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  ANZAC’S DIRTY

  DOZEN

  ANZAC’S DIRTY

  DOZEN

  12 MYTHS OF AUSTRALIAN MILITARY HISTORY

  EDITED BY

  CRAIG STOCKINGS

  A NewSouth book

  Published by

  NewSouth Publishing

  University of New South Wales Press Ltd

  University of New South Wales

  Sydney NSW 2052

  AUSTRALIA

  newsouthpublishing.com

  #anzacdirty12

  © in this edition Craig Stockings 2012

  © in individual chapters is retained by the chapter authors

  First published 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Title: Anzac’s dirty dozen: 12 myths of Australian military history/edited by Craig Stockings.

  ISBN: 978 174223 288 1 (pbk.)

  Subjects: Australia – History, Military.

  Australia – Armed Forces – History.

  Other Authors/Contributors: Stockings, Craig, 1974–

  Dewey Number: 355.00994

  Design Josephine Pajor-Markus

  Cover Design by Committee

  Cover images Figure on left: © Photo: IWM (IWM PST8244); figures on right:

  Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (Posters/World War 1939–1945/6) Printer Griffin

  This book is printed on paper using fibre supplied from plantation or sustainably managed forests.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Contributors

  Introduction: Myths and Australian Military History

  1 Australian military history doesn’t begin on Gallipoli

  Craig Wilcox

  2 The ‘superior’, all-volunteer AIF

  John Connor

  3 What about New Zealand? The problematic history of the Anzac connection

  Chris Clark

  4 Other people’s wars

  Craig Stockings

  5 ‘They also served’: Exaggerating women’s role in Australia’s wars

  Eleanor Hancock

  6 The nonsense of universal Australian ‘fair play’ in war

  Dale Blair

  7 The unnecessary waste: Australians in the late Pacific campaigns

  Karl James

  8 Lost at sea: Missing out on Australia’s naval history

  Alastair Cooper

  9 ‘Landmark’ battles and the myths of Vietnam

  Bob Hall and Andrew Ross

  10 The myth that Australia ‘punches above its weight’

  Albert Palazzo

  11 Critical reflections on the Australia–US alliance

  Michael McKinley

  12 Monumental mistake: Is war the most important thing in Australian history?

  Peter Stanley

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Index

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost I must acknowledge the authors of the various chapters of this book. The quality of their scholarship was matched by a spirit of co-operation which made the job of editing – without exaggeration – a pleasure. As readers familiar with Australian military historiography will be aware, the list of contributors to this book represents a large portion of the leading edge of scholarship in this field. I am personally and professionally indebted to a number of them. Thank you for being part of this project.

  I would also like to express my gratitude once again to Phillipa McGuinness and the team at NewSouth Publishing. After having completed a number of projects with this publisher, I was, this time, unsurprised by the continuing vision, expertise, skilled and friendly support provided.

  Further thanks to the long list of others who have assisted in any way in this project. I trust the product matches your faith and expectations.

  Craig Stockings

  CONTRIBUTORS

  DR DALE BLAIR is a freelance historian currently teaching at Deakin University, Burwood campus. His areas of academic interest include Australia’s involvement in World War I at home and abroad. His most recent publication is a battle narrative and analysis, The Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel: Tommies, Diggers and Doughboys on the Hindenburg Line, 1918 (2011). Other publications include his study of the 1st Battalion, AIF, Dinkum Diggers (2001), and his study of illegitimate killing in World War I entitled No Quarter (2005).

  DR CHRIS CLARK is head of the Office of Air Force History for the Royal Australian Air Force and a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. Although his interest since 2004 has been primarily on the history of air power, he has written extensively on broader aspects of Australian defence over many years. His Encyclopaedia of Australia’s Battles (3rd edition 2010) continues to be a standard reference.

  DR JOHN CONNOR lectured in history at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College, London, before taking up his current position as a senior lecturer in History at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. His first book, The Australian Frontier Wars 1788–1838 (2002), was shortlisted for the Royal United Services Institute’s Westminster Medal for Military Literature. His most recent book, Anzac and Empire: George Foster Pearce and the Foundations of Australian Defence (2011), is a biography of the Australian defence minister during World War I.

  ALASTAIR COOPER is a public servant and Navy Reserve officer with an abiding interest in Australian naval and military history. He was a contributing author to The Royal Australian Navy, the centenary history of the RAN, and is currently an interviewer for the RAN Oral History Collection.

  DR BOB HALL is a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. He is a Vietnam veteran and author of Combat Battalion: The Eighth Battalion in Vietnam (2000). Together with Dr Andrew Ross he is working on an Australian Research Council funded study of the combat performance of the 1st Australian Task Force in Vietnam.

  DR ELEANOR HANCOCK is an associate professor of History at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. She has published on the history of the German war effort in World War II and on issues relating to women in the armed forces. She is the author of The National Socialist Leadership and Total War 1941–1945 (1991); and Ernst Röhm: Hitler’s SA Chief of Staff (2008).

  DR KARL JAMES has been a historian at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, since 2006, where he has specialised in Australia’s involvement in World War II. In 2011, he curated the memorial’s special seventieth anniversary exhibition: ‘The Rats of Tobruk, 1941’. Karl completed his doctoral thesis on the Bougainville campaign of 1944–1945, at the University of Wollongong.

  DR MICHAEL MCKINLEY is senior lecturer in International Relations and Strategy in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University. He has recently published Economic Globalisation as Religious War: Tragic Convergence (2007). His current major research projects comprise an analysis of the grand strategic decline of the United States by way of an historical comparison with the pre-Reformation Church, the problems of the neo-liberal university in teaching the subject of terrorism and counter-terrorism, and a comprehensive critique of the Australia–US alliance based on previously excluded historical evidence.

  DR ALBERT PALAZZO is a senior research fellow at the Australian Army’s Directorate of Research and Analysis in Canberra. He has written widely on warfare in the modern age
and on the Australian Army in particular. His many publications include: Seeking Victory on The Western Front: The British Army & Chemical Warfare in World War I (2000); The Australian Army: A History of its Organisation 1901–2001 (2001); Defenders of Australia (2002); The Third Australian Division; Battle of Crete (2005); The Royal Australian Corps of Transport: Australian Military Operations in Vietnam (2006); and Moltke to bin Laden: The Relevance of Doctrine in Contemporary Military Environment (2008). His current project is a book on the Australian Army and the war in Iraq.

  DR ANDREW ROSS is a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. He is a former analyst with Central Studies Establishment, Defence Science and Technology Organisation. He is the author of Armed and Ready: The Industrial Development and Defence of Australia 1900–1945 (1995). Together with Dr Bob Hall he is working on an Australian Research Council funded study of the combat performance of the 1st Australian Task Force in Vietnam.

  DR PETER STANLEY heads the Centre for Historical Research at the National Museum of Australia. Formerly principal historian at the Australian War Memorial, he is an adjunct professor at the Australian National University and a visiting associate professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He has written 23 books, mainly in Australian and British military social history, including Quinn’s Post, Anzac, Gallipoli (2005); Invading Australia (2008); A Stout Pair of Boots (2008); Men of Mont St Quentin (2009); Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny, Murder and the Australian Imperial Force (2010); the children’s novel Simpson’s Donkey (2011); and most recently Digger Smith and Australia’s Great War (2011).

  DR CRAIG STOCKINGS is a senior lecturer in History at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. His areas of academic interest concern general and Australian military history and operational analysis. He has recently published a history of the army cadet movement in Australia, The Torch and the Sword (2007); and Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of Anzac (2009), a study of the First Libyan Campaign in North Africa 1940–1941.

  DR CRAIG WILCOX is a historian who lives in Sydney. His publications include: For Hearths and Homes: Citizen Soldiering in Australia 1854–1945 (1998); Australia’s Boer War: The War in South Africa 1899–1902 (2002); and Red Coat Dreaming (2009), a study of colonial Australia’s fascination with the British army. His current projects include an entry on Paul Brickhill for the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

  [INTRODUCTION]

  MYTHS AND AUSTRALIAN MILITARY HISTORY

  Be warned at the very outset that this book may disturb, or even offend. It is, quite purposefully, a challenging collection of essays that, in debunking some of our most resilient misconceptions, goes beyond the controversial Zombie Myths of Australian Military History, published in 2010. Both books might be read together in a complementary manner, yet they stand alone in their own right. While they share similarities in style and presentation, Anzac’s Dirty Dozen is fundamentally different. Where the original Zombie Myths chose to examine a number of specific incidents in Australian military history – including Kokoda, the sinking of HMAS Sydney II, and Australian involvement in East Timor – this collection of essays takes a bolder thematic approach. This time around we are not so much concerned with laying to rest individual myths. In these twelve chapters we take aim at whole tribes and traditions. The stakes are higher.

  Some explanations may be in order for those who have no idea of the kinds of myths we are talking about. The published and public spheres of Australian military history – official publications, popular books and novels, the speeches of Anzac Day and its associated political rhetoric, and the language of public commemoration, for example – are landscapes of legends. But they are also minefields of misconception. Rather than the pursuit of what we might call historical truths, across the length and breadth of Australia’s military heritage, from before first European contact to the present day, accuracy and objectivity are often subordinated to a narrative bent on commemoration, veneration, and capturing the essence of idealised ‘Australian’ virtues. The driving needs to celebrate the deeds of past servicemen and promote conceptions of national identity wrapped in the imagery of war have come to dominate our public discourse. The overarching social and emotional rhetoric of ‘Anzac’ and the ‘digger’ are paramount in this regard.

  From this foundation myth a whole host of historical misunderstandings has spawned – and they are surprisingly resilient. Many of the myths in question, including those discussed at length within this book (and the original Zombie Myths for that matter) share a common set of characteristics. They lack vitality and ‘freshness’. They are empowered by misdirected and unquantifiable energies. They appeal to instinct and sentiment more than reason. They shun critique or critical inquiry (as their champions and advocates shun those who attempt it). Although perhaps based on kernels of truth, the myths that permeate our understanding of Australia’s military past are for the most part divorced from any sort of rational accuracy or precision. At the same time, the considerable – if slow-witted – inertia of such myths seems to give them a life of their own. Many of the misconceptions of Australian military history have survived the blows landed by academics and historians for decades. Each time an individual ‘story’ might lurch or stumble for a short time, but then it seems to grow back undiminished. And it’s getting worse, because these myths are now aided as never before by blogs, Wikipedia, Anzac supplements in the weekend papers, and bestselling popular histories not always based on archival research.

  This is not a harmless phenomenon. The persistent misunderstanding and misrepresentation enshrined in the myths of Australian military history skew proper understandings and interpretations of this nation’s military heritage. They warp and twist our perceptions of war. They shape our picture of ourselves in obscuring and inaccurate ways. Moreover, they situate our attitudes to the past falsely, distort our reading of the present and our expectations for the future. They are monsters of the mind.

  But do not despair, for there is yet hope. This book is an extended attempt to target some of these cherished myths and to expose them to the light of genuine, analytical scholarship. Reasoned arguments, thorough analysis and critical rigour form the toolbox used by the historians and professional researchers who have written the chapters that follow. As long-lived and resilient as these manifold misconceptions have proven to be, myths are still myths. By exposing them to careful research and analysis, it is possible to separate them from what might be called ‘real’ Australian military history. This is our hope.

  In line with this aim, Anzac’s Dirty Dozen opens by looking at what is often quite erroneously thought of as the ‘beginning’: that is, the mistaken notion that the nation’s military history began at Gallipoli in 1915. On an intellectual level, most Australians are aware – in the background of their memories – that Australia does have a military past that pre-dates the invasion of Turkey in 1915. On an emotional or sentimental level, however, the story starts at Gallipoli. This mistaken representation, as Craig Wilcox shows in Chapter 1, excludes the fact that for a very substantial period the British Army was the ‘Australian’ Army. Any notion that it all began at Gallipoli diverts attention for the mass engagement in citizen soldiering in Australia that pre-dated World War I.

  Even those with only a passing knowledge or interest in Australia’s involvement in the war of 1914–1918 will be certain of one key aspect: the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was the only all-volunteer army in that war. This presumption is not by chance, as the message has been consistently passed on for generations. General Sir John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps on the Western Front, first made the claim in his 1920 book The Australian Victories in France, and it has been an assertion maintained by countless authors, and more recently websites, ever since. The only problem with this important and well-known fact is that it is totally false. As John Connor argues in Chapter 2, the AIF was not the only all-volunteer army in World War I. I
mportantly, another and perhaps even more insidious myth has developed out of this basic factual error: that the volunteer status of Australian troops in World War I made them inherently superior to their conscript counterparts. This notion too is ready to be put to rest.

  One key misinterpretation that grew from Australia’s involvement in World War I, and especially the bloodshed of Gallipoli and the Western Front, was the birth of the idea that ‘Anzac’ exemplifies Australia’s bond with our natural brothers-in-arms across the Tasman Sea. In truth, as Chris Clark explains in Chapter 3, this was not at all how the relationship was initially conceived. Before and after Gallipoli, the New Zealanders thought themselves far superior soldiers to the Australians, and they fought very hard to keep their identity separate and distinct from the Australian-dominated Anzac image.

  Another popular misconception, cutting across the colonial era and extending right through the twentieth century and beyond, is that Australia has generally been involved in ‘other people’s wars’. As unnecessary as these wars have been costly, this myth would have it that we have done so either out of unthinking fidelity to great power protectors – Britain or more recently the United States – or as a consequence of being duped or manipulated by these ‘big brother’ allies. Many authors and commentators have chosen specific wars and sought to demonstrate Australia’s mistaken choice to become involved, arguing that decisions were made for the wrong reasons, with incomplete knowledge of circumstances, or under external coercion. Collectively, such sentiments capture perhaps the most widespread misconception of Australian military history. As Craig Stockings demonstrates in Chapter 4, such ideas are fundamentally mistaken.

  While it seems Anzac Day is becoming Australia’s de facto national day, and that Anzac is constructed as our national story, one might think that the greatest apparent problem for such a mythology is its exclusion of half of Australia’s population – women. But by twist of perception this is not the case. Somehow, women have managed to be included within the contemporary Anzac paradigm. The idea that Australian women, despite being excluded from almost all aspects of direct experience in twentieth-century conflict, still managed to make an important contribution to the Australian war effort – especially in the two World Wars – has grown dramatically. As appealing as this exaggerated truth might appear, and as useful as it might be to avoid Anzac friction along gendered lines, it is nonetheless an emerging and powerful myth that Eleanor Hancock sets out to challenge and expose it for what it is in Chapter 5.