To Kokoda

TO KOKODA

Nicholas Anderson

Big Sky Publishing, 2014, 236pp, $19.95

ISBN 978-1-9221322-95-6

Australian military history has enjoyed something of a revival in recent years, and no doubt this will continue as the anniversaries associated with the Centenary of the First World War occur. Within that revival, some battles (Fromelles, but mainly around the time of the discovery of the Pheasant Wood burials, most battles on the Western Front, Greece, Crete and Syria, Alamein, the 1943-44 campaigns in New Guinea, and those in 1945 on Borneo and Bougainville) receive only occasional attention. Some others, notably Gallipoli, Tobruk and Kokoda, are regularly the subjects of books.

Nicholas Anderson has produced an informative history of the campaign up until the recapture of Kokoda, with some useful summary judgements on its place in the history of the war against Japan. The style of recent books on Kokoda varies from popular ‘yarns’ to detailed academic studies. This book, like others in the Australian Army Campaign Series, is academically rigorous, but written and published in a highly readable style.

The descriptions of events during the Australian retreat and subsequent advance are well written, enabling the reader to understand events as they occurred. Anderson avoids the temptation to over-analyse events, which led one recent author (Peter Williams, The Kokoda Campaign 1942, Myth and Reality, CUP, 2012) to produce somewhat artificial estimates of the numbers engaged at specific times.

Anderson’s account describes the logistic problems of operating along a tenuous foot track, with air dropped supplies capable of providing only a limited supplement to the work of Papuan carriers. As an illustration of the difficulties of the Kokoda Trail, some wounded from the early part of the Australian advance back across the mountains could not be evacuated until weeks after the battle had moved on. These difficulties did not seem always to be understood by senior officers in Port Moresby, leading to friction between them and the commanders on the Trail.

Anderson’s summary of the significance of the campaign is balanced. Kokoda did not save Australia from invasion, however, as Anderson notes, the information available at the time suggested that a ‘Battle for Australia’ was underway. There might not have been an actual Battle for Australia, but it probably seemed at the time as if there was. That the Japanese had already decided against invasion was recorded in Japanese archives that were not then available to Australia’s intelligence authorities (but some recent historians seem to ignore this reality).

Pre-war strategy held that the Singapore strategy would ensure Australia’s safety. In the event, however, Australia’s security from invasion during the Second World War was ensured by the maritime power of the United States Navy at the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, not by the Royal Navy operating from the Singapore base. After those battles, the Japanese ability to land troops at Port Moresby was minimal. This led to the Kokoda campaign, as the Japanese attempted an overland advance.

As Anderson points out, Guadalcanal was more important than Kokoda (or Milne Bay) because the Japanese made it so. Japanese power could not support both campaigns, particularly if they gave priority to holding Guadalcanal. They did this, easing the pressure on the Australian forces on the Kokoda Trail. Success at Kokoda, however, did keep space between the Japanese and the Australian mainland. The campaign also provided the opportunity for the army to learn jungle-fighting skills, which were valuable well beyond the end of the Second World War.

Anderson deals fairly with the relief of senior officers during the campaign. Brigadier Potts lost his command in part because under pressure he was insufficiently informative in his reports; he might have been reinstated had Lieutenant General Rowell remained in command, but Rowell’s successor Lieutenant General Herring would not accept Potts. The impact of his sacking on the 21st Brigade was exacerbated by poorly worded (to put it tactfully) speeches by Herring and General Blamey to the brigade at Koitaki, implying that the troops had not fought bravely.

Rowell allowed his personal dislike of Blamey to overcome his discipline, and was sacked; even lieutenant generals cannot persistently be insubordinate! Major General Allen was replaced in large part because of his poor relationship with Blamey and Herring. His successor, Major General Vasey arrived just as the Japanese withdrew from Eora Creek, leaving the way to Kokoda open. Vasey then gained the credit for Allen’s work.

Anderson sees the experiences of the individual soldiers along the Kokoda Trail as the most significant legacy of the campaign. It is invidious to select any one soldier to exemplify those who fought on the Kokoda Trail, but Sergeant Bede Tongs of the 3rd (Militia) Battalion stands out.

On 17 October 1942, the 3rd Battalion was preparing to attack strong Japanese positions at Templeton’s Crossing. Tongs identified a Japanese machine gun post as a potential obstacle to the attack. He crawled forward alone and threw a hand grenade into the post, destroying it. Tongs then ran ‘like a Stawell Gift runner’ back to his platoon, where the company commander ordered him to ‘Get that attack going Sergeant Tongs’ He then led his platoon forward in their successful attack. Thousands of such young Australians combined to win the campaign.

JOHN DONOVAN

Deployment of British Infantry Divisions, First World War

FORMATION AND DEPLOYMENT OF BRITISH INFANTRY DIVISIONS, FIRST WORLD WAR

While preparing the article on a separate page (see page list on right) on the Over-Expansion of the AIF in 1916, I needed to get a benchmark on the necessary timetable for deployment of a division. I used the formation and deployment of British infantry divisions for that purpose.

I looked at the British New Army, First-Line and Second-Line Territorial divisions, using Martin Middlebrook (Your Country Needs You, Pen and Sword, 2000) as the base source. He has some anomalies, and the dates of formation for some divisions are not clear, however, he has enough detail to give an indication of time taken from formation to deployment. For the five Australian divisions, I used Bean, though he also has some vagueness on the dates of formation.

When counting the time before a division went into action, I ignored the month when it was raised, then counted months either until it sailed to France for British divisions that went directly there, or until it went into action for Australian divisions, and those British divisions that went via Egypt to the Dardanelles. For the Australian divisions, I ignored the time lost on sea voyages, and any consequent disruption to training.

On that basis, the average time to get the first 18 New Army divisions into action was around 10.5 months. The quickest was seven months for the 12th, followed by eight for the 9th and 14th. Five more had ten months before going into action, the other ten took either eleven or twelve months.

Formation dates in Middlebrook for some of the last twelve New Army divisions are a bit vague, as several changed titles in April 1915. However, the lowest numbered of this group formed as the 37th in 'late 1914', becoming the 30th in April 1915, while the 36th (Ulster) Division formed in October 1914, and the 37th around September 1914, so it is probably reasonable to interpolate that those numbered in between (the 31st to 35th) also formed around September/October 1914. The 38th (Welsh) Division (Lloyd George's Army) also had a number change in April 1915, but its original date of formation is unclear. The 39th to 41st have firm dates of August and September 1915, when they were formed mostly from existing battalions.

Taking (conservatively) November 1914 as the dates for the 31st to 35th, and sticking (again conservatively) to April 1915 for the 38th, the average time to get into action for these twelve divisions was also 10.5 months, with the lowest eight and the highest 13 months. Most had eleven or twelve months before moving overseas. As an aside, Ray Westlake (Kitchener's Army, Spellmount, 1989) gives dates of December 1914 for the 33rd, September 1914 for the 36th, March 1915 for the 37th (which seems a bit late for deployment in July, certainly compared to the other divisions), and December 1914 for the 38th, but these do not change the argument significantly.

Ignoring the two sent to India in late 1914 to relieve regular garrisons there, the First-Line Territorial divisions had an average of ten months before being committed, with a minimum of six months (the 46th) and a maximum of 18 months (the 56th); the 55th also had an extended preparation, of 17 months. Both the 55th and 56th, however, had been stripped of their original infantry battalions in late 1914/early 1915, and had to re-gather their infantry component, delaying their deployment. These two push the average up noticeably, as without them the average for First-Line Territorial divisions was 8.5 months. Eight of the twelve that served in action as divisions were deployed within nine months.

The Second-Line Territorial divisions also have some anomalies. They were apparently brought into existence in late 1914, to control new recruits and the Second-Line battalions formed with non-deployable personnel from the First-Line divisions, but they were given numbers only in August 1915 (except for the 45th, also sent to India in late 1914, and numbered early in the First-Line series). I have counted August 1915 as their formation dates as divisions, 'writing off' the earlier period as draft finding duties only.

Those Second-Line divisions that went into action took an average of just over 16 months to prepare. The only two to deploy early were the 60th and 61st, after ten and nine months (in June and May 1916 respectively). The performance of the 61st at Fromelles in July might have discouraged early deployment of the others, as no other Second-Line Territorial division was deployed in less than 18 months. The 66th took 20 months. Five never left Britain, the number of one of these (the 63rd) being re-allocated to the Royal Naval Division after the original 63rd was broken up in July 1916 to provide reinforcements.

Turning to the Australian divisions, I think it is reasonable to equate them to New Army divisions, as they were formed ab initio. While the 4th and 5th have some similarities to the Second-Line Territorial divisions, being formed from cadres (albeit the cadres had some experienced personnel, unlike the Second-Line Territorial divisions), their supporting arms and services, particularly their artillery, were raised ab initio, so I think the New Army comparison remains broadly valid.

The 1st Division had about eight months from its formation to the Gallipoli landing. The 2nd was formed in Egypt in June/July 1915, but its brigades were formed in Australia around February/March, giving its component brigades about six months preparation before they moved to Gallipoli. The 3rd Division was formed in Australia in about February 1916, and went into the line in France that November, nine months later. All three lost some effective training time during their sea transits to Egypt/Britain.

The 4th and 5th Divisions had the shortest preparation periods, four and five months respectively. The average for the Australian divisions was six months, well below the 10.5 months average for the British New Army divisions, and even the 8.5 months for the First-Line Territorial divisions. Indeed, only the 1st and 3rd Divisions received more than the seven months for the fastest deploying New Army division.

Even accepting that the training time available to divisions, and their leadership, varied, these figures suggest that the 4th and 5th Divisions needed extra time before being sent into the line, and particularly into major offensive action. Leadership might have helped with the gap, but the 5th had McCay, who doesn't seem to have been one of the best and brightest. The 4th was luckier, getting H.V. Cox, formerly of the 29th Indian Brigade, and it could be argued that this explains some of the difference in the two divisions' performance in their first actions.

What does this mean? For the British, the delays in forming the last three New Army divisions (in August/September 1915), and the problems experienced deploying the Second-Line Territorial divisions, suggest that Britain probably could not maintain in action more than about 55 divisions on the twelve infantry battalion establishment. Either the Fifth New Army (the 36th to 41st Divisions) or the Second-Line Territorial divisions were 'a bridge too far'. Given that the Fifth New Army was deployable more quickly than the Second-Line divisions, and included the 36th (Ulster) and 38th (Welsh) Divisions, each of which had a strong political support base, I am inclined to consider that the Fifth New Army should (or certainly would) have proceeded.

All of the Second-Line Territorial divisions should probably have remained as draft finding organisations and/or static garrison formations (as some did), perhaps retaining their territorial designations rather than receiving numbers, to emphasise their restricted role.  That said, there were a couple of 'dodgy' divisions among the final twelve New Army divisions. Both the 35th and 40th 'Bantam' divisions needed drastic change to become effective formations.

Britain could have followed the French and Germans to divisions of nine battalions, to gain the flexibility provided by more, but smaller, divisions. If implemented in early 1917, this change would have allowed the extra battalions to be used to raise additional divisions, as the French and Germans did. Whether they could have been maintained during 1918 might, however, be questionable. When the change to a nine battalion organisation was made in 1918, it was under pressure to reduce personnel, not to raise new formations.

For Australia, while the twelve battalion establishment was in place, the 5th Division should not have been formed, and the 3rd should not have been committed to the Western Front after the failure of the first conscription referendum. By the end of 1916, the trend in recruitment without conscription was clear. It might have been possible to maintain four divisions on a nine battalion establishment with voluntary recruitment, but it is unlikely that five divisions could have been maintained at full strength without conscription, even on the lower establishment.

JOHN DONOVAN

Development of the Australian and Canadian Armies

DEVELOPMENT OF THE AUSTRALIAN AND CANADIAN ARMIES FROM THE SECOND WORLD WAR UNTIL EARLY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

This was not written as a stand-alone book review, but as a summary of my reviews of three books covering this subject in Australia and Canada.

I recently reviewed two books on the development of armies, Australia's (John Blaxland's The Australian Army from Whitlam to Howard) and Canada's (Peter Kasurak's A National Force, The Evolution of Canada's Army, 1950-2000). Reading them prompted me to re- read Dayton McCarthy's The Once and Future Army, on Australia's CMF between 1947 and 1974. Blaxland's book is published by Cambridge, McCarthy's by Oxford, and Kasurak's, logically, is Canadian - published by UBC Press.

Looking at all of the books, Kasurak is much better than Blaxland on 'his' army overall, while McCarthy (who also perforce covers a fair bit on the regulars) is better on the Australian Reserves than Kasurak is on the Canadian Militia. McCarthy also provides a brief concluding up-date on events in Australia since 1974. McCarthy's book holds up well, even after a decade (as such a book should).

Looking at the two armies, it is notable that each had two 'big army' phases, but with different results. Australia went through its first phase with the 1950s national service scheme, at a time when surplus Second World War equipment was available to equip the part-time force of two infantry divisions, three independent infantry brigade groups an independent armoured brigade, and four Army Groups, Royal Artillery, that the 1950s scheme supported. This was alongside an under-strength regular infantry brigade group and armoured regiment.

Ultimately, demography (the imminent arrival of the baby boomers would have destroyed the universality of the scheme) destroyed Australia’s 'big army' even as the equipment died of old age, with no realistic hope of replacement on the necessary scale. This change led to massive (and traumatic) changes to Australia's CMF, and particularly to huge reductions in its order of battle. This phase is well described by McCarthy.

Australia had a second 'big army' phase in the 1980s, after the period McCarthy describes, when it developed the Army Force Structure Plan and the associated Army Development Guide. These documents went nowhere. Albert Palazzo covers them briefly in his The Australian Army, but Blaxland does not discuss them. Perhaps the Army is still a bit embarrassed about them.

Apart from the matter of resources for the necessary equipment, the reductions in the CMF/Army Reserve force structure during the 1960s removed the 'skeleton' on which a 'big army' might have been constructed, and the Army had spent much time in the intervening period arguing against the 'skeleton' philosophy, leaving it in a logical bind. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, the Army Reserve (as the CMF had since become), developed a viable future role. While still a bit narrower than might be possible, it is at least realistic. Taking the trauma early seems to have led eventually to a useful outcome.

Canada's army held hopes for a 'big army' for most of the post-war period, but was distracted from attempting to implement it by the NATO commitment and the Canadian political aversion to conscription. This aversion was largely caused by the reluctance of les Quebecois to accept conscription, even in time of war, when la Belle France was actually invaded. After the Second World War, the Canadian Army proposed to its government a 'big army' of two corps supported by conscription into the Militia, akin to that actually implemented by Australia in the 1950s. The proposal was rejected, and NATO became the main game for Canada after Korea.

The Canadians did not start planning again in detail for a 'big army' until the 1970s-1980s, and these plans ultimately collapsed when it became quite clear after the end of the Soviet Union that the Canadian government would not provide funding for the personnel (even if they were predominantly militia) and equipment for a force up to 200,000 strong (there were two versions, Corps 86 and Corps 96, the latter being a slightly reduced version). Students at Canada's staff college also rebelled at having to learn and be examined on organisations that they realised would probably never be implemented.

Through all this, however, the Canadian Militia retained a huge order of battle, which the regulars wanted to keep to provide the 'skeleton' for the 'big army'. (In Australia, the regulars were more willing to cut the CMF order of battle - see some of the quotes in the McCarthy review.) That Militia order of battle seems to exist still, and changing it is likely to be as traumatic for Canada as the 1960s changes to the CMF were for Australia.

One other event stood out in Kasurak's book. After being in Europe for some 35 years, at high readiness for a Third World War, less than two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union the 4th Canadian Mechanised Brigade Group was not able to be deployed to the 1990-91 Gulf War for logistic reasons. One wonders how long it would have lasted against the Soviets? Perhaps not even long enough to see the first nuclear flash! Keeping a 'big army' ready for high-level combat is clearly a very complex business. Whether small nations can do it even at brigade level seems problematic! If you can find it, read Andre Beaufre's 1974 Strategic Studies Centre book Strategy for Tomorrow for an alternative approach.

Of the three books, McCarthy and Kasurak are the pick.

My reviews of all three books are available on this blog

JOHN DONOVAN

To Win the Battle/We Lead, Others Follow

TO WIN THE BATTLE/WE LEAD, OTHERS FOLLOW

This was prepared as an email to a friend, to discuss two books that I read, but on which I did not prepare reviews. It has been lightly edited.

I think I mentioned to you that I had read Robert Stevenson's book on the 1st Division in the Great War, To Win the Battle, but did not gain any startling insights from it. I have now read the Canadian equivalent. We Lead Others Follow: First Canadian Division 1914-1918, by Kenneth Radley (Vanwell Publishing, 2006) follows a similar theme. Radley uses a thematic approach, emphasising the roles of command and control, staff work and training in the development of an effective fighting force, with a summary chapter on three Canadian battles during the Hundred Days, showing how ‘It All Came Together’.

Again, there were no startling new insights (or maybe I am just old and jaded). After all, who would possibly have guessed that good leadership, effective command and control systems, efficient staff work and vigorous training would lead to a successful fighting organisation? That said, Radley's book is very interesting, and there were some useful points of detail (such as the demands by some Canadian battalion and brigade commanders for machine guns and trench mortars to be integrated into infantry battalions, rather than operating separately, and the strong engineer elements in Canadian divisions in 1918, three battalions and a pontoon bridging unit each).

Radley's book is generally more readable, but I think he must have spent a posting (he is a retired Canadian army officer) as directing staff at a staff college, as he has a propensity to ‘grade’ orders he has found in the Canadian archives. This makes the chapters on staff development, in particular, somewhat dry reading!

Looking at both books, I get the impression that a lot of effort is going into attacking the ‘citizen soldier’ myth, that once a uniform is on a magical transition occurs from citizen to soldier. However, books like Stevenson's and Radley's are preaching to the converted. Their likely readers already know that time, training, good staff and effective commanders are needed to make an army. The real audience is (or should be) the readers of ‘pub yarns’, or popular histories. The Campaign Series is a good approach to that audience, and should be continued, if only to get a toe into the ‘pub yarn’ market.

JOHN DONOVAN

A National Force

A NATIONAL FORCE: The Evolution of Canada’s Army, 1950-2000

Peter Kasurak

University of British Columbia Press, 2013, 350pp

ISBN 978-0-7748-2640-2 (pbk.)

Dr Peter Kasurak, former leader of the defence and national security sections of the Auditor General of Canada, brings the eye of an informed outsider to this study of Canada’s Army during the second half of the Twentieth Century. His story highlights missed opportunities, substantial change being implemented only after the end of the Cold War and several scandals.

Kasurak highlights several occasions when opportunities were missed. The first was immediately after the Second World War, when Lieutenant-General Foulkes became CGS. He favoured a modernised officer corps drawing on civilian university graduates receiving post-graduate training at the RMC of Canada. His successor recommended lower education standards for officers.

In the late 1960s, Major-General Rowley’s Officer Development Board reported to General Allard, the CDS. Proposed changes included delegating tactical responsibility to NCOs to reduce numbers of officers, and that officers should be recruited from the top 15 percent of school leavers, with a high proportion holding degrees. This report lapsed with Allard’s retirement. Reform of the Canadian officer corps was delayed until the Twenty-First Century, when the aim of a tertiary-educated officer corps was largely achieved by 2009.

An opportunity for organisational change came when Rowley was appointed to command 1 Canadian Infantry Division in 1962. He proposed such innovations as brigade service battalions, and conducted ‘function studies’ of arms elements, which pointed towards combining armour and infantry in tactical units for high intensity warfare. These proposals were overtaken by a short-lived move to a ‘mobile force’ and integration (later unification) of the Canadian Forces.

Masurak describes the extended process under which the Army developed plans for a mobilised force of one to two corps, focussed on attrition rather than manoeuvre. Decades were spent pursuing this goal, which took no account of the likely availability of resources, equipment, or personnel.

Although the combat development staff in 1979 prepared a paper advocating a more realistic objective, planning for a ‘big army’ continued until around 1990. The ‘big army’ Corps 96 (a reduced version of the earlier Corps 86) was abandoned in the 1990s, although the 1987 Defence White Paper had breathed short-term life into it. The Army’s Combat Development Guide was withdrawn, with the caveat that ‘the army need to balance requirements against available funds’.

Canada’s generals had sought unachievable targets, including equipment beyond the capabilities of current technology. ‘Development guided by realism’ was not a popular option, but the end of the Cold War and financial cutbacks enforced it.

Between occasional attempts to develop strategically transportable general purpose forces, and despite continuing government priority for the defence of Canada, the Army remained focussed on the mechanised brigade commitment to NATO’s Central Front, which absorbed massive resources. After decades on the Central Front preparing for high intensity war in Europe, Kasurak describes how the brigade was not ready to fight in the 1990-91 Gulf War, only a couple of years after the end of the Cold War.

The role of the part-time Militia was never resolved. The regulars sought a large Militia order-of-battle as the basis for the ‘big army’, ignoring numbers, training states, readiness and equipment deficiencies. The senior Militia officers sought an independent role, ignoring those same constraints. For a short period in the late-1950s and 1960s the Militia had a role as post-nuclear recovery force, before lapsing back into habit as part of the ‘big army’ ambition. While its primary role became to augment and sustain the Regular units, its force structure was maintained, but with no mobilisation plan.

The 1990s was a ‘decade of darkness’ for the Canadian Army. In an important chapter, Kasurak describes failures in discipline and ethics that plagued the Canadian Army, culminating in the murder of a Somali youth and disbandment of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. After major budget reductions, Canadian Forces Europe was disbanded. Its heavy equipment was redistributed to establish three brigade groups in Canada, each combining heavy tracked and lighter wheeled vehicles. Development of a ‘multi-purpose combat capable’ force commenced.

Kasurak highlights the relationship between the government and the military as ‘principal’ and ‘agent’, in which, once the military agent’s advice has been tendered and considered, the agent must follow the requirements of the civilian principal. He sees ignoring this relationship as a major failure in Canada.

This book has important lessons for armies facing imprecise threats with limited resources, and should be widely studied in Australia.

Reviewer:  JOHN DONOVAN

The Backroom Boys

THE BACKROOM BOYS Alfred Conlon and Army’s Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, 1942-46

Graeme Sligo

Big Sky Publishing, 2013, 380pp

ISBN 978-1-921941-12-2-7

Colonel Graeme Sligo has written an interesting story on the Army’s Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, and its enigmatic director, Alfred Conlon. However, he could have focussed more on Conlon, beyond the glimpses into his personality that appear in the book.

The Directorate started its existence as a small section reporting to the Adjutant-General, then Major-General Victor Stantke. Conlon, formerly the manpower officer at Sydney University, was commissioned as a major to head the Directorate, and stayed with it through most of its existence, being promoted progressively to colonel as the directorate expanded.

In an early excursion beyond the Adjutant-General’s Branch, Conlon also chaired a Committee on National Morale operating under the Prime Minister’s department. The principal outcome of this committee seems to have been a report on education, elements of which were later adopted through the Universities Commission. This set the precedent for other activities by the Directorate, some not of direct relevance to winning the war, that should have been conducted by other parts of the Army or by other organisations, except that Conlon had access to resources and personnel that they did not.

While, for example, it was appropriate that the Directorate provided advice on the legal framework for contingency planning in regions of Australia that might be invaded, the Army’s surveyors or the Department of External Territories could have conducted some other projects, which included construction of a terrain model of northern Australia and consolidation of the laws of Papua and New Guinea.

After nearly being sidelined by Stantke’s replacement, Major-General Charles Lloyd, Conlon saved his organisation by having it moved to the CGS Branch. From there he liaised with government ministers, including Eddie Ward, Minister for External Territories, and the erratic Bert Evatt, Minister for External Affairs, while supporting Blamey in his roles as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Land Commander under General MacArthur.

Sligo covers in detail the dispute in 1942 and 1943 between Blamey and the Secretary to the Department of the Army, Frank Sinclair. While Blamey, with Conlon’s advice, was successful in delaying the re-introduction of the Military Board until after the war, the division of financial responsibilities between the secretary and the senior military commander, at the core of the dispute, remained unresolved for decades after the war.

Probably the Directorate’s most important achievement was the LHQ School of Civil Affairs, later the Australian School of Pacific Administration, which trained personnel for civil affairs units. Deployment of civil affairs staff to British North Borneo, however, was complicated by Conlon’s willingness to support a plan by Evatt to bring North Borneo under Australian post-war administration. This plan seems to have involved first gaining Australian control over North Borneo, which would then be exchanged for Dutch New Guinea (West Papua).

This and a Directorate proposal for increased Australian administrative responsibilities in Timor might seem somewhat outlandish to modern eyes, as could Conlon’s ambition that Australia become ‘an almost “paramount power” in the South Pacific’. Sligo notes that Blamey, who had ‘a practical view of “troops to task” and military priorities’ probably told Conlon that the latter policy was impractical.

There seems only a limited connection between the problems of an army with limited resources and some of the Directorate’s activities. The resources directed into the Papua and New Guinea law consolidation project and establishing the Australian National University and the John Curtin School of Medical Research might have been better directed to higher priority tasks. Perhaps Sinclair did have a case for closer scrutiny of some of the Army’s activities, which had little direct connection with the pursuit of immediate combat operations?

While Conlon was intellectually brilliant, his attitudes suggest a less than reflective personality. His reported quote, that Blamey ‘did not have a clue who was up who in Canberra’ indicates that Conlon was either inflating his own ego, or that he did not understand the degree to which Blamey had been immersed in politics before the war and in the Middle East. While, as Peter Ryan commented, Conlon might have had ‘up-to-the-minute knowledge of “who was up who”’, Blamey was no slouch in that department.

Sligo notes Churchill’s comment that scientists (and by extension advisers like Conlon and his Directorate) should ‘be on tap, not on top’, but Conlon might not have shared that opinion. Indeed, while Conlon seems to have seen himself as some kind of puppet master, Blamey could actually have been pulling the strings.

Blamey was distrusted, in some cases actively disliked, by some ALP ministers, and might therefore have used Conlon as a ‘go-between’. Conlon had influence with and kept close to senior ALP figures, including Prime Minister John Curtin. Sligo records that Conlon was concerned that Curtin’s death might cause all his plans to come to naught, as he was not as close to Curtin’s replacement, Ben Chifley, who also did not share some of Evatt’s ambitions. Sligo notes that ‘in many respects [Conlon] behaved as if he were a ministerial or political policy staffer’, not an apolitical military officer.

Conlon’s personality also caused dissent in the Directorate, with the anthropologist (and previous commander of the North Australia Observer Unit) Lieutenant-Colonel W.E.H Stanner, being posted to London to put distance between them. Some other staff members seemed less than convinced by Conlon’s plans, as did some outsiders who dealt with him, including H.C Coombs. Many of the Directorate’s staff, however, later went on to high academic or bureaucratic achievement (one, the later Sir Arthur Tange, becoming the bête noire of many military officers).

In retrospect, it might have been better had Lloyd got his way, and Conlon and his then small group been despatched to the suburbs of Melbourne. Those tasks conducted by the Directorate that really mattered, such as training civil affairs staff, would still have been done by other parts of the Army and the bureaucracy, while Conlon’s assertive and manipulative personality would have been removed to the sidelines.

Overall, an interesting book, but it leaves open many questions about Conlon.

Reviewer:  JOHN DONOVAN

Descent Into Hell

DESCENT INTO HELL: The Fall of Singapore-Pudu and Changi-the Thai-Burma Railway

Peter Brune

Allen & Unwin, 2014, 802pp

Peter Brune has moved the focus of his study of Australia’s war against Japan from Papua to the campaign in Malaya and Singapore, and the fate of Australian prisoners of war there and on the Thai-Burma railway. This comprehensive book is a worthy follow-on to such books as A Bastard of a Place, Those Ragged Bloody Heroes, and The Spell Broken. Its publication is timely, as these events pass from living memory with the deaths of the participants.

Brune’s narrative suggests clearly that Lieutenant General Arthur Percival was promoted to a rank he was psychologically incapable of exercising. Percival took an academic approach to problems, but did not implement practical solutions. As a colonel in the late 1930s, he prepared an appreciation forecasting accurately that a Japanese invasion of Malaya would come during the monsoon season, and involve landings at ‘Singora and Patani in [Thailand] and Kota Bharu in Malaya’. In command in 1941, he did not follow the logic of his earlier appreciation.

Plans were prepared to counter such an attack, but never implemented. To the contrary, the RAF convinced itself that any invasion could be defeated by air power, and built airfields from which its aircraft (which never arrived in adequate quantity or quality) could operate. The army was forced to defend these airfields, some of them in highly vulnerable locations (including near Kota Bharu), giving it an impossible task.

Brune highlights two significant failures by Percival. First, he failed to establish a training organisation, even though many of his Indian troops were poorly trained. While a comprehensive training organisation existed in the Middle East, where untrained personnel could be brought up to battle standard, personnel arriving in Malaya could receive only limited training before being sent to front line units.

This failure makes inexplicable the arrival of some 1800 untrained Australian reinforcements in Singapore on 24 January 1942, as Singapore was about to be invested. These untrained reinforcements (and also many untrained Indian troops) were deployed straight into battle, as were the partially trained, but not acclimatised, men of the British 18th Division, who had been diverted while en route to the Middle East. Brune considers, probably correctly, that many of the undisciplined Australians roaming around the city in the last days came from this group.

Percival’s second failure was to make no use of Brigadier Ivan Simson, sent to Malaya in August 1941 as Chief Engineer with a brief ‘to bring the defences … up to date’. He was essentially ignored. Large quantities of defence stores remained unused, and Simson’s proposals to prepare defensive positions down the Malay Peninsula were rejected. A final mainland defensive line had been reconnoitred in Johore in 1938. Construction commenced, but was later abandoned, and further development did not occur, even after the Japanese invasion started.

Once Percival’s force had retreated to Singapore Island, it needed a commander able and willing to take hard decisions and enforce them. While Percival might have had the intellectual capacity to see what had to be done, Brune shows that he lacked the necessary decisiveness and ruthlessness. Montgomery he was not. Despite direct orders from General Sir Archibald Wavell, both Percival and the fortress commander, Major General Keith Simmons, failed to prepare defences on the northern and western shores of Singapore Island. The skills of Simson and the available defence stores remained essentially unused.

In attempting to defend Singapore Island, Percival tried to be strong everywhere, and in the end was weak where it mattered. Ultimately, however, Singapore could not have been held unless Japanese naval superiority was broken, which did not happen until the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Wavell’s hope that landing I Australian Corps in the Indies could have enabled a successful counterstroke, and allowed Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies to be held, demonstrated a lack of understanding of sea power surprising in a senior officer of a great maritime power.

With different decisions by a more decisive commander than Percival, and better use of Simson’s skills, the retreat down the Malay Peninsula could have been slowed, and the outcome delayed. This would have had incalculable effects on the war against Japan. With the large civilian population on the island, however, it seems unlikely that Singapore Island could have been remained under siege for as long as Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines. Nothing the Australians did, however, could have prevented the fall of Singapore.

Brune gives a competent description of the British delaying actions from the start of the war until the AIF entered the field at Gemas in mid-January 1942. Within the first two days it became clear that the policy of using air power to defeat the invasion had failed. Failure to pre-empt the Japanese attack by crossing the Thai border then set the scene for a series of disastrous defeats that drove the British forces down the Malay Peninsula. While the retreat was slowed after the AIF entered the fray, it was by then unstoppable.

The Australian part in the retreat from Gemas to Singapore Island is described in detail, as is the fight on Singapore Island, with successes and failures covered. Brune’s description of events on the 22nd Brigade front, where the full impact of the Japanese landings fell, is particularly good, giving a level of understanding that I had not acquired through previous reading. The battle proceeded to its inevitable result, regardless of the short-term successes occasionally gained, but hastened by too many failures in communication and leadership.

Brune follows the experiences of Australian prisoners after the surrender, providing a broad scale picture of their experiences in Malaya, Singapore, Thailand and Burma. By focussing on selected groups, he is able to demolish some myths (British camps were always worse run than Australian camps, everyone stood together as one ‘band of brothers’, and all Japanese and Korean guards were uniformly brutal and sadistic – one Korean guard known for his sympathetic approach was even nick-named ‘AIF Joe’). The truth, while perhaps discomforting to Australians, remains sufficiently inspiring to mitigate the poor behaviour of some.

Brune shows that after the surrender, when the dynamic changed, so too did the impact of different leaders. Some, like Lieutenant Colonels Frederick Galleghan and Gus Kappe, tried to organise a somewhat fanciful force to join re-conquering British troops. Admirable as such aggressive optimism might seem, they did not understand their new situation, and this was not what was required for their men to survive under Japanese captivity. A different style of leadership, exemplified by men like the 2/19th Battalion’s Captain ‘Roaring Reggie’ Newton and the doctors who gained lasting fame on the railway, was more helpful. After the surrender, many senior leaders lost their relevance as junior officers such as Newton came to the fore. Some, such as Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Pond, were good-hearted but ineffective.

Not all Australian commanders on the railway were as effective as Newton. Some, including Kappe and Major John Quick, focussed on their own survival, not on the survival of their men. Brune reports that Kappe told his men on the railway that he had ‘to look after himself to get home to report all this’. Perhaps similar attention to his men might have allowed more of them to ‘get home to report all this’. Quick was reported to have been ‘entirely dedicated to his own self-preservation’; Brune states that Quick did not attend unit reunions after the war! His poor leadership cost lives in his unit.

By focussing on the experiences of Newton and his camp doctor on the railway, Captain David Hinder, Brune demonstrates how an effective team could increase the chances of survival of their men. In Pudu Prison, in Kuala Lumpur, Newton learned to negotiate with the Japanese by a combination of bluff (his loud voice), personal courage (placing himself between his men and Japanese guards), and simulated humility regardless of his personal pride. He also used a combination of bribery (particularly of Sergeant Hiramatsu, known as the Tiger), and cooperation with some Japanese guards seeking to improve their own positions.

Newton also established good links with local Thai traders, especially Boon Pong. While Boon Pong did well from his trade, he accepted ‘deferred payment’ that enabled Newton to buy medications and supplementary food, supporting the health of his men. Men working on the railway were also assisted by money collected by interned British civilians (mostly businessmen) in Bangkok, who had extensive local contacts.

The railway doctors had to judge the state of their patients carefully. Enough had to be available for working parties, but a ‘rotation’ system was needed to allow everyone to have some relief. Brune also uses the experiences of Captain Rowley Richards, operating from the Burma end of the railway, to explain how the best doctors balanced the various competing forces. Under Newton, Hinder set the hygiene rules that Newton enforced rigidly, minimising the extent of infectious diseases in their camps. Richards coined the phrase ‘faeces, food, fingers, flies’ to counsel his men on avoiding sickness.

A key element of the story is the leadership of Major General H. Gordon Bennett. Bennett’s clashes with some regular officers of the Staff Corps are well known. Brune also outlines what might not be so well known, the extent to which regular officers refused to support him properly once he was appointed to command the 8th Division. Two named 8th Division staff officers are quoted as stating ‘publicly in the mess … that they disapproved of his appointment and were not prepared to cooperate with him’. Neither, however, chose to request an immediate transfer.

Brune notes that one book, The Fall of General Gordon Bennett, by Brett Lodge, also claimed that a senior Staff Corps officer attempted to frustrate Bennett’s command of the 8th Division, and ‘threatened that the 8th Division would never function as a complete formation under Bennett’s command’. Lodge apparently agreed with Bennett’s view that this was the Adjutant General, Major General Victor Stantke.

Brune describes how Lodge quotes selectively from comments by Major General Vernon Sturdee, later Chief of the General Staff (CGS), about Bennett’s suitability to command a division. The full comments demonstrate that Sturdee had no problems with Bennett as a divisional commander. Brune claims also that Lodge was selective in quoting other evidence that might have been seen as favouring Bennett.

Bennett suffered not only with disloyal staff officers who continued to intrigue against him, but also with inadequate subordinate commanders. Brigadier Harold Taylor of the 22nd Brigade resented Bennett, and frequently disobeyed orders. Brigadier Duncan Maxwell of the 27th Brigade actively subverted the defence of Singapore Island by abandoning vital positions near the Causeway, on the excuse that ‘he was a doctor in civil life and his function was to save life’. Clearly, Maxwell should not have been given command if an infantry unit or formation. In the Middle East under General Sir Thomas Blamey, neither Taylor nor Maxwell would have lasted, and it is surprising that Bennett did not replace one or both.

At the battalion level, Brune shows that the performance was mixed. Some, including Lieutenant Colonels Charles Anderson, Frederick Galleghan and Arthur Boyes, performed well, albeit not perfectly. Few of the infantry battalion commanders seem to have demonstrated any real knowledge of the employment of anti-tank guns, while Galleghan’s early reluctance to allow his men to dig in was a clear failure. Others were failures, and should have been replaced earlier.

After his return to Australia, Bennett was posted to command III Corps in Western Australia. At least until the defeat of the Japanese fleet at Midway in June 1942 this was a possible Japanese objective, indicating that Bennett was not immediately side-lined. He stayed in command of a declining force there until retiring in April 1944.

Was Bennett as good as he thought he was? Probably not, but he seems to have been as good as most of the British generals alongside whom he served in Malaya and Singapore. Brune shows that he made errors, such as in his deployment of the partially trained 45th Indian Brigade at the Muar River. Many of his clashes with senior British commanders and staff, however, were the result of him implementing his charter as an Australian commander. There were similar clashes in the Middle East between British commanders and both Blamey and Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead.

After the war, Bennett faced an inquiry into his departure form Singapore. Brune notes the mysterious disappearance of the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Wilfred Kent Hughes. This was sent back to Australia in early 1942, and given into the custody of Stantke. Its loss, and the destruction after the war of cables between Bennett and the CGS, removed important pieces of evidence for a full inquiry into Bennett’s conduct and affected the writing of the Official History. One of those on the board of inquiry into that conduct was Stantke, whose animus against Bennett seems to be accepted even by Lodge.

However, Stantke might have had a further reason to ensure that Bennett was censured. Brune notes the arrival of the untrained Australian reinforcements in late January, and their bad effect on the defence of Singapore after being hastily integrated into units that had suffered heavy casualties on the Malay Peninsula. However, he does not look into responsibility for their arrival.

While Australian Army headquarters must bear the full responsibility, it seems likely that the Australian personnel authorities were at least partially culpable. The principal Australian personnel authority was the Adjutant General, then Stantke. To protect both himself and other senior officers, he might have been concerned that the post-war inquiry into Bennett’s departure from Singapore not focus on this issue, casting further doubt on his impartiality.

The editing of the book is uneven. As simple examples, the Baluch Regiment also appears variously as Buluch and Bulach, Major General Beckwith-Smith appears also as Beckworth-Smith, while the photo of Lieutenant Colonel Albert Coates gives his first name as Alfred, and a photo captioned as Lieutenant Colonel Broadbent shows him wearing the hat band, gorget patches, and rank badges of a full colonel. Joo Lyte and Joo Lye are used variously during the description of the 2/18th Battalion’s engagement at Nithsdale Estate. The plan showing the layout of Pudu Prison does not match the description in the text. Finally, the index is quite inadequate.

These criticisms aside, this book is a valuable contribution to the historiography of the 8th Division’s service in Malaya and Singapore. While Brune makes his sympathies clear with respect to Bennett, at this remove it is unlikely that entrenched attitudes will be changed.

JOHN DONOVAN