Wildcat
Major
I think the fact that Australian land, sea and air forces had overwhelming and complete superiority over the Japanese was the main factor in our "low" casualty figures. I wonder if he states this in his book.
Diggers 'afraid to attack enemy'
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I think the fact that Australian land, sea and air forces had overwhelming and complete superiority over the Japanese was the main factor in our "low" casualty figures. I wonder if he states this in his book.
Heinz
Captain
A case of selective hearing, or rather selective writing this case.
I have one of Hastings' books Armageddon - The Battle for Germany and it is a good read, really informative as long as you ignore his opinions on the subject. In Armageddon he does mention the unwillingness of Western Allied troops to risk their lives in the dying days of the war because they wanted to make it home. If his observation of the Australian soldiers in the PTO in 1945 had been the same it probably would have been true, it's only natural to want to survive. To call them cowards though is a disgrace and I'll certainly avoid buying any other books by the man.
I do have to mention that Hastings' was a war correspondent in Vietnam, Mid-East and Falklands ... and we all know how right they are, all the time.
I do have to mention that Hastings' was a war correspondent in Vietnam, Mid-East and Falklands ... and we all know how right they are, all the time.
That assumes that they are actualy called 'cowards' somewhere in the book.
I do not believe this is the case but perhaps someone could clear it up?
Aussie1001
Staff Sergeant
i aint gonna waste money to buy **** so someone else can tell me i would be much obliged.
Emac44
Staff Sergeant
I know you are playing devils advocate on this issue Kenny and quiet frankly you are entitled to do so. But are you supporting the claims of This Gutter Snipe Journalist about Australian Troops in Borneo
I just think it is all a storm cooked up by 'gutter press' papers.
They took a serious book and twisted the authors conclusions to make a story.
Not one single poster here has seen the book yet they castigate Hastings for something he did not say.
I heard the radio interview where Hastings was asked to explain the problem and it turned out all he said was there was no great enthusiasm to be the last man killed in a campaign that had no real military value. I took that as a tribute to the good sense of the soldiers rather than a slur on their character.
Emac44
Staff Sergeant
Thank you Kenny I had to clarify in my mind what you were actually saying, Now I understand
lesofprimus
Brigadier General
German troops and pilots, American servicemen, British troopers and aircrew, they ALL knew the War was comin to an end and didnt want to get nailed right before Germany surrendered...
I dont call that cowardice, I call that intelligence...
And as far as the Aussies go with their desire not to be "wasted" in ineffectual combat situations, I myself have been in this neck of the woods before.... There were several times when we would sit around in a brief and look at each other, wondering why we were being sent in to do something so idiotic, questioning our higherups and their judgement on what constitutes a "quality" mission objective....
Didnt really make a difference, as we went in where and when we were told, but it didnt negate the fact that sometimes we thought we were being underultilized.....
I dont call that cowardice, I call that intelligence...
And as far as the Aussies go with their desire not to be "wasted" in ineffectual combat situations, I myself have been in this neck of the woods before.... There were several times when we would sit around in a brief and look at each other, wondering why we were being sent in to do something so idiotic, questioning our higherups and their judgement on what constitutes a "quality" mission objective....
Didnt really make a difference, as we went in where and when we were told, but it didnt negate the fact that sometimes we thought we were being underultilized.....
Negative Creep
Staff Sergeant
I have one of Hastings' books Armageddon - The Battle for Germany and it is a good read, really informative as long as you ignore his opinions on the subject. In Armageddon he does mention the unwillingness of Western Allied troops to risk their lives in the dying days of the war because they wanted to make it home. If his observation of the Australian soldiers in the PTO in 1945 had been the same it probably would have been true, it's only natural to want to survive. To call them cowards though is a disgrace and I'll certainly avoid buying any other books by the man.
I do have to mention that Hastings' was a war correspondent in Vietnam, Mid-East and Falklands ... and we all know how right they are, all the time.
I noticed this as well. He's also very critical of American training meothds and suggests the troops were often poorly motivated
Nostalgair
Airman
Mmmmm.
My father served as a Commando in New Guinea out of Wewak in 1945. I have spoken to Dad and a number of his contemporaries and they were certainly kept 'busy' through this period.
They did express some frustration at some of the patrols which seemed to be of minimal purpose, but that did not detract from their commitment and vigour.
I've tended to find that all-encompassing, broad statements such as "Diggers afraid to attack enemy" tend to serve as headlines rather than history.
Cheers
Owen
My father served as a Commando in New Guinea out of Wewak in 1945. I have spoken to Dad and a number of his contemporaries and they were certainly kept 'busy' through this period.
They did express some frustration at some of the patrols which seemed to be of minimal purpose, but that did not detract from their commitment and vigour.
I've tended to find that all-encompassing, broad statements such as "Diggers afraid to attack enemy" tend to serve as headlines rather than history.
Cheers
Owen
Most detailed review I could find:-
"In this his latest book Max Hastings aims not so much to write another history of the war in the Pacific but to describe 'a massive and terrible experience, set in a chronological framework'. It is a companion volume to his Armageddon which did much the same for the last phase of the war in Europe; but the experiences he describes are yet more terrible, and the framework will be even less familiar to British readers. The book does indeed concentrate on the truly terrible experiences of those caught up in the war, whether they were American marines, British prisoners of war, Chinese peasants, Japanese kamikaze pilots, or even Russian soldiers rushed across Siberia from a war they had just won to fire the last shots in one they had never even heard about; for one of the many merits of this book is that it gives due attention to the war on the mainland of Asia as well as the far better known campaigns in the Pacific. But the strategic framework that gave rise to these experiences is equally striking and if not terrible, then certainly bizarre.
In the first place, the victorious allies in this conflict were united by little except mutual contempt. The Americans despised the British whom they believed, with some justification, to be simply fighting for the restoration of an empire that they themselves were equally determined to destroy. The US navy did its best to exclude the royal navy from any participation in the Pacific war; though it has to be said that its contribution, when it ultimately made one, was rather pathetic. For the US army the only point of the British campaign in Burma was to open a route to help Chiang Kai-shek whose armies, they believed, would liberate the Chinese mainland and provide the necessary launching pads for an invasion of Japan: their commanders in south-east Asia, first 'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell and then the anglophobe Albert Wedemeyer, were explicit in their loathing of their British colleagues and their contempt for the Chinese. In Washington the illusion reigned that Chiang Kai-shek was a great democratic leader who could make China one of the four policemen of the post-war world. The British saw him as a brutal and corrupt warlord interested in nothing but feathering his own nest.
As for the Australians, they resented both the British who had abandoned them and the Americans who neglected them: their co-operation with both was minimal.
Relations between the American armed services were equally acrimonious. The navy believed that no invasion would be necessary, and that Japan could be brought to her knees by blockade. The US army air force believed that she could be defeated by bombing, and would need to be if the huge investment in B29 bombers was to be justified and they were to win their spurs as an independent arm. Independent of both, the megalomaniac General Douglas MacArthur fought a separate war to fulfil his pledge to liberate the Philippines. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff, themselves barely on speaking terms with one another, made no attempt to impose any strategic priorities on these squabbling paladins. They did not need to: American wealth and industrial productivity was great enough to pour resources into all of them. Meanwhile on the peripheral stage of Burma General Bill Slim, one of the few really human figures in this grand guignol theatre, fought a campaign that had little to do with defeating Japan and everything with the restoration of British face after the humiliation of the surrender of Singapore. But even that he was only able to do thanks to the facilities provided by the United States air force.
The key element in American strength, according to Hastings, was the least spectacular — their submarine force, whose blockade had indeed, by the end of 1944, rendered Japan incapable of carrying on the war. But her armies were still in place, fighting with the loyal support of a fully indoctrinated population and a ferocity that awed their antagonists; and neither the American people nor their armed forces were in a mood to lie back and wait for them to surrender. So the marines battled ashore on what Hastings calls 'the bloody handkerchiefs' of Iwojima and Okinawa so that Curtis Le May's B29s could lay waste the cities of Japan and would have gone on doing so indefinitely if the dropping of the atomic bombs had not at last persuaded the emperor to speak out and bring the war to an end. Hastings gives a full and fair account, both of the decision to drop the bomb, and of the prolonged process by which the Japanese government ultimately surrendered; arguing, to my mind conclusively, that the decision saved many more lives than it cost.
Brilliantly though Hastings lays out the strategic context, his real talent lies in his account of 'the terrible human experience' that it involved. British readers will know about the ordeals of jungle campaigning and the sufferings of Japanese prisoners of war; less about what it was like to serve on a warship in the Pacific with its months of tedium and moments of nightmare when the vessel was hit by shellfire or worse, a kamikaze bomber; or what was involved in piloting a B29, especially in the early days before the innumerable bugs had been ironed out of it; or the horrors involved in attacking or defending one of those 'bloody handkerchiefs' that now rank so high in American mythology. Even less do they know of the ordeals of the Chinese people under Japanese occupation. As for the Japanese themselves, even Hastings recoils baffled from the attempt to enter into the mind of a people whose soldiers were so infinitely courageous, whose officers could be so literate and civilised, but who behaved with such systematic brutality to those whom they had defeated and ruled: a brutality that they still deny.
This is a book not only for military history buffs but for anyone who wants to understand what happened in half the world during one of the bloodiest periods of the blood-soaked 20th century."
Michael Howard'
Unfortunately dosen't clarify what was written about the Aussies.
I too would be horrified if Max Hastings implied the Australians were cowards. But I think guys this may have more to do about being lead by your nose by the gutter press who want to sell newspapers(You know they talk crXp most of the time so why believe them now).
I have read a couple of Hastings books and found that he shows an empathy for serviceman and is one of the better authors to describe the difficulties and horrors of wartime to us civies. I will be ordering a copy from the library just in case hes turned all David Irving.
"In this his latest book Max Hastings aims not so much to write another history of the war in the Pacific but to describe 'a massive and terrible experience, set in a chronological framework'. It is a companion volume to his Armageddon which did much the same for the last phase of the war in Europe; but the experiences he describes are yet more terrible, and the framework will be even less familiar to British readers. The book does indeed concentrate on the truly terrible experiences of those caught up in the war, whether they were American marines, British prisoners of war, Chinese peasants, Japanese kamikaze pilots, or even Russian soldiers rushed across Siberia from a war they had just won to fire the last shots in one they had never even heard about; for one of the many merits of this book is that it gives due attention to the war on the mainland of Asia as well as the far better known campaigns in the Pacific. But the strategic framework that gave rise to these experiences is equally striking and if not terrible, then certainly bizarre.
In the first place, the victorious allies in this conflict were united by little except mutual contempt. The Americans despised the British whom they believed, with some justification, to be simply fighting for the restoration of an empire that they themselves were equally determined to destroy. The US navy did its best to exclude the royal navy from any participation in the Pacific war; though it has to be said that its contribution, when it ultimately made one, was rather pathetic. For the US army the only point of the British campaign in Burma was to open a route to help Chiang Kai-shek whose armies, they believed, would liberate the Chinese mainland and provide the necessary launching pads for an invasion of Japan: their commanders in south-east Asia, first 'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell and then the anglophobe Albert Wedemeyer, were explicit in their loathing of their British colleagues and their contempt for the Chinese. In Washington the illusion reigned that Chiang Kai-shek was a great democratic leader who could make China one of the four policemen of the post-war world. The British saw him as a brutal and corrupt warlord interested in nothing but feathering his own nest.
As for the Australians, they resented both the British who had abandoned them and the Americans who neglected them: their co-operation with both was minimal.
Relations between the American armed services were equally acrimonious. The navy believed that no invasion would be necessary, and that Japan could be brought to her knees by blockade. The US army air force believed that she could be defeated by bombing, and would need to be if the huge investment in B29 bombers was to be justified and they were to win their spurs as an independent arm. Independent of both, the megalomaniac General Douglas MacArthur fought a separate war to fulfil his pledge to liberate the Philippines. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff, themselves barely on speaking terms with one another, made no attempt to impose any strategic priorities on these squabbling paladins. They did not need to: American wealth and industrial productivity was great enough to pour resources into all of them. Meanwhile on the peripheral stage of Burma General Bill Slim, one of the few really human figures in this grand guignol theatre, fought a campaign that had little to do with defeating Japan and everything with the restoration of British face after the humiliation of the surrender of Singapore. But even that he was only able to do thanks to the facilities provided by the United States air force.
The key element in American strength, according to Hastings, was the least spectacular — their submarine force, whose blockade had indeed, by the end of 1944, rendered Japan incapable of carrying on the war. But her armies were still in place, fighting with the loyal support of a fully indoctrinated population and a ferocity that awed their antagonists; and neither the American people nor their armed forces were in a mood to lie back and wait for them to surrender. So the marines battled ashore on what Hastings calls 'the bloody handkerchiefs' of Iwojima and Okinawa so that Curtis Le May's B29s could lay waste the cities of Japan and would have gone on doing so indefinitely if the dropping of the atomic bombs had not at last persuaded the emperor to speak out and bring the war to an end. Hastings gives a full and fair account, both of the decision to drop the bomb, and of the prolonged process by which the Japanese government ultimately surrendered; arguing, to my mind conclusively, that the decision saved many more lives than it cost.
Brilliantly though Hastings lays out the strategic context, his real talent lies in his account of 'the terrible human experience' that it involved. British readers will know about the ordeals of jungle campaigning and the sufferings of Japanese prisoners of war; less about what it was like to serve on a warship in the Pacific with its months of tedium and moments of nightmare when the vessel was hit by shellfire or worse, a kamikaze bomber; or what was involved in piloting a B29, especially in the early days before the innumerable bugs had been ironed out of it; or the horrors involved in attacking or defending one of those 'bloody handkerchiefs' that now rank so high in American mythology. Even less do they know of the ordeals of the Chinese people under Japanese occupation. As for the Japanese themselves, even Hastings recoils baffled from the attempt to enter into the mind of a people whose soldiers were so infinitely courageous, whose officers could be so literate and civilised, but who behaved with such systematic brutality to those whom they had defeated and ruled: a brutality that they still deny.
This is a book not only for military history buffs but for anyone who wants to understand what happened in half the world during one of the bloodiest periods of the blood-soaked 20th century."
Michael Howard'
Unfortunately dosen't clarify what was written about the Aussies.
I too would be horrified if Max Hastings implied the Australians were cowards. But I think guys this may have more to do about being lead by your nose by the gutter press who want to sell newspapers(You know they talk crXp most of the time so why believe them now).
I have read a couple of Hastings books and found that he shows an empathy for serviceman and is one of the better authors to describe the difficulties and horrors of wartime to us civies. I will be ordering a copy from the library just in case hes turned all David Irving.
