On Lateline, I’ve just watched Stephen Barton, Edith Cowan University political scientist and author of a provocative op/ed yesterday in which he claimed that the significance of the Kokoda Track was inflated by a Labor clique of politicians and historians. Barton was pretty unconvincing. To the degree that he has a strategic or military point, it seems to rest on hindsight and an argument that the Second World War was actually won in Europe. That may or may not be true, but it doesn’t mean that there was any less obligation on Curtin to defend Australia and Australian territory. Curtin could not have known how the war would end, and nor could he have known what Barton now knows about Japanese intentions and capabilities. History is contingency, and decisions in war need to be made, not mulled over. Most outrageous was the suggestion from Barton that if the Japanese had occupied part of Northern Queensland, that would not have been a disaster and would not have affected the overall course of the war. It was pretty clear in the debate that Barton, who is not a historian, was out of his depth. His motivations appear to be suggesting that “Australia’s security has traditionally been won far beyond our borders, as a member of grand alliances” implies something about our current defence commitments, and slurring the memory of Curtin in some sort of history wars partisan intervention. It’s very easy to agree with the RSL that this intervention, or at the very least its timing, was offensive.
Elsewhere: More at John Quiggin’s and Andrew Bartlett’s.
Update: Follow up post here.
Hello, Japan wasn’t defeated ‘in Europe’. This is just more RWDB culture wars nonsense - a rebuff to Keating to had the hide the suggest maybe defending Australia from the threat of invasion in PNG should be up there with Gallipoli. I tend to agree with JPK on that score, and I strongly suspect most Autralians would.
On the subject of body language and withheld laughter it appeared that Tony Jones and the other dude thought that Barton was a complete arseclown.
We were actually sitting here laughing at Barton and his exchanges.
Unconvincing, and out of his depth.
I tried to look him up on the Edith Cowan website to find out what his previous research/area of expertise was, but there’s no entry on the staff profiles, just a telephone directory listing.
Well gee, if heroic battles can only be truly valued for what they meant at the time through the retrospective lens of long term strategic implications, then I guess we should go tell the Spartans to take a hike.
A quick look at Barton’s Online Opinion article titles here will give a pretty good indication of his general agenda. We’re also talking about a self-styled commentator who can’t spell ‘commentary’.
I wonder who at The Australian is reponsible for letting a man with modest qualifications in politics loose in the field of historiography where the whole country can see him making an arse of himself. Are they really so desperate for anti-Keating, anti-anti-American mouthpieces that they’re prepared to get the entire military and ex-military offside?
Or is some subversive operator at the Oz merely giving him enough rope?
I don’t think you can objectively argue that Kokoda was a decisive campaign in any sense, including saving Aus from Japanese invasion. He’s right to say that the men’s heroism and sacrifice should be separated from the campaign’s objective singificance, but can’t because this violates political convention. Witness how Beazley etc carp about the ANZAC/Aus ‘legend’, as if this were a criterion for analysing military history. There really is a witch-burning element in the treatment Barton’s received over the last 48 hours.
Still Barton did expose himself with his gratuitous political point-scoring. The rant about a conspiracy btwn the ALP and leftie historians (Manning Clark, Stewart Macintyre, the usual suspects) is flogging a dead horse, though what he says about Labor asserting ownership of the US alliance has some merit. And it’s certainly unrealistic to expect Curtin (or Menzies, or the Aus public) not to have seen a Japanese advance on Port Moresby as a threat to Australia’s direct security. Barton’s claim on Lateline that a Japanese occupation of northern Queensland would have been tolerable - because Japan would have been ultimatley defeated - was an argument too far.
I see from the bio he’s “been a political staffer”. Gosh - I wonder on which side? Not that that would matter if he had a sound argument to make. But it’s perhaps a bit rich for him to accuse historians of having been partisan.
“Decisive campaign” seems an odd test to subject Kokoda to, given that we revere Gallipoli as a national day - a complete strategic and military disaster.
The point, surely, is that Australia was under threat. Incidentally, PNG was annexed to Australia in 1942.
yes but Barton’s point is that Kokoda is commemorated as ‘the battle that saved Australia’, which isn’t supportable as a cold historical proposition.
Barton loses his footing in the political implications. For instance on Lateline he denied that the men at Kokoda were fighting ‘in defence of Australia’s liberty’, which might be technically correct but was grossly ungenerous. If I were a Kokoda veteran, I’d be offended.
Pavlov’s Dictionary says: “We’re also talking about a self-styled commentator who can’t spell ‘commentary’.”
Tim Blair also uses the technique of delivering a withering body blow to someone’s argument by pointing out a spelling mistake. http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/02/tim_blairs_correction_policy.php
Talk about anally retentive personalities.
By the way, Barton does appear to be a fool who is out of his depth. The ABC has to interview such folk occasionally for “balance”.
What a foul, ignorant and misinformed fool Barton is.
He is entitled to his views, as extremist as they are, but he has upset dozens of New Guinea veterans who would have been watching Lateline tonight. Those that he didn’t stir into livid anger.
It was a completely unecessary and trivial argument to try and make, particularly at this time, and he failed miserably to make any kind of case at all, despite the six or seven times he said : “Kokoda was not the battle that saved Australia.”
No, the Battle of New Guinea was the battle that saved Australia. And Kokoda was one of the many on that front, so close to our shores, that saved Australia from occupation.
Japan wanted Port Moresby, and they almost got it, more than once. They took Rabaul, and worked away on plans to take North Queensland, for starters.
Barton will probably tell you that the Brisbane Line is a conspiracy theory as well.
There were plenty of Australian businessmen in Sydney and Melbourne who were in deep with their Japanese colleagues all through the 1930s, and it went way beyond “Pig Iron” Bob Menzies selling war materials to Japan virtually up until the last minute.
The tale of Australian civilians being abandoned in Rabaul so that just one more boatload of copra could be shipped out, before the port fell to Japan, is one of the many shocking facts that testify to this truth.
This same kind of scum saw Queensland as no prize worth saving. The idea that Australians would have to fight the Japanese in North Queensland was not just some rumour of the time, it was going to be a reality, unless the Japanese were stopped in New Guinea.
After Japan lost the war, these sell-out-Australia businessmen slunk away into the darkness of their boardrooms and members-only clubs, but there were plenty of New Guinea veterans who knew what they wanted to do, and these diggers remembered them. And hated them for the rest of their lives.
Just how close we came to being occupied by Japan, all for the motive of profit, and all but for the bravery and stunning sacrifice of a few thousand Australian volunteers, is one of the great untold stories of Australia’s history.
“the suggestion from Barton that if the Japanese had occupied part of Northern Queensland, that would not have been a disaster and would not have affected the overall course of the war”
Well, thats fine for him to say. By contrast, my grandmother was a telephonist in the GPO in Townsville the day the Japanese bombed it, and she recalled it as the most terrifying experience of her (long) life.
Barton, bite my latte.
Sorry, forgot the three paragraph rule.
Steve, if you could see the midden that is my desk you would take that back immediately.
The snotty spelling comment was an aside, not an attempt to refute the argument. Unlike T. Blair, I then went on to make an actual point.
And there’s nothing anally retentive about expecting people who get airtime in the national press to be able to use the language properly. What kind of a Toyland culture would we be living in otherwise?
Don’t worry too much, Darryl, it’s occasionally stretchable!
Lefty E, the point that if the Japanese had taken Port Moresby they would have had uncontested air supremacy over the North of Australia and been able to cut us off from US supplies seemed to be an unanswerable one for Barton.
It really is rich to say “well, the Japanese would have lost in the long run”.
As the historian chappie said (the transcript’s not up yet, and I can’t remember his name) - someone had to defeat the Japanese somewhere on land. That was the Aussies.
And what would Howard, Nelson, Auty and Donnelly say?
Ok, back to WWII now.
my grandparents lived through the Japanese occupation of Malaya. If Barton had, he wouldn’t be so blase about yielding north Queensland till the (US) cavalry arrived.
But I have to disagree about Kokoda preventing such an outcome. The original Japanese plan was for a seaborne
landing at Port Moresby. When that was ditched after their bloody nose at the Coral Sea, they put together a scratch force and tried overland, but without much strategic impetusbe behind it. The Japanese navy’s essential strategic goals had all been met by this point; occupying Australia wasn’t among them, and in any case was utterly beyond their resources.
as for the claim that Japanese occupatin of Port Moresby would have cut off Australia from the US, that needs to be substantiated. The US fleet that checked the Japanese at the Coral Sea wasn’t operating from Port Moresby (or Australia, for that matter).
Well, a new film about Kokoda will be out shortly, and I suspect renewed popular interest will result. Barton and co are on a deadset loser here. And Daryl’s point is well made - the entire campaign in PNG made an great impact on the Japanese advance; all quibbling about Kokoda aside.
It points to wider issues, if I may, consider whether the following is mere coincidence:
1. Keating talks up Kokoda as PM. Says, rightly, its been relatively ignored.
Consider, of course, the politics of historical message: an ALP government brings home the troops home from Africa, defying Churchill, and aligning with US. Brave new dawn etc. Visonary realignment yada yada. Very little mileage in this for the coalition. If anything, slight bad taste in mouth over ‘Pig Iron’ Bob doing an AWB.
2. Howard gets elected, lo and behold, reboots Gallipoli as central myth. The historical meta-message here: Fighting for Australian freedom is best done in the middle East, in loyal service of great and powerful friends, upon whom we depend.
Coincidence my arse.
I don’t know, John, I’m not an expert in all this either. I was repeating the claim about Port Moresby that the historian who’d written the book on Kokoda who was on Lateline made. He appeared to know what he was talking about.
I’m certainly interested to learn more. I enjoyed John Edwards’ book on Curtin, and I remember liking Day’s biography when I read it about ten years ago.
John, as for the claim that Japanese occupatin of Port Moresby would have cut off Australia from the US
It would have cut Australia’s Sea Lines of Communication [SLOC] with the US. The Japanese Army wanted Port Moresby and the Japanese Navy the Solomons and New Caledonia for the same purposes. With Japan dominating the north and east of Australia - both Australia and the US would be isolated from each other and neither would be able to mount an aggressive campaign against the Japanese oil assets (newly captured) in Java and Timor.
New Guinea was important in stopping Japan from dominating our northern area. Coral Sea, Milne Bay and Kokoda were all important battles in keeping our SLOC open. As was the USMC battles at Guadalcanal. Ultimately Japan broke its back on the USMC and USN in Guadalcanal enabling the mid-Pacific campaign that Nimitz mounted that cut Japan in half - especially their homeland from their oil in Indonesia.
Darryl Mason: Diggers may “remember” businessmen who were “sell-outs” by virtue of having traded with Japan in the decade before the war.
But the special remembering by diggers is for wharfies who went on strike & refused to load supplies bound for the front line in New Guinea. No businessman or pig iron prime minister can come near the wharfies for that special place in a digger’s heart!
Steve At The Pub,
agreed on the wharfies.
I worked for eighteen months with the Australians At War Film Archive as a volunteer transcriber. Must have done about 200 sets of interview tapes, four to seven hour long. Quite a few of the WW2 diggers had a lot to say about the Wharfies, not much of it good.
Didn’t that same kind of refusal to load ships happen with the iron to Japan thing as well? Sounded like there was a lot of jostling for posiitons of power all over the docks and wharves and halls of power.
Might have to blog up on the transcribing experience, learned more about Australia from the mouths of veterans than I ever learned in school, or from the media. We weren’t allowed to keep copies of the transcripts, however, and some of the more interesting ones are embargoed for thirty years (or so) after the death of the veterans who told the tales.
A lot of the WW2 veterans I transcribed had nothing good to say about Gallipoli, or ANZAC Day in the 1930s, and many were disgusted by the attempts (interviews were from 2003) to make Gallipolit The Nationalising Event in Australian history.
From memory, the majority of the WW2 diggers went for New Guinea battles and the Middle East fights as the defining events of their era, and of the national spirit.
That and the efforts of the WAAAFs back home. The fact that so many of them died without ever being publicly recognised for their incredible work is one of the most appalling aspects of the national memory hole.
The boys went off to war, and the women ran the country, in the most practical and fundamental ways. To see the ladies marching now is wonderful.
Sorry, ‘Gallipolit’ wasn’t a new term for Australian WWI books, just a typical typo.
all true, though it’s worth noting that the Japanese push up the Kokoda trail began in July 1942, i.e. after Midway. So there’s a good argument that the aim was strategic consolidation rather than further expansion or power projection. The Guadalcanal campaign for example began as a US initiative which drew a Japanese reaction
As you pointed out, the Japanese goal in the SW Pacific were to complete the ‘island chain’ around Japan’s SE Asian conquests and thus forestsall allied counterattacks. The allied victories in the New Guinea and the Solomons 1942-3 didn’t so much ’save Australia’ as provide a springboard for the southern prong of the US offensive to roll back Japanese expansion.
That said, Japanese victory in New Guinea and the Solomons would have ipso facto isolated Australia and left it at the mercy of future Japanese expansionism
sorry that last was directed to Cameron’s comment
John, The Guadalcanal campaign for example began as a US initiative which drew a Japanese reaction
The Japanese were building an airfield (later Henderson) when the USMC invaded Guadalcanal. That would have allowed them to project air power across the Coral Sea, Vanuatu and at a pinch New Caledonia and Fiji.
Same reason the Japanese wanted Milne Bay which has an Australian airfield on it - so they could project their airpower further into Port Moreseby, the Coral Sea and NE Australia.
The Japanese got stuck flying from Rabaul during Guadalcanal which is a big flight and gave coast spotters ample time to warn USMC pilots at Guadalcanal of incoming raids.
Darryl Mason: Did any of the WW2 Diggers interviewed make any comment on the WW1 diggers’ attempt to refuse membership of the RSL to WW2 veterans? As the WW1 veterans felt that WW2 veterans had not been through a war which was fit to compare to the horrors or WW1.
Kokoda TRACK folks.
John L to be fair to Barton he said
“This is not necessarily the place where blood was spilled in defence of Australian liberty. Australian blood spilt for Australian liberty has been spilt all around the world, not just in this one place, not just in New Guinea because it was so close to our borders.�
My Dad who fought with the 2/48 would be saddened I think to have his and his mates 5 years of battle seen as a lesser sacrifice or of secondary importance in what they believed was a fight for liberty. And he did believe that Blamey and MacArthur wasted the lives of Australian soldiers in strategically useless operations against the Japanese.
While some see Tony Jones and his journalist mate laughing and sneering at the academic who challenges the current paradigm as quality current events reporting, others might see it as the in crowd (dare I say at the ABC) behaving badly. Tony interrupted, put words in Barton’s mouth and generally behaved in very partisan way. Then had little chuckles with his mate. Doesn’t seem appropriate to me that he should invite Barton on, not to consider his argument, rather to bait and belittle him, and to trivialise his argument. Still hardly a serious issue, clearly, for Jones.
Interesting that this is listed on his OLO profile as “Humour and Satire” when it’s neither funny nor satiric.
From Lateline, Barton:
And also important to address the issue of Barton’s 20/20 hindsight which by clear inference brands those people as cowards. What a tosser.
Next joint project with Dolly Downer, “Labor The Appeasers, Menzies and Selling Pigs to a Hungry Country”?
Steve At The Pub,
A good dozen or so of the veterans I transcribed talked a lot about World War I diggers excluding them from the RSL. Apparently some of the WW1ers didn’t think Jungle Warfare was anywhere near as tough as desert or trench warfare. The WW2 diggers were mortally offended by this attitude.
Even more painful, by the time a lot of Australian soldiers got home from the War, there had already been the big VE Day celebrations and the crowds had moved on, particularly for those who were late coming back from the prison camps and from working on Japan and Germany reconstruction. It sounded like most Australians had had enough of war and didnt’ want to acknowledge the work and sacrifice of these soldiers.
I read a lot of Austrailan books about WW2 while I was doing those transcriptions and I still haven’t found one that accurately captures the hardships and horrors of life back in Australia for what appeared to be so many WW2 veterans. Some flourished, but many lived hard, depressed and alcoholic lives, plagued by nightmares and PTSD. Though life seemed to get a lot better in the 1990s for them, which is better late than never, I suppose.
We might like to think that it was only the Vietnam Veterans who were ignored and pushed out of the way when they came back from their war, but it certainly happened to plenty of WW2 soldiers, as it also happened to WW1 diggers.
I remember a few of the WW2 diggers talking about how ANZAC Day marches started as protests in the 1920s about extremely sick (gassed, diseased) WW1 veterans not getting any help from the government. It’s stunning now to think that hundreds of WW1 veterans had to carve their own wooden legs because the government wouldn’t help them.
Numerous stories as well, through the transcriptions, about WW2 veterans not taking part in ANZAC Day marches for decades, they hated the politicians getting involved and they didn’t want to be reminded of what they had been through and the friends they had lost, but they seemed very happy with what ANZAC Day became from the early 1990s onwards, particularly all the kids and “bloody Japs” who showed up to watch them walk past.
One of the repeat questions to a lot of the veterans in the interviews was “Most Realistic War Movie Ever?”
The original All Quiet On The Western Front got plenty of mentions (still an absolute mindfuck of a war film, and from 1932!) and Full Metal Jacket outrated the rest.
I’ve just read that Lateline transcript too — it’s very clear that Barton’s main agenda is to ingratiate himself with the conservatives by bagging TEH LEFT’s historians and Keating, and he’s quite happy to whip up a confected controversy to do it. Don’t you love it that Keating’s enemies are still so scared of him and his influence ten years on that they need to keep bagging him as though he were still in charge?
Barton is way off the mark. The defence of the Kokoda Track is one of the greatest feat of arms in history. At the tactical level it is a study of the mobile defence. Anybody who has walked it in peacetime can not imagine what is was like in combat conditions.
The strategic impact of denying the Japs access to Moresby rates as a pivotal moment in WWII, whether one is assessing the Japanese Strategic intention or the defence of Australia. It is should be rated alongside the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Coral Sea.
I’m no fan of Keating or the ALP but this is bullshit.
Lest we forget.
“While some see Tony Jones and his journalist mate laughing and sneering at the academic who challenges the current paradigm as quality current events reporting, others might see it as the in crowd (dare I say at the ABC) behaving badly.”
Agreed. Jones came across as combative and partisan, not to mention discourteous. Barton by contrast conducted himself well and so gained the ‘victim’ mantle by default. Jones also showed a wilful inability to grasp Barton’s points that was poor form for an investigative journalist. For instance he kept hammering on the visceral details of the fighting at Kokoda, when Barton made clear that he wasn’t disputing that but was critiquing the campaign’s wider strategic significance.
Btw - there’s a follow up post:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/04/26/border-protection-the-brisbane-line-redux/
I’ve just watched the interview, having read the transcript. What a joke of an interview. Barton tries in vain to argue his point (that Kokoda was not the battle that saved Australia) while the Host Tony Jones, grinning and sniggering like a jackass, attacks him with things that have no relation to the point Barton is trying to make. The Historian guy rambles on with his favourite (admittedly riveting but off-topic) Kokoda stories. I don’t agree with Barton’s article, but he got a rough deal from Tony Jones.
“Tim Blair also uses the technique of delivering a withering body blow to someone’s argument by pointing out a spelling mistake.”
So does noted (in his own mind, at least) political commentator, John Quiggin. It always adds so much to his credibility.
On the Barton interview, what I cannot understand is why so many people continue to mis-state Barton’s views. What good does it do to avoid his point and put words in his mouth?
His main point appears to be that Australia was engaged in a world war and THE WAR was won all over the world, not by one battle or even series of battles in any one nation. It has nothing to do with trying to downgrade the sacrifice of the men who died in any one battle. What is so difficult to understand about that?
If that was his main point (with the hindsight of 60 something years), it would be trite, and he wouldn’t get op/ed space in The Australian.
This is his main point:
Shorter Barton:
Keating bad, war on Iraq good.
He even says that it’s his main point. In fact, he says several times during the Lateline interview that it was his main point. Why would you know better than he does what his main point is?
And it may be trite but there’s plenty of evidence on here and other sites that indicates that many people don’t see it that way even 60 years after the fact.
I repeat what I said.
Anyone could go back now and look at the history of WW2 in retrospect and assess what the decisive moments were.
He apparently thinks Jack Curtin should have had foreknowledge of this.
What’s all this bollocks in his article about Keating and “left wing” historians, if that’s his main point?
You try submitting an op/ed to the Australian about how important Gualdacanal was. See if you get it published. You wouldn’t have a hope in hell. Unless you can tie it into the History Wars and an attack on the ALP.
Judging by the ferocious discussion and disagreement on this thread and others where Barton’s article has been discussed, just anyone CANNOT could go back now and look at the history of WW2 in retrospect and assess what the decisive moments were.
Left-wingers rarely think in terms of global conflicts which is what WWII was and what the war on terror today is. That’s why many left-wingers prefer to either mis-state Barton’s views or miss the point entirely. You appear to have chosen option b).
Left-wing, Right-wing or Chicken-wing, I think at least Barton’s stirred up an interesting debate. The people who think he is trying to insult the Australian troops who fought in Kokoda are idiots.
I don’t think Barton is trying to insult anyone. It’s also the job of historians to stir the pot ever now and then. Without “revisionism” and the history wars they generate, history dies, buried under dust and irrelevance. That being said there is also a wee logical inconsistency in his argument. He says those who see the Kokoda Campaign as ‘the battle that saved Australia’ are wrong. He acknowledges that no one battle won the war and sees Australia’s participation in the broader allied campaign against the Axis as the ‘real’ campaign that ’saved Australia’. But elsewhere he says Australia was not a target of the Japanese, they ruled it out of their war objectives. So doesn’t this mean that Australian participation in the wider campaign was also irrelevant to our ultimate security? Had Australia merely beefed up our continental defences during WW2 and perhaps provided a base for US operations against Japan, the result would have been the same
Tim: “…doesn’t this mean that… the wider campaign was also irrelevant to our ultimate security?…”
While I suppose it’s a question worth asking, your assumption ignores the racist and ultra-nationalist character of the Japanese Empire at the time. Since the beginnings of the 20th-cent., and partly as a response to their experiences during Meiji, the Japanese had been steadily imbibing a racist/ultranationalist ideology of a particularly toxic strain. It was one of the greatest collective pathologies of modern history. To imagine that if left to grow and fester according to its own impulses, it would not have harmed Australia in the long run, would be a naivete of the first order…
Absolutely, Tim. But Barton isn’t a historian. He’s only looking at the secondary literature and reintepreting it. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it should be distinguished from what revisionist historians do after long years of work in the archives. And the authority of his conclusions should be discounted accordingly.
As far as I can see (and I’ve looked), he hasn’t published anything on this except for the op/ed. So it’s not gone through any process of academic peer review.
As a sociologist, I would be open to the same objections if I rushed into print on topics like this. So I’d make very very sure that I had an expert knowledge of the field before I did. That’s where the process of peer review is very important.
And what j_p_z said.
Maybe Bob Wurth’s new book and it’s apparent claims (at least according to ) that Curtin was open to a negotiated settlement with the Japanese makes him the real revisionist!
Sorry somehow i screwed up that editing!
Just paste in the link without formatting, Tim, and it should work.
this is wierd all l want to now is people that went on the track of kokoda in WWI
i dont know if ots too late but for an assesment i am evaluating whether or not Kokoda was the battle that saved australia.. does anyone know any good (and reliable) sources.. thanks
Hi peoples
Just wanted to add a quick a comment. I’m 14 and at the moment and i’m doing a project about the Kokoda trail at school.
I just wanted to say that i learnt so much about it, i think that australian soldiers were so brave and courageous even though most of them were between the ages of 17 and 19. They were boys when they left, and the lucky ones that came back home had turned into men. Every Australian should be so grateful and proud that we had such brave people fighting for their country.
Ne way i should get bak to my project
Good on you lily, you’re right. Good luck with the project