Over the last few days I have had the chance to read a few books. The first one was “Turning Point” by Michael Veitch. Veitch is a well know Australian actor, comedian, and journalist, who has written several books on the RAAF, and Coast watches. This, his ninth book is about the battle of Milne Bay, which was the fist defeat of Japanese ground forces in World War 2.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one and have a deeper understanding of the the cooperation between the Australian ground forces and the Kittyhawks of the RAAF 75th and 76th Squadron. The style is quick paced and easily read. worth buying although because of the authors interest I would have preferred more detail on the ground battle and less on the fighter squadrons.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
The second book was Frank Walker’s “Commandos. The book is not what I expected but still an excellent read nevertheless. It consists of sixteen chapters, each a short story on ANZAC involvement on such diverse subjects such as the St Nazaire Raid, Nancy Wake, Save the Sultan, various Z force actions, and the Coast Watchers.
I read about two thirds of the short stories and again I really enjoyed it. If you want to read some short ripping yarns this is a good buy, if you are after a history of ANZAC Commandos you will be disappointed.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
The last book is “Double Diamonds” by Karl James, and so named because of the double diamond badge of the Australian Commandos. James is the Chief WW2 historian at the Australian War Memorial (AWM), and lectures in Strategic Defence studies at the Australian National University. The book is lavishly illustrated with the artwork from Ivor Hele, and extensive photographs throughout. The text is a combination of the various Commando engagements during the Pacific war, interspersed with vignettes about the lives of ordinary Australian soldiers (if any commando can be called ordinary).
The photographs and artwork are taken from the AWM collection and are of extremely high quality. This one is well worth purchasing.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
I have just started reading another of Phillip Bradleys works “Hell’s Battlefield – to Kokoda and beyond”.
No Painting today but in between “rugrat wrangling” and teaching them how to paint with spray cans and sponges I did put together my Fallschirmjaeger army that my son agreed to paint for me.
Following our US Airborne v Australian Jungle Platoon game on Sunday (posted on yesterday) Son of Guru (S.O.G.) thought it would be better if we had historical opponents and asked if I had any.
IS THE POPE CATHOLIC!
I indicated that I had a large Japanese army that I was gradually painting and a German Fallschirmjaeger platoon that was not on my painting radar at all. He asked me to send it over and he will paint it when he gets time.
Here it is:
I needed to change some weapons add some panzerfausts and some extra figures, but all-in-all I did not need to do much to the six squads.
I had two command squads so was able to use these for most of the command support teams. Captain and Lieutenant.
Medic team with two medics.
A forward observer team.
Two light mortars. I needed to make these up using german figures and B ritish 2″ mortars. Not quite correct but they will do.
A panzerschreck team. I am allowed two but they are an expensive option and it would only be rare that I would use this one.
Sniper team can be useful or not. I generally save the points for something else.
A flamer team. Always an immediate pick.
I also have a panzebusche anti-tank gun, a medium mortar, and a medium machine gun to put together and undercoat ready for painting.
There is also a kettengrad to tow the gun, and a Schwimwagen, Motorcycle side car, and a Kubelwagen to put together, although I can only use one of the later three at any one time.
A disabled Matilda tank was the objective in this bolt Action game between Guru and Son of Guru (the battle of the two Dave’s). SofG had just finished his American Airborne and wanted to give them a try-out on the tabletop.
US troops advance on their left flank to attack the Australians holding the objective. The Australian unit was already down to half strength half way through the first turn.
Jungle Division troop and PNG rifles try to hold the objective.
A second Australian platoon advances in support.
Another rifle platoon tries to slow down the US advance but just receives four casualties for its trouble. The twenty-five pounder did nothing all game, even when firing over open sights.
The Australian far left is also getting beat up. Again four hits and two pins.
The Australian left fails to hold up the US advance on the objective in the centre.
The PIAT picks off one US Airborne a turn!
The US now have command of the objective and the Australians must go all out in the last turn to pull this one out.
The Australian command group attacks and routs one Airborne unit and is promptly charged by another and routs that!
At the end of the day five Australians from three teams contest the objective against overwhelming numbers of paras. The game was a draw but this says more about the objective design rather than the situation on the table.
In reality the Australians would have pulled back and not thrown away over half of their remaining troops on a crazy charge that would leave them in the open against overwhelming odds!
Growing up as a young boy along with the Phantom and The Fantastic Four comics I vividly remember the “Boys Own Annuals” that I would receive for Christmas. They were full of daring tales and exciting adventures. A kind of written version of Indiana Jones’ escapades. The story below would be more fitting in a Commando Magazine, one of my other favourites, but as the Mark Twain saying goes “truth is stranger than fiction“.
The story was later taken, totally messed up and turned into a a movie, as only Hollywood can do, “Attack Force Z”, starring Mel Gibson, Sam Neil, and John Waters. Mel Gibson was later quoted as saying “the film is pretty woeful… it’s so bad, it’s funny”.
The story was about Australian Commandos rescuing some downed pilots from the Japanese.
The real story, to paraphrase Gibson ” is so quirky and way out there it is amazing”.
In the dead of night, they made their way slowly through the groves of sweet-smelling nutmeg and clove trees, around twisted formations of cold lava and down the perilously steep slope of the volcano that towers over the island of Ternate.
Leading the party was Achmed Bashir, a local guide. By his side was an officer from Z Special Unit, also known as Z Force, the elite surveillance and sabotage unit that wreaked havoc across Japanese-occupied south-east Asia. Among the 40 or so on the trek were the Sultan of Ternate, Iskander Muhammad Jabir Syah, the ruler of one of the most fabled of the Spice Islands, the latest of an unbroken line of monarchs stretching back over 800 years.
Photo from the Sydney Morning Herald.
Accompanying him were his two wives, one of them heavily pregnant, his eight children and a retinue of courtiers and relatives.
The Sultan Mudaffar Syah (who was ten at the time) and his Queen – Photo from the Sydney Morning Herald.
“It was very dark. Up and down we went. We stayed close together. There were Japanese spies everywhere,” says Mudaffar Syah, who succeeded his father as sultan.
My God, that was an experience. No one talked. No one could say anything. There could be no light. This is what the intelligence officer said.”
It was the early hours of April 9, 1945, and Project Opossum was approaching its climax.
An audacious operation to snatch the sultan and his family from under the noses of the Japanese troops garrisoned on Ternate, Project Opossum was ordered by the Allies’ supreme commander in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur.
The reign of the Japanese in Ternate, in the north-eastern corner of the Indonesian archipelago, had been especially brutal because of Sultan Jabir’s refusal to bow to their authority. Starvation and disease were widespread. He had been sending clandestine intelligence to the Allies and was convinced he and his family were to be slain
Little has been written about the mission, not uncommon for the highly classified operations of Z Special Unit, a multinational special forces team which had its headquarters in Australia and was mainly made up of Diggers.
“This history must be written and distributed in Australia,” says Sultan Mudaffar. “For us here, Australia is the hero of the Second World War.”
The operation is a fascinating insight into Australia’s wartime support for the Dutch to regain the Netherlands East Indies, the sprawling archipelago that now makes up most of Indonesia.
That support was later reversed by the prime minister, Ben Chifley to the anger and surprise of the Western powers.
The escape plan had been hatched two months earlier after the sultan had sent a team of Ternatans to row a traditional prahu boat 200kilometres to Morotai, an island to Ternate’s north captured by the Allies six months earlier and now General MacArthur’s base as he prepared for the final push on the Japanese. The Ternatans told the general of the threat to the sultan’s life.
A Z Force contingent of 13 was assigned to the mission, mostly Australians plus two Indonesian recruits from West Timor and North Sulawesi. Bombers strafed Japanese positions across the northern Moluccas as their boats snuck behind enemy lines to Hiri, a small island nearly two kilometres north of Ternate.
From Hiri, the message that Z Force had arrived was sent up the volcano with the guide and the intelligence officer to where the royal family was hiding.
They all descended safely to the coastal village of Kulaba after a six-hour trek, where two prahu took them to Hiri.
Ecstatic villagers greeted Sultan Jabir, squatting “with one raised knee, with hands pressed against their faces in an attitude of prayer, and remained so until dismissed by a nod from the sultan”. Village elders lined up to kiss his feet.
Sultan Mudaffar said his father was deeply concerned by the commotion. “My father said to them: ‘Watch what you are doing. The Japanese will see you’.”
His fears were well-founded. At dawn the next day, several boatloads of Japanese soldiers headed across. One of them had already landed on a small beach when Z Force commanders were informed of their arrival.
Lieutenant George Bosworth, an Australian officer, was guarding the sultan and rushed about 500 metres to the landing site.
“This man was too brave,” says Sultan Mudaffah. “According to my father, he was just standing there, shooting. My father said ‘you can’t just stand there’.”
Three of the Japanese soldiers fell on the beach. Lieutenant Bosworth approached one of them, apparently dead or badly injured. He had not perished and, as Lieutenant Bosworth came close, the soldier picked up his rifle and shot him in the head. Warrant Officer Perry assumed command and attacked the remaining Japanese.
The remnants of Japanese tried to swim back to Ternate but all were killed by the machetes of pursuing natives in canoes before they reached shore. The sea was turned red with blood.
The sultan and his family were taken to Morotai by PT boat, where Sultan Jabir debriefed General MacArthur on Japanese troop positions, tactics and morale.
But the Allies had grander plans. They saw him heading eastern Indonesia under a new Dutch-controlled federation.
Sultan Jabir and his family were sent to Camp Columbia in Wacol, a small town between Brisbane and Ipswich, where the exiled Netherlands Indies Civil Administration plotted its return.
In October 1945, soon after the war ended, the sultan returned to Ternate to reclaim power.
But Indonesia’s independence heroes Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta had already proclaimed the Republic of Indonesia, prompting a Dutch counter-offensive that lasted four years, which is yet another story.
They are behaving beautifully. I don’t understand it. Either something is seriously wrong with them or they are engaging in a sinister conspiracy to drive me insane.
They play games without whining or fighting.
They pick up their toys and games and put them away.
They eat everything I put in front of them.
They shower and go to bed at night when told without asking to stay up later.
They actually did their chores without complaint when reminded.
Aargh me hearties I have been utterly unmotivated to do anything for the last week until I started sorting these figures out that I just retrieved from Dave K.
My Spanish pirates. Aargh is aargh in any language! Si!
The contingent is made up of four troop types:
One unit of four Indios Milcianos
One unit of four Marineros
Two units of four Milicianos
Two units of four Lanceros
And of course their commander.
This gives a Spanish contingent of 125pts. I have some more conquistadors to add if required. I will still continue with the mammoths etc. and start painting these as soon as “Rugrat Wrangling” is completed. Tomorrow it is off to see the “Flash”!
This has ended up being quite a different post than I thought.
I have just been sorting out what Australian figures I have painted and what I still needed to re-enact the Milne Bay campaign in New Guinea, during August 1942.
Milne Bay is at the far eastern extremities of PNG and was strategically very important as the Japanese could attack Port Moresby in a pincer movement from both the North over the Kokoda track and the East from Milne bay.
I was always aware of the quote “never quite realised how dense the fog of war could be!” but did not know it came from the Australian MAJ GEN Cyril Clowes, on 30 Aug, 1942, to LT GEN Syd Rowell after winning the Battle of Milne Bay in New Guinea.
In fact I didn’t know much about this guy at all. This made me interested to find out more. Yes another rabbit warren is looming fast!
I thought I know, I will go and buy a biography about him. To my huge surprise he must be the only Australian general that doesn’t have a book in his honour. The one publication I found was his own Battle of Milne Bay 1942 Clowes Report which is a factual account of the battle, and which I have purchased.
Cast aside by Blamey following his first land defeat of the Japanese, “Silent Cyril” as he was know by his men, has disappeared into obscurity. If I had the time and the skill, there is certainly a book there to be written.
I will still, however, delve much deeper and find more about this man buried in obscurity.
I have not been doing any painting since I finished the Australian Tank Attack Platoon = just needed a break. This is the second book I have read in the last few days and with the cold and rain it has been great to just snuggle in a chair with a “good book”.
Named after Captain Robert ‘Shaggy Bob’ Clampett of the 2/27th Battalion, Shaggy Ridge is the location of one of the less renowned battles of the Australian military campaigns in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Shaggy Ridge is a commanding feature within the Finisterre mountains. In 1943 it was the site of a main Japanese defensive position blocking access by Australian forces through the Ramu Valley as they conducted leap-frogging clearance operations along the Papuan northern coastline. The capture of Shaggy Ridge by the 18th Brigade cleared the way for an Australian advance across the Finisterres to the coast to link-up with allied forces advancing from the east. As such it was instrumental in the capture of Madang and the Huon Peninsula. The strategic use of specialist forces, paratroops and the rapid deployment of Independent Companies (commandos) were paramount in the success of the overall campaign and had considerable influence on the way that the Australian Army ORBAT was shaped over subsequent years. (From the Army Research Centre)
This picture clearly shows how narrow the ridge lines were.
Following the Allied offensive against Lae and the seizure of the airfield at Nadzab in the Markham Valley in early September 1943, the Japanese moved to reinforce their defences at Kaiapit further up the Valley. in an endeavour to cut the Japanese supply line from Madang, Major General George Vasey, Commander of Australia’s 7th Division was eager to be able to fly his troops into battle rather than move across country.
The line of advance from Lae, up the Markham river valley, into the Ramu river valley to Shaggy Ridge.
The Fifth Air Force (US) wanted the strip at Kaiapit, so the 2/6 Independent Company were flown into Sangan – a short distance from the objective. With excellent aerial rand ground reconnaissance and sound planning, the Company successfully captured Kaiapit on 19/20th September before the Japanese reinforcements arrived. This operation preceded the Australian assault on the Finisterre Mountains which contained Shaggy Ridge.
Advancing up the Markham and Ramu Valleys, the Japanese were ambushed at Kesawai on 28th September, and an attack nearby on 4th October saw the Japanese withdraw into the foothills of the Finisterre Range. Thus began a long and extremely demanding series of skirmishes and battles:
This is another extremely well written narrative by Bradley. Although history, it is as if Bradley has transported you there to experience the impossible terrain, the exhaustion of load carrying and fighting, punctuated by the continuous loss of men through death, injury and malaria. A very accurate and unbiased account, showing the battle from the eyes of both sides of one of Australia’s most important battles.
If you are interested in Australian military history it is another “must have”.
I have worked out my next project but before I start that I want to finish (finally) some of the stuff on the table that has been there for more than a year!
Free Folk Giants and some spiders.
3 More sentinels
Kids with snow balls.
Midland Miniatures Inn Folk.
2 Free Folk War Mammoths.
I have been wanting to play “Weird War for some time now so the next project will be that. It is a large project so I will break this down into sizeable chunks. I want this to do for both Weird War and Sea Lion Invasion with Brandenburgers taking on British Home Guard.
The first component will be the Weird War Germans.
I have already completed my “Nuns with Guns”
Some German Boats to go with the U-Boat I already have.
German Officers. Stalin will change sides.
Brandenburgers and Quislings.
Brandenburgers.
Brandenburgers.
Although not too “weird” you cannot have a Weird War German army without propaganda can you?
A German Vampire in “bat form” and some bat swarms.
Some nasty (but nice) Fräulein.
More “agents”‘
German High Command.
Close up of German Vampire General.
German traditional support weapons.
Zombie German soldiers.
I also have the Dust Tactics Starter kit which I was able to pick up at the “bring and buy” sale that I went to. I sold a lot of stuff at the sale and only bought this. I am pleased with myself!
I would like one Weird war tank, probably this one:
This will be the first stage of the project that will take about three months I am guessing.
The next stage of the project will be
The Dust Tactics US contingent which will be converted into British. After all it is weird war and I think that whatever they look like I can call historically correct.
The third and last contingent is the British Home-guard army complete with cavalry, bicycle riders and lotsa cool stuff.
These have been left to last, because as soon as I complete the Germans, I can play games with the British Commandos that are ready-to-go!
As it is “weird war” what’s stopping the Germans invading Australia and being clobbered by the cobbers from the Jungle Division and the rest of their cohorts!
Wahahaha – tomorrow the world (he says in evil voice!
