WWII Japanese invasion of Australia debate
nada
focused on the Pacific War over on Marxmail.org. One of the best
actually, I've seen there.
One person originally believed there were plans to invade Australia,
propagated by the Allies to mobilize the fear among Aussies of this
potential invasion and expected occupation.
We know now, and the Allies knew then, that this was bogus since it
would of been physically impossible for the Japan's Imperial Army to
do any such thing and did not have plans for this as it turns out. It
was also not in Japan's military interest to do this since the limits
of the potential boundary of the "Asian Co-Prosperity Zone" may of
extended to the border of Iran and all Asian' countries, but simply
did not include Australia.
I was the only one who argued that in fact there were plans,
tentative, and only assuming all their other military objectives were
made, for a sort of "enhanced Pearl Harbor" scenario to "invade" very
temporarily, various large port cities in Australia to essentially
destroy them as the surrounding industry to knock Australia out of the
war... and then depart, quickly. Some of the post-war documents
historians discovered note these possible task-force attacks as a
possibility.
The highly successful US counter-attack and sinking half the Japanese
Carrier Fleet ended this at the Battle of Midway later in 1942. The
closest Japan got was the Darwin raid.
Dusty
I am aware of the debate and it's worth discussing. Much of what is
said here is false, some of it I have addressed in past posts. Will
post later.
Dusty
The Darwin raid was the most intense by far, and led to a mass
spontaneous evacuation from that town, but there was also the (heroic)
midget submarine attack (from an off-shore mother ship) in Sydney
Harbour.
It is true that the Japanese "consensus" position was against the
immediate invasion of Australia, but I think it is pretty clear that,
had the Pacific War gone better for Japan, they would have formed a
quite different consensus and this "lay in wait" as arbitrated by
Hirohito himself. There is a lot of evidence for this, but here is one
I posted some time ago:
David Bergamini's monumental work Japan's Imperial Conspiracy Panther,
1971, pp. 898, 899, gives the lie to the latter day revisionism. In my
opinion, this is PC motivated - seeking to negate the well-based fear
existing amongst Australians back into the Nineteenth Century that one
day they would be invaded by an Asian power.
“Admiral Yamamoto, the hero of Pearl Harbour, wanted to land an
expeditionary force on the undefended north coast of Australia and at
least terrorize the sub-continent with a division or two. General
Yamashita, the hero of Singapore, seconded Yamamoto and offered to
lead the invasion himself. Despite the vasteness of Australian
distances, he felt that it would be feasible to land a division almost
immediately at Darwin and thrust hard and fast down the north-south
railroad and road links (DT: all earth in those days) toward Adelaide
and Melbourne on the south coast. Later, he supposed, a second
division could leapfrog its way from port to port down toward Sydney.
Tough as they might be, not even Australian civilians, he felt, would
be any match for disciplined troops…
General Tojo, the Prime Minister, and most of the elders in the
General staff spoke against the Yamamoto-Yamashita plan. Admiral
Nagumo’s air raid on Darwin had been a successfully improvised
spectacular, but full scale invasion was another matter. The general
staff had no well-considered contingency plans for such an operation.
In the Australian barrens, a Japanese force would have to depend
entirely on supplies from the rear. The Japanese merchant fleet was
already taxed to the utmost without taking on new assignments. Also,
if the United States became alarmed and poured Flying Fortresses into
Sydney, it would be difficult to maintain air superiority. On the
Australian badlands Japanese columns would be fearfully vulnerable to
long range, high-level air attack.
On reviewing the arguments of both sides, Hirohito decided that the
invasion of Australia could be POSTPONED (DT: my emphasis) until after
the conquest of Burma…."
Successes by Australian forces in New Guinea and elsewhere and of US
forces, marine, Army and Naval in the Islands meant that these PLANS
were SHELVED, as it turned out...indefinitely. But plans they most
certainly were.
It must be noted that the two most successful (massively so) Japanese
military leaders, the legendary Admiral Yamamoto and General
Yamashita, thought well of the idea of invasion of Australia. Note
for later discussion that the second, later, second "division" would
leapfrog its way from port to port (DT: that is, along the Queensland
coast) down toward Sydney. Note also that Hirohito was no mere token
ruler but the central and active war leader.
Note also that the perceived problems with the plans would have
diminished had the war gone well for Japan (eg. supply lines). It
seems to me that the first invasion: down the centre through Alice
Springs was a nonsense but that the Second would have made sense,
partly because there is some evidence that the "Brisbane Line" was
more than a military line of defence, but rather had political
significance - preparation for Japanese occupation north of it and a
Quisling government in the South. I have read that the Germans had
agreed to Japanese occupation, but with an "Aryan Homeland" in
Tasmania. Such an "agreement" speaks volumes for the pragmatic nature
of German "race loyalty" and the primacy of their purely imperial
goals.
nada
> significance - preparation for Japanese occupation north of it and a
> Quisling government in the South. I have read that the Germans had
> agreed to Japanese occupation, but with an "Aryan Homeland" in
> Tasmania. Such an "agreement" speaks volumes for the pragmatic nature
> of German "race loyalty" and the primacy of their purely imperial
> goals.
I think this backs up my point against those that believe Aust. was
targested for "occupation". No where does this follow and the details
of that plan...I had not read about following the rail link...that I
had read involved a different sort.
The argument that came up was "invasion and occupation". What almost
all the writers, "PC" or not, have noted is that there is nothing
written anywhere about even a future "occupation", that is,
subjugation of Australia and it's people to the Japanese Empire. The
idea was to 'destroy' Australia by destruction of it's rail and port
links, industries, burning it's cities, etc. To "reduce" Australia to
a subsistence level...and then leave. This is different than, say,
Korea and China which were due for annexation, essentially. I hadn't
known this until I looked up on the Wiki entry on post-WWII population
transfers and there were *millions* of Japanese civilians repatriated
from Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan after WWII, a clear case of colonial-
settlerism. Australia was never seen in this light.
Interestingly, the US was seen in this light. At the lowest rung of
possible, but improbably developments should the U.S. be totally
defeated with the help of Germany, there was "a" plan to divide the
United States up between German and Japan with Germany running 7/8ths
of the U.S. east to West and the west coast falling into Japanese
hands. Essentially a 'think tank' 'could be' 'if conditions permit'
"plan". The Germans, of course, had far more extensive such plans, of
course.
David
Dusty
> > On Jul 11, 12:36 am, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
David Walters:
“One person originally believed there were plans to invade Australia,
propagated by the Allies to mobilize the fear among Aussies of this
potential invasion and expected occupation. “
What on Earth does this mean? If there “were plans” to invade
Australia,
why would the “Allies” have to “propagate” them. All that was needed
was to REPORT them to a population that overwhelmingly expected (like
Trotsky did, or anyone with more than half a brain did) the Japanese
to invade as the opportunity presented itself, and they were not going
to, did not, hang about giving them that opportunity. That is why
there was little opposition from the Australian population for
conscription for service to the Islands north of Australia –
conscription for overseas service you may recall was vigorously
opposed by more than half the Australian population in WW 1
particularly a significant majority of working class Australians.
David Walters:
“We know now, and the Allies knew then, that this was bogus since it
would of been physically impossible for the Japan's Imperial Army to
do any such thing and did not have plans for this as it turns out.”
(1) What documents can you cite that “the Allies knew then”?????
(2) Who “knows” NOW – just you? What documents can you cite?
As I reported some time ago, with appropriate quotes, the scholar
David Bergamini (no, he’s not God, but if he’s wrong, and been proved
so, what is the scholarly or whatever…evidence?) wrote of these plans
and their TEMPORARY SHELVING in his voluminous and authoritative book
Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy.
David Walters:
“It was also not in Japan's military interest to do this since the
limits
of the potential boundary of the "Asian Co-Prosperity Zone" may of
extended to the border of Iran and all Asian' countries, but simply
did not include Australia.”
Trotsky, who had studied and released the Tanaka Memorial about
Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy thought otherwise – and he was an expert
in the Far East and Japan. His written material to Australians as
early as 1937 anticipated a VERY serious threat to Australian
sovereignty from Imperial Japan. Was Trotsky talking of invasion, loss
of sovereignty to "stir up" non-existent fears and willingness to
sacrifice for the war effort?
Trotsky in the “Baked Letter” to Australian Trotskyists:
“Naturally no Australian worker or farmer wishes to be conquered and
subjected to Japan. For a revolutionary party it would be suicidal to
say simply we are "indifferent" to this question.”
And in an interview with the Sydney Sunday Sun:
“(1) Japan wishes to turn China into its India. In order to assure
domination over this tremendous land, it is necessary to make the
western part of the Pacific Ocean into a Japanese sea. Australia will
encircle this future "Japanese sea" from the south. It is imperative
for Japan to find a point of support in Australia.
The strategic position of your continent can only sharpen the appetite
of the Japanese military. You live too far from both England and the
United States. The nearest English base, Singapore, can have only an
auxiliary and temporary importance.
Besides these purely military considerations, the attractive force of
Australia is itself considerable. On the Japanese Islands there are
175 inhabitants per square kilometer; in Australia there is about one
inhabitant in the same space. Australia is rich in different primary
materials which Japan lacks.
Every Australian, including babies in the cradle, consumes about 100
kilos of food per year while the Italian consumes only 15 kilos
(Mussolini's pompous nationalism, as you see, has a distinctly Lenten
character) and the Japanese a still tinier amount.
It will not be an exaggeration to say that the fate of Australia, at
least in 50 percent, is being decided in Shanghai and China in
general. Support of the war of liberation of the Chinese nation
against the Japanese plunderers represents one of the most important
conditions for the defense of the independence of Australia and New
Zealand.”
unquote
David Walters
> The argument that came up was "invasion and occupation". What almost
> all the writers, "PC" or not, have noted is that there is nothing
> written anywhere about even a future "occupation", that is,
> subjugation of Australia and it's people to the Japanese Empire. The
> idea was to 'destroy' Australia by destruction of it's rail and port
> links, industries, burning it's cities, etc. To "reduce" Australia to
> a subsistence level...and then leave. This is different than, say,
> Korea and China which were due for annexation, essentially. I hadn't
> known this until I looked up on the Wiki entry on post-WWII population
> transfers and there were *millions* of Japanese civilians repatriated
> from Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan after WWII, a clear case of colonial-
> settlerism. Australia was never seen in this light.
If you are just talking of mass settlement, by Japanese, it is true
that Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan were preferred. (China was already
fairly densely populated - particularly in the huge and fertile river
valleys). But they would most certainly have populated Australia with
Japanese overlords, destroyed all peoples' institutions, any notion of
sovereignty and likely have sent Coolie labour their from depopulated
areas that they wanted for Japanese settlement or just as sources of
this labour. This was always what the big bourgeoisie did/tried to do
in Australia, in the traditions of the British Empire. It was the
working people of Australia whose Communist party and Left Labour who
would have been the core of the resistance, just as they fought to
warn the Australian people of the Japanese danger before the war and
struck in support of the Chinese people's resistance against Imperial
Japan (in particular in Port Kembla), and just as the working people
defeated their own big bourgeoisie's attempts to do so in the
Nineteenth century.
nada
> On Jul 12, 4:08 am, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Jul 11, 12:36 am, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> David Walters:
> “One person originally believed there were plans to invade Australia,
> propagated by the Allies to mobilize the fear among Aussies of this
> potential invasion and expected occupation. “
>
> What on Earth does this mean? If there “were plans” to invade
> Australia,
> why would the “Allies” have to “propagate” them.
Because they needed the keep political pressure up for mobilization.
The allies, *at that time* knew squat about Japanese intentions and no
one has any documents to suggest other wise, Trotsky, included. It was
a supposition, of course, and not a bad one. But any talk of a
Japanese *occupation* was so much poppycock back then.
> All that was needed
> was to REPORT them to a population that overwhelmingly expected (like
> Trotsky did, or anyone with more than half a brain did) the Japanese
> to invade as the opportunity presented itself, and they were not going
> to, did not, hang about giving them that opportunity.
I don't disagree with this. The same is true of the United States.
Propaganda in 1942, in newspapers, etc talked about a potential German
invasion, even though those plans were reported as 'factual' the US
didn't learn of any of this until after the war. It was *pure*
propaganda.
> That is why
> there was little opposition from the Australian population for
> conscription for service to the Islands north of Australia –
> conscription for overseas service you may recall was vigorously
> opposed by more than half the Australian population in WW 1
> particularly a significant majority of working class Australians.
I agree.
> David Walters:
> “We know now, and the Allies knew then, that this was bogus since it
> would of been physically impossible for the Japan's Imperial Army to
> do any such thing and did not have plans for this as it turns out.”
>
> (1) What documents can you cite that “the Allies knew then”?????
If you do an amazon search for WWII there are plenty of authors who
write about this stuff. In fact what I read was from 25 years ago when
my interest in WWII started to develop.
> (2) Who “knows” NOW – just you? What documents can you cite?
No, and none of these documents, cited in books, contridict
necessarily what you are arguing.
> As I reported some time ago, with appropriate quotes, the scholar
> David Bergamini (no, he’s not God, but if he’s wrong, and been proved
> so, what is the scholarly or whatever…evidence?) wrote of these plans
> and their TEMPORARY SHELVING in his voluminous and authoritative book
> Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy.
The plans were not known until AFTER WWII which is my point.
> David Walters:
> “It was also not in Japan's military interest to do this since the
> limits
> of the potential boundary of the "Asian Co-Prosperity Zone" may of
> extended to the border of Iran and all Asian' countries, but simply
> did not include Australia.”
>
> Trotsky, who had studied and released the Tanaka Memorial about
> Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy thought otherwise – and he was an expert
> in the Far East and Japan. His written material to Australians as
> early as 1937 anticipated a VERY serious threat to Australian
> sovereignty from Imperial Japan. Was Trotsky talking of invasion, loss
> of sovereignty to "stir up" non-existent fears and willingness to
> sacrifice for the war effort?
No really, no document that I'm aware of has Australia as part of the
Co-Prosperity Zone. IF there is one, and Bergamini has cited it, I'd
be interested. Trotsky was purely speculating on the *nature* of
Japanese Imperialism. The Tanaka Memorial neither implies or states
anything to say they were going to enslave Australia like they did
Korea and China.
>
> Trotsky in the “Baked Letter” to Australian Trotskyists:
> “Naturally no Australian worker or farmer wishes to be conquered and
> subjected to Japan. For a revolutionary party it would be suicidal to
> say simply we are "indifferent" to this question.”
Good propaganda. He still opposed the War, obviously, as he considered
Austr. an ajunct of the UK.
> And in an interview with the Sydney Sunday Sun:
> “(1) Japan wishes to turn China into its India. In order to assure
> domination over this tremendous land, it is necessary to make the
> western part of the Pacific Ocean into a Japanese sea. Australia will
> encircle this future "Japanese sea" from the south. It is imperative
> for Japan to find a point of support in Australia.
> The strategic position of your continent can only sharpen the appetite
> of the Japanese military. You live too far from both England and the
> United States. The nearest English base, Singapore, can have only an
> auxiliary and temporary importance.
> Besides these purely military considerations, the attractive force of
> Australia is itself considerable. On the Japanese Islands there are
> 175 inhabitants per square kilometer; in Australia there is about one
> inhabitant in the same space. Australia is rich in different primary
> materials which Japan lacks.
Still, no evidence, I suspect even from Bergamini, that such a real
occupation was going to happen. I think the Japanese interest in
Australia was still basically military as it represented the UK in
Asia as much as Singapore or Hong Kong or India did.
> Every Australian, including babies in the cradle, consumes about 100
> kilos of food per year while the Italian consumes only 15 kilos
> (Mussolini's pompous nationalism, as you see, has a distinctly Lenten
> character) and the Japanese a still tinier amount.
And this is significant how exactly?
>
> It will not be an exaggeration to say that the fate of Australia, at
> least in 50 percent, is being decided in Shanghai and China in
> general. Support of the war of liberation of the Chinese nation
> against the Japanese plunderers represents one of the most important
> conditions for the defense of the independence of Australia and New
> Zealand.”
> unquote
Very accurate, IMO. However, as it happens, it was wrong. the fate of
Australia was decided at Midway, the Battle of the Coral Sea and the
famous Turkey Shoot. THAT is what decided Australia's fate.
> If you are just talking of mass settlement, by Japanese, it is true
> that Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan were preferred. (China was already
> fairly densely populated - particularly in the huge and fertile river
> valleys). But they would most certainly have populated Australia with
> Japanese overlords, destroyed all peoples' institutions, any notion of
> sovereignty and likely have sent Coolie labour their from depopulated
> areas that they wanted for Japanese settlement or just as sources of
> this labour.
could of/would of/should of...the 1941 plans of imperialist Japan did
not include this and THAT is my point. Everything else, literally, is
just speculation. Of course there was no reason at all to think
otherwise if you were an Aussie and inculcated against all things
Asian *anyway*.
Dusty
I will not try to double up yet again on this now mish-mash, of both
our making.
However, instead of just saying that there are "plenty of sources on
the net" it would facilitate worthwhile discussion if you would
actually quote them - you after all have had extensive experience in
archive preparation. I actually want to KNOW the sources. My starting
position is extreme scepticism of modern historical writing on
questions like this but I am willing to amend my position should
strong evidence be presented.
Much of what Trotsky wrote, as Deutscher says in the triple volume
biography was prognostication. He did get a lot wrong. The China one
referred to above was an exaggeration for sure. He mixed
prognostication with agitation/optimism. But I say he was right on the
certainty of occupation, always depending on being able to do it with
relative ease.
You say that Australia's future was decided by the Yanks. Certainly
few Australians would dispute that, adding that our effort and
sacrifice was not negligible, but considerable and that the Yanks were
using Australia as a base for their own interests. You recall that the
British were routed in Malaya and Singapore and the British battleship
Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse were sunk by land-based
bombers and torpedo bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Britain was
driven out. Australia was alone - it was then that forces were brought
back against Churchill's (and some here too) will and the US-Australia
Alliance established.
At this point it seems of interest to ask the question: if the US
forces had not come into the War what would the Japanese have then
planned for Australia?
The substance of what you are saying is that Japan would have invaded
Australia but not occupied it.
I say they would have garrisoned it and populated it with coolie slave
labour, supplemented by white Australian slave labour. Aside from
white slavery and Ottoman child abduction, this and Nazi and Japanese
WW II slavery would have been the first time any major enslavement of
peoples of European origin had occurred since ancient times.
There is evidence that sections of the bourgeoisie were prepared to
act as quislings in return for certain concessions. This later of
course is by its nature more speculative than the former. I have never
doubted that Australia was not as important an economic target as the
highly populated, better watered, more fertile and already conquered
and more accessible areas of north and SE Asia. But it was still of
great importance as a source of raw materials. In this it would have
been a prototype of the NY bankers "Pacific Rim Strategy", first
propagated by the Rockefeller Foundation and white anted into
existence by their clones in Australia, against the left of the
Australian labour movement.
I will post my evidence later.
jh
As to what the Japanese had in mind for Australia, I have no idea.
But the overall political point should be clear enough.
All nations have the right to national self-determination. Certainly
Australia is a nation. Therefore Trotsky was absolutely right to say
that revolutionaries should not be indifferent to the desire of
Australian workers and farmers not to be conquered by Japan.
But in the context of WWII in the Pacific, this was an imperial war
between Japan and the USA. Australian national self-determination was
just as irrelevant to the big picture as was Belgian or Serbian
national self-detemination during WWI.
Defense of Australia really meant defense of US imperialism in Asia,
which Australia was just a jackal power for, in very much the same way
as Isreal is nowadays in the Middle East with respect to Iran for
example.
Of course, when you have Australian troops in New Guinea, even if you
forget the US they are not defending Australia, they are lording it
over New Guinea, which is now essentially an Australian colony innit?
-jh-
Dusty
> As to what the Japanese had in mind for Australia, I have no idea.
>
> But the overall political point should be clear enough.
>
> All nations have the right to national self-determination. Certainly
> Australia is a nation. Therefore Trotsky was absolutely right to say
> that revolutionaries should not be indifferent to the desire of
> Australian workers and farmers not to be conquered by Japan.
>
> But in the context of WWII in the Pacific, this was an imperial war
> between Japan and the USA. Australian national self-determination was
> just as irrelevant to the big picture as was Belgian or Serbian
> national self-detemination during WWI.
>
> Defense of Australia really meant defense of US imperialism in Asia,
> which Australia was just a jackal power for, in very much the same way
> as Isreal is nowadays in the Middle East with respect to Iran for
> example.
>
> Of course, when you have Australian troops in New Guinea, even if you
> forget the US they are not defending Australia, they are lording it
> over New Guinea, which is now essentially an Australian colony innit?
>
> -jh-
I wonder what programmatic implications Sherlock sees as arising from
his evaluation?
Dusty
Here is an important source from a volume by the Australian Communist
journalist of high repute and courage.
It is replete with evidence of pre-war collaboration between sections
of the bourgeoisie and their minions and the connections between this
and the internationalist actions of the Port Kembla wharfies and other
Australian working and patriotic people in support of the Chinese
masses in resisting the brutal invasion by Imperial Japan, as well as
numerous aspects of the war in the South Pacific.
It is well written and full of interesting, at times amusing,
anecdotes about these events and the historic personages involved.
Rupert Lockwood, WAR ON THE WATERFRONT, Hale and Iremonger, 1987.
Appendix III Australia under Sato
Kennosuke Sato, well known to influential Australians, American-
educated and speaking near-perfect English, was chosen as 'Chief Civil
Administrator' or Gauleiter for Japanese-occupied Australia. Printing
of Japanese Government currency notes — the one shown was captured in
New Guinea in 1942 — indicated that the Imperial Staff in Tokio was
confident of conquest, that Chief Civil Administrator did not intend
to pay much for labour, goods and services, under the occupation and
that Port Kembla watersiders were right in their predictions and
Canberra and BHP appeasers very wrong.
Sato, in a postwar interview with correspondent Denis Warner,
published in the Melbourne Herald of 1 January 1946, had faith in the
important personalities he contacted during a pre-war visit of eight
months to 'case the joint', as Australians would put it. The Warner
interview said:
Sato, who mentioned by name many leading Australians as friends of
his, said he was quite certain that a good many Australians would have
been prepared to collaborate — cooperate was his word — with the
Japanese.
Sato, described as an 'editor', arrived in April 1935 to study
Australian political and economic affairs, and no doubt military
matters, with the 'Pacific Economic Inspection Party'. In September
1935 the Japanese Consul-General in Sydney was notifying inquirers
that Charles Hugh Cousens — the one who broadcast from Tokio Radio in
wartime — was acting on behalf of Ken Sato. Cousens' broadcasts from
Tokio, like the activities of P. R. Stephensen, Adela Pankhurst Walsh,
J. C. Sleeman and other lesser lights, were not nearly as crucial as
the aid given to Ken Sato by the Australian Government, leading
industrialists, financiers, economists, shipping, land transport and
media executives, importers and wool and metal magnates.
'I probably know more about Australian than you do', Sato told Denis
Warner. 'I have a pile of information feet high.' Sato, according to
Warner, 'was given every facility through leading Australians for
laying the foundations for his ultimate job as Chief Civilian
Administrator'. Sato collected much of his information on Australia
'by monitoring Australian broadcasts, from espionage and intelligence
and in some cases at the notorious Ofuna camp. . . .'
Information gathering at Ofuna camp qualified Sato for a war crimes
sentence, but obviously highly placed Australian friends wanted no
trial. Geoffrey Tebbutt, well-known Pacific war correspondent, noted
in a Melbourne Herald article of 2 January 1946, headed, Jap Who
Expected to Govern Australia', that Sato 'had a close association with
the horrifying camp at Ofuna, where selected Allied prisoners were
held in secrecy and treated with systematic brutality in attempts to
wring information from them.' Four months before in Yokohama, Pilot-
Officer Geoffrey Lempriere, Ofuna prisoner, described Sato to Tebbutt
as 'a horrible brute'. Ofuna ex-prisoners charged that Sato was
primarily responsible for the bad treatment of Australian nurses
captured at Rabaul and locked up at the Yokohama Yacht Club. One of
the officers to suffer at Sato's hands in Ofuna said: 'There was no
doubt about his knowledge of Australia.' Sato told prisoners at Ofuna
that he was a 'special public relations officer' for the Co-Prosperity
Sphere.
As Australians were accustomed to the appointment of an overseas
Governor-General, the Japanese proposed to appoint a vice-regal envoy
(probably an Imperial Navy man) who could help Sato enforce a switch
of'Emperors' to be worshipped.
Kennosuke Sato was well versed in ritual punishments of occupied
cities. Seconded into the Japanese Army with rank of Lieutenant-
General after the China invasion, he was at Nanking and Hankow, and
observed the Nanking massacre. Port Kembla would no doubt have held
pride of place on his hit-list. As plans for the Pacific War were
maturing in Tokio, Sato, was brought in to take control of the
Australian Section, Japanese Naval Intelligence early in 1941.
Invasion of Australia was scheduled for the autumn of 1942, provided
all went well in the conquest of South-East Asia. The Australian
invasion was primarily a Navy responsibility. 'I have very good
information', Sato told Denis Warner, 'because I was always at the
nerve centre of the Japanese Navy.' Before and for some time after
Singapore's fall Sato was busily devising the organisational framework
for his rule of subject Australia as 'Chief Civil Administrator'.
The invasion plan Sato revealed to Denis Warner in the 1 January 1946
Melbourne Herald interview listed the destination of many troopships
and escorting warships heading south in 1942 as the beaches between
Townsville and Brisbane. The Japanese, Sato said, 'were confident that
Brisbane could have been taken with the minimum of cost and
difficulty'. The second major objective was Sydney 'which probably
could have been attacked in a combined overland and amphibious
operation'. After Sydney's fall and the launching of the thrust to
Melbourne, the Australians 'were expected to surrender'.
As nearly all Australia's trained land, naval and air forces were
overseas under Menzies' policy — the Curtin Labor Government got most
of them back in time in the teeth of Churchill's opposition — the plan
may have succeeded but for unexpectedly stubborn American-Filipino
resistance in the Philippines, Australian victories at Milne Bay and
on the Owen Stanley Ranges approaches to Port Moresby, the US Navy's
sinkings of essential Japanese warships and disputes among Tokio
warlords. The Navy naturally wanted to cut America-Australia
communications to block the American-Australian drive northward; the
Army wanted to drive through Burma and India and link up with Nazi
forces expected to crash through the Caucasus into the Middle East.
In the decisive talks in Tokio the Japanese Army pointed out that
Australia was twice the size of occupied China. Conquest would demand
diversion of the main naval forces at Japan's disposal; the US Navy
had shown it was far from finished and could block supply lines, and
the Army could not provide twelve infantry divisions felt necessary,
nor were the required 1,500,000 tons (1,530,000 tonnes) of shipping
available.
So 'Chief Civil Administrator' Kennosuke Sato was denied the pleasure
of re-enacting a Nanking-style punishment on Port Kembla and the
waterfront labour forces round Australia. 'We didn't propose to treat
you harshly if you surrendered', Sato said at the Pacific War's end.
As surrender was not in the nature of the majority of Australians,
their treatment, as Sato admitted, 'would probably have been similar
to that accorded the Filipinos'. In the Philippines in the final
battle for Manila alone, the Japanese soldiery wantonly massacred some
100,000 men, women and children.
Kennosuke Sato should have been a top candidate for trial before the
Tokio War Crimes Tribunal headed by Mr Justice Webb of the Australian
High Court. Denis Warner in a 22 February 1946 dispatch to the
Melbourne Herald from Japan claimed that Sato was certain to be
arrested soon as a war criminal. Warner added that an investigation
ordered by General MacArthur some weeks ago into the activities of
Japanese Naval Intelligence will drag in several hundreds of Japanese
who were being groomed by Sato for administrative posts in Australia.
They included many wool-buyers and businessmen well known in Australia
before the war, and probably all the interrogators at the notorious
Ofuna camp, outside Tokio, where many Australians, including Flight-
Lieutenant Lempriere, Flight-Lieutenant Quinn and Lieut. Ted Best
suffered months of torture.
Australian officers from Ofuna and many other victims were puzzled
that the trials never took place. If Sato was prepared to name names
to an Australian journalist, he obviously would have been prepared to
give his list of leading 'cooperators' to a War Crimes Tribunal. This
list would have included men of considerable influence.
'Honorary Aryans' and the 'Volksdeutsch'
One of the most bizarre problems projected by the planned Japanese
occupation of Australia was the concern of Japan's Axis ally, Hitler
Germany, for the fate of the substantial number in Australia of German
extraction, particularly in South Australia, the Victorian Wimmera and
Western District, the New South Wales Riverina, Queensland's Darling
Downs, and other areas settled by German immigrants. The Nazis in
Australia and in Berlin were trying to embrace them as Volksdeutsch,
like the German-origin minorities in Poland, Rumania, the Baltic
States and elsewhere in Europe.
Extensive research by John Perkin (Economic History, University of New
South Wales) into prewar German activities in Australia, in both West
and East Germany where archives are available, and in Australia,
showed that the organised Nazis in Australia, though obliged to
support Japan and conferring the cynical status of 'honorary Aryans'
on their Asian Allies, did not want their Australian Volksdeutsch
under the rule of the conquering yellow men.
Their proposal was that those of German extraction or birth should be
re-settled in Tasmania, with autonomous rights: thus their Aryan blood
would not be sullied by co-habitation with 'Mongoloid' peoples.
(A point raised by John Perkin in general discussion at the conclusion
of his paper 'The German Chamber of Commerce in Australia', given at
Reaction in Australia Between the Wars Seminar, Sydney, 27 June 1987.)
Appendix IV Japan's designs on Australia
Japan's pledges that Australia would 'blossom like a rose . . . under
Nippon's guidance' were heard into 1943 and 1944 from broadcasters to
Australia, despite the 1942 setbacks on land and sea. The invasion of
Australia was only postponed, not abandoned. On 17 March 1943 Japan's
Batavia Radio* was distinguishing between cooperative suppliers of war
materials and people like watersiders who had refused to load them.
Australia before the war, said the radio spokesman, 'sent to Nippon
huge shipments of iron, steel and lead for war materials. Indeed, so
earnest was the Australian Government's desire to aid Nippon that dock-
workers with Communist tendencies who refused to load these war
materials out of sympathy with China were threatened with
imprisonment'. It was considered that the Lyons-Menzies Government
policy, as expressed against the boycotters of pig-iron, scrap-iron
and other war materials, showed a desire for partnership with Japan:
Australia has made one step in the logical realisation for her
position as a partner in Greater East Asia. If she will take the
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Monitorings of Japan's wartime broadcasts were published by Lucy D.
Meo in Japan's Radio War on Australia, 1941-45, a work of historic
significance. No action appears to have been taken against Australians
who participated in this radio campaign for Japanese colonisation.
Alan Raymond, Batavia Radio, was anti-British, anti-American and anti-
Semitic; the other Australian, John Holland, was telling Australians
from Tokio that Australia's future lay in 'complete cooperation with
the nations of East Asia, and the recognition of Japan as the guiding
light in the reconstruction of East Asia'.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
step, she will find Nippon not unmindful of the aid given by Australia
in the form of war materials to aid in the successful conclusion of
the China Incident.' The 'second step', as Batavia Radio made clear on
1 April 1943, was for Australia to place itself 'under the benign
influence of Nippon'.
While Co-Prosperity partnership was on offer to those who, in the
words of Sir Isaac Isaacs, acted 'not to prohibit, but on the contrary
to compel the supply of pig-iron to Japan for war purposes', a very
different fate was in store for Australian workers hostile to Tokio
war-makers. This Japanese opinion came from Batavia Radio on 10
January 1944:
“The Australian worker seems to hate every man who is more industrious
and thrifty than he, and he fears the competition of the men of Asia,
who are more careful with their money and more contented with simple
pleasures. The average Australian worker also hates the men of Asia
because they refrain from the false pleasures of race-courses,
drinking saloons and ' gambling dens, which are the Australians' only
object in life.”
Japan was already demonstrating its capacity for curing Australians of
such false pleasures on the Burma-Thailand Railway, laying sleepers
for the enrichment of contractor Iwazaki (later rewarded with
Queensland tourist sites at Yeppoon) and in Mitsui's Miike coal mines.
No radio time was wasted in seeking to win over Australian workers to
Co-Prosperity. They would be replaced by Asian serfs under Japanese
overseers.
Singapore Radio on 20 May 1943 beamed to Australia the opinions of a
Mr Tagaki, hailed as 'one of the greatest authorities' on the zone.
For development of the South Seas continent, Mr Tagaki had in mind
Japanese 'capitalists' and 'leaders of industry' and 'workers from
among Indians, Chinese and Indonesians'. Within ten years there would
be more than 30,000,000 Asians at work — quite a substantial migrant
intake. Australia would take on an importance 'second only to the
motherland' — a definition of Japan's role not likely to be
appreciated by displaced Anglo-Celtic Australians. 'It will become the
second capital of Japan, in the Southern Hemisphere', Singapore Radio
boasted, drawing upon the expertise of Mr Tagaki.
Ken Goto on Tokio Radio on 29 October 1943 contended that the North
Australian tropical climate made it practically impossible for
Europeans to live there, but Asians could thrive. The Asians could
grow cotton, jute and other products. As a member of Japan's Co-
Prosperity Sphere, Australia was destined to take Asians by the tens
of millions. Ken Goto gave estimates that Australia could well
accommodate from 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 Asians. As no mention was
made of any future under Japanese rule for European-origin Australians
except those who had shown their desire for partnership with Japan, it
is reasonable to assume that Port Kembla watersiders were opposing an
intended invader contemplating genocide. Genocidal intent was apparent
in the work-to-death brutalities against Australian prisoners-of-war
on the Burma-Thailand Railway.
nada
curious. I don't have a political stake at all in how 'bad' Japanese
imperialism was. However, the Communists lunge toward social-
patriotism is obvious. How is the Aussie view of the potential
Japanese invasion different from the American of...a Japanese invasion
and should American workers fall into the same Stalinist-Patrioctic
fewer as "On the Waterfront" expresses, and Dusty as well who seems
not interested in the integral part of Australia in the Imperialist
aspect of the war.
The Trotskyist position THEN was certainly clear, but I appreciate a
good revisionist take, a la Dusty, on WWII anyway, I for one have one
as well. Mine comes from the Proletarian Military Policy, not one of
social-patriotism, or, in Dusty's case "his proud Australian past". It
seems Dusty thinks Australia is not Imperialist or he certainly has a
new take on Trotskyism. Maybe he can explain. But anyone can see that
no one in Australia would want a Japanese invasion and would do what
they could to stop it.
My information comes from one William McGee's books I read years ago
(I think). Not in the Internet (since you asked). Just like none of
David Glantz' voluminous works on the Red Army is on the Internet, yet
he remains my authority on all things Red Army.
This piece however is certainly contradictory to anything I've read on
Japanese designs, especially on the extension of the Co-Prosperity
zone south of New Guinea. fascinating stuff.
Dusty
What a word jumble, full of uncalled for disparaging remarks about
myself but covering your arse by agreeing with my main point anyway.
Of course it was a fucking imperialist war you clown.
What are the programmatic conclusions arising from your cosmoplitan
"evaluation" - as distinct from the Communist Party of Australia's
THEN.
Sure they were Stalinists, sure, in the end they would call for the
return of the bourgeoisie, even probably after defeating a Japanese
invasion/occupation but they actually led very imporatnt sections of
the Australian working class and IN PRACTICE exercised more
internationalism in ONE WEEK of their existence than anything of the
outfits you or the other cosmopolitans on apst have done all their
political lives.
As I see it, the problem for the real Trotskyists (that is excluding
those whom I think were of the ilk of Sherlock and now yourself)
everywhere in that period was that they were small, but more
importantly, the Communists had the right line on the MAJOR ISSUES OF
THE DAY, making any kind of growth amongst the people almost
impossible for tiny Trotskyist groupings, except in the context of the
major Stalinist led resistance struggles.
jkau...@msn.com
I have heard that Australians celebrate June 4 (the victory at Midway) as a sort of National Holiday. Is that true? Do any Australians remember Adm Ernest B King, who disobeyed the British Prime minister, General Montgomery and Roosevelt to defend the South Pacific, in lieu of "Europe First?"
dusty
> Not to butt in or anything, but the US was convinced Hawaii would be invaded next by the Japanese for six months, until the Battle of Midway dispelled that notion. Furthermore, Japanese propaganda over Tokyo Rose made the claim that Australia was next. so whether the threat was credible or not, it seems the Japanese exploited it for all the terror value it held. It wasn't until the Battles of the Coral Sea, Midway and finally the Guadalcanal Campaign (Santa Cruz Islands, Savo Island, Eastern Solomons.....) that the threat was actually dispelled.
>
> I have heard that Australians celebrate June 4 (the victory at Midway) as a sort of National Holiday. Is that true? Do any Australians remember Adm Ernest B King, who disobeyed the British Prime minister, General Montgomery and Roosevelt to defend the South Pacific, in lieu of "Europe First?"
Clearly in war, any war, any side no matter what its political
complexion, propaganda is mixed with fact. I've established the very
real factual basis for Japanese invasion of Australia above, should
the possibility have arisen, keeping in mind that it wasn't a top
priority beside that of the petroleum, rubber, tin, tungsten,
aluminium, etc needed to fuel their war machine. Even in terms of
Japanese population resettlement Australia was very low on the list.
Not being a military expert I cannot respond adequately to the idea of
a Jap invasion of Hawaii, but it seems fanciful because of the
distances from Japan involved and doubly so given the pretty strong
retrospective claims that Pearl harbour was "allowed to happen" so as
to break the very strong US domestic resistance to war.
We celebrate the "victory" of the joint Australian and American naval
force against the Japanese in the largely aircraft carrier based
Battle of the Coral Sea.
Along the North Queensland coast, particularly at Townsville there are
memorials to that important battle. Many Americans, along with
Australians, pay homage to their servicemen at those memorials.
dusty
"...it seems fanciful because of the distances from Japan..."
given of course the close proximity to the USA. Fears felt then of Jap
invasion of Hawaii as any kind of seriously contemplated short to
medium term strategy were likely pure propaganda directed at
mobilizing the American people for the sacrifices needed to execute
the Pacific War.
and
"...We celebrate the "victory" of the joint Australian and American
force against the Japanese in the largely aircraft carrier based
The end result was that damage inflicted by both sides was pretty well
equal, but the relative cost of such losses to the Japanese was
greater.
ham...@optusnet.com.au
This is a very interesting thread however today there is a lot more information available which shows up some glaring errors in the assumptions made by Rupert Lockwoods about Ken Sato having highly placed Australian friends and his activities prior to the fall of Singapore. He also makes an error [or perhaps it is a transcription error] as the radio broadcast by Ken Goto on the 29th Oct was made in 1942 not 1943. This information comes from Lucy Meo's Japan Radio War on Australia [page 217]. I suspect that even Meo has noted the incorrect year as in her end notes [chapter 5 number 3] she states that Goto didn't broadcast after June 1942. When you understand who Goto was there was a good reason why he didn't broadcast after mid 1942.
track...@yahoo.com.au
"...there is a lot more information available which shows up some glaring errors in the assumptions made by Rupert Lockwoods about Ken Sato having highly placed Australian friends and his activities prior to the fall of Singapore."
What primary sources would you cite to substantiate this?
ham...@optusnet.com.au
The story of Ken Sato is long and complicated. From the extract you quoted above one has to assume that Lockwoods primary sources were the post war articles written by Denis Warner and Geoffrey Tebutt in 1946.
To answer your question, Lockwood wrote:
“Information gathering at Ofuna camp qualified Sato for a war crime
If Lockwood is correct, the question is who were his highly placed friends in Australia who had enough authority to override General Douglas MacArthur in Japan?
In an effort to justify his theory Lockwood later quotes from Denis Warners article “Sato, Jap “Ruler” Of Australia Faces Arrest” https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245948343?searchTerm=Ken%20Sato&searchLimits=exactPhrase|||anyWords|||notWords|||requestHandler|||dateFrom=1946-01-01|||dateTo=1946-12-31|||l-advstate=Victoria|||sortby
Warner added that an investigation
ordered by General MacArthur some weeks ago into the activities of
Japanese Naval Intelligence will drag in several hundreds of Japanese
who were being groomed by Sato for administrative posts in Australia.
They included many wool-buyers and businessmen well known in Australia
before the war, and probably all the interrogators at the notorious
Ofuna camp, outside Tokio, where many Australians, including Flight-
Lieutenant Lempriere, Flight-Lieutenant Quinn and Lieut. Ted Best
suffered months of torture.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=649030
Sato was smart. He told his interviewers enough without implicating himself.
On page 2 of his record of his interview Sato states that in the first six months of the war the Australian research section, to which he had been seconded, was very enthusiastic. He doesn’t elaborate on this but it was in the first six months of the war that Radio Tokyo’s propaganda was trying to persuade Australia that her interests lay in co-operation and participation in Japan’s “New Order” in the “Greater East Asia”. When these broadcasts were received in Australia the listening post recorded the announcers name as Ken Goto. Strangely, other than in the listening post files, there is no mention of any announcer by the name of Goto at Radio Tokyo. Charles Cousens never mentions a Ken Goto nor do the other inmates of Bunka or Ofuna Camps that were associated with Radio Tokyo. As Lucy Meo noted in Japans Radio War, he obviously had a very good knowledge of Australia and was a very capable commentator.
There is also a file on Ofuna in the Melbourne archives which contains statements and information about how the officers named by Warner were enticed to broadcast for the Japanese.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3006998
The lark force officers and nurses [from Rabaul] arrived in Japan on July 14th 1942 [this is prior to the arrival of Charles Cousins from Singapore]. The officers were first taken to the pre-war American Yokohama rowing club. The nurses who were disembarked separately were put through a customs inspection [more like tourists than prisoners]prior to being put up at the Bund Hotel where received excellent treatment. Whilst at the club house the officers were interviewed by Baron Takasaki Masamitsu. From the sixty Lark Force officers the Japanese selected six, for special treatment at the Ofuna camp. They included Colonel Scanlon, the commanding officer of Lark force, Major J. C. “Mick” Mollard a Melbourne business man, Lieutenant Ted Best a well-known athlete who had competed in the Empire games, Lieutenant Phillip Bateman and Lieutenant John Gibson a former A.B.C. Announcer and Geoffrey Raoul Lempriere. [This was later refined down to four when Mollard and Scanlon were transferred to Zentsuji camp in August.] Although it is not clear I suspect that it is at this point Sato becomes involved with the Lark Force Officers. Lempriere was from a family of well-known Victorian wool buyers who had done business with Japanese firms for many years prior to the war. From 17th May to 10th of June 1943 Lempriere was held below the Yokohama Rowing Club where he was regularly visited by Sato who was trying to get him to transcribe records for broadcasting.
I could go on but my point is that from very early in the war the Japanese authorities recognised and utilised Sato’s expertise on Australia. He gain his knowledge from those he had met in Australia in 1935 and from the information he had gathered for the magazine Japan Australia New Zealand that was produced both in English and Japanese in 1936.
When Denis Warner was writing his articles in 1946, [which seems to be the primary source of Lockwoods information] he knew none of this.
So why didn’t Sato get charged with war crimes?
Well I suspect there is possibly a number of reasons.
At the end of the war Radio Tokyo had two consultants on Australian affairs. One was Sato the other was Viscount Norizane Ikeda [they could possibly have worked together at times – see Chapman Ivan Tokyo Calling – The Charles Cousens Case]. Ikeda had been interned in Australia at the outbreak of war but was released by Curtin and returned to Japan in August 1942. The secret negotiations leading to Ikeda’s release from Australia, as part of a diplomatic party, was covered by the thirty-year non-disclosure rule post war. Circumstantial evidence available today suggests that as the recognised Japanese Australian expert [in Japan at that time] Sato may have been involved in a small way with the negotiations.
However, there is possibly a better reason why Sato wasn’t charged with war crimes. Yes, he had friends in high places but they weren’t Australian they were Japanese. On the 23rd January 1946 William Macmahon Ball was appointed British Commonwealth member of the Allied Council for Japan by Dr Evatt. Ball's diary for the 22nd April 1946 has him at a lunch organised by Prince Tokugawa. He notes that amongst the prince’s other guests was an ex war correspondent named Saito [sic]. At the lunch Saito heavily plugged Ball about the need for Japan to be given many more opportunities for the restoring her external trade and particularly for getting to raw materials. This was Ken Sato. [for information on Sato’s involvement with Australian post war trade see:
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=209189
I won’t go into the politics of it but needless to say Chifley and Evatt had their hands full post war. Although Australia was sitting on a mountain of wool that had been stock piled during the war the last thing Australians wanted to hear was that we had recommenced trading with Japan.
track...@yahoo.com.au
Of course there was some resistance when Japanese goods started to 'flood' (!) into Australia, but, from memory, they still sold pretty well except among those who lost sons and brothers under the cruel heel of the Japanese military - along with plenty more - were outraged.
ham...@optusnet.com.au
track...@yahoo.com.au
ham...@optusnet.com.au
> Well then, let me try to guess. Could it have been that the retention of the Emperor on the throne (a big "concession" given his role in the War) was critical to Allied (US) plans to manage Japan Post War and that forces close to the Emperor insisted that Sato (part of that inner circle) not be tried?
The Japanese weren't interested in Sato except that he [as a journalist who had gathered a lot of information about Australia in the mid-1930s] had found a niche as an expert on Australia. The Americans had no interest in him at all. However, as our archival files note, the Australian government did. Just after the war Sato was running around Tokyo talking to every Australian, he could find. He even invited them back to his home to meet his family.
Last year alone he was mentioned in two new publications as talking to Australian service men in Tokyo in 1946.
You’ve written in a previous post:
questions like this but I am willing to amend my position should
strong evidence be presented.
However, it is very difficult when perusing an answer when you get to the series of files where the information you seek should reside and you come across a note like the one below in the official archives:
The files in this series were culled before transfer to Archives, in 1947, according to note found with the remaining files, and in 1957 approximately half of this series was destroyed.
So, then the question is why cull the files in 1947 and destroy files [presumably held under the thirty-year non-disclosure]rule in 1957? I accept there may be many reasons why this might have occurred. By sheer coincidence 1957 was the year that Vol.IV of the official history of WW2 The Japanese Thrust was published.
This leaves me in a position where by I can tell you why events happened the way they did, which makes far better sense than the conclusions come to by the post war official histories written on the subject [like Lockwood the official historians were relying on the only sources of information available to them at that time] but you will then ask me "what primary sources would you cite to substantiate this". I can give some primary sources to support my position [which is more than the official histories offer]but most is circumstantial evidence and I am yet to find a smoking gun.
I think historian Margaret McMillian put it best:
"History is a process and there is not one truth about the past, just as there is not one truth about the present. It will depend, in part, on where you are looking at it from, but what I think you have to try and do in History,
and confronting the present, is to recognize that your view is a limited one and it may not be the only one. And try and be aware of other angles and aspects. I think what history also has to do is sort out what people think they believe (and what we think we believe) from what actually happened.
We have views of the past that are simply not borne out by the evidence."
I'm thinking of writing a bit more about Sato in he near future.
track...@yahoo.com.au
I think the philosophical stand you approve of (that of Margaret McMillan) grasps important elements in the process of understanding the world in general, but is in danger of liquidating objectivity into subjectivity. To convince me that I am wrong in this, I’d need it illustrated in relation to how it might affect, say, the culpability of Sato under the Geneva Conventions on War and just why he wasn’t brought to trial. How is that very subjective? Perhaps it was so objective that large numbers of files had to be destroyed by Australian government officials to make it so (‘subjective’).
As to finding a “smoking gun”, far be it for me to advise you, but the method used by David Irving suggests itself…where critical evidence is (perhaps made) unavailable from the first go-to primary source, consult the diaries and correspondence (this may require some research in itself, searching out even personal confidants and involve the necessity of traveling to other lands) of the central historical actors where critical material may not have been censored, some ‘dropped’ in passing, or at least implied by the general narrative. He has done this with what can only be called…great genius. I’d imagine that this would have been widely recognised except for the fact that in his the exploration of his highly controversial subject matter, he eventually went “too far”.
ham...@optusnet.com.au
track...@yahoo.com.au
ham...@optusnet.com.au
> Nothing. Other fish to fry. But it seems to me that it is subject matter very worthy of investigation - in itself - but mainly because it is bound to throw light on something far more important: the priorities of imperialist and (subordinate) sub-imperialist governments in times of war (and beyond).
track...@yahoo.com.au
Perhaps I cover the 'conclusions' based on your evidence in the discussion with D Walters below. It's only in the broad picture that things are 'simple'; when we get down to specifics, they're rarely or never so. Like this:
ham...@optusnet.com.au
> On Tuesday, April 2, 2019 at 7:36:29 PM UTC+11, ham...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
> > On Tuesday, 2 April 2019 19:12:12 UTC+11, track...@yahoo.com.au wrote:
> > > Nothing. Other fish to fry. But it seems to me that it is subject matter very worthy of investigation - in itself - but mainly because it is bound to throw light on something far more important: the priorities of imperialist and (subordinate) sub-imperialist governments in times of war (and beyond).
> >
> > From what I have read Drew Cottle and Shane Cahill would agree with you however the primary source evidence I have points in a different direction.
>
> I am aware of their work, particularly the former's on the highly controversial 'Brisbane Line' which was used for election purposes.
>
> Perhaps I cover the 'conclusions' based on your evidence in the discussion with D Walters below. It's only in the broad picture that things are 'simple'; when we get down to specifics, they're rarely or never so. Like this:
I found your David Irving quote interesting:
"consult the diaries and correspondence (this may require some research in itself, searching out even personal confidants and involve the necessity of traveling to other lands) of the central historical actors where critical material may not have been censored, some ‘dropped’ in passing, or at least implied by the general narrative".
I realise that with a forum title like alt.politics.socialism.trotsky I am probably barking up the wrong tree but at least you are interested in Sato even if it is for the wrong reason.
If you want to believe that Sato was a spy, who cultivated friends in high places during the Japanese Good Will visit of 1935, [and somehow they they were all just going to fall into line to be his minions, if Japan invaded Australia] so be it. However, the evidence used to support this theory doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.
track...@yahoo.com.au
I have discussed the question of a latent Australian fifth column, along with that of the related Brisbane line with a prominent left wing Australian historian and he tends to dismiss it. I have my doubts because, in the event of a Japanese occupation, latent tendencies among sections of the Australian bourgeoisie would express themselves like they did in many European nations and collaborators would appear from among the earlier "suspects". 'Fortunately' this was never tested and nor was Sato's possible role in it all.
Depending on ones politics - or naivety - we can see this in operation today with the paid role of ex-political 'leaders' along with an army of others in doing the bidding of the Chinese. Of course today we don't have the glue of the British Empire nor of the Australian manufacturing bourgeoisie and a racially homogeneous population as in the 1930's.
ham...@optusnet.com.au
> Not Irving's quote, but my interpretation of what he says and has done. He makes a big point about hunting down 'inaccessible' primary sources in this controversial area, versus a certain terror driven PC incestuousness practiced by what he contemptuously calls, the 'mainstream' historians.
> I have discussed the question of a latent Australian fifth column, along with that of the related Brisbane line with a prominent left wing Australian historian and he tends to dismiss it. I have my doubts because, in the event of a Japanese occupation, latent tendencies among sections of the Australian bourgeoisie would express themselves like they did in many European nations and collaborators would appear from among the earlier "suspects". 'Fortunately' this was never tested and nor was Sato's possible role in it all.
If you have a look at page 8 of Sato's statement in his NAA file he states that by mid 1942 the "experts" in the Australian section i.e. himself said "there wouldn't be any collaboration on he part of Australians in the event of a future Japanese landing".
> Depending on ones politics - or naivety - we can see this in operation today with the paid role of ex-political 'leaders' along with an army of others in doing the bidding of the Chinese. Of course today we don't have the glue of the British Empire nor of the Australian manufacturing bourgeoisie and a racially homogeneous population as in the 1930's.
Curtin today is revered as Austalia's greatest war time prime minister.
Do you have any thoughts on this?
track...@yahoo.com.au
On the Chinese issue, it depends on ones appraisal of the 'Chinese' trajectory and indeed the position of the Western drivers of the NWO in what I think might be happening: the Chinese colonisation of this continent - with a down-the-tracks formalisation of it all when all is broken (and 'naturally'/'what else?' will spring to 'mind') into some kind of supranational (EU-like, though different) amalgam under Chinese hegemony, a revisited Asiatic dominated 'Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere'. Perhaps you might like to read my and others (including the Greek Trotskyist, the Patriotic Leftist Vngelis') recent posts on this.
This question on Curtin is a harder one. One thing that can be said is that he had a very good handle on Australian history. This was illustrated by his rejection of the proposal put forward by leading Protestant (Like Anglican and Methodist, probably Congregationalist &etc) clergymen and church bodies for the settlement of Jews in an autonomous region of the NT (or was it the Kimberly?) on the grounds that such proposals had been made for at least half a century (in relation to Asian settlement - which would have meant a Plantation Economy with dual cultural and economic circumstances relative to the rest of Australia). How close can you come to a disaster! Anyway it was probably wide of the mark, with Palestine being singularly targeted.
Today it is hard to conjure up the feelings of deep morose felt in an Australian people historically deeply expectant of Asiatic invasion with the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, the fall of Malaya and then of...Singapore and the total capture of an Australian Army and the inglorious flight of leading members of the officer corps therefrom.
But this was the main background to the policy switch initiated by 'Curtin'...which, even then wasn't - due to assorted circumstances of the time - initially as definite as it might have been. But really it wasn't so 'difficult', given the finger pointing character of the whole Leftist agitation (albeit with one fundamental 'glitch' - the 'Phase of the Imperialist War') and indeed the line that led to the election of the ALP as the dominant government partner from late 1941 till the end of the war.
Things panned out OK after the US occupation of Australia - they ran our armed forces!!!!! (was this a little akin to the 'patriotic' Ustasha handing over Dalmatia to the Italians or Quisling Governments governing on behalf of the Germans?) and in the meantime (according to Jessie Street, cased our resources and industry in keeping with their broad plan to supplant the British Empire with their own Post War method of Imperialist governance. Of course this is a very retrospective view, but it and other similar perspectives are worth stating 80 years on. There is also evidence of a 'collapse' of patriotism in the late 40's when General Motors were brought in to run what could be predicted to be a burgeoning Australian passenger car industry when we had all the technology needed to do it all ourselves.
Not a complete answer, but really a very big question. And it's a relative question: how bad was Billy Hughes (sans the excessive Empire loyalty) anyway? Probably more nationalist/patriotic than the ALP of the 40's.
ham...@optusnet.com.au
It's the politics that occurred prior to the fall of Singapore that interests me the most.
If I ever finish with Sato I will move onto W.J.R Scott.
It has been enjoyable chatting with you.
I need to get back to frying my minnow so will leave it here for now.
ham...@optusnet.com.au
The rabbit hole went deeper than I expected.
Are you still interested in Sato?
I will shortly write a paper [or post it as a web site] but Sato is just a small player in a much larger post war game.
track...@yahoo.com.au
ham...@optusnet.com.au
> Apologies. Yes I am. There are clearly modern analogies.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331278474_Escape_from_Justice_The_Failed_Prosecutions_of_Baron_Takasaki_Masamitsu
The problem for all these historians is that, because there are no files on Takasaki's earlier roll in NNA, they only study his war crimes file which basically starts from his transfer to Indonesia in 1944. I have written a paper about why Takasaki was acquitted however, I'm awaiting the arrival of a copy of a file from the U.S.to finish it off.