Kokoda: MacArthur And The Generals (Part 2)

Why did John Curtin defy Winston Churchill over Australia's returning convoy? What was the 'Badge 80' scandal that followed Thomas Blamey from the Victoria Police into the war? Why did MacArthur and Blamey discount intelligence that Japan would attack Port Moresby overland? Join Al Murray and James Holland for part 2 of Kokoda, as the politics and personalities behind the campaign take centre stage. Meet the generals, Blamey, Rowell, Herring, Allen, Vasey and Potts, follow the Pacific collapsing from Pearl Harbor to the fall of Singapore, and watch Douglas MacArthur arrive in Australia as decisions made far from the jungle set up the fight for Papua. Start your free trial at ⁠patreon.com/wehaveways⁠ and unlock exclusive content and more. Enjoy livestreams, early access, ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and a weekly newsletter packed with book deals and behind-the-scenes insights. Get your WHW Merch here! A Goalhanger Production Produced by James Regan Editor: Bruno Di Castri Assistant Producer: Alfie Norris Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Social: @WeHaveWaysPod Social Producer: Harry Balden Email: [email protected] Membership Club: patreon.com/wehaveways Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Thank you for listening to We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well, plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com/WeHaveWays.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goalhangers, the rest is football. This episode is brought to you by Wise. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas, or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate and easy transfer and no surprises along the way. Wise keeps things simple. Wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than 160 countries and with over 40 currencies. Most transfers arrive instantly. Wise uses the mid-market exchange rate, like the one you see on Google,

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• 1:34Speaker 01

  I have come as a soldier in a great crusade of personal liberty, as opposed to perpetual slavery. My faith in our ultimate victory is invincible and I bring to you tonight the unbreakable spirit of the free man's code in support of our joint cause. There can be no compromise. We shall win or we shall die. And to this end, I pledge you the full resources of all the mighty power of my country and the blood of my country man. That of course was General Douglas MacArthur on his arrival in Australia in 1942.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  And now we have Malcolm Yurin, who fought at Kokoda. One Japanese soldier got so close that he grasped Private Bill Waldron's fixed bayonet to help him up the hill, evidently in the belief that he had hold of a sapling or a branch of a tree. Private Jack Curry, who's behind Waldron, coolly rested his Bren gun on Waldron's head and gave the visitor a burst. Another raiding Japanese crept up close to our lines and whispered in English, "Where are you, digger?" Lance Corporal Alex Severus answered with steady politeness, "Here I am" and fired point blank to prove it. Welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with Meow Murray and James Holland and a many Australian accent for part two of our story of the battles of the Kokoda Trail

• 2:54Speaker 00

  or track, take your pick.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Boy, I want to read that book. I want to read Malcolm Yurin, that sounds great.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  Well, and you know what? The thing is, looking through all of the Kokoda histories, there are so many stories like this. There are, he opened fire with his Tommy gun at four yards. There are so many of these stories of this absolute cheek by jowl, close encounter fighting in the jungle in Papua. And it's absolutely brutal, the whole thing. And imagine someone resting a Bren gun on your head to shoot the Japanese soldier. I mean.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Thanks, mate. Unbelievable.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  It's about machi.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  It's about machi.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  It's about machi.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  Machi. Come on, Jim. Machi. Do it. Machi. Machi.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Machi, mate.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  Machi, mate.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're chockeys.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, koala, mate. We looked in the previous episode at Papua itself, how it came into Australian hands, the state of the colony.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  We outlined kind of relations with the Wantok there, the people living there. And then we looked at Australia in the in the interwar years and the state of the Second AIF and the Australian militia, the two competing, or not competing really, the two elements that the Australian government has to play with if, when war comes. There's no conscription, volunteer forces, the militia of course can't leave Australia to fight there, to defend Australia. And it's worth putting in brackets here, Papua is part of Australia.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  Right? So should the Australians find themselves shorthanded and need to defend Papua, then you can be sent as a member of the militia.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  It's the militia you're going to turn to, isn't it?

• 4:43Speaker 00

  It is the militia you're going to turn to, particularly.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  And you know, and they can go with their light shoulders.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  And their choco vibes.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Exactly. Their koala vibes. Not to be exported or shot at.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  But, but the interesting thing is, is by the sort of back end of 1942, very end of 1942, because the sixth Australian division get withdrawn from North Africa after the Battle of Alamein, they've actually got a little bit of experience there because they were involved in the advance to Benghazi. They're kind of, you know, they're there in Crusader.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  For example, in the back end of 1941, they're there, they'd been involved in the Battle of Crete.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Heraklion, for example, they're there and the Thymnon, that's where most of the Aussies are, aren't they? And in Greece, of course, before that. And, and they play, as we said in that first episode, you know, a pivotal, pivotal role in the Battle of Alamein, which is a sort of, again, a sort of a key moment in the development of the AIF, the Australian Imperial Force.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  But of course, not only does it mean that the junior officers and NCOs and other ranks are getting, getting much needed battle experience, so too are the commanders. And they're starting to kind of, you know, separate the kind of the weak from the chaff and, and all the rest of it and work out who's, who's any good and who isn't. So we're going to look at some of these characters, aren't we?

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  In, in the next bit. And, and we're going to start with the amazing Thomas Blamey.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  The amazing Thomas Arthur Blamey, the dominant figure of the Australian war effort in the Second World War, Australia's only ever Field Marshal. He's promoted Field Marshal on his deathbed after the war. An extraordinary character. And I think.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Doesn't make old bones, I think it's supposed to say.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  No, but, but was never on track to. I think that's also fair to say. He's born in 1884 at Lake Albert in Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, to a Cornish farmer and cattle drover from Newquay. And his dad, his dad's, you know, emigrated, has had several jobs. He's the seventh of 10 kids and it's a hard scrabble life. And you know, when we looked at Ike Eisenhower and people like Ike and people like Omar Bradley and the sort of hard knock life they come from.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  You know, I think Blamey is entirely comparable with, with, with them, possibly even, he's possibly even from an even lower station. And he is very interesting. He's very bright and hardworking. And there's amazing stories. When he's 13, he rides up the Murray River to take a message to his dad on horseback, droves cattle the following year when he's 14, hundreds of miles. He's a very, very, you know, he's your Aussie outdoorsman, hard scrabble life. He's athletic, loves his swimming.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Not that you'd know it to listen to it.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  No, not that you'd know. No, no, exactly. This is extraordinary thing. He invents himself.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Hello, my name's Thomas Blamey.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  My, the men of the AIF, we have done terribly well. And he, he starts teaching when he's 15 and, and gets out via teaching and goes to Western Australia, to Fremantle, where he starts teaching and gets involved with cadets. And in 1906, there's a, there's a commission to join the, there's 12 places to join the Australian Army Staff. And he comes third out of 12. And his brother at the time says he's completely obsessed with this exam and he's thrown himself into it completely. But there's no place for him in Western Australia because it's already been granted. And the people who apply in Victoria

• 8:15Speaker 00

  fail. So Blamey says, well, I'll take the Victorian place. I'll move. What, what, why not? Right? And, and the army is convinced because he's, because he's so forceful in his application. He's really talented and clearly applied as a person. So he gets the job and he joins the, having joined the staff, he then joins the Australian military forces in 1910. And he's working at the War Office in London when the war breaks out in 1914.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Again, that little, that connection. It's, it's, it's, you know, if you want to get on in the, in the military or if you want to get on in politics or whatever, or the law, civil service life, you've got to do a stint in, in another country.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. And one colleague at the time describes him as, you know, because Gandhi was a lawyer in London. This is what you do. You go to the Imperial Centre and

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  And credentialise yourself. So one colleague at the time describes him as follows, "Short of stature, rugged in appearance, it took some little time to discover that behind that broad forehead, there was well-seated and unusual brain, and that the square jaw denoted not obstinacy and lack of tat, but quiet resolution and a calm and definite power of expression." So he's a tough little, tough little fellow.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  "His military record and his experience are good. He knows the English and he's most intelligent. We cannot say how this war will go, but it will not be a short or easy one. So our commander must not only take his place with our other commanders, he must also deal with politicians here at home. What I like about Blamey is that he realises that democratic governments do not have unlimited powers. They can only go as far and as fast as public opinion will allow them. In short, his life has been such that he is a man of the world, a politician. We are all lucky to have Blamey."

• 9:56Speaker 00

  There you are.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  So so far, all, you know, all go good, right?

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And he becomes General Monash's Chief of Staff during the war.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  And he's one of the people that gets Monash as far as he does because he's an absolutely brilliant staff man and a brilliant politician. He is absolutely fantastic at dealing with personalities, dealing with people and balancing priorities and so on.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  It is amazing, isn't it? When you think about his background, how, how he's, how he's developed this. It's obviously, it's, it's a combination, isn't it? Of innate understanding of other people.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Combined with experience and combined with that kind of, ah, okay, what do I need to do here? And kind of working it out. And, and thinking, right, to get from A to B, I need to do X, Y and Z. And just working it out and doing it. I mean, it's amazing, really.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. And an appetite, an incredible appetite for hard work. There's no arguing. And we will see Blamey's flaws.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Yep. And drive.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  This is a man who worked incredibly hard, which will be also, but he played hard. But the, but the point is, is he was, he was absolutely focused and incredible appetite for hard working, getting stuck in. And, and you know, that's how he basically runs the Australian Army Staff during the First World War by being, by being harder working than anyone else. And he's, you know, he's been involved or featured in most Australian operations in, in the First World War. But in, in September nineteen twenty five, he quits the army and of course, as we said in the previous episode, the army's being sort of shrunk and hollowed, shrunk down and hollowed out. He leaves the army to become the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police Force.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  And he stays in this role for eleven years. His tenure is marked by, he's very, he's a strong progressive administration, he's able to push through the government's agenda, he's very tough on the unions actually, and sort of is a union buster with the police force.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yes, and, and he also introduces all sorts of interesting things, doesn't he? So, so he introduces police dogs, for example.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  And, and he introduces police cars at a time where, you know, cars aren't really terrific. And he also introduces two-way radios.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Into the police force, which is, you know, this is all new stuff in the nineteen twenties.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  And he brings in police women.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  You know, he's, he's, he's absolutely a progressive, but.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  But, but.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  But he also has scandals.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  Yes, the whiff of corruption is never far from TAB, as he's known, T A B by some. There's the badge eighty affair now.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, this is so good.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  When I first read about this, I thought, well, Monty nearly lost his job, basically, for when he, when he hired out a football pitch and made some, made some money for the benevolent fund for his, for his brigade from a football pitch. This is absolutely amazing. So, eleven thirty PM on the twenty first of October nineteen twenty five, three plainclothes cops from the licensing police, and licensing is a big, big thing in Australia at this time.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  They're not in, they're just sort of doing prohibition light in Australia at this point. They raid a place called Belgrave, which is a brothel in Bell Street, Fitzroy, where it's believed alcohol was being sold illegally, Jim.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Get this, in the brothel, they find a man and a woman in a state of undress in a bedroom on the premises. I mean.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Who'd have thought it?

• 13:02Speaker 00

  What kind of brothel is this?

• 13:04Speaker 01

  [laughing]

• 13:05Speaker 00

  And the, the man allegedly states, "That's all right, boys. I'm a plainclothes constable. Here is my badge." And the problem is, is this badge eighty, is the badge registered to Blamey?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  What?

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know. He claims to have lost it. The badge later miraculously reappears in his locker. And somehow, and this is, I think, a mark of his political talent, and his sort of incredible Teflon nature, he rides out the enormous scandal that follows. He scotches the investigation, he gets an old army friend to say it was him.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yes, and he said, doesn't he say, "Oh, I lent, I lent my key to someone earlier on and, and they never quite gave it back."

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  And an independent witness goes, "Oh, the person, the person we saw in the, in the brothel wasn't Blamey."

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  He might have been innocent. He might have been innocent.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  He might have been, but he might not. And, um, so a reader at the Melbourne Age newspaper, um, writes to the paper and says, "Have certain police officers conspired to hide and conceal a guilty man, or have they managed to tamper with police records, reports and witnesses and try to prevent the truth from being disclosed and banter bamboozle the public?" And, you know, those are questions worth asking.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  It's outrageous.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  But by nineteen twenty five, the end of, by, by the end of the year, press have lost interest. But he's created a reputation for himself he can't really shake, which is women and booze. And one of the things Blamey does, so pubs have to shut at six in Australia.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Because everyone was getting mullered all the time, weren't they?

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Because everyone's getting, well, yeah, and then, you know, and it's this sort of prohibition light. They're, they're trying to, there's this sort of temperance movement like in all sorts of places. And what, what Blamey does is he will drink in your hotel. So they have to stay open because the chief of police is drinking in the hotel. So they then carry on serving drinks. So Blamey was getting, most likely getting backhanders for going drinking in these hotels or, which are, which, where, where people drink, pubs, right? And the place would stay open and get the custom, but, and they have, be protected by the police for this, his presence on their premises. So while he's super progressive, he also thinks that I work hard, I deserve to play hard, there, there should be fruits

• 15:19Speaker 00

  of my labour, privileges for me. And he carries on in, in this vein, but he's finally forced to resign in nineteen thirty six, after an extremely controversial incident where an associate of Blamey's, a copper, is shot whilst waiting in his car for an informant. And he has two, two high society ladies in the car with him. He's on his way to some ball, and he's shot three times. And Blamey claims that the guy had shot himself three times.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  In an encounter with an informant, right? What?

• 15:52Speaker 01

  [laughing]

• 15:53Speaker 00

  It's a very, it's a very hard, you know.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  No one believes it.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  No one believes it. You know, he's, he's, you know, is someone going to pick up a bribe for Blamey or something, a bagman? Anyway, um, this is too much, even for the Victorian establishment, and he has to go. And the, you know, the, the commission set up at the time finds that his statements are not in accordance with the truth. And he's got a bad relationship, incendiary relationship with the press, he's got a penchant for alcohol and women, he's indiscreet and he makes enemies easily. And also, he's politically active, and I think this is quite interesting. He's involved with the League of National Security, the L N S, also known as the White Army, which is a far-right paramilitary organisation opposing the supposed threat of communism, especially during the depression. And there's

• 16:38Speaker 00

  lots of ex-servicemen, John, we're not saying it's an Australian Freycor, but, um, you know, it's kind of, you know, it's getting on for it.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And he's one of the many high-ranking soldiers involved. Shades, shades of.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's probably in charge, um, uh, possibly. But the, but the, but the interesting thing is, in all this time, Blamey has been out of the army and he's not been involved in policymaking, he's not entangled with the state of the interwar, um, of the army in the interwar years. So he's not part of the baggage that, that needs to be dealt with.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Which keeps him clear of some of the political howlers.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  It does, yeah. Yes, it absolutely does. But it also, because he's out of his police job, everyone, everyone knows, you know, he's, he's been indiscreet and, and been a bit dodgy, but they also know that he's incredibly competent. And when you're about to go to war, or you're going to war, it's competent people that you need and, and other blemishes can be swept under the carpet because your, your, your skill sets are so good that they're not to be squandered.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  And so in nineteen thirty eight, he's appointed chairman of Commonwealth's Manpower Committee and Controller General of Recruiting. So he is basically Mr. Recruitment.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  And when war breaks out, Blamey is given command of the sixth division.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Which is the first one that's going to be sent overseas. This is a division as in Crete and Greece and Alamein and all the rest of it.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  And he is backed by PM Robert Menzies and as well as other key cabinet members. So this is controversial, as many, you know, obviously within the staff corps feel the shop, the, the job should go to someone more senior without the kind of, you know, scandals that have, uh, bedecked, um, you know, that have dogged his career. But he's promoted to Lieutenant General in October nineteen thirty nine, and competently raises the second Australian Imperial Force, which just goes to underline his unbelievable skill at staff work and command.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  Well, and Menzies, Menzies says of him, "We didn't need, we didn't want a choir boy." And he, he isn't a choir boy.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  So, you know.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  No, he certainly isn't. So, so, so he demonstrates his, his political and military aptitude pretty quickly, doesn't he? He draws up a charter for the A I F that ensures the right to direct communications with the Australian government. It forbids elements of the A I F from being removed without explicit permission from him.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  All essential safeguards against British interference in Australian military affairs. So there's a, there's a, you know, a bit of a shutter coming down.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  You know, and this is, this is all very sensible stuff, isn't it?

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. And, and it means, as it, when, when sixth division go to the North African theatre, he is able to say to the British, "No, we're not, you're not deploying us there, you're not doing this, you're not doing that." And able to kick up considerable political fuss so that the Australian government doesn't feel powerless.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  They don't just feel like they're puppets, which is the complaint after all that comes out of Gallipoli. Um, uh, and it's a really, really canny piece of politics, really, really smart. And so, you know, this is, because that's Blamey's talent, he may have a taste for hookers and booze, but he's really, really good at the, really good at the, the political side of things. Then there's Sidney Rowell, who's, uh, younger than Blamey.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Who we mentioned in the last episode, didn't we? Had a quote from him.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  That's right. And he's from Adelaide, he was born in, in December of eighteen ninety four in Adelaide. And the official historian describes Rowell as, "Clear and incisive in thought, sensitive in feeling, frank and had spoken in his approach to men and to problems." And he's served at Gallipoli, um, as a troop and squadron commander. He's invalided out of Gallipoli and goes back to Australia in nineteen sixteen, and he can't go back to France, um, uh, for the rest of the war. So basically, he's, he's one of these people who stayed in after the war. He's not one of the seventy-two officers who, who are laid off.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  He goes to army headquarters in nineteen thirty-two, um, and he goes to England in nineteen thirty-five at the Imperial Defence College. So, you know, he's doing the thing. He's, he's going to the Imperial Centre. Um.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  He's known as Sid, and he's considered really as one of the most competent, hard-working staff officers in all the army. And Blamey recognises this and chooses him as chief of, chief of staff when he's raising the second A I F. And he promotes him to Brigadier General Staff once seventh division is raised. So.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Rowell is a key component of the new division, um, that, that we're going to see fight at Kokoda. Then you have Edmund Ned Herring.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yes, he's, he's born in September eighteen ninety-two, isn't he? And he's, he's another brain box. He's a Rhodes Scholar. So he's come over to Oxford.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Uh, in nineteen twelve, he serves in the Officers Training Corps at Oxford.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  And then during the First World War, he's in the Royal Field Artillery, serves in France and also in Macedonia.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Becomes a successful lawyer in the years, war, interwar years. He's a K C by nineteen thirty-six, a King's Council. Uh, and he also keeps up military practices in this, during this time. He's a legal officer of the Cavalry Division in nineteen twenty-two and commander of an artillery battalion in nineteen twenty-three. He's also like Blamey, he's a little bit right of centre, he's a member of the White Army, um, and has, just to put it mildly. And he has a great professional relationship with with Blamey. They get on really, really well in their White Army. I mean, they're not quite kind of, you know, clear cocks can hoods, are they? But it's it's it's kind of

• 22:05Speaker 00

  It's on its way there. Yeah.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  It's on its way there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he, you know, he's known, he's clever, he's smart, he's urbane, all those things.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Well, it's interesting because Blamey really hates Nazi antisemitism. He can't bear it.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  It's one of his markers for why the Nazis are bad, is antisemitism. So he's, he might be a member of the White

• 22:22Speaker 01

  And he'd be right.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  Well, but he might be a member of the White Army, Blamey, but you know, there's lines he won't cross in terms of his sort of right wing politics and antisemitism is one of them. But yeah, Herring becomes CRA, Commander Royal Artillery for Sixth Division. And then when Blamey leaves Sixth Division in 1941, he makes Herring his successor to Command Sixth Div.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Then there's Arthur Allen, who's born in Sydney in 1894. He's a civilian accountant up until the outbreak of war. He's known as Tubby, short and stout. And he's got an excellent record as a civilian soldier, having been a platoon commander in different battalions during the First War. Blamey gives him Commander Sixth Div when the war breaks out. And Sixth Division, their first battle is Bardia in January 1941. And and Allen is spearheading this operation.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  And Blamey promotes him to Major General after the Greek campaign. And then he gets given Commander Seventh Division in June 1941, during their fighting in Syria. So they've been busy in Syria.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  You have Cyril Clouse, who's from Queensland in 1892, again a Gallipoli veteran, and he's posted to Tasmania when the war begins. And he's calm, quiet, professional disposition. And he's artillery commander, First Australian Corps when it's formed in 1940.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Then there's George Vasey. He's from Melbourne. He's a professional soldier, fights in France, for the most part, in the First World War. And at the outbreak in 1939, he's appointed Assistant Adjutant, and then Quartermaster General, a General Staff Officer in the Sixth Division. So he's a real staff man. But he is promoted to the commanding officer of Nineteenth Brigade in March 1941. And he's known throughout the army as Bloody George. And the official history describes him as, "Highly strong, frostful, hardworking. Vasey concealed a deep emotional, even sentimental nature behind a mask of laconic and blunt speech. Making it crystal clear that a particular position had to be held, Vasey told his commanders, 'Here you bloody well are, and here you bloody well stay. And if any bloody Germans

• 24:21Speaker 01

  get between you and your post on the next, turn your bloody brain around and shoot him up the ass.'" That's the kind of person George Vasey is. He's highly strong and forceful in his language.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  "Here you bloody well are, and here you bloody well stay." I mean, you know.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  I mean, that feels like T-shirt material, doesn't it?

• 24:40Speaker 00

  Well, I just, I just wanted you to say it first, James. Yes.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. But the thing is, come Greece, Blamey's relationship with some of these men starts to fall apart. I mean, because they're under immense pressure.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  And on the 15th to the 18th of April 1941, there's the Battle of Pinius Gorge, Tempe Gorge, and the Anzac Corps are withdrawing because the Germans are pressing hard through central Greece. And then the 16th of April, the German breakthrough imminent, Raoul makes a change to the role of the 16th Brigade immediately, while Blamey is still asleep. Because he's got to make a decision. And he's furious when he wakes up, but then reluctantly agrees. And they have another TIF on the 18th of April, when Raoul suggests either he or Blamey visits the forward commanders, Mackay and Freiberg, to assess the situation of more German attacks. And Blamey initially refuses to go, and then bounds Raoul from

• 25:40Speaker 00

  going too, before relenting in letting Raoul go. So there's proper beef between Blamey and Raoul.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  After this.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Sounds like a few toys are being thrown out of prams there, doesn't it?

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, quite right. And this exemplifies how Blamey's intransigence and sort of stubbornness can often jeopardize military strategy. He also, when he leaves Greece, there's one last plane on the aircraft, one last seat on the aircraft leave Greece, and Blamey gives it to his son. And that is seen, that is seen as extremely bad form by those, by those in the know.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  But that's the sort of thing you do when you're stitching up someone who's, who's been shot by the police and blaming them for shooting themselves three times.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  There's a touch of the rogue, isn't there?

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Questions, as a result, coming about his suitability, actual suitability for operational command. He might be a brilliant organizer. He might be brilliant at raising an army. He might be brilliant at selecting the officers. But is he actually any

• 26:35Speaker 01

  But is he a man?

• 26:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, in the clinch. And obviously, the stakes are going to be much higher in Papua, because Papua is 150 miles from Australia. And there's also the business of the Syrian campaign.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  So Seventh Div are part of this campaign, a British plan to invade Syria to prevent a German invasion and a subsequent advance on the Suez Canal. And of course, Syria and Lebanon.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  But of course, Syria means attacking the, this is Vichy French.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  So this is, you've got, you've got Free French fighting, Vichy French, Axis Back French, and you've got Australians predominantly, and New Zealanders, I think, if I remember rightly, also involved in this, this, this fight in Syria.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  And, you know, let the good times roll. We're fighting the French again. Five intense weeks of fighting, which are the 21st and 25th Brigades of Australian Seventh Division, and the French throwing the towel on the 12th of July 1941. So Seventh Div do have a successful campaign under their belt.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Another example of the French not having a problem surrendering, by the way, just to say that point.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. They can do it.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  They can do it.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  They can, they can do it, to put their mind to it, yeah. If asked nicely. And this, this campaign means that Seventh Div have got mountain fighting experience, which is going to come in handy in their own Stanley range. And also, there's a very, very key character who will emerge in later episodes, a fellow called Arnold Potts. Arnold Potts, as we will see, is one of the great, great heroes of the Kokoda Campaign. It's not to give too much away. He migrates from to Australia, from the Isle of Man in 1904, when he's a kid, fights at Gallipoli, then the Western Front, where he's been badly injured by a sniper. And after his injuries, classed as 20% disabled. But when the war starts, he

• 28:19Speaker 00

  joins the Second Sixteenth Battalion, when it's formed in May 1940, and he's the two I see. And he's a brilliant trainer, and he's a great judge of character. And after Syria, he's given the Battalion to command, the Second Sixteenth, and he's a soldier's soldier. Everyone loves him. Incredibly brave, a brilliant leader. And he's given the Command of Twenty First Brigade in July 1942, just in the nick of time for the emergency in Kokoda, in Papua. Let's take a break, and then we'll come to how well prepared the Australians are for war in Papua. Spoiler, not very. See you in a tick.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Here we are getting a statement from Number 10. On that flight, with 350 passengers on board...

• 29:10Speaker 03

  The Great Game: Strategic Struggle Between Britain and Russia.

• 29:18Speaker 04

  We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian.

• 29:24Speaker 05

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

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  They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself: you want to play, or not? You're the Prime Minister! You've done... Nothing!

• 29:43Speaker 03

  We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today, disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO.

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  FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia.

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• 30:47Speaker 00

  Welcome back to We Have Ways To Make You Talk with me, I'm Murray and James Holland in his slouch hat, fetching James, it's a good look.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  But you don't have, you don't have the side turned up, isn't that the, you have to have one side turned up, don't you?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Well, they just, they tended to kind of sort of not bother after a while.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Oh, look at that, such a great look. Ah, now we're talking. Oh, look at that.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Hi, talking.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  But I just don't understand why you would have the side up.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  I don't know, because it looks great. You look dashing.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  No, it looks better down.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Ah, I like it.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Anyway. Anyway, where were we? We were on prep for Papua New Guinea.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Spoiler alert, not much.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yes.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Australia's wartime presence in Papua, it's deeply flawed, isn't it? And tragic from the beginning. And Australia's reckoning with the possibility of war with Japan throughout 1941 as the storm clouds are cliching their way across the Pacific and all the rest of it. But home defence is the first issue, but on the other hand, you know, Papua New Guinea kind of sort of is home, isn't it? That's the whole point. Anyway, at this point, only consists of the Eighth Division of the AIF and the militia, the Chokos.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  And there are massive deficiencies here in strength, training, leadership and equipment, because basically, you know, it's the sixth, seventh and ninth divisions in the Middle East are getting the priority at this point.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  And part of the preliminary actions in 1941 is raising a militia battalion to Garrison Port Moresby, which for those of you who listened to the first episode will remember is, that's the, that's the capital of Papua New Guinea. This is the kind of the colonial base and it's on the southern coast of PNG. And this project is given to the 49th Battalion from Queensland. And in event of a war, a war coming to Papua New Guinea, it has to be defended because obviously if the Japanese take Port Moresby, they could easily then use that as a launch base to attack the north coast of Australia.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  And that's why suddenly Papua New Guinea is kind of on the radar. But, but as we were saying again in that last episode, you know, Japan is thousands of miles away and haven't they got other fish to fry? And even if they do have their expansionist tendencies, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're immersed in China, why are they going to come all the way down here?

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Well.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Well, it doesn't to the Australian government, anyway. So this defensive battalion mainly comprising of tropical service volunteers leaves Brisbane on 15th of March 1941. But, but the moment they get there, it's a logistical and organisational absolute shocker because, you know, there's nothing, you know, there aren't enough mess tins, there aren't enough plates, there aren't mosquito nets, there's hardly any waterproof sheets. They are catastrophically unprepared, aren't they? They basically got their kind of tropical uniforms and that is literally it.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  And a few rifles, but they haven't got, they just haven't got the equipment you need for going into a tropical rainforest where it's raining the whole time and there's also mozzies and all sorts of other horrors.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  I mean, that's, that's the truth.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  And the chief of the general staff visits the battalion in July, describes it as "quite the worst battalion in Australia".

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Unbelievable.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Anyway, in late 1941, the decision is made to increase Port Moresby from garrison to brigade strength. Well, well done. So the 51st Battalion from New South Wales and the 39th Battalion of Victoria are also brought in.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  But that's still not an awful lot.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  No, and it.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  It's the truth of it.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  And the 53rd from New South Wales, it's particularly chaotic. Sergeant Keith Irwin of the 53rd recalls that soldiers were mainly only 18 years old, hadn't been told where they were going and what they were doing, and had no chance to tell families they were leaving. Most had never touched a rifle. And you actually have a situation where the officers on the ship are writing to the families, saying, "Your son has gone to Port Moresby. He's gone off to defend Papua, to defend Australian Port Moresby." And, and people literally not knowing where their, where their relatives had gone, where the sons had gone. It's, it's incredible. And we talked in the previous episode about the structure of a battalion, about how it works, what the, what, you know, on the British model, the four companies, the headquarters company, the.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  They're denied all of this, the structure, the training, the expertise and the confidence that's baked into the Second AIF, into the thing that, that better or worse, Blamey has built. And this means there's great bitterness and anger within the battalion that will grow and, and feed into the, into the campaign.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  It is breathtakingly incompetent, isn't it?

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, really, I mean, come on, guys.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  Well, and it's this thing, isn't it? You're prepared for one crisis, but you've not got a second possible one on the list, even though, you know, hostilities with Japan are plainly on their way.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  You've got to look after the guys you're commanding, haven't you? You've got to, you know, I mean, pastoral care, even in its most basic form is still important.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  Of course, of course, but it just shows the cupboard's bare. All the clever people who know how to do this are fighting in Greece, you know, all of, all of Blamey's team are off away, aren't they? That's the problem.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  And the 50th, and had Blamey stayed home and been in charge of this, maybe it would have turned out, but he, he's insisted on inserting himself into operational matters. And as we've seen with, with mixed, with mixed results. So the 53rd arrive in Port Moresby on the 3rd of January 1942 alongside the 39th Battalion, who are, who are slightly, who are less chaotic, but they're still, it's still not ideal. And then of course, this is in the middle of the, the great collapses in the Pacific theatre.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  In this eastern theatre. Jim, do you want to do the list of ignominy?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Well, it's just worth just reminding people, so we've got, you know, we've got Pearl Harbour on the, on the 7th of December 1941, we got, then we got the sinking of Prince of Wales repulsed on the 10th of December. Hong Kong falls on the 26th of December. Britain withdraws from Malaya into Singapore, 31st of December. Japanese attack Rabaul on the 23rd of January. Ambon is attacked a week later. Singapore falls on the 15th of February.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  It's the biggest capitulation in British military history. I know this. 130,000 soldiers captured, 14,974 of them Australian. And of course, suddenly the fall of Singapore, which is the big bastion of, of Australian defence, suddenly makes Australia very, very vulnerable indeed. And the first air raid on Port Moresby comes on the 3rd of February. I mean, this is all happening in super quick time, that's the point.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  And the first mainland, mainland bombing of Australia in Darwin is on the 19th of February.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  God, bloody hell.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  And then Java is attacked on the 20th of February. So the, the Japanese are here, they're streaming over the sky, they're dropping bombs, you know, what the heck? How has this happened?

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  And of course, by this point, our key characters that we outlined earlier on, they're all in new roles. So Raoul is deputy chief of the general staff and a major general. Vasey, George Vasey, the Heidi Strong one.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  Bloody George.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Their bloody brand gun and shoot people like the ours. Yeah, bloody George. He's the chief of the staff of, of the GOC, of the general officer commanding of home forces. And Close is a major general and commander of First Division. So they're back in Australia, basically.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  But also at this critical time, there are tensions between Australia and Britain and the US. Of course there are, because everyone's feeling scratchy and tetchy, because everything's going so horribly wrong.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the, the British ask for the two AIF divisions in the Middle East to be transferred to the Far East. And Blamey chooses the sixth and the seventh, because he's allowed to decide, because that's what he had baked into the agreement with the British, that, that his political stroke of genius is that Australia gets to decide what to do with its soldiers in relation to the British. And the Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin, who's in by now, Menzies is gone, he's a hard drinker, he's a man who lives a life of great stress. He wants convoys to go to Australia, to come back to Australia, but Churchill wants to go to Burma. And Blamey agrees with Curtin, but FDR voices his support for Churchill's position.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  And so in a cable to Curtin on the 20th of February, he says.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  "While I realise the Japs are moving rapidly, I cannot believe that in view of your geographical position and the forces on their way to you or operating in your neighbourhood, your vital centres are in imminent danger."

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Well, I think FDR's called that one wrong.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  Well, the core politics of being an Australian government, right? You've got to defend Australia.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  You always have to, you always have to defend the homeland first.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  You just do.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  I know, I know, I've been, yeah, I'm trying to tell Auntie Burnham this at the moment.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  The Australian government would fall.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  After more back and forth, Churchill unilaterally orders the Australian convoy to divert to Burma instead of Australia, which of course, he can't really do.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  "I shall be diverting them to Burma, lessons. They shall proceed forthwith in their maritime capacity." "To the Arrakhan." "To the Arrakhan, wherefore they shall be deployed forthwith in that battle thereof."

• 40:00Speaker 00

  He's basically, he's

• 40:02Speaker 01

  He's in the room.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  He's in the room, but Churchill actually can't do this.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  No, he can't.

• 40:07Speaker 00

  And it also overlooks that the Australians, Australians have done very well in Greece, Crete, Syria to Brooklyn, they've worked bloody hard. And Curtin writes back to Churchill, and this is, this is, there's some proper political headbutting, isn't there? And he says, Jim,

• 40:23Speaker 01

  By diverting the convoy, you have established a physical situation which adds to the dangers of the convoy. And the responsibility for the consequences of such diversion rests with you. In the circumstances, it is quite impossible to reverse a decision which we made with the utmost care and which we have affirmed and reaffirmed.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Jimmy, was that right?

• 40:46Speaker 00

  I'll, I'll take it.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  All right.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  They will all had a radio voice, wouldn't they? But, but Curtin wins.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  The convoys are turned back towards Australia and they get to Australia in March. But more importantly, and, and we're about, and this is how we're going to end up with another key figure, the Philippines are looking very vulnerable to Japanese capture. And Douglas MacArthur now features that. Jim, tell us about Douglas MacArthur.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, we, we've done quite a lot on him, but just, just have a recap. For those who hadn't listened to earlier episodes on the, where we've been talking about him. Um, he's born in January 1880 in Arkansas. His father, Arthur MacArthur, is a soldier, fought the American Civil War, then posted to the Philippines for the Spanish American War in, in, um, 1898. Uh, he's a brigadier general. He goes on to become military governor of the Philippines. And actually, Arthur MacArthur and Douglas MacArthur end up being in the Philippines together. Uh, well, you know, with Douglas working underneath his father. And he's the embodiment of American involvement in that country. I mean, incredibly brutal to start off with. Um, and then very placatory and kind of, you know, once they get over the kind of the, the war bit in the early years of the 20th century, it all

• 41:55Speaker 01

  kind of sort of beds down a little bit. Anyway, for Douglas, you know, the military influence is, is there from early childhood. It's absolutely his destiny. And, um, he oversees the, uh, he, he, he plays a very, very key part in the First World War, developed his brave, inspiring, haughty reputation during the First World War. He serves on the Western Front as the Chief of Staff to the 42nd Division, the Rainbow Division. Um, and actually becomes one of, uh, one of America's highest decorated soldiers during First World War.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Uh, he has a brief interwar stint in the Philippines in the early 1920s. He's promoted to Major General. Then he's posted home, returns and becomes at 45, the youngest general in the, uh, in the US Army. And he then becomes in 1930, he becomes the Chief of Staff. So he's the most senior military figure.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Um, in the US Armed Forces, retires, retires to the Philippines where they're kind of transitioning. They are basically a Commonwealth country and they're transitioning to full independence. And, uh, Quazon, who's the, uh, the president of, of the Philippines, asks him to run the, the Filipino military and promotes him to field marshal.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Um, so he does. And at the same time, FDR also offers him the role of inaugural High Commissioner of the Philippines. He actually goes with the, uh, the head of the military.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Uh, which means he has to resign from the US Army's active list, but he takes Eisenhower as his, as one of his sort of key.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Staff officers.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Fascinating, isn't it? Yeah.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Anyway, you know, he's preparing for war against Japan during all this time, anticipating also jungle and, and rainforest terrain, terrain and guerrilla warfare and so on. Funding is obviously a big issue in the Philippines. And, um, in 1937, FDR just unilaterally cancels MacArthur's assignment as advisor to the Philippine Army and says he wants him to come back into the US. So MacArthur resigns from the US Army completely. The Philippine Army is poorly funded, equipped, lacks motivation. Eisenhower is one of those sort of trying to kind of make sense of it all, gets, gets frustrated and leaves in late 1939. And post the oil embargo, which the Americans imposed on Japan in the summer of 1941, FDR reinstates

• 44:06Speaker 01

  MacArthur onto the active list and gives him command of all US forces in the Far East. So, you know, it's quite a big job.

• 44:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  And, and this is why he is the Commander in Chief of US Forces and indeed Filipino Forces in 1941, at the time of Pearl Harbor.

• 44:22Speaker 00

  When the moment comes. Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  So Japanese strike Clark Field on the island of Luzon, which is also the, uh, the, this is one of the northern main, one of the main northern islands, which is where Manila is. Uh, Manila Bay and all the rest of it, the Batang Peninsula, Corregidor, um, is in the Bay of, Bay of Manila as well. Uh, and, um, Clark Field, this airfield is, is attacked nine hours after striking Pearl Harbor. And Edward Ramsey, who was a US Army officer in the Philippines recalls.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  I went to the officers' club and had a drink with the Chief of Intelligence for General Wainwright. Lieutenant, are you religious? And I said, no, sir, not particularly. Well, he said, I think you'd better give your soul to God because your ass belongs to the Japanese.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Finding talk. Anyway, the Japanese duty do land on the Philippines on the 22nd of December on Lingaoan Bay, which is in the northern part of, of the island of Luzon, which coincidentally is exactly where the Americans re-invade in January 1945. And within 48 hours, the Philippine Army is absolutely smashed. They get a shellacking. And MacArthur is forced to pull back through the Batang Peninsula, which sort of hangs down on the western side of Luzon and direct the combat from Corregidor Island. You know, Manila is abandoned, which is just a terrible thing for MacArthur because he loves Manila.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Sees it as the, you know, it is very much the pearl of the Orient and all the rest of it. He lives in the, uh, in the Manila Hotel, doesn't he? And the situation worsened throughout January and, and there's criticism of MacArthur growing from Washington. And eventually FDR orders in March, he orders MacArthur to leave the post and assume command of all American troops in Australia. And he leaves very early on, um, on the second week of, of March, something on length of March, he flies out. He leaves in a boat and then flies out to Australia. And he's absolutely mortified by this. Doesn't want to leave, uh, and announces that he will be back.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  And leaves it to General Wainwright to, to complete that kind of defeat, basically.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Well, he also takes half a million dollars with him from the Philippine government as, as his, uh, sort of severance pay, which I think is quite interesting.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's quite punchy, isn't it? I suppose, you know, he's only going to go to the Japanese, otherwise he might.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  But, but, yeah, on the 18th of March, MacArthur announces as, as a Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific area. And he's greeted as a hero in Australia. He's awarded the Medal of Honor in Canberra, um, uh, announced by, by Rizveld in the time honored fashion of when in defeats, hand out the gongs. And, um, the point, uh, uh, at this moment is that most American supplies and personnel will not be arriving until May. So it'll be Aussie service people who are carrying the burden until that time. I mean, it's only a couple of months, but, but even so, you know, he, he comes there as Supreme Commander, but he's commanding of not very much is the truth of it.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  On the 19th of April, MacArthur announces his staff, which doesn't contain a single Australian soldier. So, you know, inter-service collaboration, international collaboration, forget it. And Curtin doesn't challenge this at all. This is the Prime Minister of, of Australia.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Well, which is fascinating, isn't it? Because, because Blamey made sure that in collaborating, in work, working with the British, that the Australian government had representation and could do, and could call, call the shots regarding its own deployment. And here they've completely, they've completely thrown, seeded that, thrown in the towel.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, but, but Blamey's not around to challenge this, is he?

• 47:47Speaker 00

  No, exactly. But there's a really interesting thing at work here, isn't it? MacArthur's, MacArthur's on his ass. He's desperate. And the, yet the Australians are on their ass and they're desperate. So they, they give him what he wants when actually he can't offer them anything yet.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  And it's a really fascinating moment politically because the Australians could have, I'm sure could have said, by the way, you know, you're going to have to, you're, you know, any deployment's got to be run by the government. And they don't because they're so desperate.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  No, it's absolutely amazing. But they're, but they're just rolling over, aren't they? And, and it's, it's, it's bizarre, really.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Show a bit of spine, mate.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, the British have let them down.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe the government's just a bunch of choco's.

• 48:30Speaker 00

  It could be that, Jim.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  It's just two koalas. Yeah, they're just choco's. Anyway, so eight of the 11 men that MacArthur chooses to be on his kind of on his immediate staff at Supreme Commander have been brought off the Philippines by him. And they're known as the Batang Gang and they're vastly less experienced than a number of Australian options. So it really is a bad, bad move from the Australian point of view and it's sort of overbearing from MacArthur. You kind of expect that from MacArthur. He's an overbearing character. He kind of, you know, he's a kind of narcissistic, my way or the highway type. Yeah. Uh, but, but, you know, I would say the Australians do have quite a few aces up their sleeves and a bit of bargaining power and they don't.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  They don't use it.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Exercise it.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  And they also have to contend with MacArthur kind of telling them what to do.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Uh, and being a key advisor on the Australian government's military strategy. So, so, you know, it's kind of one-way traffic, basically.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  But around that time, the Australian Army is also being rapidly restructured. So key characters are being promoted. So we've all, and we've already been into this a little bit, haven't we? You know, Raoul is Lieutenant General, Commander, First Corps of the First Army.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Well, and the collision here is that Blamey gets back to Australia on the 23rd of March and he's appointed Commander in Chief of Australian Military Forces. So he's in charge of the Army, home and abroad, but MacArthur is also a key advisor on Australian government military strategy. They are going to run into each other regardless because their roles overlap.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  And, and Blamey, who's been so sort of bullish about making sure that he gets to decide what the Australian Army do, is now having to deal with this ally who's also very forthright.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  Making policy decisions. Um, it, it's, it's a tough one.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  But all the, all the boys that have been over in the Middle East and Greece and the Mediterranean, they're now all the, they're now running the show. So you've got, as we mentioned earlier on, you've got Raoul, who's now Commander of the First Corps of First Army. You've got, uh, bloody George Fahey, he's Deputy Chief of General Staff. Herring, Ned Herring is Commander of the Northern Territory Force and Klaus is Commander of the First Division in the Second Army. So, you know, the, you, you've got the experienced guys back at least. So, so things are starting to shift, aren't they?

• 50:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And in the nick of time because the Japanese are pushing. They're, they're, they're doing well in Burma. They've done big raids over the Solomon Islands. The Americans are about to capitulate in Corregidor. Um, and the, what the, what the Japanese want to do is cut or weaken the allied line of communication between the US and Australia.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  And, and they need to focus on what's in obvious base for possible allied counter-offensives. In other words, Port Moresby. So in April, Japanese High Command ordered a seizure of Port Moresby, 150 miles from Australia. Um, uh, and the, the thing is, is the, the Americans have been working successfully on decoding the Japanese fleet code J25B. And this intelligence, which of course known as Ultra after 1944, manages to intercept a Japanese fleet bound for Port Moresby. And so, um, they do battle and the, the Americans do badly in this battle, but, but do enough to turn the Japanese invasion back. The Port Moresby invasion does not happen.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  Then you have the Battle of Midway, 4th, 6th of June, ma- a massive allied success, sinking, crippling of four, um, uh, Japanese aircraft carriers. So the Australians, you know, are, are in that regard indebted to the Americans.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  They're under less, less threat than they might be. But this means, this means that what's the next move? And of course, what MacArthur wants to do is to go to Rabaul and he wants the Australian Seventh Army to do it for him, Seventh Division, because he, because he can't do it himself.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:10Speaker 00

  And by June, it's clear from Ultra that the, um, uh, uh, that the Japanese have abandoned plans for invading Port Moresby. And the worry is an overland assault instead.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  What's really interesting is Ma- MacArthur doesn't look at that, that intel. He doesn't make a decision based as intel, even though Midway has been won by a successful cracking of Japanese cipher. And it's basically, MacArthur is focused on, um, going back to the Philippines. So he doesn't think the threat to Port Moresby.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  From an overland assault is something to worry about.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Is one that he particularly needs to worry about.

• 52:48Speaker 00

  No, don't worry about that. It'll be fine.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  And this is because all he cares about is the Philippines. There's no, there's no two ways about it. He's gonna, he's gonna do everything he can to get back there. And, and interestingly though, Blamey also discounts this intelligence. And he sends 14th Brigade to Port Moresby and Seventh Brigade to Milne Bay, which is eastern end, round the corner, as it were.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Where there's another possible landing point where he thinks this will be enough to protect against the seaborne invasion. So they aren't worried about a land crossing of Papua, um, from, from the north.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Because who would be stupid enough to, to, to do that through these 13,000 foot high mountain peaks?

• 53:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. And jungle as dark as night under the, beneath the canopy. Who would be that stupid?

• 53:36Speaker 01

  All of that.

• 53:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so the decision to deploy the Seventh Division in Papua to, to, to secure territories abandoned. So to go further up into country and secure, so to, to, to go north, um, because they're going to catch a Rabaul for, um, for MacArthur.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  The Americans. Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, for the Americans. And Peter Bruin, historian, he says.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Peter Bruin's not impressed, is he?

• 53:59Speaker 00

  No, he, it, what, what does he say, Jim?

• 54:01Speaker 01

  He says, "Nothing more than a selfish, vain pursuit of MacArthur's agenda. This decision was soon to have appalling consequences for the Australian Army."

• 54:09Speaker 00

  Raoul, Raoul amazingly records, "I'm on record on the Sunday following the fall of Tobruk, saying to my officers that if we were where we should be, it would be in New Guinea with the Seventh Division."

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  So he knows the way the wind's blowing.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  But also it's mateship. What's it supposed to, Aussies together?

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Mateship. Come on, Jim. Mateship. Come on. Mateship.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Mateship. Mateship. Mateship. Yeah, coba. Anyway, there is only one vital overland passage from the northern parts of the Owen Stanley Range to Port Moresby. And the objective will inevitably be to secure the only viable airstrip in the area, which is at?

• 54:53Speaker 00

  Kokoda. Capturing this village and the airstrip opens access to the trail overland to Port Moresby. It is the key to Port Moresby and the key to Australian security and defence in this phase of the Second World War. And in our next episode, we'll look at how that campaign gets underway. Ideas about what the Kokoda Gap might be are quite strange and what the track and trail might be also.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  We will see you for our next episode. If you want to get to that right away, then go to our We Have Ways of Making You Talk Patreon, sign up for membership for all sorts of stuff, as well as ad-free listening and series all in one lump. We will see you again next time when we fix bayonets, Jim, and make our way up the golden staircase in Kokoda.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  And fart Brens from top of people's heads. Yeah.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  If we've got Brens, is the point.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  If we've got Brens. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Anyway, we'll see you then. Cheerio.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  G'day.