Second World War.

During the Second World War, in the mountains and jungles of Timor, Bougainville and New Guinea, Australian commando units fought arduous campaigns against the Japanese.

The story of these elite independent companies and commando squadrons, whose soldiers wore the distinctive double-diamond insignia, is told here for the first time.

Through 130 powerful images from the Australian War Memorial’s unparalleled collection – some never published before – Double Diamonds captures the operational history of these units and the personal stories of the men who served in them, many of whom lost their lives or the friends who trained and fought alongside them.

The island of Bougainville in the South Pacific was the site of one of the largest and most gruelling campaigns fought by Australian forces during the Second World War. During the offensive against the Japanese from November 1944 to August 1945, more than 500 Australians were killed and two Victoria Crosses awarded. A veteran later described Bougainville as 'one long bloody hard slog'. Despite this, little is known about the campaign, which was dismissed as an unnecessary and costly operation. In the first major study of the Bougainville campaign since 1963, Karl James argues that it was in fact a justifiable use of Australia's military resources. Drawing on original archival research, including wartime reports and soldiers' letters and diaries, James illustrates the experience of Australian soldiers who fought. Generously illustrated with over forty photographs, this important book tells how this often overlooked battle played an important part in Australia's Second World War victory.

During the 20th century, some 35,000 Australian servicemen and servicewomen became prisoners of war. More than 4,000 Australians were captured by Ottoman and German troops during the First World War, and 30 were captured by enemy forces during the Korean War. In the Second World War, more than 30,000 Australians became prisoners of the Italians, Germans, Vichy French and the Japanese. The number who died in captivity was extremely high, particularly in the Asia-Pacific theatres: more than 8,000 of the 22,300 Australian prisoners of war died as a result of their captivity. Changi prison in Singapore, the railway cutting known as 'Hellfire Pass' along the infamous Burma–Thailand Railway, and the Sandakan death marches in north Borneo: all have become an integral part of how we remember Australia’s prisoners of war and the Australian experience of the Second World War. About 1,500 Australian civilians were also interned by the Japanese during the conflict. Fortunately, no Australians have suffered as prisoners of war during commitments to later conflicts in South Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lieutenant General Sir Sydney Rowell was a master of his profession. Tall with a trim build, the general was intelligent, austere, quiet yet forceful, and highly principled. He could be highly strung yet he never displayed excitement. Rowell had been among the first cadets to enter the Royal Military College (RMC), Duntroon, in Canberra, Australian, and had served in the Gallipoli campaign. During the interwar period he devoted himself to his professional study, attending Staff College and the Imperial Defence College in Britain, and serving on exchange with the British Army. In the Second World War Rowell held key senior staff appointments with the Australian forces in the Middle East in 1941. Following his dismissal from New Guinea Force in 1942, Rowell was banished to Egypt and Britain. His career was not revived until after the war when the new Chief of the General Staff (CGS), Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee appointing Rowell Vice Chief of the General Staff (VCGS). Rowell succeed Sturdee as CGS in 1950, and he remained Australia’s top soldier until his retirement in 1954.

In partnership with Sturdee, Rowell did much to shape Australia’s post-war army. At a time when recruits and resources were limited, Rowell was a strong advocate for the new Australian Regular Army. With the onset of the Cold War he oversaw the army’s expansion, the deployment of Australian forces to the Korean War, and the introduction of compulsory military service under the National Service scheme in 1951. Rowell believed in the continued importance of the British Empire, and saw the spread of communism in South-East Asia as a direct threat to Australia.

Despite his long service, Rowell is best known for his clash with Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey. This chapter will examine Rowell’s contribution to the Australian Army by concentrating on his relationships with the three men who most shaped his career: Lieutenant General Ernest Squires, Blamey and Sturdee.

On 14 August 2002 Prime Ministers John Howard and Sir Michael Somare dedicated the Isurava war memorial on the Kokoda Trail. The memorial’s most striking feature were four granite slabs engraved with the words: “courage”, “endurance”, “mateship”, and “sacrifice”. These attributes, these values, have become associated with the Australian experience during the Kokoda campaign, but particularly the battle of Isurava, fought from the night of 26 August until the early hours of 30 August 1942. Here the Australians dug in “using their bayonets, bully beef tins and steel helmets”, an officer wrote later, and met the Japanese with “Bren-gun and Tommy-gun, with bayonet and grenade … with the buffet of fist and boot and rifle-butt … [in] vicious fighting, man to man and hand to hand”.  Isurava was one of the first major actions of the Kokoda campaign. It was where exhausted, poorly trained Militiamen from the Australian 39th Battalion and the Middle East veterans of the 2/14th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) fought vainly to halt the Japanese 144th Infantry Regiment of the South Seas Force advancing across Papua’s Owen Stanley Range. Epitomising those values of “courage” and “sacrifice”, here 24-year-old Private Bruce Kingsbury was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross (VC) for his actions during a critical moment during the battle. At Isurava, Prime Minister Howard said, the battle “brought out all that is best in the Australian traditions and the Australian fighting spirit”.
The bitter campaign fought in Papua along the Kokoda Trail between July and November 1942 has become one of the defining wartime experiences of Australia during the Second World War. The attributes displayed by the Australian soldiers – their courage, determination, resourcefulness and, above all else, mateship – have become closely identified with perceived “Australian values”. It is this association that in part helps explain the significance of the name “Kokoda” today.
It is easy to be parochial. Kokoda and Milne Bay were significant battles in Papua, but it was the naval battles of Coral Sea and Midway fought in May and June 1942, and the epic struggle for Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands from August to February 1943, that blunted the Japanese thrust south into the Pacific. The fighting in Papua was conducted on the fringe of a vast war fought by the Allies to defeat Japan. This war was waged from the frozen Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific, across China and Burma, over the vastness of the Central Pacific, to the dense jungles of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. The British Commonwealth – including Australian airmen and sailors – and the United States continued the fight against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in North Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, and in the skies above occupied Europe. The titanic German and Soviet clashes on the Eastern Front dwarfed anything experienced by Australian forces in the war. It is important to remember that the fighting in Papua was just one front in a global war.

From 1945 to the present, time and again veterans, journalists and writers have repeated this notion, almost as a mantra, of Australia’s final campaigns in the Pacific as an ‘unnecessary war’ –where men’s lives were wasted needlessly for political rather than strategic reasons. Others have argued that the campaigns were fought for the self-aggrandisement of old generals. War correspondent come historian, Max Hastings has even alleged that Australian forces were ‘bludging’ in the islands rather than fighting elsewhere in the Pacific.  Such orthodoxy, such a consistent of complaint over time, however, does not make it true. The idea of an ‘unnecessary waste’ is, in truth, an inaccurate and worse, a misleading interpretation.

There is no question that in 1944 and 1945 Australian soldiers were fighting and dying in areas where their blood and sweat could do nothing to bring about Japan’s surrender any sooner. But this does not equate to a conclusion that such campaigns were an ‘unnecessary waste’. They were fought by General Sir Thomas Blamey, in an aggressive manner, in order to shorten the campaigns and free up Australian manpower, as he had been directed. They were also fought in accordance with the Australian Government’s clear desire and intention to see Australian servicemen shouldering such a burden of the fighting as would ensure favourable post-war political positioning. It is worth remembering in this regard that armies exist, their raison d’être, is not to win glory in what might later be seen as watershed battles, but rather to act as instruments of national policy.

"Who is Gavin Long?" asked General Sir Richard O'Connor in November 1950 after reading Long's draft chapters on the British offensive in the first Libyan campaign in 1940-41. The general thought it a "stirring narrative". Long was a journalist, war correspondent and historian. He oversaw the 22-volume Australian Second World War official history and wrote three volumes himself. In doing so he also affirmed the "Bean tradition" as the dominant narrative style for Australian military history.

Australian and American soldiers rarely served together in the front line. Buna in late 1942 is a notable exception. Another, and less known, instance took place on Mount Tambu in the mountains above Salamaua in mid-1943. This closeness is most powerfully illustrated by the actions of the stretcher-bearer Corporal Leslie Allen. Allen was almost the stereotype of a bronzed ANZAC. Born in Ballarat East, his early years were difficult. After he was abandoned by his parents at the age of 12, he began working as a farm labourer. By the time he enlisted in the army in 1940, the 23-year-old was a tall and powerfully built man who earned the nickname "Bull" for charging through the opposition on the football field. Personally brave, Allen struggled with authority.

On morning of 1 July 1945 hundreds of warships and vessels from the United States Navy, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and the Royal Netherlands Navy lay off the coast of Balikpapan, an oil refining centre on Borneo’s south-east coast. This offensive to land the veteran 7th Australian Infantry Division at Balikpapan was the last of a series amphibious operations conducted by the Allies to liberate areas of Dutch and British territory on Borneo. It was the largest amphibious operation conducted by Australian forces during the Second World War. Within an hour some 16,500 troops were ashore and pushing inland, along with nearly 1,000 vehicles. Ultimately more than 33,000 personnel from the 7th Division and Allied forces were landed in the amphibious assault. Balikpapan is often cited as an example of the expertise achieved by Australian forces in amphibious operations during the war. It was a remarkable development. Four years earlier, the capability of Australia or even the United States (US) to conduct amphibious operations in the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) was limited if not non-existent. This paper provides a brief outline of the development of amphibious operations in the SWPA during the Second World War.

Long struggle preceded the apocalyptic end of the Second World War.

Seventy-five years ago, on 15 August 1945, Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley addressed the country with the following: “Fellow citizens, the war is over. The Japanese government has accepted the terms of surrender imposed by the Allied nations.” In cities around Australia spontaneous rejoicing broke out with wild scenes of celebration. One Sydney resident remembers: “We joined the deliriously happy throng celebrating in the city streets, particularly in Martin Place, which was awash with torn paper, streamers and unrolled toilet paper rolls.”

Australia played its part towards the eventual Allied victory. Almost a million Australian men and women served in the war, and more than half of those went overseas. Australians served around the world: from the deserts of north Africa to the Arctic convoys taking aid to the Soviet Union; from the skies over occupied Europe to the jungles of Malaya and New Guinea. Some 40,000 Australians died in the conflict, while more than 30,000 were taken prisoner. Thousands more were wounded or injured. The Japanese also interned some 1,500 Australian civilians; more than 300 of those were interned in New Guinea, Nauru, and the Ocean Islands. During 1944–45 Australian forces in the Pacific participated in seven separate campaigns: fighting slow, gruelling campaigns in New Guinea and Bougainville, on Borneo, and contributing to the liberation of the Philippines. Australian forces were more heavily committed in 1945 than at any other time during the war. Australia’s final campaigns remain controversial, with many questioning their necessity and the justification for what were referred to as “mopping up” operations.

The word ‘Bougainville’ does not resonated like ‘Tobruk’, ‘Changi’ or ‘Kokoda’. Few people today are likely familiar with the location of Torokina or be aware of the actions and battles fought at Porton Plantation or Slater’s Knoll.

Yet Bougainville was one of the largest campaigns fought by Australian forces during the Second World War. It was a slow, gruelling nine-month campaign to destroy the Japanese occupying the island. More than 30,000 Australians served on the island and over 500 were killed. Corporal Reg Rattey and Private Frank Partridge were awarded Victoria Crosses for their actions during the campaign

Amphibious operations contributed to the success of the Allies in the South-West Pacific Area during the Second World War.

On the morning of 1 July 1945 hundreds of warships and vessels from the United States Navy, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the Royal Netherlands Navy lay off the coast of Balikpapan, an oil refining centre on Borneo’s south-east coast. 

This offensive to land the 7th Australian Infantry Division at Balikpapan was the final in a series amphibious operations conducted by the Allies to liberate areas of Dutch and British territory on Borneo. It was the largest amphibious operation conducted by Australian forces during the Second World War. Within an hour some 16,500 troops were ashore and pushing inland, along with nearly 1,000 vehicles. Ultimately more than 33,000 personnel from the 7th Division and Allied forces were landed in the amphibious assault. Balikpapan is often cited as an example of the expertise achieved by Australian forces in amphibious operations during the war. It was a remarkable development. Four years earlier, the capability of Australia or even the United States to conduct amphibious operations in the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) was limited, if not non-existent. Between 22 June 1943 and 12 July 1945, United States-led Allied forces conducted more than 60 major amphibious landings in the theatre. The RAN participated in nearly half of them.

Some 75 years ago, Australian forces participated in a series of land, amphibious, airborne and air landed operations to destroy the Japanese occupying areas of New Guinea. These operations were conducted over vast areas, in the mountains, jungles, and swamps along New Guinea’s east coast. They were the largest ever conducted independently by Australian forces. From late 1943 to early 1944, five Australian infantry divisions, from both the Australian Imperial Force and the Militia, a great part of the Royal Australian Air Force and most of the Royal Australian Navy were committed or contributed to this offensive.

In 1942 Japanese forces invaded much of Asia and the Pacific. Deep behind enemy lines, in Japanese occupied Portuguese Timor, a small force of Australian soldiers conducted a near year-long guerrilla war against the Japanese.

In the night air of a Timorese mountain hideout, a group of bearded Australians watched anxiously as Corporal Jack Sargeant began tapping out a signal in Morse code.

Two months earlier, on 20 February 1942, the Japanese had invaded Dutch Timor, and most of the island’s Australian and Dutch defenders were overwhelmed and captured. In Portuguese Timor the Australians of the 2/2nd Independent Company had fallen back into the mountains overlooking Dili. They were reached in early March by some Australians and a few Dutch troops who had escaped from Dutch Timor on foot. Among this group was Captain George Parker, Sargeant, and signaller Lance Corporal John Donovan. They began working with the independent company’s signalmen Max “Joe” Loveless and Keith Richards to build a radio capable of communicating with Darwin. Loveless had been a radio technician in Hobart before the war, and his knowledge marked him out at the team’s “No. 1 man”.

In late 1951 the Royal Australian Navy’s new asset, the Carrier Air Group (CAG) from the light aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney (III) went to war. Flying Hawker Sea Furies and Fairey Fireflies during the Korean autumn and winter of 1951–52, Sydney’s CAG earned a reputation for effectiveness and high performance. Operating from a small flight deck that pitched and rolled with the ocean, the CAG confronted formidable North Korean and Chinese anti-aircraft fire, and even weathered a typhoon. During this period three Australian pilots were killed and another was wounded.

Australia had begun to develop a naval aviation capability only few years earlier, with the commissioning of Sydney and the formation of its air squadrons in 1948. This rapid development of Australian naval aviation capability from concept through to operations was possible only with the wholehearted assistance of the Royal Navy.

This paper discusses the knowledge transfer of techniques, experiences, and cultures between naval aviators of the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy.

Captain Hector “Hec” Waller was one of the most outstanding officers of his generation. An inspirational leader and an aggressive commander, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and Bar for his courage, enterprise, and devotion to duty while serving in the Mediterranean during the Second World War.

The struggle was bitter. The Mediterranean and North Africa were vital theatres for Britain and the Dominions, including Australia, in the war against Germany and Italy. His Majesty’s Australian Ships (HMAS) served in the Mediterranean from the earliest months of the war through to the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, and of these, the most celebrated Australian ships in Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham’s Mediterranean Fleet were the veteran destroyers: HMAS Stuart, Vampire, Vendetta, Voyager, and Waterhen.

Is there more to the study of military history than war? Why is combat and episodes of violence privileged in narratives of war and the military? What do armies and the military “do” when not on campaign or deployed on operations? These are just some of the questions raised by Tristan Moss and Tom Richardson, historians from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra, in this edited volume. It is an ambitious undertaking, Moss and Richardson aim to challenge the conventional approach of discussing military history solely in terms of war fighting. They advocate the study of the military when it is not on the battlefield.

Australia's long war in Afghanistan saw their Special Operation Forces (SOF) at the "tip of the spear". Australian SOF personnel received more than 150 battlefield awards, including three Victoria Crosses for Australia (one of which posthumous), and six Stars of Gallantry. SOF constituted some 16 per cent of the Australian Army’s contribution to the conflict but suffered 50 per cent of the casualties, including half of all operational deaths. While Afghanistan is Australia’s longest war, it is also the least understood. The stories of those service personnel who saw the most combat, were most frequently in action, and served on multiple deployments, remains untold. Beyond the names of those killed or the

Highlighting the forgotten role of Australian commando squadrons and other special purpose units in the Pacific War - units that embraced a style of fighting that undertook missions then completely new to Australian forces.
During the Second World War, special operations were carried out by small groups of soldiers who could be inserted undetected by land, sea, or air into any environment to conduct sensitive operations in a secret,
unorthodox, or unconventional manner. These operations were high-risk, and often achieved significant military or political objectives.

Their activities are secret. Their missions are classified. Their identities are protected. They operate in secrecy to protect Australia’s people and national interests, and to support its allies. Highly trained, motivated, and experienced, Australia’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) can with little notice be inserted undetected by land, sea, or air into any environment
to conduct sensitive combat or noncombat operations. They constitute
a fast, flexible, low-cost, and discreet asset. They have been continuously
deployed both at home and abroad for nearly two decades. They won
honours in Afghanistan, fought in Iraq, helped establish security in East Timor, performed counter-terrorist roles in Australia, and supported domestic security agencies.

In action with an Australian commando in the Balkans and Italy

Sailing through a rain storm with high winds and seas, landing craft carrying British commandos came ashore near the Albanian town of Sarande, on the Adriatic coast opposite the Greek island of Corfu, shortly before midnight on 22/23 September 1944. Greek partisans already controlled much of Corfu but in seizing Sarande the commandos would cut off the German garrison’s only escape route to the mainland.

Among the commandos was 34-year-old Australian Lieutenant James “Jim” McMenamin from Kelso, Bathurst. The commandos were formed a few years earlier with the intention of aggressively taking the war into enemy occupied or controlled territory.

The involvement of Australians serving directly in British forces and their contribution to the war in Europe is still little appreciated today. Any number of Australians may have served in the British Army. What is certain, however, is that McMenamin’s service highlights the diversity and complexity of Australia’s experience in the Second World War.

The loss of HMAS Sydney (II) was Australia’s worst naval disaster and an enduring mystery of the Second World War. A modified Leander class light cruiser, HMAS Sydney was the pride of the RAN. She was a modern ship, well-armed with eight 6-inch guns and other secondary armament; she was also fast. She had demonstrated her fighting prowess in the Mediterranean during 1940, when she finished off an Italian destroyer and sunk the cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni. When Sydney returned home in February 1941 she received a hero’s welcome. On 19 November, however, the cruiser encountered the German raider HSK Kormoran. The action led to both ships being destroyed. Sydney was lost with hands, 645 officers and men.

In 1940 the British army formed commando units to raid, conduct sabotage and gather information in German-occupied Europe. A small British military mission was sent to Australia to establish similar units in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), and the first of eight Australian independent companies was raised in 1941. Wearing their unique double-diamond-shaped unit colour patches on their hatbands and shoulders, each independent company contained some 290 officers and men. In 1943 the companies were redesignated cavalry (commando) squadrons, later just commando squadrons. Four additional commando squadrons were established during 1944.
Made famous in part by Damien Parer’s wartime newsreel The Men of Timor (1942), the almost year-long guerrilla war fought by Sparrow Force’s No. 2 Independent Company in Timor has been widely praised. The film’s opening titles note that, as the war swept past them, the Australians “went on fighting”, harrying the Japanese with guerrilla warfare in ‘one of the imperishable stories of this gigantic world catastrophe’. The story of the bearded men of Timor, who were later joined by the 2/4th Independent Company, is arguably the most well-known episode in the history of Australian independent companies
These exploits have often been told and celebrated, but the guerrilla war on Timor was not typical. From the tragic loss suffered to No. 1 Independent Company as prisoners of the Japanese on the Montevideo Maru to the celebrated defiance on Timor in 1942, each independent company later commando squadron was involved in myriad wartime experiences. It was in the vastness of New Guinea’s jungles that the independent companies came into their own, thinly deployed on the flanks of the main force, carrying out reconnaissance, conducting raids and harassing the Japanese. By the war’s end in 1945 the AIF had commando squadrons in action in New Guinea, Bougainville and Borneo.

Karl James reflects on soldier portraiture during the Great War. Soldier portraits have become familiar images of the period. Soldiers posed individually and in groups to capture specific moments or create a visual record of significant occasions. As casualties mounted, however, some used portraiture as a public statement of support for the war effort. A hundred years after the Great War, soldier portraiture has assumed a new meaning. Soldier portraiture has become central to the commemoration of the centenary of the Great War.

"Lauded legacy"
Karl James gives short shrift to doubts about the profile of General Sir John Monash.

Monash came to national prominence after his successful command of Australian soldiers on the bloody battlefields of the Western Front during the Great War. But he was not a full-time regular soldier, nor was he some military martinet. He was an engineer; a citizen-soldier; a businessman; a scholar; and a patron of the arts. He was highly intelligent with at times boundless energy and drive. Monash could also be vain, abrasive, and self-promoting. Yet his many accomplishments could not be denied. A century on, Monash’s reputation is still celebrated; he is probably the best-known and most honoured Australian who served in the Great War. Yet some commentators continue to assert that Monash has been forgotten or insufficiently acknowledged.

The Track - A historical desktop study of the Kokoda Track was undertaken by Dr Karl James of the Australian War Memorial. The Track was commissioned as a reference document by the Department to assess the wartime routes of the Kokoda Track and to assist the Department's work under the Kokoda Initiative.
The study contains an introduction to the events of the War in the Pacific and how both sides viewed the strategic location of Papua New Guinea in the conflict. It also lists the full Australian and Japanese units engaged in the Kokoda campaign, providing an important historical reference for anyone with an interest in the campaign.

Sir Stanley Savige, KBE CB DSO MC ED had a long and distinguished record in both world wars, but he clashed with his fellow officers almost as fregquently as with the enemy. He is remembered as a long-standing contributor to the feud between the militia and Staff Corps officers during the Second World War, in favour of the militia.

With the Australian Defence Force currently focusing on its amphibious force capabilities and the security of the Indo-Pacific region, Australia’s operations in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Borneo during the Second World War offer valuable case studies.  The 11th Brigade’s campaign towards the Soraken Peninsula and into Matchin Bay in North Bougainville in 1945 provide insights into the army’s wartime littoral operations, and the importance of water transport for manoeuvre and logistics.

On morning of 1 July 1945 hundreds of warships and vessels from the United States Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, and the Royal Netherlands Navy lay off the coast of Balikpapan, an oil refining centre on Borneo’s south-east coast. This offensive to land the veteran 7th Australian Infantry Division at Balikpapan was the last of a series amphibious operations conducted by the Allies to liberate areas of Dutch and British territory on Borneo. It was the largest amphibious operation conducted by Australian forces during the Second World War. Within an hour some 16,500 troops were ashore and pushing inland, along with nearly 1,000 vehicles.  More than 33,000 personnel from the 7th Division and Allied forces were landed in the amphibious assault.
Balikpapan is often cited as an example of the expertise achieved by Australian forces in amphibious operations during the war. It was a remarkable development. Four years earlier, the capability of Australia or even the United States to conduct amphibious operations in the South-West Pacific Area was limited if not non-existent. This paper provides a brief outline of the development of amphibious operations in the SWPA during the Second World War.

“Flat-top fledglings”: Australian naval aviators in the Korean War

In late 1951 the Royal Australian Navy’s new asset, the Carrier Air Group (CAG) from the light aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney (III) went to war. Flying Hawker Sea Furies and Fairey Fireflies during the Korean autumn and winter of 1951–52, Sydney’s CAG earned a reputation for effectiveness and high performance. Operating from a small flight deck that pitched and rolled with the ocean, the CAG confronted formidable North Korean and Chinese anti-aircraft fire, and even weathered a typhoon. During this period three Australian pilots were killed and another was wounded. Australia had begun to develop a naval aviation capability only few years earlier, with the commissioning of Sydney and the formation of its air squadrons in 1948. This rapid development of Australian naval aviation capability from concept through to operations was possible only with the wholehearted assistance of the Royal Navy.
This paper will discuss the knowledge transfer of techniques, experiences, and cultures between naval aviators of the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. It will contribute to a new project on Sydney’s CAG in the Korean War.

Australia’s elite Special Air Service Regiment is perhaps its best-known military unit. The SAS has achieved a formidable reputation, with operational deployments to Borneo, Vietnam, East Timor, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Few people today, however, would be aware that the history of Australian Special Forces stretches back to the Second World War.
In late 1940 the British Army formed commando units to carry out raids and guerrilla operations in German-occupied Europe. A small British training team was also sent to Australia to set up similar units in the Australian Imperial Force, and a school was established at Foster on Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. Because of their ability to fight independently of other units the commandos became known as “independent companies”. Highly trained, each company had a nominal strength of about 290 officers and men. The wartime experiences of these independent companies were diverse: from waging a successful guerrilla war against occupying Japanese in the mountains of Timor through to conducting long-range reconnaissance patrols and raids deep into Japanese-controlled territory in New Guinea. Renamed “commando squadrons”, by the war’s end these units were also in action on Bougainville and participated in the amphibious landings on Borneo.
By concentrating on three key actions conducted by these units – the guerrilla war on Timor in 1942; the capture of the village of Kaiapit, New Guinea, in 1943; and the battle for Tarakan Hill, Borneo, in 1945 – this paper will survey the wartime history of these independent companies/commando squadrons.

“Return to New Guinea: comparing Australian and Japanese memories of the New Guinea campaign, 1942–1945”
By Karl James and Kazuhiro Monden

For three years during the Second World War, from 1942 to 1945, men from Australia and Japan fought a long, hard campaign across the mountains and through the swamps of Papua and New Guinea. It was a bitter war; the Australians fought to destroy the Japanese who in turn often fought to the death.
New Guinea became a place of victory and commemoration for the Australians, but one of defeat and loss for the Japanese. For Australians, the focus of the Pacific War was the war in New Guinea, where “Diggers” fought “up north, in the islands”. It was popularly believed that they were fighting to prevent a Japanese invasion of the Australian mainland. The Japanese perspective was very different; their aim was not to invade Australia, but rather to isolate it from the United States and the United Kingdom. New Guinea was a secondary priority, behind Japan’s other campaigns in China and elsewhere in the Pacific. As the war continued, it was the Japanese who became isolated on the island – many were killed, but most died from sickness and starvation.
This paper will compare and contrast Australian and Japanese memories of the war in New Guinea: it will look at why Australian and Japanese veterans have made post-war pilgrimages to New Guinea; and it will discuss the popular memory of the campaign in each country’s society.
Dr Karl James, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, and Dr Kazuhiro Monden, University of Wollongong, Wollongong

I am very grateful to Brigadier David McCammon, Commander 3rd Brigade, for the invitation to speak to you this evening. The brief I received from the brigadier was broad. Could I speak on "mateship, resilience, teamwork" in the context of the Australian Army in any conflict? There are many examples from various theatres I could have drawn on. But with Anzac Day only a week away, for me, it is the Gallipoli campaign that strongly resonates with the themes of resilience, teamwork and mateship. Few names convey as much power or are so symbolic.

1945 was the year of victory for the Allies. After six years and more than 60 million dead, the Second World War came to an end. During the final year of the war, Australia was more heavily engaged than at any other time in the war. In addition to nearly 13,000 Australian airmen serving in Britain, some 4,000 members of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) actively contributed to the liberation of the Philippines, while the Australian army fought multiple campaigns in New Guinea and Bougainville – territory mandated to Australia from the League of Nations – and on Borneo in the Netherlands East Indies.
The final years of the war were also a time of frustration and disappointment for Australia. The Australian Government had to manage a manpower crisis, balancing the competing demands of the military, industry, and the economy; yet it was also adamant that Australian forces maintain an active role in the war. For much of 1944 the army’s future role was uncertain, and by 1945 it was obvious that despite his long-standing assurances, General Douglas MacArthur had deliberately excluded the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) from the Philippines. Instead, MacArthur allocated the AIF a series of amphibious operations on Borneo.
As visitors in the Australian War Memorial’s permanent Second World War galleries are told: “these final campaigns have become controversial, with many questioning the necessity of these ‘mopping up’ operations” while many “questioned the need to fight isolated Japanese forces that posed no threat.”
Why is this the case? Why is it that when the war ends Australia’s military forces are not participating in more prominent roles in the Pacific? My paper this morning will address this issue. To do so, I need to examine the three figures who directed Australia’s war effort: Generals Douglas MacArthur and Sir Thomas Blamey, and Prime Minister John Curtin. I will give a quick recap of the early operations conducted by Australian and United States forces in 1942–43 before focusing on the debate surrounding the employment of the AIF in the Philippines in 1944–45. In doing so, I will provide a brief survey of Australia’s final campaigns.

Some 70 years ago the war correspondent George Johnston predicted that the name “Kokoda” would “live in the minds of Australians for generations, just as another name, Gallipoli, lives on as freshly”.  Johnston’s words proved true. After a more than a century of Australian military history, few names convey as much power or are as symbolic. Tobruk. Changi. Kapyong. Long Tan. Tarin Kowt. These names resonate, too, but it is Gallipoli and Kokoda that have become closely associated with Australian national character.
The attributes displayed by the Australians on Gallipoli and along the Kokoda Trail – their courage, determination, resourcefulness and, above all else, mateship – have become closely identified with “Australian values”. One hundred years ago the Anzac legend was born on Gallipoli. Seventy-five years ago that legend was upheld along the Kokoda Trail as Australians faced their darkest hour. This afternoon I will discuss some of the enduring resonances that connect Gallipoli and Kokoda: the rugged terrain and the extreme environment; the conditions endured by Australian soldiers; and the lasting significance of the campaigns.

"Gallipoli and Kokoda: Enduring resonances"

Some 70 years ago the war correspondent George Johnston predicted that the name “Kokoda” would “live in the minds of Australians for generations, just as another name, Gallipoli, lives on as freshly”.  Johnston’s words proved true. After a more than a century of Australian military history, few names convey as much power or are as symbolic. Tobruk. Changi. Long Tan. These names resonate, too, but it is Gallipoli and Kokoda that have become closely associated with Australian national character.

The attributes displayed by the Australians on Gallipoli and Kokoda – their courage, determination, resourcefulness and, above all else, mateship – have become closely identified with “Australian values”. One hundred and two years ago today the Anzac legend was born on Gallipoli. Seventy-five years ago that legend was upheld along the Kokoda Trail as Australians faced their darkest hour. This address discusses some of the enduring resonances that connect Gallipoli and Kokoda: the rugged terrain and the extreme environment; the conditions endured by Australian soldiers; and the lasting significance of the campaigns.

In 1940 the British Army formed commando units to raid, conduct sabotage, and gather information in German-occupied Europe. A small British military mission was sent to Australia, and the first of eight Australian independent companies was raised in 1941. In 1943 the companies were redesignated cavalry (commando) squadrons, later just commando squadrons. Four additional commando squadrons were later established. The employment of these units evolved throughout the war. From conducting a guerrilla war on Timor against the occupying Japanese, over time their role became akin to the traditional role of cavalry; thinly deployed on the flanks of the main force, carrying out reconnaissance, conducting raids, and harassing the Japanese. Yet even as late as 1945 commando squadrons could be misused or underemployed, assigned to tasks better suited to the infantry.
This paper will provide an overview of the Australian independent companies and commando squadrons – their training, employment, and wartime experiences – offering historical lessons on their employment. This study will also provide insights into the interactions between Australians and the local peoples of the region, whose support and assistance were vital to both the survival and success of Australian forces and the Allied war effort.

Double diamonds: Australian commandos in the Pacific war 1941–45 is an illustrated history that tells the stories of the men who served in the Australian independent companies and commando squadrons in the Second World War. They came from across the country. Many were children of returned men from the Great War, and any number were underage teenagers, like Private John Talintyre, who modified their birth dates in order to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Some soldiers and officers performed reckless acts of bravery or displayed cool leadership while under fire. At least one man, Captain Raymond “Doc” Allsopp, was recommended for a posthumous Victoria Cross for actions of selfless valour. For those who survived the war, returning home to peacetime civilian life in Australia had its own challenges.

In 1940 the British army formed commando units to raid, conduct sabotage, and gather information throughout German-occupied Europe. In Australia, little was known of these British independent companies or “commando organisations” beyond what one senior Australian officer described as some form of “cloak and dagger gang”. A small British military mission was sent to Australia to establish similar units in the AIF, and the first of eight Australian independent companies was raised in 1941. Highly trained, each independent company contained some 290 officers and men. In 1943 the companies were redesignated cavalry (commando) squadrons, later just commando squadrons. Four additional commando squadrons were established during 1944. These independent companies were involved in myriad wartime experiences: from the tragic loss of the Montevideo Maru and the celebrated defiance on Timor in 1942, through to raids and long-range patrols into Japanese territory in New Guinea and the spectacular amphibious landings on Borneo in 1945.

In 1944-45, some 4,000 Australians participated in the liberation of the Philippines from Japanese occupation and approximately 100 Australian servicemen died. Few people today would be aware of the extent and diversity of Australia’s contribution to the campaign. Join Memorial Senior Historian, Dr Karl James, as he discusses Australia’s contribution to liberating the Philippines; from the escaped Australian prisoners who fought alongside Filipino guerrillas through to those Australian warships that endured the terrifying ordeal of Japanese Kamikaze attacks.