Anzac's Dirty Dozen (22 page)

Just before Blamey attended the War Cabinet meeting, MacArthur wrote to the Australian government with a submission that could have been damning if Blamey's policy had not been explained so thoroughly. MacArthur, aware of the criticism surrounding the campaigns in the Mandated Territories, tried to distance himself from the controversy: ‘I and my headquarters have never favored it, and while its execution has been successful
and efficient in every way and worthy of praise, I regard its initiation as having been unnecessary and inadvisable'.
⁵⁵
Chifley was no fan of Blamey and questioned him closely. Blamey should have reminded the government earlier and often that his policy was in keeping with the government's own long-standing policies and priorities, and that the practical considerations were justifiable. But the general nonetheless made his point. Shedden was convinced, commenting to Chifley that ‘so far as the general question of strategy is concerned … Blamey had made a very sound case in justification of the operations which he has been carrying out'.
⁵⁶
Blamey's line of argument was presented to the Advisory War Cabinet on 6 June 1945 and it was formally approved at the end of July.
⁵⁷

Another topic discussed by Blamey and the War Cabinet was an American plan to use the 7th Division for the invasion of Balikpapan, codenamed OBOE Two, scheduled for 1 July 1945. The War Cabinet had previously supported the use of the 9th Division to capture Tarakan Island (OBOE One), on Borneo's north-east coast, as well as the area around Brunei and Labuan in north Borneo (OBOE Six), as this would increase Allied control of the sea between Malaya and Japan: but there were was real cause for doubt over Balikpapan. Blamey had recommended the 7th Division be withdrawn from the operation, describing Balikpapan as ‘a derelict Dutch oilfield'. Indeed all the Australian senior officers who would become involved with the landing – be they army, air force or navy – thought the operation lacked ‘any real object'.
⁵⁸
The American Chiefs of Staff were also sceptical, with Admiral King describing the operation as ‘unnecessary'. MacArthur, however, would not be denied. He explained to General Marshall that the operation would not affect preparations for the invasion of Japan, and that all the ground troops involved would be Australians who had been out of action for
more than a year. ‘I believe', MacArthur wrote, that if the operation were cancelled or postponed it would produce ‘grave repercussions with the Australian government and people'.
⁵⁹
The Joint Chiefs thus approved the plan. MacArthur similarly manipulated the Australian government with a heavy-handed response at the suggestion of withdrawing the 7th Division:

The Borneo campaign in all its phases has been ordered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff who were charged by the Combined Chiefs of Staff with the responsibility for strategy in the Pacific. I am responsible for execution of their directives … I am loath to believe that your Government contemplates such action at this time when withdrawal would disorganise completely not only the immediate campaign but also the strategic plan of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
⁶⁰

Following MacArthur's stern – even intimidating – reply, the Australian War Cabinet and Curtin (who was consulted in hospital) endorsed the Balikpapan operation. As Horner has shown, MacArthur's threat that the Joint Chiefs' strategy would be completely disorganised with the withdrawal of the 7th Division was a bluff. But it worked. The Joint Chiefs had approved Balikpapan because they thought the Australian's wanted the operation, while the Australian government only agreed to MacArthur's plan out of obligation to the ‘grand strategy' of the Joint Chiefs.
⁶¹

When they were launched, the OBOE operations themselves were spectacular and more lavishly supported than any other Australian operation of the war. The AIF was at the peak of its efficiency. The 7th and 9th Divisions were experienced, its soldiers well trained and drilled in their tasks, and its young leaders battle hardened. The RAN and RAAF were also prominent in each operation, with minesweepers through to heavy cruisers
participating in the invasion while Australian fighters and bombers, including four-engine heavy bombers, were constantly overhead. Each operation was conducted successfully with skill and bravery.

OBOE One took place on 1 May 1945 when the 9th Division's 26th Brigade landed on Tarakan. Despite the copious quantity of firepower available, tough fighting took place in the hills and jungles around the township. Lieutenant Tom ‘Diver' Derrick was mortally wounded during one such action on 22 May. Enlisting in 1940, he had served in Tobruk during the siege and had been decorated at El Alamein in 1942. He went one better a year later, awarded a Victoria Cross for an action in New Guinea, and he was subsequently commissioned. For many people, the death of Derrick, a brave, well-respected and much loved soldier, epitomises the futility of the Borneo campaign. Worse, Tarakan had been invaded in the first place so its airfields could be used to support later operations – but when taken they could not be made ready to in time for this. Serious fighting on the small island went on until mid-June, with skirmishes continuing afterwards. Altogether, 225 Australians were killed on Tarakan and 669 were wounded.

The rest of the 9th Division landed in Brunei Bay and Labuan Island in north Borneo on 10 June with the task of securing the bay and surrounding area. This was accomplished by mid-July and for the rest of the war most of the division's efforts were taken up with civic action, administering and caring for the nearly 70 000 civilians in the area. During this operation, 114 Australians were killed or died of wounds, while 221 were wounded.

Made a reality at his own insistence, and possibly in acknowledgment of the controversy it sparked, MacArthur allocated the 7th Division's Balikpapan operation an unprecedented amount of air and naval support. Surprise was not an issue. Balikpapan was
pounded for nearly three weeks in what was the longest pre-landing bombardment for any amphibious operation of the war. The invasion armada numbered over 250 vessels. On the pre-dawn eve of the invasion, Balikpapan appeared as a dull red glow on the horizon. Dawn on 1 July 1945 revealed what veterans described as a ‘terrifying scene'.
⁶²
Clouds of black, oily smoke from the bombed refineries blanketed the beach, buildings lay in rubble, and fires burnt all along the coast. In the short but sharp fighting that followed, the Japanese resisted fiercely where they could, but by 25 July 1945 the town, harbor and surrounding territory were secured, and the Australians were carrying out deep patrols beyond Balikpapan. When the war came to an end a few weeks later, 229 Australians had been killed during this campaign, and 634 more were wounded.

Having worked so hard to support Australia's war effort, it was a cruel twist that Curtin did not live to see Japan's ultimate defeat. He died at the Lodge on 5 July 1945. In the two and half years since his 1943 Australia Day broadcast, Australian and American forces had become increasingly separated, and by the war's end could no longer be described as being ‘knee to knee'. When MacArthur, Curtin and Blamey had the same objectives during 1942 and 1943, the partnership in SWPA was outstandingly successful. But the Australian and American alliance was a marriage of convenience, and Australia was always going to be the minor partner. This was most obvious in the late Pacific war, with MacArthur's insistence on using twice the number of troops that Blamey thought necessary when relieving the American bases in New Guinea and the islands, and with MacArthur's excluding the AIF from action in the Philippines.

Required to commit large forces in the Mandated Territories, Blamey decided on an offensive approach in New Guinea and Bougainville that would potentially free up Australian troops
for discharge from the army or subsequent operations by the end of 1945. The Australians only attacked where they thought they outnumbered the Japanese and where they thought they could be successful with minimum casualties. The merit of the New Guinea and Bougainville campaigns will always be debated, but there is no dispute that the approach to New Britain was correct, and that any attempt to attack Rabaul would have incurred heavy casualties for no real return. The conduct of each campaign also fulfilled the spirit of the government's long-stated policy of using Australian forces in Australian territory, and its perceived need to be seen as contributing to the fight in order to secure a voice in the peace that followed. Yet, with these operations being fought for practical as much as political reasons, Blamey should have been more forthcoming with Curtin and the War Cabinet about his aggressive policy from the outset. Likewise, the politicians should have paid closer attention to the rationale and conduct of the campaigns. If this had happened, Curtin could have immediately countered criticisms of Blamey and his strategy. Instead, it appeared as though Blamey had been caught out. His motives were seen to be suspect and questionable, with the government only retrospectively rubberstamping his decisions for offensive actions. The criticisms and justifications for the later OBOE operations are similar to those for the Mandated Territories, with the Borneo campaign taking place, perhaps more than any other, for political rather strategic reasons. Yet even with the Balikpapan campaign, the government demonstrated Australia's commitment to MacArthur and honoured the original directive that had established the SWPA.

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 hasten Japan's surrender. But this does not equate to a conclusion that such campaigns were an ‘unnecessary
waste'. They were fought by 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 not to win glory in what might later be seen as watershed battles but rather to act as instruments of national policy. A political objective can never be the ‘wrong' reasons for soldiers to die – it is, in fact, the only good reason. Blamey may well be criticised for not keeping open a good line of communication with Curtin, but he cannot be damned for carrying out his government's wishes. Nor was it Blamey's fault that Australians did not participate in operations more ostensibly relevant to the outcome of the Pacific War. It was MacArthur, Blamey's senior officer, who kept the 1st Australian Corps from action in the Philippines, and it was MacArthur who effectively sent the 7th Division to Balikpapan – again for his own reasons – against Blamey' advice.

Further reading

P. Charlton,
The Unnecessary War: Island Campaigns of the South-West Pacific 1944–1945
, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1983.

P.J. Dean,
The Architect of Victory: The Military Career of Lieutenant-General Sir Frank Horton Berryman
, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2011.

P. Hasluck,
The Government and the People 1942–1945
, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1970.

M. Hastings,
Nemesis: The Battle for Japan 1944–1945
, Harper Press, London, 2007.

J. Hetherington,
Blamey, Controversial Soldier: A Biography of Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey, GBE, KCB, CMG, DSO, ED
, Australian War Memorial/Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1973.

D. Horner,
Blamey, the Commander-in-Chief
, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1998.

—— ,
High Command: Australia and Allied Strategy 1939–1945
, George Allen & Unwin/Australian War Memorial, Sydney and Canberra, 1982.

K. James, ‘The final campaigns: Bougainville 1944–1945', PhD thesis, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, 2005.

G. Long,
The Final Campaigns
, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1963.

P. Stanley,
Tarakan: An Australian Tragedy
, Allen & Unwin, 1997.

S.R. Taaffe,
MacArthur's Jungle War: The 1944 New Guinea Campaign
, University of Kansas Press, Kansas, 1998.

[8]

LOST AT SEA:
MISSING OUT ON AUSTRALIA'S
NAVAL HISTORY

Alastair Cooper

It is a bit strange that a country like Australia – where the overwhelming majority live on the coastal margins of an island continent, whose modern incarnation was founded by a navy, and which is as deeply dependent on maritime trade and industry as any country – should have so little public appreciation of its long naval history. Contemporary public understanding of Australian naval history is highly variable, with some aspects known very well, while others are not well recognised at all. While Australian military history is for good reason dominated by the ‘Anzac' tradition and army or land-based narratives, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) as an institution has consistently failed to overcome the ‘silent service' approach. This may have been fitting up until the middle of the twentieth century, but is certainly no longer appropriate. This chapter examines the state of naval history in this country, investigates some of the key reasons that such a situation has come about, and suggests some topics of Australian naval history worthy of much greater attention. Australia is missing out on its naval history, and it is time for a change.

Certainly, when considering what parts of a nation's history
receive the most attention or largest volume of published outputs, it is very easy for historians or devotees of a particular subject to claim that their subject of interest is unloved or under-appreciated. Moreover, stirrings of jealously might encourage a lament that there ought to be much less of ‘this' and much more of ‘that'. This chapter explicitly rejects such sentiments. History should not and does not have to be a zero sum game. A greater breadth and depth to Australian naval history, for example, does not have to come at the expense of that of the other armed services. In part this is because the development of the field can come from the Australian Navy as an organisation better understanding the importance of its own history, both for itself and as a part of Australia's national heritage. It is also in part because it would be both improbable and perhaps undesirable to attempt to recast the dominant Anzac land-based tradition. Yet there are many subjects, people and events in Australian naval history that are worthy of greater attention. One subject, HMAS
Murchison
's operations in the Han River in Korea in 1951, will be examined later in this chapter in some detail. It is not that
Murchison
's operations have never been recorded or that there are not other subjects of equal or even greater merit: what is significant is that her operations are an amazing story of skill, determination and bravery, but one which is completely absent from the public mind. It is a case of ‘prime' historical material that has never been offered for wider public consumption and it is an example of the type of missed opportunity which pervades Australian naval history as a subject area.