AMERICAN BROTHERS-AT-ARMS

Having posted the report entitled “MacArthur Factor in the Pacific”,

I asked an old friend to review. He and I spent early years in the 1960s

at high school until he went off for his final years, later to become an army

officer. From then, we did not meet in 50 years until a chance encounter.

His report is below in which he speaks of his father who was a soldier in

the 2/31^st in the Middle East and Kokoda. His father joined up and spent

training at Redbank near Brisbane. He spoke of his father at Merza Matruh

in what is now Libya.

My father enlisted at Redbank and posted to the Victorian 9^th Division

where he became a gunner in 4^th Light Ack Ack. He never spoke of
the war until an army mate came to the house. Then it would be Merza
Matruh, Finschhafen, Lae and the Markham valley all over again.

But my father and many soldiers like him came home from war bitter

at the chocos and the Americans. Perhaps some views were coloured

by rumour. Many thought that all fighting in New Guinea should have

been borne by militia.

He and his Division all received posters dropped in the Western Desert

from the Italian air force telling them about the wives and girl friends in

the arms of American soldiers. I read that. He did not tell me. Actually

he did not tell his family anything.

But the fact was hundreds of thousands of Americans arrived in Australia

in preparation for island hopping. Many were to die in the months to come.

They were quite exotic to the Australian girls with spiffy uniforms, a foreign

accent that made them sound like film stars, plenty of money and skill at
the latest tribal dance known as the jitter-bug. They called girls “ma’am”.

While Australian men glided around the dance floor with the sedate gipsy

tap, pride of erin and boston two step, the Americans were away with the

girls in other dance halls spinning them around and throwing them between

their legs.

In Brisbane, the Americans would gather at the Trocadero dance hall near

the Grey Street Bridge. So my mother and aunts used to say. Oft on a stilly

night, we still hear the trumpets and drums beating out the rhythm and see

the ghostly swirl of the long skirts of the ladies.

There was ill feeling among Australian servicemen. It is to be respected as
the sign of the times. Consider this. In the 1950s, how many dance bands
in country Australia would play jitter-bug/jive music to the ex-servicemen
and wives at an RSL dance? If they did, they would never be booked
again. It was always the old time dance music.

Negro American soldiers were restricted to a harlem in Melbourne Street
across the Brisbane River. No segregation on the battlefield.

But all was still not well. There was a serious riot in Creek Street Brisbane

between Australian and American soldiers. My mother was coming out of
work at the time and told her family that American military policemen had
hit an Australian soldier with his baton. Soon it was on for young and old.

The older generation may recall what American military police looked

like. They were ever present in America war movies like “From Here

to Eternity”.

Many were over 6ft tall with white uniforms, long gaiters, long batons
and long whistles. There is a joke that the military police were given two
sets of medals for combat against two enemy forces.

I have no objection to writing this report. It is history through the eyes

of the children of soldiers of World War 2. It is all basically truthful and

in living colour.

But below is the letter from my friend that sets out a more sedate view

of the Americans. There is no questioning the crucial role of MacArthur

and American forces. My friend sees the positive side of the American

presence and I have no argument with that. But boys will be boys. And

many will soon be dead.

*****************

Dad joined the AIF in January 1940 and went off to Redbank, sailed to

England and deployed against the Germans at Colchester and the Battalion

[2/31^st] suffered their first battle casualty in the Blitz.

He fought the Germans at Mersa Matruh and the French in Syria. On returning

to South Australia they even brought back with them their bullet ridden vehicles

from the Middle East because things were so short.

Dad’s view was the US made the War really go our way because they had the

gear and the organisation – he often compared the training with wooden BREN

guns in England in 1940 and the handing out of cups of tea by the ladies at railway

stations in England with the ability to airlift the 7 Division to Nadzab in 1943 –

impossible in 1941/42 – US industry enabled it and the capacity to move so much

material by sea subsequently to Borneo and beyond.

There was no doubt in his mind about the American sacrifice in saving Australia:

our home at Wilston in the 1950s had 13 pine trees in the yard, each planted by

the lady who billeted US servicemen there and one for each guy who lost his life.

Attendance at the Battle of the Coral Sea Observance each year was mandatory

for me as a child, as was a pilgrimage to each of the “They Passed this Way”

plaques at Camp Cable, Emu Park and other US locations in Queensland.

It has become very passé to criticise the US, Macarthur in particular, for various

 ‘stories’ but the end result was Victory in the Pacific and the US provide bulk

of the treasure and the blood. As to the erudite and academic discussions about

the Japs invading.

My grandfather owned a home at Kirribilli and had his windows broken when the

Jap subs attacked Sydney, my other grandfather was the Inspector of Police in

Townsville during WW2 and he went out to the location of where the Jap bombs

fell – for them it was pretty real – and my grandmother taught at Pikedale where

St Hilda’s was moved to in 1942. The war was pretty full on for Australia and for

our family in particular.

As always there are differences between Allies but my abiding memory is of a

US Ranger Major standing shoulder to shoulder with me in England in 1978 –

we had similar plans for an attack on our Combat Team Commander’s Course –

different to the British – and pointing out that the Pacific, and Vietnam defined

US-Australian military relations and he was with the ‘Aussie’ on this one because

he knew the plan would work –