The Battle for Australia/Kittyhawks Beyond the Gap

The Battle for Australia

Kittyhawks Beyond the Gap

Dennis O’Leary

Privately published, 2009 and 2011 respectively

In the words of his dedication in Kittyhawks, former RAAF engine fitter Dennis O’Leary has written these two books as a resource for students ‘[s]o that the youth of today may know what the youth of yesterday did for them’.

The Battle for Australia principally covers the period from December 1941 until March 1943. In it, O’Leary provides a basic summary of events. There are sections on each principal engagement, from the Air Battle for Darwin, through the Kokoda campaign to the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. There are also extracts from the diary of a soldier of the 61st Battalion, who served at Milne Bay.

The Battle for Australia provides a concise introduction to the events of the period, taking the viewpoint of those at the time. They did not have access to Japanese plans, but could make judgements on events based only on limited information. O’Leary seems to have little time for later historians, whose knowledge of the actual Japanese intentions from Japanese archives enables them to attack the concept of a battle for Australia as a myth. Perhaps so, but it might not have seemed like a myth at the time!

Kittyhawks Beyond the Gap is a quite different book, describing the operations of Kittyhawk aircraft beyond the ‘Gap’ in the Owen Stanley Ranges. These ranged from operations in support of the battle for the Papuan beachheads, then along the northern coast of New Guinea, through Dutch New Guinea, to Morotai and Borneo. The narrative inevitably includes much material on ground operations, the context in which the Kittyhawks operated, but there is sufficient on air operations to give a feel for them.

The ‘Morotai Mutiny’, by pilots disgruntled with the limited part they were playing in the great events of the period, is mentioned, as are the deeds of the RAAF airfield construction and SIGINT units. Indeed, one of the most interesting parts of the book is the section on the Australian intelligence personnel who worked to break the Katakana code. The Japanese considered this code too complicated for Westerners, not familiar with ancient Japanese linguistics, to understand. As in many cases, the road to defeat was paved with racial arrogance!

Another interesting section is on the invasions that didn’t happen, Operations Olympic (the proposed invasion of Kyushu in November 1945) and Coronet (targeted at Honshu in March 1946). The scale of these proposed operations is breath taking. The forces initially involved would have included 46 combat divisions and 1.5 million combat personnel, with three million more in support, and the entire US Pacific naval forces. The US First Army and Eighth Air Force were to be transferred halfway around the world from Europe to participate in these operations.

US casualties were expected to total around a million dead and wounded by the northern autumn of 1946. I have seen elsewhere a claim that the Purple Heart medals manufactured for the invasion of Japan have provided sufficient stock for the casualties of all US military operations since 1945, including Korea, Vietnam, and the various conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan! Even without taking potential Japanese casualties (military and civilian) from the invasion into account, Hiroshima and Nagasaki start to look like wise actions.

There are some minor anomalies. The Battle for Australia, for example, uses some inappropriate photos (such as one of the 2/23rd Battalion on Tarakan in 1945, to illustrate events in 1942, when the 2/23rd was still in the Middle East). However, these books provide an interesting introduction to operations in defence of Australia between 1941 and 1945.

JOHN DONOVAN