American Troops Mutiny in Australia 1942

Damn, just when I think I know a little something about the US in WWII here comes this! There were a number of incidents, in the states and overseas, caused by racism. It seems that there was a conscious effort to downplay (if not suppress) them - this one I never heard about.

As to LBJ - this kind of makes sense, I never really saw a good reason for him to be there, but he did get a Silver Star out of it (I always chalked this up to MacArthur’s political ambition - until now).
 
There was also a "shoot out" in the UK which left a pub land lady dead. I forget all the details at present but if I remember correctly it was also down to racism.
 
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I've just been reading about this astonishing account of the Australian reaction to the bombing of Darwin in 1942, especially those stationed there.

Sorry but it doesn't make nice reading. Let's say it's a good job the Japanese didn't attempt a landing there!

....Second, there was a panicky response by the population and by some in the military, with an unseemly scramble to get away, for fear of a Japanese invasion.

Third, there was a shocking lack of leadership among the civilian administration and the military, which compounded the sense of chaos and incompetence.

It was a somewhat ignoble record - one that not everyone wanted to see in the history books.

A sense of partial anarchy prevailed in the hours and days immediately after the raid.

For example, the station commander of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) ordered his men to rendezvous in the bush, but as the instruction was passed around by word of mouth, its message became confused.

Four days after the bombing, nearly 300 RAAF personnel were still missing, leading to claims some had deserted. One man turned up in Melbourne, 13 days later.

The Northern Territories administrator, Aubrey Abbott, appeared to compound the problems by his ineptitude

In an acclaimed book on the Darwin bombing, An Awkward Truth, Peter Grose writes that Abbott tried to enlist the help of military police to restore order, but that they ended up drunk and took part in the looting that followed the attacks.

Abbott himself spent his time securing his drinks cellar and making sure the bank's money was sent away for safe keeping - a strange set of priorities for a man whose town was in ruins..............
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17073472
 
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TBH the situation there wasn't nice... although I would say that it was met by equal amounts of heroism and panic. It was a sustained air campaign on an isolated place. With the initial attack had more bombs on less targets than Pearl harbor.
 
captiva303 said:
TBH the situation there wasn't nice... although I would say that it was met by equal amounts of heroism and panic. It was a sustained air campaign on an isolated place. With the initial attack had more bombs on less targets than Pearl harbor.
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Maybe not but one of the funniest things I ever heard came out of the Darwin attack, a sailor on HMAS Wato gave an interview after the war about the incident and he was saying that he saw a Japanese dive bomber coming straight for him, he could see the bombs underneath and all he could think of was "What am I going to do now I have no weapons I will have to catch the bloody thing".

It is amazing what goes through a persons mind in instants like that.
 
perseus said:
I've just been reading about this astonishing account of the Australian reaction to the bombing of Darwin in 1942, especially those stationed there.

Sorry but it doesn't make nice reading. Let's say it's a good job the Japanese didn't attempt a landing there!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17073472
Click to expand...

Yes, it was a very ordinary day for the Australian Forces. These days, RAAF uses it as a teaching point in officer training in Command & Control and the danger of relying on verbal orders being spread willy-nilly instead of via the chain of command.

It wouldn't have mattered too much if the Japs had landed. They would have been contained in a very harsh country with extended logistics lines. In fact, there was a plan known as "the Brisbane Line" that saw the north of Australia (at that time a malaria and crocodile infested wilderness) being abandonend to consolidate the defence of the populated south and east.

http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/brisbaneline.htm
 
Spartan613 said:
It wouldn't have mattered too much if the Japs had landed. They would have been contained in a very harsh country with extended logistics lines. In fact, there was a plan known as "the Brisbane Line" that saw the north of Australia (at that time a malaria and crocodile infested wilderness) being abandonend to consolidate the defence of the populated south and east.
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You have answered a question I have been meaning to ask. I have often wondered what would have happened had the Japs landed in Aussie.
 
BritinAfrica said:
You have answered a question I have been meaning to ask. I have often wondered what would have happened had the Japs landed in Aussie.
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They would have been contained in the north. The roads south from Darwin were mostly little more than dirt tracks. If the Jpas had tried to outflank defensive positions as they had in Malaysia, they would have found themselves bogged down in waterless savannah and desert country. And if they tried it in "the Wet" as we call it, they would have just got bogged.

Units such as the Northern Australia Observer Unit (the "Nackeroos") were raised from local white fellahs and aboriginies (the unit still exists today as "NORFORCE") to surveil and harass any Japs that landed.

Even today, the defence of northern Australia is viewed more along the lines of defending "islands" of infrastructure and population, rather then trying to deny it all. An un-resupplied invasion would wither and die in the inhospitable terrain.

Hence the ADF's reliance on submarines and maritime strike aircraft (to cut the enemy's maritime supply lines) and light mobile land forces to bleed the enemy with a thousand cuts.
 
There were a number of incidents in East Anglia during WWII.
Black American troops were used by the Eigth Airforce to do the unpleasant jobs, mainly working in fuel and ammo dumps.
They lived in appaling conditions, sleeping were they worked on some bases and they had to put up with racism from their officers.
A number of "Mutinees" occured but were hushed up.
There were also numerous incidents in local towns and villages where Black and white troops got into fights, some leading to the death of individuals involved.
One Group commander set up a rota for local pubs, so the various groups would not be there at the same time.
 
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