Brendan Nelson's attempt to equate Kokoda with Iraq was unwise. The implication is that both are direct threats to Australia. Which is obviously untrue for Iraq. But Nelson's descent into hyperbole gives me an opportunity to segue into one of the most important campaigns for Australia in WWII - the Battle of New Caledonia. (more)
adam : The start of World War II: When I was in China a student asked what I knew about Chinese modern history, so I sketched out a timeline. Giving 1939 as the start of WWII caused a double take. I\'m pretty sure they were taught 1937, ie the start of the Sino-Japanese War, which is probably fair enough.
Likewise an Australian friend was outraged in the Smithsonian when he saw an exhibit describing World War II as 1941-1945.
cam : Ferguson\'s thesis is an interesting one: as he is trying to describe violence rather than just state on state violence - so he tries to incorporate into his thesis all the ethnic violence as well. He ends up describing the period 1937-1952 as a war against totalitarianism. It ends in Korea as by then nuclear weapons had become the dominant form of any future state on state violence, so that component settled down.
His thesis is that the anglo-saxon world, ie US/UK/Au/Can etc ended up adopting totalitarian methods such as a command economy and dehumanising the opponent which led to state sponsored violence even in the Anglo countries and by Anglo forces.
He has a point, but his thesis doesnt describe ethnic violence outside of that period though. For instance Australian violence against the Aboriginal people which was state sponsored (and dominated in the early 20thC). Unless you see the late 19thC and early 20thC as ethnic nationalist violence which then morphed into totalitarianism and became all manner of racial/ethnic violence within a framework of state on state total war.
Which suggests the step after nationalism is totalitarianism. But I have a hard time accepting that as a natural follow on.
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adam : Nationalism and totalitarianism: I suspect they are more or less orthogonal; nationalism can be used to stoke totalitarianism (circa WWII) or democratic devolution of power (19th-20th century independence and republican movements, including Australian federation).
The Pacific Theatre was half of the second world war but has suffered from an over-focus on the history of the European theatre. As a result there are many myths and misconceptions relating to Japan's advance through South East Asia and the South Pacific.
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monkeymind : WIPO: Australia is a big place...
Was nothern Australia in trouble? Yes.
Was Sydney/Melbourne? No.
cam : But Darwin and Townsville: were never going to be invaded. If Australia was going to be invaded they would have to knock out the south eastern economy and manufacturing. That would mean taking Sydney/Melbourne out.
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siento : Pearl Harbour: It\'s amazing that Australians knew about Pearl Harbour. Fascinating.
What was Australia\'s population compared to the US and UK in 1941? Australia was small back then. I thought in 1945 Australia had a population of only about 5 million. It goes some way to explaining the US and UK\'s lack of respect for what Australia could do.
cam : Population: This
page
has a comparison of population and industrial capacity. The US had about 132 million, while the UK had about 48 million in population.
Australia was very necessary to the allied war effort in 1941. A second front couldnt be maintained in North Africa without us, and New Guinea was undefendable without us. In the second half of 1943, as New Guinea was won, Australia had 450,000 troops there to the US\'s 280,000 IIRC.
We were impossible to ignore. At the end of the war, Australia\'s air force was the forth largest in the world behind America\'s, Russia\'s and Britain\'s. We were pretty bg in WWII. The sad fact is, the politicians played us as small, and our politicians sucked that myth up.
Churchill and MacArthur had no reason to view us as anything but colonials and dominion, because Menzies and Curtin behaved that way. WWII is a dismal endightment on our political leaders, and Menzies and Curtin should be censured constantly for it.
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avocadia : Military comittment: I distinctly remember reading somewhere, possibly at the War Memorial just last year, that there were one million Australians in military uniform during WWII.
cam : Numbers: Jeffrey Grey gives no authoritative figure, saying nothing more than there were half a million in uniform in 1945. Australia also started shrinking its forces in 1944/45, returning people to the agricultural and industrial sectors which were supplying Great Britain and the allied forces in the South West Pacific.
Australia also maintained two forces in WWII, the volunteers (2nd AIF) and Militia. Due to the defence act of the 1880\'s the government could only deploy volunteers outside of Australia. Curtin found new and interesting ways to get around it though.
Since New Guinea was an Australian territory back then, he deployed militia there. Kakoda was one of the great Militia victories. Later on when he wanted militia deployed outside of New Guinea, he changed the definition of Australia to end at the Phillipines. Rather ironic that Howard is shrinking the definition of Australia to avoid refugees while Curtin was making Australia equal the globe.
This
site has a figure of
724,000 enlistments. Quote;
From over 724 000 enlistments, with almost 400,000 serving outside Australia, there were over 18 000 deaths, 22 000 wounded and over 20 000 prisoners of war, mainly from the early stage of the war with Japancam
