Cruiser
Page 73
24 King.
25 Jim Nelson.
26 Norris, p. 114.
27 HMAS Bathurst, the first of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes built for the RAN during the war.
28 Jim Nelson.
29 Norris, p. 116.
PART 3: TO THE SUNDA STRAIT
Chapter 14: Change of Command
1 Anyone interested in this truly terrifying device can find it, complete with instruction manual, at www.puffergas.com/pederick/pederick.html.
2 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
3 This public statement was amplified in a long and top-secret cable from the British Secretary of State for the Dominions to the Australian Government. It is also available at www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
4 The note was prepared for President Roosevelt but delivered by Secretary of State Hull. See www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/hull26.htm.
5 Menzies, Dark and Hurrying Days, p. 134.
6 Quoted in Thompson, Pacific Fury, p. 78.
7 Australian Dictionary of Biography, entry on John Curtin: http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130616b.htm.
8 Macdonald, sometimes known as Fighting Mac, committed suicide in 1903 after allegations of homosexual affairs with young boys in Ceylon. The charges were apparently baseless, motivated by colonial snobbery; Macdonald was the son of a humble Scottish stonemason.
9 Naval Historical Review, Naval Historical Society of Australia, August 1972. Also online at www.navyhistory.org.au/captain-h-m-l-waller-dso-and-bar-ran.
10 Quoted in Gee, p. 208.
11 Clifford, p. 73.
12 The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 December 1941.
13 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
Chapter 15: The Time of Infamy
1 Quoted in Ienaga, p. 139.
2 Cited in Morison, p. 46. Morison attributes the quotation to the memoirs of Konoye.
3 Skeels, p. 4.
4 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2009.
5 Collins, quoted in Gee, p. 212.
6 Navy Department to CinCUS, Pearl Harbor, 27 November 1941, US Navy Historical Center.
7 Mitsuo Fuchida, From Pearl Harbor to Calvary, www.biblebelievers.com.
8 Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 224.
9 ‘What on earth is Phillips going to the Far Eastern squadron for? He hardly knows one end of a ship from the other,’ wrote Cunningham to a fellow admiral. ‘His only experience is eight months as RAD [Rear-Admiral, Destroyers] and then he had the stupidest collision.’ Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, who commanded Force H in the Med, wrote to Cunningham that he ‘shuddered to think of the “pocket Napoleon” going out to the Far East. All the tricks to learn and no solid sea experience to fall back on.’ Cited in Marder, p. 365.
10 The Americans gave code names to Japanese aircraft. For some reason, bombers had girls’ names – Betty, Val, Doris, Nell, etc., – while fighters had boys’ names – Claude, Zeke, Ben and Oscar. Perhaps the most famous aircraft of all, the Zero, was known from its Japanese Navy designation: Type 0 Carrier Fighter.
11 Guy Griffiths, interview with the author, 2008.
12 Quoted in Nicholson, p. 133.
13 Churchill, Vol. III: The Grand Alliance, p. 551.
Chapter 16: The Fall of Fortress Singapore
1 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
2 Duff Cooper, quoted in Smith, p. 287.
3 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
4 Ibid.
5 The Herald, Melbourne, 27 December 1941.
6 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade cable, Churchill to Curtin, 29 December 1941.
7 Quoted in Thompson, Pacific Fury, p. 54.
8 Simson, p. 68.
9 Clifford Kinvig, quoted in Forbes, p. 96.
10 Quoted in Thompson, Pacific Fury, p. 113.
11 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
12 Ibid.
13 Churchill, Vol. IV: The Hinge of Fate, p. 87.
14 Ibid., p. 88.
15 Australia’s War 1939–45: www.ww2australia.gov.au/japadvance/bowden.html.
16 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
17 Oppenheim.
18 The Royal Commissioner, Justice George Ligertwood, found in 1946 that ‘having regard to the terms of the capitulation I think that it was General Bennett’s duty to have remained in command of the AIF until the surrender was complete … I find that General Bennett was not justified in relinquishing his command.’ But he went on to add, ‘I think that he acted from a sense of high patriotism and according to what he conceived to be his duty to his country.’ It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Royal Commission was a careful whitewash designed to cover the stain of a general deserting his men. Percival believed Bennett had been a deserter and never forgave him. Bennett kept up an increasingly furious, even paranoid, defence of his conduct until his death in 1962. See Lodge.
19 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
20 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Historical Documents 326, Wootton to Dunk, Memorandum (extract), 19 October 1945.
21 Wootton and Quinn survived imprisonment in Sumatra.
22 ‘The Battle for Australia, Mr Curtin’s Call to Service’, The Age, Melbourne, 17 February 1942.
23 Notes from Doneley family private papers.
24 Crace, 30 January 1942.
25 Smith, p. 289.
26 Whiting, private papers.
27 Quoted in Pfennigwerth, p. 201.
28 See Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, p. 312.
29 Churchill, Vol. IV: The Hinge of Fate, p. 127.
30 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, www.info.dfat.gov.au/historical.
31 Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2008.
32 Owen, Naval Historical Review, Naval Historical Society, August 1972.
Chapter 17: Defeat in the Java Sea
1 Skeels, p. 23.
2 Van Oosten, p. 37.
3 The car ride obviously imprinted itself deeply on Gordon’s mind. After three years in a Japanese POW camp, he would write in his report to the Admiralty that he and Hec Waller ‘only arrived at the risk of our lives in the fastest and most dangerous motor car ride through traffic that we had ever experienced’.
4 Oliver Gordon, p. 122.
5 Winslow, p. 111.
6 Van Oosten, p. 43.
7 Hara, apparently at the humane end of the spectrum of Japanese naval officers, went on to fight at Midway and Guadalcanal and was captain of a cruiser at war’s end, when his beloved IJN was crushed into oblivion. His memoirs, Japanese Destroyer Captain, provide an invaluable Japanese perspective on the war at sea.
8 Skeels, p. 27.
9 See Appendix 1 to this book (NAA MP1185/8, Item 1932/2/220).
10 Hamlin, www.history.navy.mil/ar/hotel/hamlin.htm.
11 Skeels, p. 28.
12 Captain Ian Pfennigwerth, in his book on HMAS Perth, downplays the communications confusion, arguing that ‘a great deal of unnecessary emphasis has been placed on the tactical signalling problems’. But the Captain of Exeter, Oliver Gordon, wrote in his report to the Admiralty after the war that ‘this action demonstrated in a very marked manner the difficulty of working with a heterogeneous squadron, composed of ships of different nationalities, all of whose methods, but in particular those of signalling and fire distribution, differ from our own and with whom there had been no opportunity of even the briefest discussion on such matters’.
13 Action Report of the USS John D. Edwards, 4 March 1942, US Naval Historical Center.
14 See Appendix 1 to this book (NAA MP1185/8, Item 1932/2/220).
15 Ibid.
16 Skeels, p. 30.
17 Wallace, p. 19.
18 De Slag in de Javazee, director Niek Koppen, 1995, cont
ains valuable interviews with Dutch, American, Australian, British and Japanese survivors of the battle.
19 Action Report of the USS John D. Edwards, 4 March 1942, US Naval Historical Center.
20 See Appendix 1 to this book (NAA MP1185/8, Item 1932/2/220).
Chapter 18: Abandon Ship
1 The official Dutch report of the Java Sea Battle, quoted in Gill, 1939–1942, p. 616.
2 Collins, p. 115.
3 Winslow, p. 131.
4 Quoted in Hornfischer, p. 30.
5 Skeels, p. 35.
6 Bee, p. 21.
7 Grant.
8 Wallace, p. 24.
9 Gee, p. 159.
10 Wallace, p. 25.
11 Parkin, Out of the Smoke, p. 294.
12 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2009.
13 Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2008.
14 Bee, p. 21.
PART 4: PRISONERS AND SURVIVORS
Chapter 19: Fight for Survival
1 Wallace, p. 28.
2 Gee, p. 160.
3 Collins, quoted in Gee, p. 214.
4 Alan ‘Jock’ McDonough, transcribed recording, Australian War Memorial MSS1676.
5 Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2008.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Quoted in Gee, p. 215.
9 It didn’t. Like the Australians, the American survivors were on their own.
10 Ronald McKie records that the children’s family name was Bull. He says they were eventually captured by the Japanese and were reunited with their mother after the war. Sadly, I have been unable to uncover any more details.
11 Parkin, Out of the Smoke, p. 210.
12 Jibe: to turn stern-first through the wind, which can be dangerous.
13 Wallace, p. 39.
14 Ibid., p. 44.
15 Ibid., p. 50.
Chapter 20: In Enemy Hands
1 Joan Gandy (née Flynn), interview with the author, 2007.
2 The Canberra Times, 14 March 1942.
3 John Parkin (Ray Parkin’s son), interview with the author, 2009.
4 Gee, p. 173.
5 Bee, p. 34.
6 Fred Lasslett, p. 33, and interview with the author, 2008.
7 Skeels, p. 60.
8 Rivett, p. 122.
9 Skeels, p. 67.
10 Bancroft and Roberts, p. 47. Roberts was the signalman whose diary figures in Perth’s Mediterranean period.
11 Quoted in Gee, p. 176.
12 Quoted in Forbes, p. 241.
13 There are several versions of this story in various prisoner memoirs, and it has attained almost legendary status among the Perth survivors. The best account is in Ray Parkin’s trilogy. Galleghan was not a popular figure with the sailors, nor others. The author remembers meeting him when he inspected a school cadet parade in 1962. He was, even then, an imposing figure.
14 Quoted in Ebury, p. 369.
15 Several versions of these instructions, with only minor differences, appear in POW memoirs and accounts, both British and Australian. My source was www.cofepow.org.uk, a British website dedicated to the families of Far East prisoners of war. Australian ex-prisoners have confirmed the accuracy.
16 Skeels, p. 73.
Chapter 21: The Railway of Death
1 This speech is reported in a variety of POW memoirs. The source here is the Lost Battalion Association of the Texas Military Forces Museum. The lost battalion was the 2nd Battalion of the US Army’s 131st Field Artillery, the Americans who had met the Perth survivors on Java and who, too, worked on the railway.
2 Bee, p. 55.
3 After the war, they were re-buried in the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Thanbyuzayat.
4 It is difficult to quantify, but ten cents were roughly equivalent to two modern Australian cents.
5 There are several POW accounts of the bashing of Mills. Captain Rowley Richards confirms the story in his memoirs, A Doctor’s War. Richards was one of many doctors who performed heroic service on the railway.
6 Skeels, p. 91.
7 Weary Dunlop, ‘Medical Experiences in Japanese Captivity’, British Medical Journal, 5 October 1946.
8 Long, The Japanese Thrust, p. 550.
9 Skeels, p. 95.
10 Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2009.
11 Parkin, Into the Smother, p. 542.
12 Mathieson.
13 Doneley family private papers.
14 Gee, p. 187.
15 Parkin, Into the Smother, p. 556.
16 Ibid., p. 421.
17 Ibid., p. 493.
18 McQuade, quoted in Gee, p. 250.
19 Skeels, p. 101.
20 Quoted in Rivett, p. 299.
Chapter 22: Miracle in the South China Sea
1 Government newspaper advertisement, 1943.
2 Mirla Bancroft, interview with the author, 2008.
3 Skeels, p. 104.
4 Gee, p. 189.
5 Parkin, The Sword and the Blossom, p. 786.
6 Ibid., p. 814.
7 My account of the sinking of the Rakuyo Maru, and its aftermath, is compiled from multiple sources, including: interviews with survivors, principally Frank McGovern and Arthur ‘Blood’ Bancroft; the deck logs and war-patrol reports of the American submarines involved, available at The Historic Naval Ships Association, www.hnsa.org; Heroes at Sea, by Don Wall; A Doctor’s War, by Rowley Richards; and Return from the River Kwai, by Joan and Clay Blair Junior.
8 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
9 Blood Bancroft, interview with the author, 2008.
10 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
11 Ibid.
12 Landon L. Davis, Oral History: World War Two Rescue of Prison Ship Survivors, US Navy Historical Center: www.history.navy.mil/library/online/oral_history_davis.htm.
13 Collins, quoted in Gee, p. 225.
14 Log of the USS Barb, US Navy Historical Center. Also Historic Navy Ships Association.
15 Figures are from the Australian War Memorial and Wall, p. 167.
16 Log of the USS Barb, US Navy Historical Center.
Chapter 23: Slaves of Nippon
1 Blood Bancroft, interview with the author, 2009.
2 Later Dame Dorothy Tangney. She was the first woman elected to the Senate, serving from 1943 until 1968.
3 Commonwealth Parliamentary Hansard, 17 November 1944.
4 The Argus, Melbourne, 20 November 1944.
5 Lasslett, p. 81.
6 Surgeon Lieutenant Sam Stening, quoted by Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Winstanley on his website www.pows-of-japan.net/index.html.
7 Parkin, The Sword and the Blossom, p. 855.
8 Skeels, p. 124.
9 Little is known of Little. The Australian War Memorial holds a photograph of him under arrest ‘for informing on his fellow prisoners. He was later court-martialled.’ (AWM P01662.015.) Time magazine of 6 June 1947 carries a brief report of the court martial, including an allegation that ‘as a result of his reports to his captor-bosses, an Army enlisted man was beaten to death and a Marine Corps Corporal was starved to death by the Japs; others were brutally treated’. The court martial ran for 97 days, was held in secret and resulted in Little’s acquittal.
10 See the USAAF 20th Air Force Association, www.20thaf.org/missions/267.htm.
11 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
12 See the USAAF 20th Air Force Association, www.20thaf.org/missions/295.htm.
13 Bee, p. 113.
14 Toland, Rising Sun, p. 847.
15 Bee, p. 114.
16 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
Chapter 24: The Day of Liberation
1 Wallace, p. 74.
2 Ibid., p. 75.
3 Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2008.
4 Wallace, p. 77.
5 Bee, p. 116.
6 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
7 Bee, p. 116.
&n
bsp; 8 Ibid., p. 119.
9 Wallace, p. 75.
10 ‘A History of HMS Speaker’, anon., www.navsource.org.
11 The grandfather of the cricketing Chappell brothers.
12 Skeels, p. 138.
13 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
14 McKernan, This War Never Ends, p. 93.
15 Cited in Forbes, p. 491.
16 The AWM records that fellow cadets at Duntroon nicknamed him ‘Gaffer’ because of his serious demeanour.
17 Skeels, p. 141.
18 John Parkin, interview with the author, 2008.
19 Gavin Campbell, interview with the author, 2008.
20 The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 October 1945.
21 Frank McGovern, interview with the author, 2008.
22 Skeels, p. 143.
23 Ibid., p. 144.
24 Gee, p. 254.
25 Wallace, p. 79.
26 Brendan Whiting, interview with the author, 2007.
27 Owen, Naval Historical Review, Naval Historical Society, August 1972.
28 Lewis and Waller, p. 58.
29 Ibid., p. 163.
30 Joan Gandy (née Flynn), interview with the author, 2006.
Epilogue
1 Cunningham, p. 308.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Published Books
Adam-Smith, Patsy, Prisoners of War, Penguin, Melbourne, 1992
Admiralty Manual of Seamanship, Vols I, II, Admiralty, London, 1932
Arthur, Max, The Navy, 1939 to the Present Day, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1997
Australian and New Zealand Warships 1914–1945, Doubleday, Sydney, 1983
Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Its Aftermath, The Caxton Printers, New York, 1953
Barnett, Correlli, Engage the Enemy More Closely, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1991
Beevor, Antony, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, Murray, London, 1991
Blair, Joan and Clay Blair Junior, Return from the River Kwai, Macdonald General Books, London, 1979
Braddon, Russell, The Naked Island, Werner Laurie, London, 1954
Brown, David (ed.), The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, Vol. II, Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2002
Brown, David K., Atlantic Escorts: Ships, Weapons and Tactics in World War II, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2007
Burchell, David, The Bells of Sunda Strait, Rigby, Adelaide, 1971