Page 113 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec-Jan 2023

DECEMBER 2022-JANUARY 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
BOOKS OF INTEREST 113
THE SCRAP IRON FLOTILLA
By Mike Carlton
Published by William Heinemann/ Penguin Random House
RRP $34.99 in paperback
ISBN 9781761042003
In this new book, naval historian Mike Carlton
tells the story of five
ships - HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen - that then Prime Minister Robert Menzies reluctantly agreed to lend to the British at
the outbreak of war in 1939. Initially despatched to Singapore, the ships were then sent to bolster the Royal Navy presence
in the Mediterranean. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels sneered that they were a load of scrap iron, hence the name. Yet, by
the middle of 1940, these destroyers were valiantly escorting troop and supply convoys, successfully hunting for submarines and bombarding enemy coasts. When Nazi Germany invaded Greece, the Australian ships were among those who
had to rescue thousands
of soldiers. Then came
the Siege of Tobruk. The Australian destroyers ran ‘the Tobruk Ferry’ – bringing supplies into the shattered port by night and taking off wounded soldiers. After the sinking of HMAS Waterhen
- the first RAN ship to be lost to enemy action in the war – the remaining four destroyers struggled on, before being sent home in late 1941. The Scrap Iron Flotilla is now a part of Australian naval legend.
SOLDIERS AND ALIENS
MEN IN THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY’S EMPLOYMENT COMPANIES IN WORLD WAR II by June Factor
Published by
Melbourne University Press RRP $39.99 in paperback ISBN 9780522878585
June Factor’s interest in this topic was sparked by her own father’s war service. The family had been in Australia less than three years when, on 16 May 1942, he enlisted in the Australian Army after several attempts. He enlisted as a ‘friendly alien’. As it transpired there were to be four thousand Australian
soldiers in World War II
who signed up as ‘aliens’
for service and who never fired a weapon. Scholars
and peasants, musicians and factory workers, communists and royalists, Jews and Catholics, everyone laboured under standard strict Army regulations, living in tents and huts, loading and unloading trains, working
the wharves, cutting timber and transporting goods. They raised money for
good causes, gave public concerts and staged theatre performances. They were
a multicultural force in the Army long before the term ‘multicultural’ was coined. Largely forgotten, Factor honours their contribution to Australia during World War II through this engrossing story, offering the reader new and very personal insights into a critical period of Australian history. ■
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