Page 152 - Australian Defence Magazine October 2019

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LARRIKINS IN KHAKI
TALES OF IRREVERENCE AND COURAGE FROM WWII DIGGERS
By Tim Bowden
Published by Allen & Unwin
RRP $32.99 in paperback ISBN 9781760528546
Tim Bowden’s name will
be familiar to many as a broadcaster and radio and television documentary maker. When I saw this book, I was immediately reminded of my own father’s wartime stories of escapades and hijinks. But there were stories too of the horrors of the
TURNING POINT
THE BATTLE FOR MILNE BAY 1942 – JAPAN’S FIRST LAND DEFEAT IN WWII
By Michael Veitch Published by Hachette RRP $32.99 in paperback ISBN 9780733640551
It was Milne Bay, writes Michael Veitch, that was
to draw the curtain ‘on a series of disasters that had befallen the Allied forces
in Malaya, Rabaul, Timor, Ambon and Singapore ’ representing, as it did, the first land defeat of Imperial Japan in WWII. Fought over just 10 days in the spring
Kokoda Track and the fear of Japanese snipers hiding in the jungles of New Guinea. In this book, Bowden has collected together those very same stories from
men whose memoirs were mostly self-published and who told of their experiences with scant regard for literary pretensions and military niceties. Most of these men had little tolerance for military order and discipline - my father fitted that bill! - and NCOs and officers who
were hopeless at their jobs were made aware of it (that rings true as well). And,
yes, Bowden is right. They laughed their way through the worst of it by taking the mickey out of one another and their superiors. Australian soldiers were certainly an irreverent lot but loyal to their comrades in arms. Here we hear their voices again and can recapture the spirit of the WWII diggers.
of 1942, the battle was to become a defining moment in the war in the Pacific. Situated on the extreme eastern point of the vast island of Papua, Milne Bay is enclosed on both sides by the steep, thickly wooded slopes of the Owen Stanley Range’s far eastern tip. It
is far from idyllic. Constant rain, high temperatures, high humidity and malaria- carrying mosquitoes greeted the men of the AIF. To counter the expected Japanese attack, US engineers had carved
out a secret airstrip but
it was Australian troops, with support from RAAF Kittyhawk squadrons (75 and 76), who finally stopped the Japanese in their tracks. Veitch has succeeded in bringing to life the story of a little known but decisive battle, with its mix of tragedy and heroism.
AN IMPECCABLE SPY
STALIN’S MASTER AGENT
By Owen Matthews Published by Bloomsbury; Dist. by Allen & Unwin RRP $29.99 in paperback ISBN 9781408857793 Richard Sorge, born of a German father and a Russian mother, was a man with
two homelands. A member of that deluded generation who found new causes
after their experiences of WWI, Sorge became a fanatical communist. It was Sorge’s success as a foreign correspondent, cover for his spying activities, that enabled
MADAME FOURCADE’S SECRET WAR
By Lynne Olson
Published by Scribe
RRP $45.00 in hardback ISBN 9781925849301
At age 31, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, a woman born to privilege and renowned for her elegance, became the leader of a Resistance network – Alliance – encompassing some
3,000 agents in German- occupied France. She was the only woman to head
such an organisation, an achievement in what was a deeply patriarchal society. It’s
him to infiltrate the highest echelons of German, Chinese and Japanese society in the 1930s. In Japan he counted among his good friends
the German ambassador
to Japan, Colonel Eugen
Ott. Like many spies, both fictional and real, Sorge was an effortless charmer. He was trusted to such an extent that closely guarded state secrets were easy to obtain. His intelligence regarding Operation Barbarossa and Japanese intentions not
to invade Siberia in 1941 proved pivotal to the Soviet counteroffensive in the Battle of Moscow. Yet his warnings to his Soviet masters of the threat of a German build
up on its eastern front
were distrusted. Matthews has drawn on a wealth of declassified Soviet archives and first hand accounts to give us this absorbing story of 'the most formidable spy in history’.
worth noting that Fourcade’s network was focused on espionage rather than sabotage or providing escape routes. The nformation her network provided was vital to the Allied cause. Among the intelligence coups were the reports on the development of the V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets. It was while writing Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War that author Lynne Olson first encountered Fourcade and wondered at her relative obscurity, despite the outstanding contribution; overlooked because she
was female is the only explanation. Though so many of her agents died defending their country, Fourcade survived the occupation. Olson has written a lively and compelling account of a woman who deserves to be remembered and honoured.
152 | October 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au
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