Fighting on all Fronts (43 page)

How significant we consider the recorded instances of individual rebellion is a matter of perspective. The provost marshal reported in November 1942 that only 89 assaults had been made on MPs in the course of 33,000 arrests between April and September. These are not large numbers in the great scheme of things.
⁶³
Still, the figures do show that military authorities made many thousands of arrests, and MPs experienced more than a few assaults. Had the war gone badly the number and impact of such incidents could have been much greater.

Two veterans have intimated more radical conclusions than Johnston about the significance of rebellion inside the military. Bob Holt, reflecting on the unrest on the Atherton Tablelands, thought it was all in fun; yet he suggested the authorities did their best to stamp it out because they had apprehensive memories of a similar agitation among French troops in the trenches during the First World War. That unrest was part of a European wave of discontent that culminated in social revolutions and the fall of governments. Admittedly much of the unrest Holt describes was spontaneous and anarchic, including an episode in which rank and file soldiers chased military police—“these louts”, as he calls them—back to their barracks in Cairns.
⁶⁴
There was also a force leading soldiers’ revolts that was better organised and more focused in its approach. This was the Communist Party, which had 3,000 to 3,400 members in the military. Ted Bacon, one of the wartime communists, reflected later on the impact of more carefully considered, better organised actions:

Successful strikes without victimisation of leaders were far more common than might be imagined by those who may believe a military bureaucracy is practically unbeatable. Refusals to parade until food or conditions were improved occurred in almost all training camps [and] even the most anti-democratic commanders were compelled to move cautiously in their dealings with the rank and file.
⁶⁵

The Communists were also leaders of the solidarity actions with the Indonesian independence movement, but again they were constrained by instructions from the Soviet regime, which did not want the war effort jeopardised. By the 1940s the Communist Party was no longer a force for revolution so that its agitation never exceeded certain limits.
⁶⁶
Tragically, fatalistic submission remained the norm. As a result the Australian military command escaped lightly from the consequences of unrest in the ranks. In a more radical political environment, revolts against brass-hatted stupidity could have grown into struggles against the stupidity and the obscenity of imperialist war itself.

Despite all the arguments in this chapter, the great majority of Australians would endorse the war effort on the simple grounds that a Japanese invasion must be avoided. Most scholarship today, however, accepts the fact that Japan had no plans to invade Australia. In fact, Japan intended PNG and Indonesia as the southern boundary of its empire rather than as a springboard to launch troops at Darwin. In any case, the Japanese forces were too devastated by fighting on the Kokoda Trail to even capture Port Moresby. Veteran war correspondent Osmar White recalled they were “exhausted, diseased and starving”—hardly in a condition to conquer the huge Australian continent.
⁶⁷

And with this recognition, the last argument for the war effort falls.

1
      Quoted in Kristin Williamson,
The Last Bastion
(Lansdowne, Sydney, 1984), p125.

2
      On Australia’s 19th century Pacific imperialism see Tom O’Lincoln,
The Neighbour from Hell: Two Centuries of Australian Imperialism
(Interventions, Melbourne, 2014), ch 1.

3
      Editorial,
The Age
(Melbourne, 12 August 1914), p8.

4
      Peter Thompson and Robert Macklin,
The Battle of Brisbane: Australians and the Yanks at War
(ABC Books, 2001), p102ff.

5
      These events are well summarised in Humphrey McQueen,
Japan to the Rescue: Australian Security Around the Indonesian Archipelago
(Heinneman, Port Melbourne, 1991), p282.

6
      David Horner, “Strategic Policy Making 1943-45”, in Michael McKernan and M Browne,
Two Centuries of War and Peace
(Australian War Memorial, 1988), p293.

7
      Quoted in John Waiko,
A Short History of Papua New Guinea
(Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1993), p77.

8
      Waiko, 1993, p93, p100, p101.

9
      Alan Powell,
The Third Force: Angau’s New Guinea War 1942-46
, (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2003), p208.

10
    Powell, 2003, p216.

11
    Geoffrey White and Lamont Lindstrom,
The Pacific Theatre: Island Representations of World War ii
(Melbourne University Press, 1990), p23. John Robertson says New Guinea tribes “tended to support whichever army was in control of their area” (1981), p139.

12
    Timothy Hall,
New Guinea 1942-44
(Methuen, Australia, Sydney, 1981), p134.

13
    Quoted in Waiko, 1993, p114.

14
    Quoted in Peter Brune,
Those Ragged Bloody Heroes: From the Kokoda Trail to Gona Beach
(Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1991), p52.

15
    Humphrey McQueen,
Social Sketches of Australia 1988-2001
(University of Queensland, St Lucia, 2004), p176.

16
    McQueen, 2004, p176.

17
    TAG Hungerford,
The Ridge and the River
(Penguin, Melbourne, 2003), p152. The book also mentions locals collaborating with the Japanese. Likewise Osmar White,
Green Armour
(Penquin, 1992), p165, describes villagers guiding Japanese patrols.

18
    Clem Loyd and Richard Hall,
Background Briefings: John Curtin’s War
(National Library of Australia, 1997), p98.

19
    Waiko, 1993, p124.

20
    Grey,
The Australian Army: A History
(Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2001), p148.

21
    Geoffrey White and Lindstrom Lamond,
Pacific Representations of World War
(Melbourne University Press, 1990), p9.

22
    Christopher Wray,
Timor 1942: Australian Commandos at War With the Japanese
(Hutchinson, Melbourne, 1987), p29. My account of the Australian incursion mostly follows Wray.

23
    Wray, 1987, p131.

24
    Wray, 1987, p132.

25
    B J Callinan, “The August Show on Timor”, in Norman Bartlett (ed),
Australia at Arms
(Australian War Memorial, 1955), p209.

26
    Landman and Pires interviewed in Michelle Turner,
Telling: East Timor
(UNSW Press, Sydney, 1992), p36, p38.

27
    Archie Campbell,
The Double Reds of Timor
(John Burridge Military Antiques, Swanbourne, 1995), p132, p134.

28
    George Bliss, “Australian Army Coms in Indonesia”,
Tribune
(30 July 1980), p11.

29
    Gavin Long,
The Final Campaigns
(Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1963), p569.

30
    Peter Stanley,
Tarakan: An Australian Tragedy
(Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1997), p191. Forty five Australian servicemen on Balikpapan wrote to Chifley supporting the proclamation of an Indonesian republic and deploring the use of Japanese forces to put
down the independence movement, according to David Day,
Chifley
(HarperCollins, Sydney, 2001), p423.

31
    Rupert Lockwood,
Black Armada
(Australasian Book Society, Sydney, 1975).

32
    Gavin Long, 1963, p572.

33
    John Keay,
Last Post: The End of Empire in the Far East
(John Murray, London, 1997), p266.

34
    Alan Clifton,
Time of Fallen Blossoms
(Cassell, Sydney, 1950), pviii.

35
    Bettina Cass, “Population and Families: State Conscription of Domestic Life”, in Cora Baldock and Bettina Cass,
Women, Social Welfare and the State
(Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1988), pp176-177.

36
    Janey Stone, “Class Struggle on the Home Front”, in
Rebel Women in Australian Working Class History
(Red Rag, Melbourne, 2005), p70.

37
    See Lynne Beaton, “The Importance of Women’s Paid Labour”, in Margaret Bevege et al,
Worth Her Salt
(Hale and Iremonger, 1982), p95 and throughout.

38
    Quoted in
Jesse Street: A Revised Autobiography
(The Federation Press, 2004), p160.

39
    “Victorian Textile Strike Vote Affects 20,000”,
Melbourne Sun
(9 September 1941), p3.

40
    Stone, 2005, p82.

41
    Stone, 2005, p81.

42
    Geoffrey Blainey,
Jumping Over the Wheel
(Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1993), p178. From the context Blainey provides, these events mainly occurred in 1942.

43
    Jin Hagan,
Printers and Politics: A History of the Australian Printing Unions 1850-90
(Australian National University Press, 1966), p275.

44
    Quoted in Tom Sheridan,
Mindful Militants: The Amalgamated Engineering Union
(Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1975), p168.

45
    Mark Johnston,
At the Front Line: Experiences of Australian Soldiers during World War i
(Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1996), p140.

46
    My compilation from Jean Beaumont,
Gull Force: Survival and Leadership in Captivity
(Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1988), p29, Table 2.6.

47
    John Barrett,
We Were There: Australian Soldiers of World War i i Tell their Stories
(Penguin, Melbourne, 1987), p85.

48
    Johnston, 1996, p141.

49
    Johnston, 1996, p140.

50
    Les Clothier, “Diary of a Soldier”, in Hugh Gillan (ed),
We Had Some Bother: Tales From the Infantry
(Hale and Iremonger for the 2/3 batallion association, 1985), p105.

51
    Johnston, emphasis added, 1996, p98.

52
    Johnston, 1996, p92, p93.

53
    Johnston, 1996, p120.

54
    Peter Medcalf,
War in the Shadows: Bougainville 1944-45
(Australian War Memorial, 1986), p36.

55
    Quoted in Johnston, 1996, p147.

56
    Alex Tanner,
The Long Road North
(Alex Tanner, Adelaide, 1995), pp178-181.

57
    Margaret Barter,
Far Above Battle: The Experience and Memory of Australian Soldiers in War
(Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1994), p217.

58
    Bob Holt,
From Ingleburn to Aitappe: The Trials and Tribulations of a Four Figure Man
(R Holt, Lakemba, NSW, 1981), p173.

59
    Beverly Symons, “All Out for the People’s War: Communists in the Australian Army in the Second World War”,
Historical Studies
26 (105) (October 1995), p61.2. David Horner, “Standing Up for Ourselves”,
Week-End Australian
(7-8 October 1995), p24.

60
    Peter Thompson and Robin Macklin 2001, p158, p230. Barry Ralph,
They Passed this Way: The United States of America, The States of Australia, and World War i i
(Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 2000), p175, says US and Australian troops had a “resentment, indeed hatred” towards authority, especially armed and aggressive military police.

61
    Johnston, 1996, pp157, 158.

62
    An unnamed soldier, “About Officers”, in
Australian Military Forces,Jungle Warfare: With
the Australian Army in the South-West Pacific
(Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1944).

63
    Johnston, 1996, p154.

64
    Holt, 1981, pp173-174.

65
    Symons, 1995, p612.

66
    On the Communists in the Second World War see Tom O’Lincoln, “Fatal Compromises: The Australian Communists in World War”,
redsites.info/cpaww2.htm
, 2011.

67
    Osmar White,
Green Armour
(Penguin, Melbourne, 1992), p208. For a lively yet academic discussion see Peter Stanley writing under the ironic title
Invading Australia
(Viking, Melbourne, 2008).

William Crane

Like all of South East Asia, Burma was subject to two occupations during the Second World War, firstly of British colonialism followed by a brief occupation by Japan, and then return to an even briefer interregnum of British rule before independence was gained in 1948. The fact that Burmese nationalists, anti-imperialists and leftists could be found on different sides of the struggle for Burma at any one time poses a thorny problem for the historian trying to reconstruct the war from below in this backward country.

Part of the forgotten history of the war in Asia, which for European historians is only of note once the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war in Burma is rarely treated as anything other than a conquest by the barbaric Japanese, followed by a heroic reconquest by the British. The classic movie
The Bridge on the River Kwai
is one such tale of subversion and heroism by Allied forces against the Japanese.

This point of view developed from British war memoirs and finds its reverse in the post-colonial memoirs and official histories of the Burmese military regime, for which the glorious national war of liberation surged forever forward, barely stopping to consider the complicated politics of its leaders’ manoeuvres between British colonialism and Japanese imperialism.

What both these trends of history have in common is that they deny the agency of the Burmese themselves in making the history of the war as they resisted both British and Japanese occupation and fought for self-determination. This chapter is a brief but necessary overview of their struggles.