Page 46 - Australian Defence Magazine Feb 2020

46 BOOKS OF INTEREST
FEBRUARY 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
SECRET INTELLIGENCE
A READER (SECOND EDITION) By Christopher Andrew, Richard J Aldrich and Wesley K Wark (eds) Published by Routledge
RRP $88.99 in paperback
ISBN 9780415705684
For intelligence practitioners, this book offers valuable insights into a world changed forever by the use of social media and the internet.
For the layman, it also provides a way to understand the intricacies of the work intelligence agencies undertake
WHERE SOLDIERS LIE
THE QUEST TO FIND AUSTRALIA’S MISSING WAR DEAD
By Ian McPhedran
Published by Harper Collins
RRP $32.99 in hardcover ISBN 9781460755655
McPhedran’s interest in this topic was sparked by finding the grave of his great-great-uncle Lance Corporal Hugh McMahon, killed in action in November 1916 on the Somme. His remains
at least lay in a marked grave unlike an estimated 35,000 Australian war casualties who still remain missing on 20th
and the relationship that needs to exist between agencies
and policymakers. There is a fascinating chapter on social media intelligence – and a new acronym (SOCMINT). This chapter uses the Tottenham riots in North London in August 2011 and how the “social
media information indicated the possible spread of disorder to other parts of London”. Police acknowledged they were insufficiently equipped to deal with intelligence gathering
via social media. On the issue of the 9/11 failures; “national security decision-makers’ receptivity to and acceptance of intelligence analysis needs a more sophisticated approach to the evaluation of failures
of intelligence gathering.”
his book demonstrates the increasing complexity of intelligence gathering. It should be essential reading for intelligence professionals, and hopefully, their political masters too.
century battlefields around
the world. McPhedran begins with the missing in action from the Vietnam War, a total of six young men. He describes the efforts of former comrades
to find the remains of two
men – Lance Corporal Richard Parker and Private Peter Gillson ¬– against a background of
initial government disinterest, which changed quickly as they announced success in finding the remains. Eventually, the remains of all six were repatriated. Yet
a total of 43 Australians killed
in the Korean War have no known grave. There are 12,000 missing from WWII and 23,379 Australians unaccounted for from WWI. McPhedran has written a compelling account of not just the search for remains but of the context in which the casualties occurred. Now we understand fully the aftermath of war and the human suffering that endures long after the
guns fall silent.
PROJECT RAINFALL
THE SECRET HISTORY OF PINE GAP By Tom Gilling
Published by Allen & Unwin
RRP $32.99 in paperback
ISBN 9781760528430
Much has been written about the Joint US/Australian Defence Facility established
at Pine Gap near Alice Springs in 1966 but its inner workings continue to remain a secret.
It was originally claimed to be a Joint Space Research Facility but it was, in reality, a spy base operated by the CIA. Australians working
BATTLE ON 42ND STREET
WAR IN CRETE AND THE ANZACS’ BLOODY LAST STAND
By Peter Monteath
Published by New South
RRP $34.99 in paperback ISBN 9781742236032
The battle of Crete was unique. For the first time, German forces carried out an invasion entirely from the air. But prior to the aerial invasion, the Luftwaffe had been bombing selected sites along
the northern coast of the island. On 20 May 1941 the German air force launched a sustained
on site were employed in support roles only. In 1966,
at the height of the Cold War, Pine Gap tracked Soviet missiles and monitored missile tests. This made it
a Soviet target, as Gilling explains, in the event of a nuclear conflict between the two superpowers. Since the break-up of the Soviet empire, Gilling writes that “Pine Gap has become a vital cog in the American military machine, providing real-time battlefield information to commanders on the ground and locating targets for assassination by US drones” in the Pentagon’s ‘war on terror’. This change
of focus has not resulted in any relaxation of the secrecy surrounding the base. Gilling has relied on the research
of others, especially the
late Professor Des Ball, to examine the history of this contentious facility. But its deepest secrets remain exactly that – secret.
attack on the Allies’ defensive positions, via their fearsome Stuka dive-bombers. Their aim was to capture the airfields at Maleme, Retimo in the central north and Heraklion to the east. Defending these airfields were British, Australian, NZ and some locals. The battle of Crete was bloody and bitter and no more so than at the infamous 42nd Street, fought over by a battalion of German mountain troops
and opposed by some very determined Australian and NZ troops. What made this particular battle different was the extensive use of bayonets. Monteath
has strayed into controversial territory in revealing the results
of his extensive research into this battle. It transpires that the Allied troops counter-attacked with fixed bayonets and by the end many mutilated German bodies lay strewn across the battlefield, thus revealing an uncomfortable and brutal truth about the battle. ■
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