Aussies

This is coolbert:

From the wiki entry on the British historian, Sir Max Hastings:

"The chapter in his [Hastings] 2007 book Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 on Australia's role in the last year of the Pacific War was criticised . . . for exaggerating discontent in the Australian Army during this period."

Australian soldiers, "diggers", during World War Two, were, on occasion, at least in 1945, at the end of the war, cowards, mutinous, laggards of the worst possible sort??!!

How can this be? The Australian soldier, generally, during both World Wars, comported himself with distinction on the battlefield. Soldiers who could be counted upon to give a good account of themselves, whatever theatre they served in.

Recall too, the rating scheme of the Japanese Colonel Tsuji. According to Tsuji, in terms of fighting ability, the various nationalities were rated as: [#1 equals best!!]

Japanese - - #1, Chinese - - #2, Russians - - #3, Ghurkhas - - #4. Americans - - #5, Australians - - #6, British Indian Army troops - - #7, British - - #8.

"AUSTRALIAN soldiers refused orders to attack and were on the point of open mutiny in the final year of World War II, according to [the] noted British journalist and historian Sir Max Hastings."

"In Nemesis? The Battle for Japan 1944-45 . . . Hastings accused Australian soldiers of disobeying orders to attack, saying many soldiers were 'embittered' and even on the edge of open mutiny."

These observations of Hastings are all a result of the invasion of Borneo in 1945? An attack the purpose of which was to secure the oil fields of Tarakan and Balikpapan [Borneo was a major source of crude oil for Japan during the entire war!]!

"the invasion of Borneo in July 1945" - - "Some 229 Australians died and 634 were wounded," Hastings writes. "It was impossible to believe anything worthwhile had been achieved and every man at Tarakan and Balikpapan knew it."

This was the Battle of North Borneo.

More on this later! Hastings is making a mountain out of mole hill? Whatever transpired during the North Borneo campaign - - July 1945 - - was much-to-do-about-nothing?

Borneo - - 1945 was a sideshow of a sideshow? Perhaps, but still a victory over the Japanese! Aussies gutless cowards, mutineers failing when it counted?

NO!! Emphatically NO!!

coolbert.