WHAT WAS THE BATTLE FOR AUSTRALIA 1942-43?

Returning from the Battle of Isurava, soldiers of the 39th Australian Infantry Battalion trudge through deep mud on the hellish Kokoda Track. They were lightly armed, exhausted, and starving. In heavy fighting under appalling conditions against a powereful Japanese army that outnumbered them, these militia heroes have played a vital role at Kokoda, Deniki, and Isurava in blunting the momentum of the Japanese invasion of Australian soil in 1942.

As matter of unchallengeable historical fact, Australian soil was invaded by Japanese troops on 21 July and 25 August 1942.

STRATEGIC CONTEXT

The term “Battle for Australia” describes the clash of Japanese and American strategic war aims with Australia as their focus that produced a series of great battles in 1942 across the northern approaches to Australia, including the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Kokoda Campaign, and the Guadalcanal Campaign. In this context, the Battle for Australia is to be viewed as a lengthy and bloody struggle to prevent Imperial Japan achieving its strategic Pacific War aims of controlling Australia, preventing the United States aiding Australia, and using Australia as a base for launching a counter-offensivm against the Japanese military advance. For their part, the Americans were determined to protect their access to Australia and its New Guinea territories in 1942, even at the risk of their six precious fleet carriers that had survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In the event, three of those powerful American fleet carriers were sunk defending Australia from the Japanese advance in 1942.

The capital of Papua in 1942 was Port Moresby, and its capture by Imperial Japan (Operation MO) was a strategic priority that was intended to anchor the total isolation of Australia from the United States and American help in 1942 by capturing and fortifying a string of islands stretching from Port Moresby to Fiji and Samoa (Japan’s Operation FS). The Guadalcanal Campaign was intended to prevent Japan isolating Australia from the United States and denying Australia American help against Japan. MORE on the Battle for Australia.

OPERATIONAL AND TACTICAL FOCUSES

The Battle of the Coral Sea and the Kokoda Campaign in 1942 were both produced by Imperial Japan’s strategic aim to capture the Australian external territory Papua which had been transferred by Britain to Australia in 1902 and became part of the Commonwealth of Australia with the passing of the Papua Act 1905 (C’wealth). Papua remained a part of the Commonwealth of Australia until it received independence in 1975.

Within the broad strategic context, it is important to make the point that Japanese invasion troops who came ashore on the beaches of northern Papua on 21 July 1942 and at the Milne Bay RAAF base in eastern Papua on 25 August 1942 were landing on soil that was still part of Australia in 1942. These troop landings were both part of Japan’s Kokoda Campaign, and the primary objective of that campaign was to capture Australia’s Port Moresby. The landings on the beaches of northern Papua were intended to prepare the way for a powerful Japanese army to follow the initial landings, cross the Kokoda Track, and capture Port Moresby. The purpose of capturing the RAAF base at Milne Bay was to enable Japanese aircraft to support the Japanese army when it emerged from the Kokoda Track above Port Moresby.

As a matter of unchallengeable historical fact, the whole of the bloody Kokoda Campaign was fought on soil that was still part of the Commonwealth of Australia called Papua in 1942. To suggest, as the Australian War Memorial (AWM) has been doing since 2002, that the Japanese did not invade any part of Australia in 1942, is either a deliberate denial of historical fact or indicative of appalling ignorance of history. See below the reference to the AWM book “Kokoda beyond the Legend”.

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL DEFILES SACRED GROUND BY PUBLISHING FAKE KOKODA HISTORY

(LEFT) The Australian War Memorial; (RIGHT) The Memorial's 2017 publication "Kokoda beyond the Legend". False claims by historians that Australia's Kokoda heroes did not fight, bleed, and die on Australian soil in 1942 in defence of Australia, and false claims that Australian soldiers were inferior fighters to the Japanese whom they defeated, are contained in the appalling Australian War Memorial publication "Kokoda beyond the Legend". Publication of "Kokoda beyond the Legend" deserves to be a source of continuing shame for the Australian War Memorial.

Kokoda was the first invasion of Australian soil by a foreign power since Federation (1901).

Kokoda should be of great importance to all Australians because the Japanese invasion of Papua on 21 July 1942 was the first invasion of the Commonwealth of Australia by a foreign power since Federation.

Most Australians will surely agree that the men who fought and died in defence of Australia on the Kokoda Track and at Milne Bay in 1942 should be honoured; but this attitude to our Kokoda heroes does not appear to be shared by Australian War Memorial historians, management, Council, Minister for Veterans' Affairs Darren Chester, and even Prime Minister Scott Morrison who all appear to have adopted or accepted the fashionable sceptical neo-Marxist postmodern view of history that began to infect the study of Australian history in the 1980s, and appears to have infected senior military historians employed by the Australian War Memorial since at least 2002.

The Australian War Memorial has published an appalling treatment of Australia's victory over Japanese invaders in three chapters of the book "Kokoda beyond the Legend". See picture above. The book falsely demeans a magnificent achievement in 1942 by Australian soldiers engaged in bloody fighting to repel a more powerful Japanese army on Australian soil known as the Kokoda Track. One chapter by Dr Peter Williams falsely smears Australia's Kokoda heroes by suggesting that they were lesser soldiers than the Japanese whom they defeated on the Kokoda Track. Chapter authors Dr Karl James and Dr David Horner falsely claim that the Japanese did not invade any part of Australia in 1942. This claim is nonsense because the Kokoda Track is situated in Papua which was still part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1942. By falsely claiming that Kokoda was not part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1942, chapter authors James and Horner are effectively denying our dead Kokoda heroes, including Bruce Kingsbury VC and John French VC, the honour of fighting, bleeding, and dying to defend soil that was still part of Australia in 1942. In addition to contributing the chapter mentioned above, Karl James also edited the appalling publication "Kokoda beyond the Legend" which was drawn from an Australian War Memorial conference bearing the same name in 2012. The appalling false treatments of Kokoda by James, Horner, and Williams caused News Corp dailies, including the Melbourne "Herald Sun", to describe those treatments as an "Insult" to Australia's Kokoda heroes. See below:

The Melbourne "Herald Sun" newspaper response, headed "Kokoda insult", reflected the anger produced by reports of the "Kokoda beyond the Legend" conference in 2012 that falsely diminished the strategic significance of Kokoda, falsely denied that Australia's Kokoda heroes fought and died on Australian soil called the Kokoda Track, and falsely suggested that Australian soldiers were lesser fighters than the Japanese they defeated on the Kokoda Track. The controversial papers from the 2012 conference were reproduced by Karl James in the book "Kokoda beyond the Legend" (2017).

It probably astonished many veterans and descendants of our 1942 Kokoda heroes that this controversial historian Karl James was promoted to head the Australian War Memorial's military history section before Brendan Nelson left the Memorial at the end of 2019. To facilitate international access, the extraordinary promotion of Karl James will receive further mention on its own page.

My repeated public exposures of these appalling false treatments of Kokoda history between 2012 and 2019 have produced no challenges from the director of the Australian War Memorial Brendan Nelson, the Memorial Council, or any of the historians whose demeaning treatments of Kokoda and Australia's Kokoda heroes have been proved by me to be false.

The Australian War Memorial stands on sacred ground. It belongs to the people of Australia and not to its managing council, its directors, or its staff historians who appear to relish igniting wholly unjustified public controversy over Australia's war history or to lack any concern about that controversy. Memorial staff historian English-born Dr Peter Stanley ignited fierce public controversy from 2002 to 2005 with his wholly unjustified attacks on Prime Minister John Curtin, Australians, and Australia's war history, including the Anzacs. The Memorial was immersed in public controversy until Australia's political leaders at that time, Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, intervened. The management of the Australian War Memorial, including the Memorial Council, appears to be unable to appreciate that the national war memorial is not equivalent to a university campus. It should not be used as a platform from which its staff can express or publish offensive, insulting, and strongly challenged personal views that lack sound historical foundation and diminish the achievements and sacrifices of those who died defending Australia from Japanese military aggression at places that included Sydney, Darwin, Broome, Rabaul, Timor, Ambon, Coral Sea, Kokoda, Milne Bay, the Beachheads, Wau, and Guadalcanal.

It can be reasonably argued that the Memorial management has defiled sacred ground by publishing a book that demeans Kokoda by falsely denying that Japan's Kokoda Campaign was an invasion of part of Australia in 1942 and falsely smears Australia's Kokoda heroes as lesser soldiers than the Japanese they defeated on Australian soil. When Kokoda represents the first invasion of Australia by a foreign power since Federation (1901), one could reasonably expect that the management of the Australian War Memorial, including director and council, would have the competence to choose authors with basic knowledge of the Kokoda Campaign. However, this very important aspect appears to have escaped the attention of Memorial management. The wholly unjustified dishonouring of Kokoda and the men who fought, bled, and died on the Kokoda Track by the book "Kokoda beyond the Legend" has been made very clear by me to Memorial director Brendan Nelson, chairman of the Memorial council Kerry Stokes, and the Minister for Veterans Affairs Darren Chester since 2018, but appears to have left them unwilling to defend the honour of the gallant Australians who gave their lives to defend their country against the first invasion of Australian soil since Federation. When they appeared to be unwilling to defend the honour of Australia's Kokoda heroes, I brought this matter to the attention of Prime MInister Scott Morrison in October 2019. His failure to respond, and initial rejection of a posthumous Victoria Cross to recognise the extraordinary bravery and sacrifice of seaman Edward "Teddy" Sheean as HMAS Armidale was sinking in 1942, caused me to feel that my response (below) was wholly justified.

REVIEWS - MILITARY HISTORY BOOKS AND DVDS

"Kokoda beyond the legend" (2017) - edited by Dr Karl James - published by Australian War Memorial

"The Kokoda Campaign 1942 - Myth and reality" (2012) - Dr Peter Williams - Australian Army History series

Historians Peter Stanley, David Horner, and Karl James achieve "fail" scores for their seriously inadequate knowledge of Kokoda

Some historians who profess knowledge of the Japanese attack on Australia, and are associated with the Australian War Memorial, have been claiming since 2002 (Dr Peter Stanley) that the Japanese did not invade any part of Australia in 1942 and had never intended to invade any part of Australia in 1942. These claims are nonsense. They lack any historical foundation and suggest seriously inadequate knowledge of Australian history on the part of these historians, and in particular, seriously inadequate knowledge of the Japanese attack on Australia in 1942. These false claims are pursued in the Memorial’s appalling 2017 publication “Kokoda beyond the Legend” in chapters by Dr David Horner and Dr Karl James and suggest that there has been an enduring collapse of historical scholarship at the Australian War Memorial (see below "Brendan Nelson's Australian War Memorial publishes a false and shameful distortion of Kokoda") that reflects poorly on the Memorial’s governing Council and former director Brendan Nelson.

(LEFT) Dr Peter Stanley; (CENTRE) Dr David Horner; (RIGHT) Dr Karl James. Published refusals by these historians to acknowlege the indisputable fact that Papua was legally part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1942 deny Australia's Kokoda heroes, including Bruce Kingsbury VC and John French VC, the honour of dying on Australian soil in defence of Australia.

The absurd refusals by historians associated with the Australian War Memorial to acknowledge the indisputable fact that Papua was still legally part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1942 demean the magnificent Australian achievements against invading Japanese troops in the Kokoda Campaign. These absurd and shameful denials of historical fact emanating from the Australian War Memorial also produce the appalling appearance that Australia’s military heroes defending Port Moresby and Milne Bay in 1942 did not fight, bleed, and die defending Australia on Australian soil. It can be fairly argued that historians Stanley, James, and Horner, who refuse to acknowledge the historical fact that Papua was part of the Commonwealth of Australian in 1942, are denying Australia’s military heroes, including Bruce Kingsbury VC and John French VC, the honour of dying on Australian soil in defence of Australian soil. In 2008, Dr Peter Stanley rejected my written offer to debate publicly with him every aspect of the Battle for Australia including the fact that Papua was still part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1942. To the best of my knowledge, historians Stanley, James, and Horner, have made no attempt to defend their appalling refusals to acknowledge the indisputable historical fact that Papua was legally part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1942. The Australian War Memorial has also shamefully failed to defend the honour of Australia’s war heroes in the bloody Kokoda Campaign.