ANZAC
The Kempeitai’s Game, 1942–45 – Portuguese East Timor
The SRD operations – one of the greatest intelligence failures in Australian history! In early 1942, as the war situation appeared to become more and more critical, Australia’s government agreed to the establishment of an organisation, the Inter-Allied Services Department (ISD) which later became. Special Operations Australia (SOA) and, in 1943, was yet again retitled as the Services Reconnaisance Department…
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The Sudan Campaign: Troup Convoy
The P & O liner Iberia was requisitioned to carry troops to the Sudan The first Australian troops to go overseas left Sydney in March 1885, when, following the murder of General Charles Gordon in Khartoum, the colony of New South Wales raised a small contingent to assist British forces…
Douglas MacArthur’s “Strategic Withdrawal”
By February 17, effective resistance to the Japanese invasion on Sumatra ceased. Two days later, Japanese troops from the Celebes came ashore on Bali. That same date, the 19th, Japanese began landings in Portuguese Timor, and Nagumo launched his massive strike toward Port Darwin, Australia. One hundred fifty aircraft, including…
Tobruk: The Desert Rats Defy Rommel 1941
Italy’s invasion of Libya in 1911 meant that Mussolini already had one possession in North Africa. By the outbreak of the Second World War, some 150,000 Italian colonists lived there. So when the British rejected Hitler’s peace overtures, Mussolini turned his attention to Egypt, which had been in British hands…
IJN Submarines – East Coast Australia
In the days after the Sydney raid, the Australian Department of Information monitored Japanese broadcasts around the clock, but picked up no public broadcast relating to the Sydney attack until 5 June. The Imperial Navy made an attack on Sydney Harbour with midget submarines on 31 May. We have succeeded…
Sinking Japanese Submarine I-1
By Bruce Petty A pair of New Zealand minesweepers teamed up to sink a Japanese submarine off Guadalcanal. Gordon Bridson was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1909, but shortly thereafter his family moved to Auckland, where he attended Auckland Grammar School. Bridson was larger than most children his age,…
Kokoda Trail
Japanese offensive in the Owen Stanleys, 21 July-26 September 1942. Scene of a bitterly fought and difficult offensive in New Guinea during July-November 1942, in which the Japanese sought to capture Port Moresby by an overland route following the defeat of a naval operation to seize that place. General Tomitaro…