NECESSARY CHICANERY:

OPERATION KINGFISHER’S CANCELLATION

AND INTER-ALLIED RIVALRY

Gary Followill

Z3364691

A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters by Research

University of New South Wales

UNSW Canberra

17 January 2020

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Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Australia's Global University

Surname/Family Name Followill Given Name/s GaryDwain Abbreviation for degree as give in the University calendar MA Faculty AOFA School HASS Thesis Title Necessary Chicanery: Operation Kingfisher'scancellation and inter-allied rivalry

Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) This thesis examines the cancellation of 'Operation Kingfisher' (the planned rescue of Allied prisoners of war from Sandakan, Borneo, in 1945) in the context of the relationship of the wartime leaders of the United States, Britain and Australia and their actions towards each other. It looks at the co-operation between Special Operations Australia, Special Operations Executive of Britain and the US Officeof Strategic Services and their actions with and against each other during the Pacific War. Based on hithertounused archival sources, it argues that the cancellation of 'Kingfisher' - and the failure to rescue the Sandakan prisoners - can be explained by the motivations, decisions and actions of particular British officers in the interplay of the wartime alliance. The politics of wartime alliances played out at both the level of grand strategy but also in interaction between officers within the planning headquarters in the Southwest Pacific Area, with severe implications for those most directly affected.

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For my Father, John Followill

One of the many saved by the Atomic Bomb

‘They are dead, but they live in each Patriot’s breast, and their names are engraven on honor’s bright crest’.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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SYNOPSIS

This thesis examines the cancellation of ‘Operation Kingfisher’ (the planned rescue of

Allied prisoners of war from Sandakan, Borneo, in 1945) in the context of the relationship of the wartime leaders of the United States, Britain and Australia and their actions towards each other. It looks at the co-operation between Special Operations Australia, Special

Operations Executive of Britain and the US Office of Strategic Services and their actions with and against each other during the Pacific War. Based on hitherto unused archival sources, it argues that the cancellation of ‘Kingfisher’ – and the failure to rescue the

Sandakan prisoners – can be explained by the motivations, decisions and actions of particular British officers in the interplay of the wartime alliance. The politics of wartime alliances played out at both the level of grand strategy but also in interaction between officers within the planning headquarters in the Southwest Pacific Area, with severe implications for those most directly affected.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction ‘As a result, Australia is also at war’ 13

Chapter 1 ‘Unconventional tools of warfare’: 31

The creation of Special Operations Australia

Chapter 2 ‘Destiny didn’t permit us to carry it out’: 49

Operation Kingfisher Theories

Chapter 3 ‘Necessary Chicanery’: 63

Operation Kingfisher cancellation and Inter-allied rivalry

Chapter 4 ‘Winston is a dictator’: The Alliance of Britain and Australia 83

Chapter 5 ‘The Best of Allies’: The USA and Britain Alliance 107

Chapter 6 ‘Free of any Pangs’: The Australia and United States Alliance 123

Chapter 7 ‘Relegated to a Sideshow’: Post-war Planning and Operations 141

Conclusion ‘A lack of Priority’ 159

Appendix 1: GHQ Monthly Aircraft Status Reports Dec 1944-May 1945 169

Appendix 2: 1903 Map of British North Borneo 170

Appendix 3: Map of the Japanese Empire in 1942 171

Appendix 4: Map of the movements of AGAS I 172

Bibliography 173

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This journey started in a second-hand book store, when I found a copy of Athol Moffitt’s book Project Kingfisher. As I began reading this book I became quite interested in the mystery of the Kingfisher rescue mission and the real reason for its cancellation. When I started doing research for this thesis, I had no idea where it would take me or what the final outcome would be. It is during this voyage of research around the world, that I would like to acknowledge a number of people.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge and thank Professor Peter Stanley, who I would call a true educator. The student he got at the start of this thesis and the student I am now, has improved multiple times over. The amount of time he has given to make sure I fully understood what was needed and why, as well as teaching me to write a thesis. He was always honest and to the point, and his ‘Stick and pat on the back’ method did work.

Secondly, I would like to acknowledge Professor Craig Stockings, for his assistance in starting this Masters by Research. Upon competition of my first Master’s degree in Military

History, I found that I wanted to continue studies in this area. It was Professor Stockings who spent the time discussing and offering options for the continuation of my studies.

Professor Stocking was also the one who suggested that I approach Professor Stanley to be my supervising professor, which turned out to the best choice I could have made.

Next I would like to acknowledge Ms Bernadette McDermott, Academic Support Officer,

HASS, for keeping in line with the many rules and regulation of port-graduate study. She has assisted me not only for my current Master’s by Research studies, but also for my first

Master’s of Art degree, a total of six years. Over that time, she has helped me with reviews,

6 class changes, university rules and regulations and all of the many other things she does behind the scenes.

I would like to acknowledge all of the research centres I have had the privilege to visit and research their files. I have been lucky enough to visit the Australian War Memorial and

National Archives of Australia, Canberra, a number of times. I was also able to visit the

National Archives and Record Administration, College Park, USA, the MacArthur

Memorial Archives and Library in Norfolk USA and the UK National Archives in Kew.

I must acknowledge the support and assistance given to me by my wife, Christine Followill, during these past three years. Always understanding my love of the subject matter, my trips to various places to do research and the purchase of large numbers of books. I also want to mention my two daughters, who also provided support and assistance for occasional computer problems.

Lastly, a thank you to the late Athol Moffitt for his book which led me to this wonderful trip.

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ABBREVIATIONS

ABDA American, British, Dutch and Australian (Command) ACH Area Combined Headquarters ADO Assistant District Officer AIB Allied Intelligence Bureau AIF Australian Imperial Forces AMF Australian Military Forces ANGAU Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit ATIS Allied Translator and Interpreter Section AWM Australian War Memorial BBCAU British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit BNB British North Borneo BPF British Pacific Force CAU Civil Affairs Unit (British) CCS Combined Chiefs of Staff C in C Commander in Chief CGS Chief of General Staff CMF Citizen Military Forces CO Commanding Officer DCGS Deputy Chief of General Staff DMI Director of Military Intelligence DNI Director of Naval Intelligence DZ Drop Zone [for parachutists] FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation FCS Fraser Commando School FELO Far Eastern Liaison Office G-2 Intelligence Section, General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area G-3 Operations and Planning Section, General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area

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G-4 Logistics Section, General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area GHQ General Headquarters GOC General Officer Commanding HMAS His Majesty’s Australian Ship HMS His Majesty’s Ship IJA Imperial Japanese Army IJN Imperial Japanese Navy ISD Inter-Allied Services Department JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff (American) LHQ Land Headquarters MEW Ministry of Economic Warfare (British) MPU Malayan Planning Unit NARA National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC NEFIS Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service NEI Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) NLA National Library of Australia OSS Office of Strategic Services (American) OWI Office of War Information PM Prime Minister POW Prisoner of War RAAF Royal Australian Air Force RAF Royal Air Force (British) RAN Royal Australian Navy RMC Royal Military College (Duntroon) RSL Returned Servicemen’s League SEAC South East Asia Command SIA Secret Intelligence Australia SIO Supervising Intelligence Officer SIS Secret Intelligence Service (British also known as MI6) SOA Special Operations Australian SOE Special Operations Executive (British)

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SRD Services Reconnaissance Department SWPA Southwest Pacific Area USFA United States Air Force USAFFE United States Army Forces in the Far East USAFIA United States Army Forces in Australia USMC United States Marine Corps USN United States Navy USS United States Ship

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INTRODUCTION: “AS A RESULT, AUSTRALIA IS ALSO AT WAR”

‘Operation Kingfisher’ envisaged the rescue of up to 2,500 Australian and British POWs in

Borneo in 1945. In the end it was cancelled and all but six of the prisoners of war died or were killed by the Japanese. This thesis is not specifically about the POWs at Sandakan, however; it is about the history of ‘Operation Kingfisher’: the plan, its origins, evolution and eventual cancellation and about what its brief existence discloses about the character of the

Allied alliance. I will evaluate the explanations that have been offered for why Operation

Kingfisher did not proceed, examine the exact point in time it was cancelled, identify those responsible, and discuss the reason that the rescue mission was ‘terminated’.

‘Operation Kingfisher’ was intended to prevent the Japanese from killing the Borneo POWs when the planned invasion of Tarakan took place in May 1945. As the tide of the war turned against the Japanese, senior officers began to take action to protect themselves against possible prosecution after the war. One key issue that the Japanese did not want the Allies to discover was their treatment of POWs in captivity. On 1 August 1944, in reply to a question from Formosa POW headquarters, Imperial General Headquarters Tokyo issued the following orders to all of their POW camp commanders:

Whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, or however it is done, with

mass bombing, poisonous smoke, poisons, drowning, decapitation, or what, dispose

of them as the situation dictates. In any case it is the aim not to allow the escape of

a single one, to annihilate them all, and not leave any traces.1

The Japanese plans to annihilate all POWs before the Allies could free them became evident when American forces landed on Palawan Island in the Philippines. There they discovered

1 Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2004, p.325. This was only one such order. 13 that about 150 American POWs had been ordered into an air raid shelter by the Japanese, who then threw buckets of petrol in the bunker and set it alight. Any prisoner who escaped the burning bunker was shot, bayoneted or clubbed to death. Four POWs did manage to escape by jumping off a nearby cliff into the sea and joined local Filipino guerrilla forces until rescued by advancing US troops.2

Suspicion of this Japanese policy towards Allied POWs added yet another element to Allied officers’ plans to land in Japanese-occupied territories. When planning for the landings at

Tarakan began at MacArthur’s GHQ, therefore, the fate of the Sandakan POWs was seriously considered. ‘During the planning stages, the use of “Ultra”, the breaking of the

Japanese codes, gave planners detailed and incomparably valuable access to the strengths, dispositions and state of the Japanese forces throughout the Pacific’. 3 This would include information regarding the orders on dealing with Allied POWs. Tarakan was only 285 kilometres from the Sandakan camp, which was believed to hold around 2,500 Australian and British POWs. GHQ’s covert intelligence organisation, the Services Reconnaissance

Department (SRD) began advocating a plan to rescue the POWs to prevent the Japanese from killing them after the Tarakan landings started.4 What became known as ‘Operation

Kingfisher’ provided the answer to this problem. The plan, developed by SRD and approved by GHQ, called for the 1st Australian Parachute Battalion to be dropped by air near the

Sandakan POW camp. Once landed, they would take control of the camp from the Japanese and escort the POWs to the port of Sandakan. After the POWs, paratroopers and SRD team reached the port, naval landing craft would take them off the beach and back to larger ships to be taken back to Australia.5 This plan was very similar to the plan used by the Americans

2 Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese, p. 324. 3 Peter Stanley, Tarakan: An Australian Tragedy, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1997, p. 57 4 Alan Powell, War by Stealth: Australians and The Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942 – 1945, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p.275. 5 Project Kingfisher plans, dated 18 December 1944, Box 484, RG 496, NARA. 14 in the rescue at Los Banos. There were risks associated with the plan, but to minimise them an SRD team would be inserted in the Sandakan area to obtain the required last-minute intelligence before the rescue mission could begin.

In order to properly examine the rescue mission and its result in its full context, it is necessary to consider the alliance of Britain, Australia and America in the Pacific. This thesis will show how the alliance of these three countries evolved and affected the goals and objectives in the Pacific during World War II and afterward. Also examined, are the men behind the alliance, Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain, Franklin Roosevelt,

President of the United States of America, as well as Robert Menzies and John Curtin, Prime

Ministers of Australia; their personalities, motivations and objectives. However, in considering the ‘big picture’ of ‘Operation Kingfisher’, other key players must also be considered: General Douglas MacArthur, US Commander-in-Chief of the Southwest Pacific

Area, General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander-in-Chief, Allied Land Forces, Sir Frederick

Shedden, Australian Defence Secretary, General Richard Sutherland, Chief of Staff to

MacArthur, and General Charles Willoughby, Head of G-3, MacArthur’s intelligence organization. This thesis will look closely at possible conflicts of interests and objectives between the members of the alliance of Britain, Australia and America, and how they appear to have affected the rescue mission. I will show the changing objectives of the three governments as American and Australian forces began to retake Japanese-held territories in the Pacific, which altered and affected plans for operations such as ‘Operation Kingfisher’.

Most importantly, this thesis will show how the relationships between the three leaders, who individually knew nothing about the POW rescue plan, ‘Operation Kingfisher’, had such a great influence on its outcome.

For decades the Australian and British relationship had underpinned Australia’s part in international affairs. Britain was the ‘Mother country’ whose decisions were at first never to

15 be questioned. If Britain went to war, so did Australia, be it the Boer War, World War I or

World War II. On 3 September 1939, Menzies made a radio broadcast to Australians advising them that Australia was now at war. In his speech to the nation he famously stated,

‘Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of the persistence of Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war’.6 This statement has mostly been used to demonstrate the blind allegiance Australia displayed towards Britain at the time.

During the 1930s an aggressive, militarist Japan had invaded China, and by 1940 faced growing embargoes from the US. The possibilities of Japan striking out to invade more of

Asia grew larger each year because of its need for raw materials. Britain had built up Fortress

Singapore as protection for its Asian colonies as well as Australia and New Zealand.

Churchill, confident in his belief that Japan would not invade southern Asia, in March 1939, stated that there was no way Japan could send its navy and army to conquer Singapore, ‘it

[Singapore] is as far from Japan as Southampton is from New York’. He continued by saying, ‘You can be sure that provided Singapore is fully armed, garrisoned and supplied, there will be no attack in any period which our foresight can measure’.7 Later, as Prime

Minister, Churchill continued to assure first Menzies and then Curtin that if Japan did declare war, Britain would provide protection for Australia and New Zealand. What

Churchill did not know at the time, was how quickly the German forces would take Western

Europe, forcing Britain into a desperate defensive position. It was Britain’s defeat in Europe which, in a few weeks in 1940, dramatically changed the strategic position of Australia in

Asia.

6 John Edwards, John Curtin’s War, Penguin Random House, North Sydney, 2017, p. 153.

7 Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941 – 1945, Oxford University Press, New York, 1978, p. 3. 16

Once the Germans had conquered France in June 1940 and began planning the invasion of

Britain, Churchill, now Prime Minister, needed all of the resources he could get to defend

Britain. It also meant that now Britain did not have the resources necessary to protect Asia and Australia as well as Britain. Churchill continued to deprecate the possibility of a

Japanese invasion of Britain’s Asian colonies, more in hope than on facts. Encouraged by

Churchill’s undertakings that Britain would come to Australia’s aid should the Japanese invade Asia, Australia continued to provide resources for overseas services. Australia had provided army, navy and air force personnel and units to assist Britain since 1939. Britain and Australia were once again standing together, fighting to protect the British Empire and its ability to continue the fight, which its forces did in the Middle East in 1941.

In 1941 another crucial change occurred in Australia, when on 7 October John Curtin became Prime Minister. This was a significant change because of the very different personalities and views of him and his predecessor. Menzies had been unquestioningly pro-

British, while Curtin made Australia’s interest his priority. Menzies had been sending

Australian troops to North Africa to fight under British command, sent Australian warships to the Atlantic and Mediterranean under British command, and the RAAF was busy training airmen to go to Canada and Britain to fly as a part of the Royal Air Force. Curtin had expressed concerns to Menzies that with the deployment of all of the military resources

Australia was extremely exposed to attack from Japan.8 While Curtin was still in opposition as a member of the Advisory War Council (made up of all political parties), he called for

Australian warships to be returned as well as requesting British battleships to be stationed at Singapore, with no success.9 In 1941, Menzies had spent from January to May in Britain in discussions with Churchill and other ministers regarding British assistance against Japan

8 David Day, John Curtin A Life, Harpers Collins Publishers Australia, Sydney, 1999, p. 433. 9 Day, Curtin, p. 433. 17 in the Pacific and more Australian involvement on the British War Council. On his return,

Menzies made a number of serious political and publicity mistakes that saw his support fall, causing him to resign as Prime Minister. Artie Fadden took over as Prime Minister for only forty days, relying on the support of independents, before also having to resign, making John

Curtin Prime Minister. But even with the change of Prime Ministers, Australia still maintained strong ties to Britain.

Finally, on 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in a surprise aerial attack. At the same time, (but on 8 December because of the International Date Line), Japan invaded

Malaya from the sea and from Thailand. America swiftly declared war on Japan and so began the war in the Pacific. In retaliation, Germany and Italy declared war on the US, as

Britain declared war on Japan. This would be a turning point for Britain and Australia:

America had finally entered the Second World War.

Franklin Roosevelt was in his third term as President of the USA, when Japan attacked Pearl

Harbour. He had been elected in 1933 and had seen the USA through the depression years.

In the mid-1930s, Roosevelt was faced with an isolationist congress, many of whose members saw America’s involvement in World War I as mistaken. In 1935, Congress passed the Neutrality Act preventing and minimising America’s involvement overseas. But

Roosevelt managed to get the Neutrality Act amended by Congress in September 1939, after the invasion of Poland by Germany. This amendment allowed the US to sell weaponry to

Britain and France on a ‘Cash and Carry’ basis.10 The following year, Roosevelt was able to give Britain fifty older American destroyers in exchange for long term leases on eight British naval bases near the US. Roosevelt and Churchill quickly developed a strong relationship, with Roosevelt trying to find ways to support Britain while keeping the isolationists at bay

10 Office of the Historian, US Department of State, ‘Lend-Lease and Military Aid to the Allies in the Early Years of World War II’, viewed 13 May 2017 http://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/le4nd-lease, p. 1. 18 in America. In 1941, the Lend-Lease Act allowed the US to provide Britain with desperately needed military supplies as well as food. Britain would not have to pay for these supplies, instead it was agreed that Britain would pay the US in kind. This consideration was to be

“joint action directed towards the creation of a liberalised international economic order in the post war world”.11 That same year Roosevelt and Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, a plan for the post-war world which promised self-government for all nations (except most notably for British colonies), or so Churchill thought. The Atlantic Charter might seem remote to a POW rescue plan, but there is a connection that will be covered in much more detail later in this thesis. Finally, the attack by the Japanese was expected by Roosevelt, but he did not know when or where. After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on the USA in support of Japan: perhaps Hitler’s greatest error. Roosevelt began working with not only Churchill, but also with Joseph Stalin Leader of the Soviet Union,

General Chiang Kai-shek Leader of China and to a smaller extent, Curtin.

This thesis asks what influences the alliance of America, Australia and Britain or the individual nations themselves exerted on the outcome of a plan to rescue POWs in Borneo in 1945. To get some idea of this, the alliance of the three nations needs to be examined, from the start to the end of World War II. Australia was firmly in partnership with Britain throughout the 1930s. When Curtin became Prime Minister of Australia, he began pushing

Churchill for more British military support if Japan did attack in Asia. In May 1940, in a message from Churchill to the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand, in which

Churchill had promised to ‘sacrifice the Mediterranean position in the event of Australia being seriously threatened by invasion’.12 Given Britain’s extreme need, it is probable that

Churchill was saying or promising anything he needed to, to save Britain.

11 Office of the Historian, ‘Lend-lease’, p. 2. 12 John Gooch, ‘The Politics of Strategy: Great Britain, Australia and the War against Japan, 1939-1945’, War in History, 2003, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 424-447, p. 427. 19

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Southeast Asia, Curtin began to panic that Britain would not be able to come to Australia’s aid if the Japanese did decide to invade Australia. There was a widespread belief in Australia that Japan was planning to invade Australia, based on a stream of news reports of Japanese victories throughout Asia and followed by the bombing of Darwin. The Australian government actually encouraged these beliefs in order to ‘stiffen the resolve of the Australian people’. 13 With his belief that

Britain could not help Australia against a Japanese invasion, Curtin turned to the only power he believed could, the Unite d States of America. On 27 December 1941, Curtin, or his press secretary, Don Rodgers, wrote an article for The Herald entitled ‘The Task Ahead’. In this article, Curtin put forward to the Australian people his view of the current situation in the

Pacific and what he believed Australia needed to do to protect Australia from the expected

Japanese attack. Curtin acknowledged the danger Britain was in from the Germans and ‘The dangers of dispersal of strength’. 14 The most important part of the article is his public plea to America for assistance in fighting the Japanese. When he wrote, ‘Without any inhibitions of any kind. I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom’.15 Curtin was effectively telling

Churchill that Australia was going to the USA for protection against the Japanese, because

Britain was unable to protect Australia while fighting in Europe.

Curtin did not give either Churchill or Roosevelt warning of this article’s publication and neither leader was pleased by it. Churchill sent Curtin a cable on 29 December in which he complained about the ‘harsh tones’ in Curtin’s messages to him. Churchill then threatened

Curtin by writing, ‘if the hostile speeches continue then I [Churchill] will go over Curtin’s

13 Peter Stanley, ‘Dramatic Myth and Dull Truth: Invasion by Japan in 1942’, Zombie Myths of Australian Military Histories, Craig Stockings, (ed.), University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2010, p. 141. 14 John Curtin, ‘The Task Ahead’, The Herald, 27 December 1941. 15 Curtin, ‘The Task Ahead”. 20 head and broadcast directly to the Australian people’.16 Roosevelt also complained about

Curtin’s article saying that ‘it smacked of panic and disloyalty’.17 There was some truth to

Churchill’s comments, as the Japanese advance had only been going for twenty days when

Curtin’s article was published and Singapore had not yet fallen. Roosevelt, like Churchill, was also upset at Curtin’s reference to Russia and that Russia should declare war on Japan.

Both Churchill and Roosevelt needed Stalin focused on fighting the Germans, not diverting forces to fight the Japanese as well.18 It was an illustration of how little Curtin understood of the bigger Allied picture; and perhaps of how little he cared about it. Curtin would continue to focus on Australia and the Pacific for most of the war, never trying to understand the war on a global basis.

Churchill and Roosevelt had previously agreed on a ‘Germany first’ plan at their meeting in

Newfoundland, in August 1941, and to fight a holding action in the Pacific against the

Japanese. In late December 1941, Churchill raced to Washington to get confirmation that

Roosevelt would stick with the Germany first plan, which Roosevelt did. But in order to organise a holding action against the Japanese in the Pacific, America would need troops, aircraft and warships in the Pacific. The first American troops began arriving in Australia at the end of December 1941. Their first job was to ‘establish a reinforcement route to support the embattled forces of General MacArthur in the Philippines’ through Australia.19 By the time the first American reinforcements arrived in Australia, the American Joint Chiefs of

Staff believed the war in the Philippines was a lost cause, though it would be April 1942 before the last US troops surrendered. The American build up continued in Australia for the planned offensive to re-take Japanese-occupied territories.

16 Letter from Churchill to Curtin: 29 December 1941, John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, JCPML00869. 17 Graham Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, Macmillan, Sydney, 2008, p. 343. 18 David Day, ‘Loosening the Bonds: Britain, Australia and the Second World War’, History Today, Vol. 38, No. 2, February 1988, pp. 11-17, p. 16. 19 Freudenberg, Churchill, p.394. 21

To Churchill this was a gift, as the Americans were now looking after the war in the Pacific, including Australia. Churchill also had his promise of ‘Germany First’ from Roosevelt, so he could count on massive amounts of men and supplies from America to help win the war in Europe. As for the Australians, they had the Americans. From that point on, Britain still had to defend India and had to commit troops and resources in Burma against the Japanese.

But other than that, the British did not commit any other resources to the war in the Pacific, until near the end of the conflict.

For Curtin, the American plan to build up its forces in Australia before counter-attacking

Japan in the Pacific meant his hopes and wishes had come true. Curtin expected that the

Americans would give him more of a voice in planning and provide more aid than he had been getting from Churchill. Interestingly, at this stage it was not Curtin who planned to pull some Australian troops out of the Middle East, but Churchill. But Churchill’s plan was not to return the Australian troops to Australia, but send them to Burma to reinforce the British and Indian troops fighting the Japanese there.20 This would lead to what became known as the ‘Cablegram War’ between Churchill and Curtin over where the Australian troops would be sent after leaving North Africa. In the end, Curtin prevailed and the 6th and 7th A.I.F. divisions were returned to Australia and not to Burma.21

The triple alliance was certainly not an equal partnership between the three nations. At the start of World War II, the communications were between Churchill and Roosevelt and

Churchill and Menzies/ Curtin. At this stage of the war there was no reason for there to be communications between Roosevelt and the Prime Minister of Australia. After Pearl Harbor this changed and direct dialogue between Roosevelt and Curtin was required. However,

Roosevelt remained firmly in Churchill’s ‘camp’ and seemed to always take Churchill’s side

20 David Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1996, p.97. 21 John Edwards, John Curtin’s War, Penguin Random House, North Sydney, 2017, p. 378. 22 when there were differences between Churchill and Curtin. This was evident in the dispute between Churchill and Curtin over the return of the Australian troops from the Middle East.

Roosevelt even sent personal messages to Curtin pushing the point that the Australian troops must be sent to Burma. There was not a strong relationship between Curtin and Roosevelt, except on formal requests for resources to fight the Japanese. However, Roosevelt did invite

Curtin to meet him in Washington, many times, but Curtin believed that as a wartime Prime

Minister his place was in Australia. A reluctant air traveller, Curtin did actually visit

Washington, en route to Britain for a Dominions conference, but only in April and May1944.

Besides ‘Evatt had shown the limited gains an Australian politician could make in

Washington and London’.22

When MacArthur arrived in Australia and was made Supreme Commander of the Southwest

Pacific Area, Curtin finally found an ally (though MacArthur’s primary allegiance was to his own interest). At their first meeting in Canberra on 26 March 1942, MacArthur made his famous statement to the Advisory War Council and Curtin that, ‘They would see this thing through and that you [Curtin] take care of the rear and I [MacArthur] will handle the front’.23

This was just the talk that Curtin needed to hear as it would give him hope that Australia would now be saved. Australia had become very important to the American strategy of defeating the Japanese in the Pacific, as a staging point for attacks toward Japan. In addition,

Australia now had one of America’s most powerful and politically adept generals in charge in the Southwest Pacific Area, (SWPA).

MacArthur and Curtin established a very good working relationship, despite their diverse backgrounds. One was raised as military conservative and the other a socialist union man, one was focused on beating the Japanese and re-taking the Philippines and the other the

22 Day, Curtin, p.570. 23 Frederick Smith, Backroom Briefs: John Curtin’s War, Clem Lloyd and Richard Hall (eds.), National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1997, p. 13. 23 survival of Australia. MacArthur and Curtin soon set up a partnership for seeking or obtaining additional resources from the US for the war in the Pacific. While Curtin petitioned Roosevelt, MacArthur worked with the American Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a short period of time, the Australian War Cabinet effectively consisted of only Curtin, Shedden and MacArthur. Australian senior military commanders were excluded, including General

Blamey. This situation continued until MacArthur moved his headquarters forward for the invasion of the Philippines in 1944.

From September 1939 until 1943, it was not clear if Britain and Australia would survive and who would win the war. But by 1943 the tides had definitely turned for the Allies and it was no longer a question of if the allies would win, but when and how. From 1943 the leaders of the triple alliance, Churchill, Roosevelt and Curtin began thinking about the post-war global order. However, among these three allies, there existed conflicting views on issues such as the retention of European colonies in Asia, free trade in Asia and the growing power of the

Soviet Union.

Finally, this thesis will show the relationship between the three governments and their intelligence organisations and how these organisations were used by their governments to carry out missions to assist in obtaining the post-war objectives of their government. While there were a number of intelligence organisations in each of the three countries, the relevant ones looked at in this thesis are: Special Executive Operations (SOE) for Britain, Office of

Strategic Services (OSS) for America and Special Operations Australia (SOA) for Australia.

As there were a number of SOE members on loan to Australia’s SOA, the impact of these

SOE personnel in the decision making of SOA must also be examined. It is clear that, as victory became more certain in the Pacific, the more intelligence organisations were used by their governments to promote their post-war goals, even if it meant conflict between the organisations.

24

There were also limitations on where the intelligence organisations could operate.

MacArthur banned the OSS from operating the Southwest Pacific Area as well as SOE. He wanted to keep a tight grip on what was happening in his command area and who was operating in it. Even though he allowed SOA to operate as an intelligence organisation in

SWPA, he and his staff maintained tight control of their activities and where they could operate. So the OSS operated in Burma, China and Indochina. SOE also operated in these same areas, but with a difference. SOE was assisting French and Dutch agents to return to their Asian colonies, to re-establish government control after the war. This became a major point of conflict between American and British secret services in Asia.

In looking at the POW rescue mission and the relationship of the three countries, the wartime and post-war goals and objectives become important, especially from 1943 and onwards.

Britain was determined to re-establish government control in its Asian colonies, while

America was completely against this re-establishment of colonies. Britain supported the

Dutch and French in their efforts to re-establish government control in their colonies

Indochina and Netherlands East Indies, also against the wishes of America.

The question that must be asked, one which this thesis addresses, is at what stage could re- establishment of government control in Asian colonies become more important than the lives of Australian and British POWs? If this is the case, then how far up in the British or Australia governments would this thinking reach? It was clear that MacArthur put a high value on the rescue of POWs as shown by the POW rescues in the Philippines. This leaves the British and Churchill, who saw post war re-colonisation of Asian colonies as a priority. The giving up of Britain’s Asian colonies was a subject that Churchill would not even discuss, much less consider. But is it possible that Churchill would allow the Sandakan POWs to die because he saw post war re-colonisation as more important?

25

This thesis examines a number of relevant subject areas, in particular the rescue mission of the POWs at Sandakan prisoner of war camp in 1945, ‘Operation Kingfisher’. Another is the alliance of the three countries, Britain, America and Australia and the interaction between the President and Prime Ministers. What was the relationship between the three and how did the different goals of each representative affect the relationship with the others?

How did the goals change as the war progressed, especially when victory over Germany and

Japan was inevitable and just a question of time?

The intelligence organisations of Britain and Australia feature heavily in this thesis, their involvement in carrying out government orders or not, and their successes and failures. Also, what happened when Allied intelligence organisations found themselves, fighting between themselves for goals of their respective government? Many times the British and American governments would use their secret organisation as their ‘foot soldiers’ to carry out missions in which the other government did not agree with, want or even know about.

Literature Review:

A number of books have been published on the Sandakan POWs and the Death Marches, though few deal adequately with the ‘Kingfisher’ rescue mission. One of the first books to deal with Operation Kingfisher was Athol Moffitt’s 1989 Project Kingfisher.24 In 1945-46,

Moffitt acted as prosecutor in the Borneo collaborator and Japanese war crimes trials held at Labuan. Of the book’s 290 pages, only 65 deal with the rescue mission. The rest of the book is concerned with the military trials of the Japanese, how badly the POWs were treated by the Japanese and the death marches. Moffitt started wondering about a possible POW rescue mission in 1945-46 but did not write about it for forty-four years. Moffitt’s book was the first mention of a possible rescue mission for the Sandakan POWs. But for lack of official

24 Athol Moffitt, Project Kingfisher, Angus & Robertson Publishers, North Ryde, 1989. 26 records, Moffitt could not provide any definitive reason for the mission’s cancellation, but at least alerted researchers to its existence. Another book which contains a great deal of evidence and background on ‘Operation Kingfisher’ is Lynette Silver’s 1998 book

Sandakan: A Conspiracy of Silence. Once again the main focus was on the POWs at

Sandakan, though it did include new evidence on ‘Operation Kingfisher’.25 A third book that dealt with ‘Operation Kingfisher’ was Michele Cunningham’s 2013 book Hell on Earth:

Sandakan – Australia’s Greatest War Tragedy, which focused on the POWs and the death marches.26 Cunningham’s book and its theories on the ‘Kingfisher’ operation were extremely helpful to this thesis, as they were the closest to what I discovered through my archival research and formed a trail for me to follow. A more recently published book used as a reference, was written by the son of one of the Sandakan escapees, the late Richard

Wallace Braithwaite, was Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy.

His father, Dick Braithwaite, was one of the six escapees from the Sandakan Death March.

Braithwaite’s book, focused mainly on the POWs, the prison camp and the Death March, though Braithwaite includes a section where he gave his theory for why the rescue mission did not go ahead.

Jack Wong Sue’s memoir Blood on Borneo was useful in plotting the movements of the

‘Agas I’ / ‘Kingfisher’ team on arrival in Borneo in 1945.27 He also gives a good insight into the SRD training and operations. Another book used in this thesis was Ring of Fire by SRD veteran Dick Horton, which supplied context on the guerrilla operations of SRD, Z Force and the Kinabalu Guerrillas of Borneo.28 A book which provided a summary on the SRD operations in Borneo was Silent Feet: The History of ‘Z’ Special Operations 1942 -1945 by

25 Lynette Ramsay Silver, Sandakan: A conspiracy of silence, Sally Milner Publishing, Binda, 1998. 26 Michele Cunningham, Hell On Earth: Sandakan – Australia’s Greatest War Tragedy, Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2013. 27 Jack Wong Sue, Blood on Borneo, L. Smith (WA) Pty Ltd T/A Jack Sue WA Skindivers Publication, Bayswater West Australia, 2001. 28 Dick Horton, Ring of Fire, Leo Cooper, United Kingdom, 1983. 27

G.B. Courtney.29 Though based on slight sources, it offered a good picture of the SRD operations, behind enemy lines, in SWPA. Alan Powell’s book War by Stealth: Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942-1945 was used extensively in the writing of this thesis, as it contributes a wealth of knowledge on the history, operations and make up of

Special Operations Australia/ Allied Intelligence Bureau, especially in opening up official records.30 This book was used in conjunction with the unpublished ‘Operations of the Allied

Intelligence Bureau GHQ, SWPA’, written after the war, and ‘The Official History of

Special Operations – Australia’. A book used for an insight in the British Special Executive

Operations (SOE) were Gubbins and SOE by Peter Wilkinson and Joan Bright Astley, which gave an understanding of the relationship between SOE and the Australian AIB. This was important as many of the commanders in charge of some of the sections of the AIB were actually SOE officers on loan to the Australian army. Articles used for additional details on

SRD operations in Borneo were: ‘Prelude to invasion: covert operations before the re- occupation of Northwest Borneo 1944-45’ by Ooi Keat Gin 31 and ‘Small but Irritating Bites:

The AGAS Operations of ‘Z’ Special Unit in Borneo 1945’ by Dr Kevin Smith.32

Contrary to Lynette Silver’s title, there has plainly not been a conspiracy of silence about

Sandakan: indeed it is one of the most written about aspects of Australia’s POWs in World

War II. However, as this thesis shows, an understanding of Sandakan, (and the ‘Kingfisher’

Mission), is notably found in works clearly specifically with the POWs’ experience. We must also look at the broader literature on the wartime alliances and its leaders. The broader

29 G.B. Courtney, Silent Feet: The History of ‘Z’ Special Operations 1942 – 1945, Slouch Hat Publications, McCrae, 1993. 30 Alan Powell, War by Stealth: Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942 – 1945’ Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1996. 31 Ooi Keat Gin, Prelude to invasion: covert operations before the re-occupation of Northwest Borneo 1944- 45, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, No. 32, October 2002. 32 Kevin Smith, Small But Irritating Bites: The AGAS Operations of ‘Z’ Special Unit in Borneo 1945, Sabretache, Vol. LI, No. 3, September 2010. 28 context of the additional literature provides essential understanding to comprehend actions by people in this thesis.

Christopher Thorne’s book Allies of a Kind provided insight into the relationship between

Britain and America, especially the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt.33 Another useful book used in the preparation of this thesis was The Grand Alliance, written by

Winston Churchill giving his correspondence and thoughts on a variety of matters during

1941.34 Useful for documentation on the alliance between Churchill and Australia was

Graham Freudenberg’s book Churchill and Australia. This book gave insight into the way that Churchill saw Australia and its leaders and why he behaved as he did towards them.35

Articles referred to on the alliance were ‘Australia’s Second World War Strategic Alliance’ by Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Campbell.36 ‘Allied intelligence cooperation involving

Australia during World War II’ by Desmond Ball 37 and Thomas Hall’s ‘Mere Drops in the

Ocean: The Politics and Planning of the Contribution of the British Commonwealth to the

Final Defeat of Japan 1944-45’.38

David Day’s John Curtin: A Life, gives a detailed view into the wartime prime ministership of John Curtin.39 Another key player in this thesis was Franklin Roosevelt, President of the

United States of America. Understanding of Roosevelt was gathered from James MacGregor

Burns’ book Roosevelt 1940 – 1945: The Soldier of Freedom, which gave details on

Roosevelt and the alliance with Britain and Australia as well as his dealing with the

33 Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War Against Japan 1941 – 1945, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978. 34 Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance, Penguin Group, London, 1950. 35 Graham Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, Macmillan, Sydney, 2008 36 Richard Campbell, Australia’s Second World War Strategic Alliances, Australian Defence Force Journal, Issue No. 170, 2006, pp. 39-47. 37 Desmond J. Ball, Allied intelligence cooperation involving Australia during World War II, Australian Outlook, Vol. 32, No. 3, 20 March 2008. 38 Thomas Hall, Mere Drops in the Ocean: The Politics and Planning of the Contribution of the British Commonwealth to the Final Defeat of Japan, 1944-45, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 16, 2005. 39 David Day, John Curtin: A Life, Harper Perennial, Sydney, 1999. 29

American Congress and Senate during the war. For insights on Thomas Blamey, two books are referred to, Blamey: The Commander-In-Chief by David Horner,40and Blamey:

Controversial Soldier by John Hetherington. 41. Both books provided a good understanding of Blamey’s relationship with Curtin and MacArthur based on archival records.

The war time alliance of the United States of America, Britain and Australia must be examined to get a picture of governmental thinking before, during and after World War II.

Only when the objectives and plans are studied at the top, can actions be understood at the operational level.

40 David Horner, Blamey: Commander-In-Chief, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1998. 41 John Hetherington, Blamey: Controversial Soldier, The Australian War Memorial and the Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1973. 30

CHAPTER 1

‘UNCONVENTIONAL TOOLS OF WARFARE’:

THE CREATION OF SPECIAL OPERATIONS AUSTRALIA

To begin with, it is important to explain the origins of Special Operations Australia and how it evolved into Services Reconnaissance Department, the organisation responsible for planning – and not executing – ‘Operation Kingfisher’. I will also provide details on the various people who were involved in the operations of this organisation from its establishment in 1942 until the end of the war in the Pacific. It will be shown that the people involved in Special Operations Australia had a number of different allegiances, Australian,

British, Dutch and American.

‘Operation Kingfisher’ had the involvement of agents of the governments of Australia,

Britain and the United States of America. It also involved the military forces of these three countries, as well as the special operations organisations of Australia and Britain. The plan called for the cooperation of the three nations’ Air Force, Navy and Army, to effect the rescue. The narrative of the plan’s evolution is therefore extremely complex, as are the records, which are held in several archives in three nations. This thesis traces and uses these archival records, some of which have never before been used.

Operation ‘Kingfisher’ was a simple plan in essence, with a very high chance of success, as confirmed by Lieutenant-Colonel John Overall commander of the 1st Australian Parachute

Battalion.42 The plan was to parachute in Australian troops, using American or Australian transport aircraft. The Australians would take over the Sandakan prisoner of war camp and release the POWs. The POWs would then be escorted by the Australian troops to the port of

42 J.B. Lofty Dunn, Eagles Alighting: A History of 1 Australian Parachute Battalion, 1 Australian Parachute Battalion Association, Hawthorn, 1999, p. 7. 31

Sandakan. There they would be loaded onto landing craft and taken to a waiting hospital ship and back to Australia. The training for the Australian parachute battalion had been completed by the end of 1944, the navy had done its training on evacuating troops off a beach. All that was required was that a Special Operations Australia (SOA) team had to go into Sandakan to get the last minute intelligence for the mission to proceed. As per the

‘Kingfisher’ plans, the intelligence required was checking the suitability of the drop zone for the paratroopers, the number of Japanese troops, defence positions and other vital information for the rescue mission to proceed. To make a comparison, the POW rescues in the Philippines, behind Japanese lines, were successful, using many of the same components contained in Kingfisher. The Philippines rescues were against Japanese troops in much better condition, better trained and in larger numbers, than the ones at Sandakan.

The SOA team was inserted into Borneo, near the Sandakan area, but did not go to Sandakan to get the required intelligence. An incorrect message sent by this team, stated that all of the

POWs had been moved out of the Sandakan POW camp. 43 With this message, ‘Operation

Kingfisher’ died. But was it a simple mistake or were there other powers at play? This is a crucial question, one which is central to the contribution this thesis makes to the understanding of the outcome of the Sandakan story.

The background to the Sandakan story, however, goes back to the fall of Singapore. With the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the large number of Allied prisoners captured by advancing Japanese troops provided Japan with a huge labour force. They now had thousands of workers for building aerodromes, bridges, roads and other labour-intensive jobs across their newly captured territories. On 8 July 1942, Australians POWs were sent to

Sandakan in Borneo to build an aerodrome at Sandakan. These Australian POWs, known as

B Force and totalling 1,496 Australian, (145 officers, 312 NCO’s and 1,037 OR’s), were

43 SRD Intel Report No. 65, Project 309A, A28, A3269, NAA. 32 shipped from Singapore on the vessel Ubi Maru, arriving nine days later. A second Japanese vessel left Singapore on October 1942, with 1,838 British POWs, mainly captured in Java, which unloaded 1,000 British POWs in Kuching and the remainder in Jesselton. The British

POWs in Jesselton were shipped in two shipments, with the first 200 POWs arriving in

Sandakanon 8 April 1943. The remaining 576 British POWs arrived a few days later on 19

April 1943 on another vessel.

Finally, on 28 March 1943, on the SS de Klerk, 500 Australian POWs and 500 British POWs left Selarang for Kuching. After arriving in Kuching, all of the British and Australian POWs were unloaded, with the British POWs sent to a prison camp and the Australian POWs used for wharf labour. On 9 April, the Australian POWs were loaded onto the Taka Maru, while the British POWs remained in Kuching, and sailed to Sandakan. B and E Forces included units of the ‘2/18th, 2/19th, 2/20th, 2/26th, 2/29th, 2/30th Battalions, 2/4th Machine Gun

Battalion and the 2/10th Field Ambulance’.44 The story of the Sandakan prisoners has been told many times, in Australia at least. The details of the harsh treatment of the POWs by their Japanese guards, the lack of food and proper medical supplies, and the ravages of disease have been well documented.

The POWs completed building the Sandakan aerodrome in September 1944 and it soon came under attack from Allied bombers. With the aerodrome completed, the Sandakan

POWs became a liability instead of an asset to the Japanese. Meanwhile, from early 1943, the Allies had begun to retake Japanese-held territories. Through intercepted Japanese messages the Allies learned of orders from Tokyo for extreme measures to be taken to prevent the POWs from being freed by the advancing Allies. 45 The Allied commanders and

44 General Information about Australian prisoners of the Japanese, Australian War Memorial. Viewed 16 December 2016. http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/pow/general_info/ 45 Gavin Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific, Scribe Publications, Melbourne,2004, p. 325. 33 planners now realised that all POWs held by the Japanese were at risk of being killed, before they could be freed, and this added another consideration when planning attacks on

Japanese-held territories. When the Americans invaded the Philippines, they were able to free POWs and civilian internees from Los Banos prison camp in Manila. 46 The Americans, using Filipino guerrillas, travelled forty-eight kilometres behind Japanese lines to liberate

502 American POWs at the Cabanatuan prison camp and bring them back safely to

American lines. 47

With the fate of the Australian and British POWs in Borneo in mind, planning for the Borneo landings began shifting with the ‘Oboe 1’ landings, on Tarakan Island, off the coast of north- east Borneo. The Tarakan landings were the first of three invasions on Borneo, and were also the closest to the Sandakan prisoner of war camp.48 Planners had concerns about what the Japanese would do to the Sandakan POWs when Australian troops landed. ‘Operation

Kingfisher’, the plan to rescue the Sandakan POWs, was conceived with this concern in mind. Key in this rescue plan would be Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) using its subsection

Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) in gathering vital intelligence needed for the rescue mission and for other Allied operations in Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei.

SWPA GHQ, by 30 October 1944, had ‘formulated the essential features of a plan code- named “Cringle”, a plan for the re-occupation of Mindanao-Borneo-NEI area. The “Cringle” plan was for the “Victor” series of American operations directed at the liberation of the

Visayas, the “Ober” series for the Australians to seize Mindanao, the Sulo Archipelago and

British Borneo. The “Peter” series, using Americans, was to re-occupy the portions of NEI remaining in enemy hands. The planning for “Cringle” operations happened at the same time

46 Bruce Henderson, Rescue at Los Banos, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2015. 47 Hampton Sides, Ghost Soldiers, Anchor Books, New York, 2001. 48 Peter Stanley, Tarakan: An Australian Tragedy, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1997. 34 as the planning for “Operation Kingfisher”. The final decision on the “Oboe” series of operations did come later, but the two plans were started at the same time.

Documentation gathered for the history of the Special Operations Australia was taken from a number of sources. The documents include official histories written after the war, such as

‘The Official History of Special Operations – Australia’, written by the Australians. Another was the ‘Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau GHQ, SWPA’, written by the

Americans. The American history was originally a classified document, later reclassified to

Restricted, both are now available through national archives. It was to be used in American

Strategic Intelligence Schools. The document was authorized by General MacArthur and edited by Major General Willoughby. It was to be used as a learning tool for US Service

Schools, for military intelligence officers. It was expected to be ‘a useful example of planning for an execution of combat intelligence coverage in clandestine operations in enemy territory’. 49

From the beginning of the Inter-Allied Service Department, the innocuous codename for the

Special Operations Australia given by Sir Thomas Blamey Commander-in-Chief of the

Australian Military Forces, there was confusion in the command and relationships of the parties involved. As AIB’s secret history disclosed, Major-General Charles Willoughby, on

MacArthur’s staff and head of G-2 Intelligence, wrote, ‘GHQ SWPA was expected to be in control, but General Thomas Blamey C-in-C Allied Land Forces had immediate control and

Lieutenant-Colonel Gray Mott, former head of SOE Java, was under the War Office in

London’.50

49 General Headquarters, Far East Command, Military Intelligence Section, ‘Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau GHQ, SWPA’, Vl. IV, Intelligence Series, p. 2. 50 General Headquarters, Far East Command, Military Intelligence Section, ‘Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau, p. 4. 35

Mott had had a long career in intelligence, starting in World War I. When he re-joined the

British Army in 1940 he was assigned to SOE and sent to the Far East. After escaping from

Singapore, he reached Australia, and received orders from SOE London to get backing for setting up a SOE organisation in Australia. Mott was able to do this with the support of

General Blamey when he created ‘Special Operations Australia’ on 7 April 1942. After receiving approval from MacArthur to establish the new organisation, Blamey then advised the War Office in London that SOA would operate under his own direct control.

Furthermore, the new organisation would be known as Inter-Allied Services Department,

IASD, later shortened to ISD (Inter-Allied Services Department).

Colonel Allison Ind, who served on General Willoughby’s G-2 staff and later became

Deputy Controller of AIB, ‘Allied Intelligence Bureau’, later described a very much different version of the start to the AIB. Ind explained that Blamey had given Willoughby a number of files composed of ‘temperamental, unconventional tools of warfare – saboteurs, secret agents, the Coast Watchers, commandos, and so on’.51 Ind claimed that Blamey did not want the job of commanding operations of this type and asked MacArthur to command the new organisation. When MacArthur agreed to run the AIB, ‘Blamey had breathed a sigh of relief’. 52 Blamey was an ‘old-school’ military officer and did not have any idea or desire to command a group of men required for unconventional warfare.

Mott was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and given the task of setting up the new organisation. In the beginning, SOE allowed Mott to use its funds to pay salaries and expenses. From the very beginning, SOE was heavily involved in the setting up and running of SOA. SOE would continue their involvement with SOA throughout the war using SOE agents on loan to Australia. The British planners in the War Office saw this as a way to

51 Alison Ind, Allied Intelligence Bureau: Our Secret Weapon in the War Against Japan’, David McKay Company, New York, 1958, p. 9. 52 Ind, AIB, p. 9. 36 influence command and future operations within SOA to achieve their objectives. 53 ‘Mott’s finance was to come from AIB, but he still answered to SOE London; Kendall, financed by

SIS and permitted to operate in absolute secrecy, was virtually beyond AIB control; Proud, though he boasted that his organization was the only AIB section “entirely Australian in direction and control”, still kept his British connections and his desire for independence’.54

When General MacArthur arrived in Australia, in April 1942, after escaping from the

Philippines with his staff, Blamey submitted plans for an SOA organisation. The plans were for training ‘left-behind’ parties to carry out sabotage and to establish communication networks in areas that might be overrun by the Japanese in the future. But, apparently,

MacArthur was too busy with other matters, notably stopping the Japanese thrust into

Southeast Asia so, without any further consideration on the matter, approved the plan that

SOA would operate under his command.55 MacArthur handed the job of managing SOA to his intelligence chief Willoughby and Major-General Richard Sutherland, MacArthur’s

Chief of Staff.

As Willoughby’s role implied, the job of the AIB was to mainly gather intelligence: ‘Obtain information about the enemy, to weaken the enemy by sabotage and destruction of morale and to lend aid and assistance to local effort to the same end in enemy-occupied territories’.56

Under an Australian AIB controller, Colonel C.G. Roberts, there were four sections, each with a specific function. Section A was headed by Mott, and was known as SOA or ISD. Its job was to get information of enemy activities, sabotage and special missions. Captain Roy

Kendall, who had worked from SIS (MI6) before escaping Singapore to Australia, headed

53 Directive for Lieut.-Commander Hilary Scott, 24 August 1944, AD/1624, HS 1/236. 54 Alan Powell, War by Stealth: Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942-1945, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1996, p. 27. 55 Alan Powell, War by Stealth: Australian and the Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942-1945, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1996. 56 ‘Appendix 4: The Allied Intelligence Bureau’, Second World War Official Histories, Volume VII, Gavin Long, (Ed.), Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1963, p. 618. 37 the second section, Section B. This section was the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), whose job was the ‘collection of information of the enemy and his activities through certain special means and channels concerning which detailed secret instructions will be issued from time to time’.57

Section C, headed by Lieutenant-Commander Eric Feldt, RAN, was in charge of the

Coastwatchers, whose job was to get information about enemy movements behind enemy lines. The final section was Section D, headed by Lieutenant-Commander J.C. Proud, who had created FELO, the Far Eastern Liaison Office. Proud had received orders from SOE

London, similar to Mott, to set up an SOE-type propaganda organisation in Australia. Proud did achieve this with section D, but under control of the AIB. Proud was connected to the

British Ministry of Information and while posted to Singapore, had worked on counter- propaganda, before escaping to Australia.58 FELO operations were best explained in Alan

Powell’s book War by Stealth, when he quoted Proud as saying,

From the beginning we realised that more good could be done by direct contact with

native peoples than by all the propaganda in the world. This meant placing of agents

and parties in enemy-occupied areas who could organise resistance movements, give

specific instructions when the Allies wanted a particular line of action taken, and

establish local contacts for passing on to the Japanese the kind of information we

wanted them to have. 59

It is interesting to note the backgrounds of the key personnel of AIB and the different sections. There were two Australian section heads: Roberts the Controller and Lieutenant-

Commander J. C. R. Proud, head of Section D, Military Propaganda. Roberts had been the

57 C.A. Willoughby, (ed. In chief), ‘Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau GHQ, SWPA Volume IV, Intelligence Series, General Headquarters, Far East Command,1948, p. 8. 58 Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau GHQ, SWPA, p. 4. 59 Alan Powell, War by Stealth, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1996, p. 110. 38

Director of Military Intelligence on Blamey’s staff and Proud was trained in Propaganda in

1939, by the British in Singapore. Another Australian, Feldt, was not named as the Section head of Section C, Combined Field Intelligence Section, (FELO), but as Supervising

Intelligence Officer and effectively was the section head. The decision to make an

Australian the Controller was based on both diplomacy and foresight. There was an

American, Ind, Deputy Controller, and in charge of finances. With an American finance officer, GHQ still potentially had indirect but vital control: ‘without his approval, any proposed operation would die stillborn of financial anemia’. 60 There were two British heads of Sections A and B, both connected to British secret organisations, and reporting back to these organisations in London. Mott head of ISD, Section A, worked for the SOE, and

Kendall, head of Section B, SIS Australia, was working for British SIS. The Americans were aware of the ‘London controlled agents” and watched them carefully.

Some further adjustments were required to be made to the sections of the AIB. The Dutch also had an organisation, NEFIS (Netherlands Forces Intelligence Services), for gathering intelligence in Netherland East Indies, (NEI). Part of the Dutch group was put under Mott’s command in section A, and part in Section C with Feldt. American interest in guerrilla operations in the Philippines was also added to Section C. But actual control of the various sections became a problem. Because of the directives issued by GHQ, there were questions on who reported to whom, and who had command of which sections. The confusion, secrecy and ambiguity of command arrangements also affected SOA’s effectiveness. 61

After the establishment of the AIB, problems began to surface between the section heads and Roberts, Controller of AIB. The section heads wanted more freedom for their organisations, but still wanted AIB funding. Mott, head of ISD, was pushing hardest, as he

60 Allison ind, Allied Intelligence Bureau, p.12 61 Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau GHQ, SWPA, p.12. 39 believed that ISD was not getting all that it deserved. Funding that had previously gone to

ISD was now distributed to AIB for allocation to the various sections, over Mott’s objections. Willoughby saw this as a move by Mott to try to ‘evade the central authority of

GHQ SWPA i.e. the operational control of AIB by the General Staff of SWPA, more specifically G-2, Willoughby’.62 As for Roberts, the relations between Mott and himself had been growing worse for some time. There were cases of security breaches from within ISD.

Mott also questioned ‘GHQ’s right to dictate the management of field parties and the tendency to treat ISD as a purely military intelligence organisation’, over ISD operations in

Timor.63 Mott continued to push against Roberts and Willoughby for ISD to be run as Mott wanted.

Things came to a head when Roberts ordered Mott to provide a detailed budget for the first three months of 1943, and to separate the Dutch component from ISD. Mott continued to argue for independence for ISD, and took his complaint to Colonel Van Merle-Smith,

Willoughby’s Executive Officer. Merle-Smith advised Mott,

You are performing your duties under the direction of the Commander-in-Chief,

S.W.P.A., and in accordance with orders issued, under his authority, by the

Controller of the A.I.B. Any failure on your part to accord loyal co-operation to the

Controller of the A.I.B. will be considered as grounds for your relief from your

present assignments.64

Mott had used up everyone’s patience, because he believed that he knew what was best for

ISD, and that it should be run the same way as SOE in Europe, presumably acting under instructions from his superiors in London.

62 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 67. 63 Mott to Roberts, 22 August 1942, Box S236, RG 338, NARA. 64 Merle-Smith to Mott, 23 January 1943, Box S241, RG 338, NARA. 40

Willoughby firmly believed that AIB should be divided by geographical regions, rather than by specialised functions. It seemed quite clear that the areas should be divided by national interest. The Philippines section would be under the Americans, and the Netherlands East

Indies under the Dutch. A north-eastern area covering British and Australian interest, in New

Guinea, New Britain and the Solomons, would be under Australian control. But this left nothing for ISD, except Portuguese Timor and British Borneo, which meant ISD could easily be shut down. However, neither Blamey nor SOE London wanted this to happen. 65

SOE had been kept well-informed of Mott’s relationship with GHQ, so SOE sent Major

Mark Chapman-Walker to Australia in October 1942. Chapman-Walker was sent to be officially Head of Military Mission in Para-Military Warfare reporting to Commander-in-

Chief Allied Land Forces, Australia, (that is, Blamey). But in reality, he was there to protect

SOE’s Australian interest. One of the most interesting pieces of evidence regarding the appointment of Chapman-Walker can be found in The Official History of Special Operation

– Australia. In 1945, before the end of the war, senior SRD officers started planning to record the history of the organization. A directive was sent out from Rear HQ in Melbourne for War Diaries to be kept to write this history. A military team was assembled to collate the data from the different departments and put it in recorded form, and it was stored in the

National Archives of Australia in Canberra. Thirty years later C.A. Brown edited the files into a five volume series of the official history of the SOA. It states:

His [Chapman-Walker] duties were the overall direction of SRD, and discussions

with high-placed government officials and Allied Service Chiefs. He submitted

reports periodically to London, to War Cabinet and to the C-in-C AMF concerning

65 Operations of the Allied Intelligence bureau GHQ, SWPA, p. 35. 41

SRD activities. He was continually advised by London of aspects of higher

strategy…. He also visited SOE India, SOE London.66

Chapman-Walker had been a solicitor before joining SOE in 1941, and was a skilled negotiator. He obtained Blamey’s backing before approaching Willoughby with a proposal to create a new SOE Australia. With the Americans concerned that they could be made to look ‘Anti-British or anti-empire’, they entered discussions on the new organisation. 67

Chapman-Walker was able to get most of what he wanted for the new organisation, except his main objective, independence from AIB control: something that the head of SOE was very unhappy about. In Alan Powell’s book War by Stealth, Sir Charles Hambro is quoted as saying,

S.O.E has no control or charter in I.S.D., merely advice and supplies, and he noted

the American tendency to regard I.S.D. as an Intelligence service and not for secret

operations. We should concentrate on the main objective, namely to strengthen I.S.D

and secure its status as a secret operational organisation free from Allied Intelligence

Bureau.68

Willoughby held a conference of all AIB interests in March 1943, with a GHQ memo which showed that AIB had been re-organised on the new regional structure that he wanted. The memo also advised that ISD / Section A had been renamed Special Operations Australia, and later given the cover name of Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD). The new

SOA / SRD met Blamey’s wishes and showed SOE influence by the appointment of

Chapman-Walker as SOA Director. GHQ, that is, Willoughby and presumably MacArthur, were now quite happy with the new organisation of SOA/SRD, in that they believed that

66 C.A. Brown, The Official History of Special Operations – Australia: Volume 1: Organization, United States of America, 1973, p. 39. 67 Willoughby to MacArthur, February 1943, Box S241, RG 338, NARA. 68 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 73. 42 they had complete control of it. SRD’s main function was for operations outside of SWPA, at the request of the area commander (eg in South East Asia Command). For operations in

SWPA, SRD had to get approval from GHQ, through Controller of AIB, as well as approval of the local military commander and chief of the relevant AIB regional section. In addition, to control the SRD connections to SOE and SIA, ‘all sections were required to send information received from field parties immediately to the AIB Controller… no information was to be sent further without GHQ approval’.69 After the regional distribution, SRD and

SIA were not allocated British Borneo and Timor. These were put under the direct control of AIB, which could delegate missions in those areas, to any of the regional sections, or to

SRD or to SIA. These changes reflected both the financial aid obtained in early 1942 and the tensions inherent in the alliance.

By making these changes, Willoughby had brought SRD and SIS, the most SOE and British government influenced organizations in the AIB, under his control. Neither the SRD nor the

SIS were now allowed to operate independently within SWPA. Any operation that they (or

SOE) wanted to achieve had to first be approved by GHQ. Willoughby and MacArthur were both well aware of the leverage that SOE and Whitehall had on these two organizations, and they were determined to neutralize that influence. But as will be seen later in this thesis, the

British found a way to get around the GHQ controls.

Under the re-organised AIB, Services Reconnaissance Department was given the role of firstly obtaining information of the enemy and his activities, intended mainly for work outside of the SWPA, and secondly the execution of subversive and highly specialised sabotage chiefly by means of undercover methods. Secret Intelligence Australia’s new duties comprised obtaining information of the enemy and his activities through special

69 Memo General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area, 16 April 1943, cited in C.A. Willoughby (ed.), ‘Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau GHQ, SWPA’, Appendix 1, p. 2. 43 means and channels concerning which detailed secret instructions would be issued from time to time, and obtaining information from Netherland East Indies through Mohammedan channels’, (local believers of the Islamic region).70 Both SRD and SIA were to wait until they were given missions, by GHQ or the AIB Controller, Roberts. But even with the regional re-organisations and tighter controls, the same problems began to emerge, the different organisations trying to gain operational freedom from GHQ.

The issue of command and independence for the AIB and tensions between the different organisations, continued into 1944. When GHQ moved from Brisbane to Hollandia, on the north coast of New Guinea, a part of the Dutch East Indies, GHQ took less interest in the

AIB. Sutherland was now fully focused on the Philippines invasion plans and had little time for anything else. The command of AIB passed from Sutherland to Willoughby because of the distance from Australia and the lessening importance, in American eyes, of Intelligence and special operations away from the main thrust of advance upon Japan. This played a further part in the gradual passing of direct AIB command from Sutherland to Willoughby.

This was a better fit, as Willoughby was head of G-2 MacArthur’s intelligence section.

As Willoughby gained greater control of AIB, he began to make changes that would give him even more command of the organisation. Willoughby now saw that the re-organisation of the AIB in April 1943 had not solved many of the problems it was intended to do. There was still a great deal of tension between GHQ and the AIB Controller Roberts. There was also the problem of uncontrolled growth and financial irresponsibility of the various

‘country’ sections, most notably SRD. Willoughby could see that Roberts, and possibly others at AIB, would have to be replaced. Willoughby’s first move was not against Roberts, for political reasons, but against Roberts’ Deputy Controller, Allison Ind, and a fellow

American. Colonel Collin Myers, who Willoughby had served with before the war, replaced

70 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 74. 44

Ind. Myers’ main job was still the financial control of AIB and trying to get the country sections to follow his financial and supply directives. Roberts continued to clash with

Willoughby and the heads of the country sections. Roberts’ problem was that he was trying to obey GHQ’s orders and maintain command over the various section heads who, when they did not get what they wanted, would go directly to Willoughby. By late 1944, Roberts resigned to go back to a position with the Victorian Roads Board. He had had enough, and his resignation was accepted.

Following the resignation of Roberts, the AIB entered a new era, with the appointment of an Australian, Brigadier Ken Wills, previously Deputy Director of Military Intelligence, as

AIB Controller. Wills quickly learned from the mistakes of his predecessors, and his first action was to clarify the chain of command and establish control over the different country sections. Wills also set out to establish a good working relationship with Sutherland,

Willoughby and MacArthur, something that Roberts had never managed to achieve. During

Wills first visit to GHQ, he put forward a number of proposals that were well liked by

Sutherland, Willoughby and MacArthur, thus setting in place a good future working relationship. 71 Included in these requests were the ‘Kingfisher’ plans, which as will become clear, GHQ had already approved on 2 December 1944. 72

Wills’ first battle came with Chapman-Walker, over the size of SRD and its lack of accountability. Chapman-Walker believed that he was well-protected against Wills, because of his personal relationship with Blamey at LHQ and his relationship with Willoughby. In

April 1943, Chapman-Walker advised SOE London of his relationship with Willoughby and explained that he acted as a messenger between Willoughby and a girlfriend he had in

Melbourne, with Roberts or Merle-Smith’s knowledge. 73 Chapman-Walker believed this

71 Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau GHQ, SWPA, p. 90. 72 Melbourne Sitrep, No. 15, Dated 9 December 1944, p. 1, HS 1/244, UK Archives. 73 Letter from Chapman-Walker to SOE London, 13 April 1943, HS 1/233, UK Archives. 45 special relationship he had with both Blamey and Willoughby would protect him. Chapman-

Walker acted under a false sense of security and believed that he could continue to operate

SRD as he wished. However, in June 1944, when Willoughby learned how big SRD had grown, and how much funding it was using, he called for an immediate personnel status report for each country section. 74

Chapman-Walker delayed replying to this order until he could discuss the matter with

Blamey. After meeting Blamey, Chapman-Walker replied, ‘I am instructed by the C-in-C,

Australian Military Forces that I am not to render this return, since the request for a personnel return of Sections of A.I.B. should not apply to this organisation which is a part of the

A.M.F’.75 As was to be expected, Willoughby was furious at this reply, and that Chapman-

Walker would use Blamey to maintain his independence for SRD. Willoughby wanted to take action against the entire SRD section, but Sutherland managed to get Willoughby to wait before taking any action. Sutherland approached the Australian Director of Military

Intelligence Brigadier John Rogers to talk to Blamey on this matter, to see what could be done.

In mid-August 1944, Willoughby lunched with Blamey, and reported to Sutherland afterwards,

To my complete surprise, he (Blamey) stated that he did not support Chapman-

Walker’s failure to submit the personnel report mentioned, nor did he intend his

name to be used for coercion… General Blamey also expressed concern at Chapman-

Walker’s quasi-independence, he disclosed that Chapman-Walker is a representative

of the British Office of Economic Warfare and takes orders from it.76

74 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 187. 75 Chapman-Walker to Roberts, 30 June 1944, Box S236, RG 338, NARA. 76 Willoughby to Sutherland, 16 August 1944, Box S236, RG 338, NARA. 46

By refusing to submit the requested personnel report, Chapman-Walker lost his biggest supporters, Blamey and Willoughby. It was now not a question of if, but when Chapman-

Walker would be replaced. All of the work that Chapman-Walker had done to be free of

American controls on the operations of the SRD, was now wasted.

Chapman-Walker was determined to hold on to his position as head of the SRD, for as long as he could. He could still count on support from SOE. When Chapman-Walker made no effort to repair his relationship with Wills, even SOE support began to drop. SOE had a big investment in SRD, with 214 British personnel seconded to SRD, and SOE funding of SRD of £4000-5000 per month. Chapman-Walker was still requesting more funding from SOE, raising questions about whether SRD had actually accomplished anything. SOE believed that Chapman-Walker’s policy, of staying away from GHQ as much as possible, had led to

SRD achieving very little.77 While these comments were being made, the results of the initial

Borneo SRD operations were becoming known. Under Wills, as Controller of AIB, more resources and missions were being allocated to SRD. Chapman-Walker refused to acknowledge the benefits that Wills had obtained for SRD, which made him even more unpopular. During this period of problems with Chapman-Walker, SRD had inserted a number of SRD teams into Borneo, which were sending back intelligence as well as establishing contacts with pro-British people in Borneo.

To conclude, Chapman-Walker’s story as head of SRD came to an end in June 1945. After the cancellation of ‘Kingfisher’, Chapman-Walker was still head of SRD, when he bypassed

Wills and sent plans for the later stages of ‘Operation Platypus’, an operation to send an

SRD team into Balikpapan before the invasion, to 1 Australian Corps HQ to be approved.

Wills confronted Chapman-Walker, and then advised Blamey that none of the senior commanders of AIB would work with Chapman-Walker any longer, this included Meyer

77 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 191. 47 and Ind. Blamey had no option but to tell Chapman-Walker that he would have to leave

SRD, and would be replaced. On 21 July 1945, Lt.-Col H.A. Campbell, previously

Chapman-Walker’s deputy, replaced Chapman-Walker as head of the SRD, and Chapman-

Walker returned to England. AIB and SRD remained in this form until the end of the war.

But Chapman-Walker had still been in command of SRD during the early months of 1945 when ‘Operation Kingfisher’ was scheduled to take place. This explains the background of

Chapman-Walker as the head of SRD during the period when ‘Operation Kingfisher’ was proposed and – as I will show – cancelled.

One thing that is clear, from the beginning of AIB and SRD there was SOE, that is, British influence behind the scenes. Many of the commanders in various roles in AIB and SRD were actually SOE members, sent by SOE London and operating in its interests. It is also clear that these SOE men in AIB and SRD were still taking orders from SOE London. The London

SOE orders were tempered by what the Americans at GHQ would allow to happen in the

Pacific.78 However, the point is that there was strong SOE connection and influence in the

AIB and SRD, from the start of those organisations to the end of the war.

These machinations within the special operations headquarters in the SWPA explain the setting in which ‘Operation Kingfisher’ was proposed and then four months later, cancelled.

Why was ‘Operation Kingfisher’ cancelled? Several conflicting theories have been advanced by a number of authors.

78 Peter Wilkinson and Joan Bright Astley, Gubbins & SOE, Pen and Sword Military, Barnsley UK, 2010, p. 187. 48

CHAPTER 2:

‘DESTINY DIDN’T PERMIT US TO CARRY IT OUT’:

OPERATION KINGFISHER THEORIES

There are a number of theories on why ‘Kingfisher’ the rescue mission did not happen.

Theories have been proposed by Athol Moffitt, Lynette Silver, Alan Powell, Richard

Braithwaite and Michele Cunningham. They all agree that the ‘Kingfisher’ plan did exist, but all differ in offering reasons why the rescue mission did not take place. However, the main focus of their writings was not the rescue mission but the details of the prisoners, the conditions they suffered under and the Death Marches. This thesis is the first work based on scrutiny of the archival sources to specifically address the question of the rescue mission’s cancellation in the context of the politics of the wartime alliances.

Athol Moffitt, who was a prosecutor at Sandakan war crimes trials at Labuan, presented one of the first theories in his book Project Kingfisher, where he proposed that the reason the rescue did not happen was that MacArthur would not make aircraft available for the rescue mission. From Moffitt’s role as a prosecutor, he was very knowledgeable about the

Sandakan Death March, and the details of the Sandakan prisoner of war camp. Project

Kingfisher was written and published forty-four years after the end of the war and was based on his memories and some research. Moffitt used as a starting point the speech given by

General Blamey at the second Annual Conference of the Australian Armoured Corps

Association in 1947. In his speech, Blamey, (for some reason), raised the subject of Borneo

POWs and then shocked everyone by saying that there had in fact been a plan to rescue the

POWs at Sandakan. The plan involved Australian paratroopers being dropped at the POW camp and freeing the POWs. Blamey went on to say that everything was ready to go:

49

We had high hopes of being able to use Australian parachute troops. We had

complete plans for them. Our spies were in Japanese-held territory. We had

established the necessary contacts with prisoners at Sandakan, and our parachute

troops were going to relieve them. The parachute regiment did not know what was

planned, of course. But now we wanted to act, we couldn’t get the necessary aircraft

to take them in. The operation would certainly have saved that death march of

Sandakan. Destiny didn’t permit us to carry it out.79

Blamey knew he could make such a statement because the majority of the files were still secret. By this time, the fate of the Sandakan POWs was well known, which explains the veterans’ consternation. Why Blamey chose to disclose his views then and there has never satisfactorily been explained.

Working from Blamey’s speech, Moffitt began his research into ‘Kingfisher’ and what stopped the rescue of the POWs. The basis for his theory was that there had been an actual plan for the rescue, using Australian parachutists to rescue the POWs. This plan, which

Moffitt called the ‘Project Kingfisher’, depended on another plan to put an intelligence and operational party into the Sandakan area, six weeks before ‘D-Day’ of the rescue, to gather up to date information. Moffitt concluded, based on his research of available files and

Blamey’s speech, that ‘Kingfisher’ did not proceed because Australia did not have the transport or aircraft for its paratroopers and he believed MacArthur’s HQ declined to provide the aircraft. Planning at the Australian end could not be completed ‘until availability of the planes, their number and the date they were to be provided was known’.80 Moffitt added to his theory that the ground party was unable to do its job, despite having been inserted into

Borneo, because their functions were tied to a D-Day, the day of the actual rescue mission,

79 ‘RSL wants inquiry on “Death March” No planes for Relief Scheme’, Melbourne Sun, 20 November, 1947, p. 5. 80 Athol Moffit, Project Kingfisher, Angus & Robertson, Australia, 1989, p. 237. 50 and a D-10 Day, ten days before the actual rescue mission. However, without the aircraft, there was no known D-Day.81

Moffitt fully agreed when Blamey said that “the planes and ships needed were required by the higher command for another operation”.82 Moffitt believed that Blamey was referring to

MacArthur, or his GHQ, when he said “higher command”. Moffitt did further research into the 1st Australian Parachute Battalion, which was training for the rescue mission, and confirmed it was training for ‘Kingfisher’. Moffitt’s calculated that eighty transport airplanes would be needed to transport the entire parachute battalion, but the actual

‘Kingfisher’ plans only called for 32-34 aircraft.83

Blamey’s speech seems to have been based on inaccurate recall of the details or possibly a chance for revenge on MacArthur, for the way MacArthur had treated Blamey during the war. The other possibility is that Blamey used the speech as part of a ‘cover-up’, as details of the Sandakan Death Marches and a possible rescue mission were becoming known by the

Australian general public. The first mistake in Blamey’s speech was that ‘we had made contact with the prisoners’. In fact, no contact had been made with the Sandakan POWs by any of the SRD parties, and SRD had been working on information based on escapees’ reports from 1943. His second error was to claim the ‘higher command would not make the planes available’. In fact, GHQ approved the ‘Kingfisher’ plan on 2 December 1944 and confirmed this during a meeting with the newly appointed AIB controller, Brigadier Ken

Wills. After approval, orders were sent to Vice-Admiral Arthur Carpender USN,

Commander Allied Naval Forces SWPA, informing him of the operations and outlining the sea transportation requirements. A week later, orders were sent to Allied Air Forces, advising of the requirements for aircraft for the mission, using both Australian and American

81 Moffit, Project Kingfisher, p. 237. 82 Ibid., p. 232. 83 Project Kingfisher, Plans dated 18 December 1944. Box484, RG 496, NARA.. 51 aircraft. This does not sound like the actions of a commander who would later not make the necessary aircraft available. 84

There is another point to consider on the unavailable aircraft theory and that is that

MacArthur strongly supported any POW and civilian rescue mission, even behind enemy lines. He ordered the POW rescue mission at Cabanatuan, to free 500 POW, sixty miles behind Japanese lines. The next rescue mission order by MacArthur, was to rescue the civilians being held at Santo Tomas in Manila. The third rescue mission, at Los Banos, was also to free civilians, behind enemy lines, using paratroopers, armoured vehicles and Filipino guerrillas. All three rescue missions were successful and all three had been ordered by

MacArthur. 85

There are numerous files on the training of the 1st Australian Parachute Battalion for a rescue mission of POWs. Included in the ‘Kingfisher’ plans is a whole section for the airborne part of the mission. In these plans, the number of aircraft specified as needed for the mission was 32 to 34 C47’s.

There are files in the UK Archives on ‘Force X’ as well as articles on Royal Marines on

British ships, training in Australia for the evacuation of troops from a beach. The training exercise which involved Australian and British personnel was named ‘Exercise Octopus’, which took place on Trinity Beach, (coded named Unity Beach for the exercise), at Palm

Cove Queensland on 13 November 1944. 86 The British ships were Landing Craft carriers,

HM Ships Spearhead, Lamont and Glenearn.87 In the files of the UK Archives, a War Diary of Force X is stored. This file details the movements of the ‘Force X’ from 23 September

84 Lieutenant General R.K. Sutherland to Commander Allied Naval Forces, 7 December 1944; Major Harry Beamer, Assistant Adjutant General, HQ Allied Air Forces to AOC RAAF Command, 14 December 1944, N1/A, A3269, NAA. 85 Bruces Henderson, Rescue at Los Banos, Harper Collins, New York, 2015, p. 170. 86 Jack Eaves, ‘HMS Glenearn, 535 Flotilla 6th June 1944 and with “Force X” August 1944 to March 1945’, Royal Marines Association Queensland, viewed 17 March 2016, http://rmaq.com.au/stories10.html 87 Silver, A Conspiracy of Silence, p. 193. 52

1944 until the end of the Pacific War. The files show that on 1 October 1944, H.M. ships

Glenearn and Empire Spearhead were sent to Cairns for training exercises with the 1st

Australian Corps. 88 On 15 February 1945, H.M. ships Glenearn, Empire Spearhead and

Lamont were turned over for duty with the Pacific Fleet. All three ships were given duties that kept them in the area near British North Borneo, so that they were available should the

POW rescue go ahead. 89

The aircraft availability can be documented. During the period of December 1944 to May

1945, based on Monthly Aircraft Status Reports to Sutherland, there were between 467 to

556 C-47’s operational and ‘on-hand’ in the SWPA. There were also 144 to 309 C-46’s and between 62 to 359 gliders. 90 As ‘Kingfisher’ only required 32 to 34 C-47’s for one day, the claim that aircraft were not available clearly has no factual basis. It is clear that Blamey’s comments that ‘Higher Command was to blame’ was nothing more than a shot at revenge against MacArthur after the war or an attempt at a cover-up. Although the landings in Borneo were initiated by MacArthur’s GHQ, Australian headquarters did the planning for the actual invasions at Tarakan, Balikpapan and Brunei. As commander of the Australian forces to be used in the landings, Blamey maintained a high-level overview of the planning process.

However, Blamey continued to receive the intelligence reports coming out of Borneo from the SRD teams there. Blamey would have been well aware that ‘Kingfisher’ was cancelled for other reasons and not because MacArthur would not release the aircraft. The evidence that exists today clearly shows this to be the case.

Alan Powell, author of War by Stealth, of 1996, had a theory on why the rescue mission did not go ahead. His comments on the reason were ‘that the men of Sandakan and Ranau died

88 Force X, Landing Craft Flotillas, ADM 202/327, UK National Archives 89 Force X, ADM 202/327, UK National Archives. 90 Aircraft Monthly Status Reports, December 1944 – May 1945, Box 010, RG 200, NARA. 53 because they did not have the priority to give them life’.91 Powell based this argument on the fact that though SRD found out there were still POWs alive in Ranau, they would not attempt a rescue mission. SRD firmly believed any rescue operation would have to remove all POWs as any left behind would be killed by the Japanese. SRD also knew from reports from ‘Agas’ teams that the prisoners were in a very weak condition from starvation and sickness. Powell claimed that another factor preventing the rescue of POWs at Ranau was the decisions by senior officers to take SRD men from one operation and attach them to another, without consulting SRD command.92 In the last few weeks of the war against Japan there were a number of occasions when troops ordered to one area were re-ordered to another area by a different command. Alan Powell in his detailed and authoritative history of the

Special Operations Australia, wrote that earlier in the war Blamey had hoped for ‘close integration of American and Australian staffs. It was to be MacArthur, not Blamey, who took the opposite tack’.93

Powell showed that Blamey further recommended that the three different organisations,

Inter-Allied Services Department (later to be Services Reconnaissance Department), Far

Eastern Liaison Office and Secret Intelligence Australia, all be placed under MacArthur’s control. GHQ decided that an Australian would be the Controller of the controlling organisation, Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). GHQ also decided that an American would be Deputy Controller in charge of finance. This way, GHQ would still be able to direct AIB by controlling its funds. The result was that, though Blamey was Commander-in-Chief

Allied Land Forces, he was not actually ‘in command of AIB or SRD’, so would have no direct responsibility for anything that went on in these organisations.

91 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 283. 92 Ibid., p. 283. 93 Ibid., p. 19. 54

Lynette Silver’s book, Sandakan: A Conspiracy of Silence, first published in 1998, dealt primarily with the Sandakan Death March, but did also go into the rescue mission in great detail in a book based on intensive, (if too often undocumented), archival research. Her theory on the reason for ‘Kingfisher’ not going ahead was that Blamey and SRD had made so many mistakes that the rescue mission had to be cancelled. She claimed that Blamey and

SRD then deleted files, changed the wording in files and even manipulated the writing of the SRD Official History, (which was true). Silver claimed that, ‘Officially, Kingfisher does not exist’, because of the cover up by members of the SRD. Silver reasoned that the actions of Blamey and SRD were motivated by the fear that the government and public would find out they had bungled the Sandakan POW rescue mission. 94 However, official archives in

Canberra and Washington hold the actual documents: ‘Kingfisher’ did exist. 95

Silver’s theory nominated Blamey as responsible with the cover up, as well as being in charge of all of the operations carried out by SRD. Silver went on to say when Blamey and

SRD realised that ‘Kingfisher’ could not go ahead they immediately started the cover up of their mistakes. This included making Lieutenant-Colonel John Overall, commanding officer of the 1st Australian Parachute Battalion, believe that the rescue mission had been cancelled,

‘because MacArthur had refused to supply the aircraft’.

Silver argued that the one person who knew the real story was Major Francis G.L. (Gort)

Chester, a member of SRD on loan from SOE, and who went into Borneo on three separate missions, ‘Python’, ‘Agas I’ and ‘Agas III’. Chester was supposedly angered by SRD’s incompetence and by Blamey trying to cover it up. Silver claimed that Chester returned from a debriefing in Morotai to Borneo, and said to Jack Wong Sue, ‘You know what they’re going to do? Blamey’s going to shift the blame for all of their bungling onto MacArthur’.96

94 Silver, A Conspiracy of Silence, p. 329. 95 Project Kingfisher plans, 18 December 1944, Box 484, RG 496, NARA; Kingfisher, A22, A3269, NAA. 96 Silver, A Conspiracy of Silence, p. 329. 55

This quote is based on an interview Silver had with Sue in 1998, while researching for her book Sandakan: A Conspiracy of Silence. Silver holds Blamey responsible for the bungling of ‘Kingfisher’ and the cover up of the mistakes in this mission and others. Gort Chester, as this thesis will show, was central to the SRD’s failure, but not in the way Silver claimed.

While Silver’s research and knowledge of ‘Project Kingfisher’ was extensive, she did miss one important issue. Surely Blamey could not have covered up the mistakes by himself, as too many people were involved in the planning and approval of the mission. Blamey actually requested ‘operational control should rest with the SWPA Commander, General Douglas

MacArthur’.97

Taking the ‘cover up’ theory further, consideration has to be given to how many people would have had to be involved with the cover up, and their positions. As mentioned previously, ‘Kingfisher’ was approved by GHQ in December 1944. The operation was under the control of the head of SRD, Colonel Chapman-Walker, who was actually SOE on loan to SOA. There were many men who were involved in setting up the mission, as well as the team members of ‘Agas I’: arguably too many to make the simplistic argument that ‘Blamey covered up Kingfisher’ convincingly. It would never be possible to cover up the entire mission, only bits and pieces.

It is true that a number of serious mistakes were made by SRD, which cost a number of SRD men their lives. A good example of this was the failed SRD operations in Timor, code named

‘Lagarto’, ‘Cobra’, ‘Adder’ and ‘Sunfish’, all of which were complete disasters for SRD. 98

Chapman-Walker was in command of all of these Timor operations and when he moved to a new post he took the operation files with him to prevent anyone knowing the full extent of

97 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 19. 98 G.B. Courtney, Silent Feet, Slouch Hat Publications, Brunswick, 2002, p. 5. 56 the disasters. 99 There is no mention of Blamey in any of the files and reports on any of the

Timor missions. But once again, there were too many people involved with these missions for them to be kept a secret from the public for very long.

Michele Cunningham’s theory on ‘Kingfisher’ is different to both Moffitt and Silver’s. She argues that the ‘Kingfisher’ plan started during the planning of ‘Agas I’. ‘Agas I’ was the follow-up plan after ‘Python 1’ and ‘2’, for intelligence gathering in western Borneo. The plan initially called for gathering intelligence and making contact with POWs and assisting with escapes on the west coast. But there was no mention of a rescue plan for the POWs at the other Allied POW camp in Jesselton, Western Borneo. After further refining of the

‘Agas’ plan, all mention of a rescue of the POWs was dropped completely by Chester in his final plan submitted to AIB. 100 It was at this stage – Cunningham puts it about September

1944 – when a separate plan began to be developed for the rescue of the POWs at Sandakan by planners at SRD. The plan was based on the report written by Captain Ray Steele, who had escaped from Sandakan in 1943. His report was submitted to GHQ and then passed on to AIB in March 1944.

Cunningham argued that the main objective was contained in its opening statement, ‘To ascertain what assistance can be given by Service Reconnaissance Department in a combined airborne / naval operation, the object of which is to rescue and evacuate all prisoners of war from the PW camps in the Sandakan area of British North Borneo’.101

Cunningham went further, arguing that the ‘intention’ in the plan was the same. She cited a summary of approved AIB projects in January 1945, showing that ‘Kingfisher’ was a

‘preliminary recce to study possibility of a PW rescue operation’. The actual rescue mission plans would only be set after the reconnaissance was completed, she argued. But this

99 Courtney, Silent Feet, p. 235. 100 Michele Cunningham, Hell on Earth, Hachette, Sydney, 2013, p.223. 101 Project Kingfisher, plans dated 18 December 1944, AIB copy, Box 484, RG 496, NARA. 57 apparently goes against what Lynette Silver found during her research that commanders of both Air Force and Naval units were ordered to prepare for a rescue mission. In a series of

Melbourne ‘Sitreps, (Situation Reports), found in the UK Archives, the reports show that

‘Kingfisher’ was in the ‘Being Planned’ stage from 4 August 1944 until 11 September 1944.

On that date, ‘Kingfisher’ was moved to ‘Ops in Prospect, then in the 2 December 1944 report, ‘Kingfisher’ was moved to ‘Plans Approved by GHQ’. 102 This shows that the

‘Kingfisher’ plans were approved even before the visit of Wills to GHQ on 18 December.

But the telling of all of the evidence, that Kingfisher was a rescue mission and not just” preliminary recce mission”, can be found on page four of the approved Kingfisher plans, where it is clearly stated: ‘Withdrawal – point 5 – Recce party to withdraw by sea with

Attacking Party’. 103

Cunningham also argued that Chester had a part in ‘Kingfisher’ not going ahead. Chester relied on information from local people in Japanese-occupied Borneo, which many times were merely rumours, or second or third-hand information. This had been shown during the

‘Python’ mission and would be shown again during the ‘Agas I’ mission. Chester became known for this unreliability and that many times he sent inaccurate or false information back to GHQ. However, he was not the only one, as the westerners were forced to depend on information from locals ‘owing to the conspicuous nature of the European presence in enemy-held territory’. 104 The locals did not intend to provide false or misleading information, but were trying to please the Europeans by providing rumours or gossip they had heard. As stated by Ooi Keat Gin in his article Prelude to an Invasion, ‘they, [local natives], passed on rumours to SRD operatives, not because they deliberately intended to

102 Weekly sitreps and SRD operations, HS 1/244, UK Archives. 103 ‘Project Kingfisher’, Approved plans dated 18 December 1944, Box 484, RG 496, NARA. 104 Ooi Keat Gin, ‘Prelude to invasion: covert operations before the re-occupation of Northwest Borneo, 1944-45’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, Vol. 32, October 2002, pp. 1-24, p. 13. 58 mislead but owing to their inability to differentiate between fact and opinion, truth and mere

“talk”. 105

Cunningham was the first historian to introduce the comparison with the successful POW rescue missions in the Philippines and the planned Sandakan rescue mission. She claimed that the difference was that Philippines was a major spearhead towards Japan, and the US had large reserves of troops, ships and aircraft already in the Philippines. For Sandakan, forces would have to go in; without support should things go bad. 106

The third reason Cunningham gives for ‘Kingfisher’ not going ahead, was that it was not considered an important strategic objective. MacArthur had stated that the priorities for missions were to be first reconnaissance and second information on POWs with a view to rescuing them107. The faster than expected progress in the Philippines put pressure on Allied logistics. Men and material were being required sooner than planned. For this reason, there was a shortage of ships and aircraft.

The first concern is actually that ‘Kingfisher’ was not only a plan for reconnaissance and but also rescue. It is true that statements in the plan call for reconnaissance, but they also give a definite timetable for ‘D-Day’ or the actual rescue day. Cunningham’s theory on

‘Kingfisher’ is that there was a plan but it was just for a reconnaissance mission to look at the possibility of a rescue mission of the Sandakan POWs. But due to a number of issues, such as Chester’s ill-informed intelligence, the reconnaissance mission did not go ahead.

Finally, recently a theory has been proposed by the late Richard Wallace Braithwaite, son of the Sandakan escapee Dick Braithwaite, in a book published in 2016. His father was one of only six escapees from the Sandakan Death Marches. Braithwaite proposed that the

105 Gin, ‘Prelude to invasion’, p. 13. 106 Cunningham, Hell on Earth, p. 255. 107 Cunningham, Hell on Earth, p 231. 59

‘Kingfisher’ rescue plan was doomed because of a systemic failure in Allied intelligence in

Borneo. He argued that the SRD operatives in Borneo relied on information from locals, which they sent back to Australia as military intelligence without verification.108 The locals were still terrified of the Japanese and did all they could to avoid contact with them. It was easier for the locals to pass on rumours and second-hand information to the Australian operatives than to obtain actual intelligence. As mentioned previously in this thesis, Chester was well known for relying unduly on information from locals as valid intelligence.

Braithwaite goes on to say that another factor was the inexperience of the Australians as intelligence agents behind enemy lines. This led to their actions being overconfident and perhaps naïve and even sloppy.109

Braithwaite also argued that the rescue mission did not proceed because of a feud between

Blamey and MacArthur. Braithwaite concludes in his book “MacArthur was unlikely to allow a glamour operation that would reflect well politically upon his hated rival Blamey”.110

Braithwaite follows with the second reason that a rescue could put all POWs’ lives at risk.

The last reason he proposes was that many of the relatives of the Australian POWs being held by the Japanese, would demand that the Australian government rescue their loved ones as they did for the Sandakan POWs. 111

Following Braithwaite’s reasoning, it was true that the Australians did rely too much on information from locals. In many cases, they were forced to do this because their European appearance made them so obviously foreign. At the same time the locals had good reason to be afraid of the Japanese because of their savage reprisals to any infraction as accounts of

108 Richard Wallace Braithwaite, Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2016, p. 309. 109 Ibid., p. 309. 110 Ibid., p. 312. 111 Ibid., p 312. 60

Japanese occupation in Borneo attest. 112 The feud between Blamey and MacArthur was real but the rescue mission had been approved by MacArthur. So why did he not allow for provision of the necessary aircraft for one day for a mission approved by him and his staff?

There were differences in the way that the Americans and Australians handled newspaper reports of operations in the Pacific. The Americans liked to have news of their successes published, to raise morale among the American public and its troops. While the Australians preferred to keep all secret operations censored, as shown with ‘Operation Jaywick’, the successful attack by SRD on Singapore Harbour.

Having analysed the existing explanations for the cancellation of ‘Operation Kingfisher’ and shown that all have some elements of truth, they are inadequate. This thesis proposes a new explanation, based on fresh evidence. In order to explain both evidence and reasoning, it will be necessary to discuss the plans and narrative in greater detail.

112 Ooi Keat Gin, The Japanese Occupation of Borneo, 1941-1945, Routledge, Milton Park, 2011. 61

62

CHAPTER 3:

NECESSARY CHICANERY:

THE CANCELLATION OF OPERATION KINGFISHER.

Special Operations Australia’s operations are abundantly documented. While its operations were secret, they were fully recorded, in files in Australia, Britain and America. By studying the relevant files, the trail of evidence can be shown up to the moment ‘Operation

Kingfisher’ was terminated.

In June 1943, Captain Ray Steele, an AIF officer who had been captured in Singapore, and several others, escaped from Berhala Island near Sandakan. They spent the next few months fighting with the Filipino guerrillas on Mindanao. The group – Steele, Sergeant Walter

Wallace and Sapper Jim Kennedy – were evacuated back to Australia by submarine on 17

February 1944. Wallace, who had been in the Sandakan POW camp for several months, provided Steele with information on the camp and the POWs being held there. Steele did not reach Australia until March 1944, when he wrote a report on Sandakan POW camp, based on information from Wallace. The report was completely based on information from no later than June 1943, but was the only source of firsthand intelligence available.113

In the meantime, the Allied advance into Japanese-occupied territories brought SRD operations to Borneo. In October 1943, a SRD team was ‘inserted’, (as SRD terminology put it), into British North Borneo to gather information and establish a network of agents.

This operation was codenamed ‘Python I’, and was led by Major Gort Chester. Chester was a member of Special Operations Executive, (SOE), who had worked in northern Borneo before the war. With him was Captain Douglas Broadhurst, a British officer and a member

113 Silver, Conspiracy of Silence, p. 161. 63 of the Malayan police before joining the army. Broadhurst had also been a member of the

‘Lizard I’ and ‘Lizard II’ teams inserted into Timor, July 1942 – February 1943. 114 Once

‘Python’ had established radio contact, the next task for Chester’s team, was to make contact with an American officer, Captain J. Hamner, working with a Filipino guerrilla party on the

Philippine island of Tawi Tawi. ‘Python’s’ objective was to provide support for Hamner’s group and set up an intelligence and communications network in the Sulu archipelago.115

Neither group, however, were able to make an agreement for the setting up of the network.

General Willoughby considered information on Japanese ship movements through the straits to be a top priority for planning the invasion of the Philippines, for both Python and

Hamner’s men. However, when Python did little to assist with the setting up of the intelligence network, Willoughby was displeased with the lack of intelligence. He blamed both groups for not allowing clandestine parties to operate in their command areas.

Willoughby went even further in stating that he suspected Chester’s motives were more about ‘British political interests than American strategic and tactical ones’.116 (The idea that

Inter-Allied tensions affected operational success comes not just from historical analysis, but from the protagonists’ words in the primary sources). The belief that SRD was operating more in the interest of British politics than American objectives was felt by many of the senior American commanders. Chester and his team were forced to be rescued and evacuated back to Australia by submarine because the Japanese were close to capturing the ‘Python’ party. After a number of failed attempts, Chester and the rest of the ‘Python’ party were finally evacuated 8 June 1944 by the submarine USS Harder.

114 C.A. Brown, The Official History of Special Operations – Australia, Volume 2, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2011, p. 25. 115 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 269. 116 Operations of the Allied Intelligence Bureau GHQ SWPA, Vol. 4, p. 73. 64

On his return, Chester put together a draft plan he called ‘Agas’ (Malay for Sand fly), for another incursion into Borneo. Chester believed that intelligence was needed on the Japanese presence on the west coast of Borneo. The objectives of ‘Agas’ were to establish a base on the west coast with wireless contact with Australia to contact local guerrilla groups to set up an intelligence network with the help of Chinese guerrillas to develop good relations with pro-British Indigenous and Malay communities, and to determine suitable drop zones and landing places. In the second phase, the party would train Malay Chinese guerrillas and organise acts of sabotage against Japanese military, communications and administration targets. At the end of the list, he also included, as almost an afterthought, ‘to provide a party to make contact with prisoner of war camps and organise escapes’.117

Chester submitted his plan to Colonel Caleb Roberts, Controller of Allied Intelligence

Bureau at LHQ on 5 July 1944. But, Roberts did not think the plan would become a reality,

‘from discussions with GHQ I have good reason to believe that even if the transportation can be made available, which is doubtful, the project would not be approved’.118 AIB and

GHQ believed that SRD’s main duty was the gathering of intelligence, coast watching and possible POW rescues. They saw very little value in sabotage and armed resistance. After

Chester revised the plan, he submitted it to Roberts again for approval on 25 September

1944. Chester advised AIB that ‘Agas I’ needed to leave for Borneo in September or mid-

October by the latest to beat the arrival of the northeast monsoon. Chester knew this from the ‘Python I’ mission, when the team had been inserted into Borneo on 6 October 1943.

Nevertheless, approval did not come until after mid-October, and to make matters worse, there was no immediate submarine transportation available. SRD depended on submarines to reach their targets behind enemy lines and US submarines were the main ones used.

117 AGAS Outline Plan, July 1944, A1/1, A3269, NAA. 118 Colonel Roberts, AIB to Colonel Chapman-Walker, SRD, 22 August 1944, A1/1, A3269, NAA. 65

Chester was upset at this delay, and sent a message, ‘Approval Agas too late for immediate action owing to monsoon. January now earliest possible’.119

With the mission now delayed for three months, Chester went to London to brief SOE on

Borneo. It is possible, even likely, that Chester would have informed SOE of the information gathered from Lim Keng Fatt, that Albert Kwok’s, (real name Guo Heng Nan) guerrilla organisation was a ‘Free Borneo’ movement, aimed at breaking British control of North

Borneo.120 This would cause more concern in British circles as a possible barrier to their plans of re-establishing control of Borneo after the war. But Chester’s trip to London to meet

SOE officers and brief them on Borneo was in direct contradiction to General MacArthur’s orders. In a memo from Lieutenant-Colonel.C.A. McVittie of G-2 Intelligence to Colonel

F.A. Armstrong of GHQ, McVittie reported on a meeting with Chester on his return from

London regarding the Free Borneo movement. In his memo McVittie stated ‘SRD’s policy of sending officers to London seems to me to circumvent the provisions of its directive that no intelligence shall be sent out of this theatre without clearance through GHQ’.121

In a memo dated 18 November 1944, between Ad.4 and Gubbins, regarding a meeting between Gubbins and Chester, in London, it states, ‘You have an appointment to see Major

F.L.G. Chester. He has some most interesting information and two criticisms, one general and one particular, of SOA. Chester told me that according to Finlay, (who visited H.Q.),

MacArthur’s target date for occupying the Northen tip of Borneo is June 30, 1945. This is far in advance of the date on which Civil Affairs in England are working for Borneo, which is about 1946’ 122 In a second memo from Ad.4 to Gubbins, regarding another between

Gubbins and Chester, on 20 November 1945, the memo states, ‘After the capitulation when

119 Silver, Conspiracy of Silence, p. 191. 120 Ooi Keat Gin, The Japanese Occupation of Borneo, 1941-1945, Routledge, Milton Park, 2011, p. 99. 121 Lt-Col C.A. McVittie to Col F.A.Armstrong, 30 December 1944, Box 469, RG 496, NARA. 122 Memo Ad.4 to Gubbins, dated 18 November 1944, H.S. 1/232, National Archives UK. 66 the intelligence and guerrilla functions ceased, AGAS party continued to act in an administration capacity until their functions were taken over by the B.B.C.A.U.’.123

British motives were clear from the start of the planning for ‘Agas I’, as the re-establishment of British rule in Borneo and its other Asian colonies. During an Australian visit in April

1944, Major-General Colin Gubbins, head of SOE, had another SOE officer explained to

Gubbins:

The reasons given to S.W.P.A for Chester’s return (to Borneo) are that he wishes to

get general intelligence and information concerning troop movements, shipping

movements and strength, development of airfields, locations of dumps, and the

preparation of D.Z.s. All of these matters are, of course, of interest to S.W.P.A. and

indeed all that they are interested in.

He pointed out that:

The real SOA objectives of his mission, namely the softening of local inhabitants,

the training of guerrillas, and the arrangements for ex-Government officials to

resume government of the colony as soon as it has been liberated, have not been

mentioned to SWPA as they are matters in which they would have no interest.124

American officers at GHQ were very much aware of the British motives to regain control of

Borneo after the war. In fact, this could explain why ‘Agas I’ took so long to be approved.

But as Powell argued in his book War by Stealth, ‘Any gain in military Intelligence from

Borneo was better than none, even if winning the war was considered by the British to be secondary to their Far Eastern political interest’.125 The timing of Chester’s visit to London is crucial to the Kingfisher rescue mission. His visit took place just before the ‘Agas’

123 Memo Ad.4 to Gubbins, dated 20 November 1945, H.S. 1/ 232, National Archives UK. 124 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 273. 125 Ibid., p. 273. 67 mission, and it is almost certain that Chester would have received orders to establish British and Australian control in Borneo as soon as possible before the war ended. This was important to the British government in its plan to re-establish government control in Borneo.

It was Lieutenant-Colonel James Champion from SOE, and Deputy to Chapman-Walker,

(who in 1945 took over command of SRD from Chapman-Walker), and also in charge of the SRD Planning Section, who came up with a very simple but deceitful idea to get SRD plans approved by AIB and GHQ. His plan was to,

If it is necessary to submit one plan to GHQ and to have the intention of carrying out

something different, it is obviously necessary that two separate and detailed plans

must be prepared for each operation. The plan for GHQ’s eyes alone should be put

quietly away in a drawer, and the plan proper brought out for implementation by the

group.126

But most astounding is the knowledge that the two sets of plans were being prepared, and even involved General Blamey. As Champion told a colleague in November 1945, regarding the preparation of the SOA history:

I saw the C in C, (Blamey), yesterday on the matter of the distribution of the History.

I pointed out to him that a true history would undoubtedly bring to light the chicanery

which was necessary to maintain SRD in this theatre in the early days, particularly

in regards to relations with the Americans… As a result Blamey agreed to prepare

two copies only of the full History, one copy for the DMI and one for SOE London.

Abridged copies to be prepared for AIB, AMF records, etc.127

126 Lieutenant- Colonel John Champion, ‘Visit to Australia’, p. 10, H 1/237, UK Archives. 127 Powell, War by Stealth, p.204. 68

This would have confirmed the suspicions of SRD deceit held by Willoughby and just about all of the AIB command staff They might also have discovered that Blamey was involoved.

However, these comments by Champion would remain a secret until released by the Foreign

Office forty-eight years later. Champion’s ‘necessary chicanery’ is at the heart of the cancellation of ‘Operation Kingfisher’ – it exemplifies the relationship between the contending national partners and their representatives in SOA.

The matter of Blamey’s involvement in the cover up and destruction of files is further shown in C.A. Brown’s The Official History of Special Operations – Australia. When the orders to compile an official history of SOA were sent out, a major problem was found by the group tasked with writing the history. They found that ‘the records of the ISD operations of 1942 and early to mid-1943 had largely been destroyed on orders of the C-in-C, Allied Land

Forces in the South West Pacific Area, General Sir Thomas Blamey’.128 In studying Volume

2 of ‘The Official History of Special Operations – Australia: Operations’, it is clear that a large number of missions went very badly for the AIB during the period of 1942-43. In Java,

‘Tiger’ missions I to VI all had all their operatives captured by the Japanese, as well as the

SRD missions in Timor, whose members were captured and forced to send messages to AIB by the Japanese.129 So it is reasonable to presume that the desire to conceal failure explains the files’ destruction.

As the war in the Pacific advanced, priorities changed, as did plans for Britain, America and

Australia. At the September 1944 Quebec conference, after accepting Churchill’s offer of a

British Pacific Fleet, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed Borneo was viable base for the British Pacific Fleet. For this reason, there was now a pressing need for intelligence about north-west Borneo. This intelligence would be gathered by ‘Agas I’. In looking at the

128 C.A. Brown, The Official History of Special Operations – Australia: Volume 1, Organization, National Library of Australia, United States, 2011, 129 C.A. Brown, The Official History of Special Operations – Australia, Volume 2. 69 need for intelligence on other parts of Borneo, another plan evolved, ‘Agas II’, to gather intelligence in the north-east of Borneo. The plans called for ‘Agas I’, led by Chester, to land between Kudat and Kota Belud, and ‘Agas II’ was to land to the east of Kudat.130

A new plan came out of the original ‘Agas I’ draft plans developed within SRD, and that was a mission to rescue POWs in Borneo. The new plan called ‘Operation Kingfisher’ was based on the reports of escapees Lieutenant Rex Blow and Private R.K. (Jock) McLaren and, which in turn was based on information Blow received from Sergeant W. Wallace, in 1943.

This information was confirmed by ‘Python 1’ contacts, that a large number of Australian and British POWs were being held at Sandakan. ‘Kingfisher’ became the plan to rescue these POWs. As mentioned in the introduction of this thesis, the plan called for the use of paratrooper and navy landing craft to rescue the POWs.

In order for the project to become a plan and then an operation, SRD needed to gather intelligence about the region, its terrain, and its inhabitants and above all about the Japanese troops in the area. The planners were working with information from 1943, from previous

POW escapees, pre-war information on the area, and some information from ‘Python I’. As previously mentioned in this thesis, the plans for ‘Operation Kingfisher’ stated that the intention was ‘to insert an intelligence party into the area of SANDAKAN, B.N.B., [British

North Borneo], for the purpose of obtaining the detailed intelligence essential for the planning of a combined airborne/ naval operation on the P.W. camps in that area, aimed at effecting the rescue and withdrawal by sea of the prisoners therein’.131 Before sending in the paratroopers, the planners needed to know the number of Japanese troops in the area, the placement of heavy weapons and other essential information on the actual prison camp itself.

130 AGAS Outline Plan, 5 February 1945, A1/1, A3269, NAA. 131 Project Kingfisher Plans, p. 2, Box 484, RG 496, NARA. 70

Contained in the Kingfisher plans were also the plans for the paratroopers’ part in the rescue.

The plans called for a total of 637 troops, 25 officers and 612 OR, with 1 Troop of a paratrooper squadron of 5 officers and 35 OR’s, if needed. Based on the equipment required for the operation, the distance to be flown and the formation for the dropping of the paratroopers, the plan called for thirty-two C-47 aircarft, (the only suitable aircraft available in Australia at the time). The drop zones, (DZ’s), were to be selected by Army and Air Force personnel, based on aerial photos of the Sandakan area. Based on reports from February

1944, the Japanese troops in the Sandakan area consisted of:

150 “B” Class Japanese troops

40 Japanese P/W guards

11 Japanese M.P.’s

150 Native Policemen

100 Japanese civilian Home Guards

Totalling 451

The airborne operation was divided into three phases. The first phase was the dropping of the Parachute Battalion. The second phase was the ‘Neutralisation of enemy defences and counter-measures and the release of the P/W’. The third phase was ‘The withdrawal of the

P/W and attacking troops’. The Kingfisher plans also called for the SRD team to withdraw with the P/Ws and the paratroopers. The primary objectives of Phase two were:

The P/W camp

The airfield

Road junction Kabon China Road and Sisuga Road

71

Sandakan town area

For Phase three, the possible methods of withdrawal were:

i. By L.C.I.’s from the wood wharf on Sibuga River to a L.S.I. lying off Shallow

Bay

ii. By transport or cruiser from the Government Wharf in Sandakan Harbour

The plan made three general assumptions, that had to be considered. These were the physical condition of the PWs, which was expected to poor and evacuation difficult, the attack must be timed to make sure the maximum number of PWs were in the camp and the Japanese must not be allowed any time to remove or massacre the PWs. But for this rescue mission to go ahead, all that was required was the final intelligence report from the Kingfisher SRD team, sent to get it.132

There is no mention of specific medical personnel mentioned in the Kingfisher plans.

However, it can be expected that Medics would accompany the battalion, as a part of normal operations. The plans did not call naval gunfire support, as might be expected in an operation such as this. In addition, as the goal was complete surprise for the operation to be successful, the presence of naval ships providing gunfire support would certainly alert the Japanese to some type of operation occurring. The plans did not allow for alternative options for extraction, because of the location and environment, there were only the two available wharves in Sandakan. The plan did allow for one troop of paratroopers to be held in reserve and used if needed. The communications between the paratroopers and the navy, standing by offshore of Sandakan, would have been done by radio, with frequencies and other details laid out in the final pre-mission briefings. Colonel Overall was the commander for the

132 Project Kingfisher Plans, December 1944, A/22, A 3269, NAA. 72 paratrooper battalion and would have been the commander on the ground. In turn, Overall reported to Major-General Norcott, commander of the Australian Paratroopers.

The three plans, ‘Agas I’, ‘Agas II’ and ‘Kingfisher’ were to depart for different parts of

Borneo in January 1945. The order of insertion was ‘Agas I’ first, then ‘Kingfisher’ and

‘Agas II’ last. The ‘Kingfisher’ party was to be inserted as soon as possible after 25 January

1945 and the party to be taken forward by submarine, leaving ‘D-11 Day’ and arriving D-

Day at forward area. This meant that from the time the ‘Kingfisher’ party boarded the submarine in Australia, they had eleven days to reach the Sandakan POW camp to start their reconnaissance.

Once the ‘Kingfisher’ team and stores reached the entry point, at Sungei Gum near the camp, they were to rest for the first day (D1). On the nights of Day 1 and 2, they were to move by rubber boat, towing folboats (folding canoes) to a hideout on coast four miles south west of

Tanjong Pandaras. On Day 2, the leader of the party was to reconnoitre high ground near

Sungei Gum and the entry to that river. That night, the whole party was to move with all boats and supplies to the new base. Once there, they were to set up the base and establish wireless radio communications with Darwin as soon as possible.

The Reconnaissance Plan was to take place on Day 5 to Day 35, with the ‘Party leader to be responsible for framing recce plan’. The tasks required of the recce team were very specific

, with twenty-six main points of intelligence to be reported, Japanese troops, weapons, positions of POWs, certain land features, recce of suitable drop zones and suitable points on the beaches to be used for evacuation parties. In addition, the recce team had the job to assist the rescue party when they landed. The plan, approved in December 1944, included the

73 clause ‘The method of obtaining the above information to be left completely to the discretion of the party leader’.133

This was just one part of the overall ‘Kingfisher’ operation. The other part of the plan, approved by GHQ, was of course the actual rescue mission, which included the air and naval involvement in the rescue. The air component of the rescue mission was to be performed by the 1st Parachute Battalion (Australia).134 This Australian army unit had been raised at the

Royal Australian Air Force base, at Richmond NSW, in 1943. The volunteers were taken from other army units, most of whom had seen active service in North Africa and the Middle

East. The battalion grew from two rifle companies in 1943 to a full strength battalion in

1944. The battalion commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel John Overall, trained for the

‘Kingfisher’ operation around Atherton Queensland. Overall knew that they were training for a rescue mission of POWs, but he did not know where.135 The ‘Kingfisher’ plans for the battalion were very detailed. Included in the plans were the required number of men, type of aircraft, objectives and the withdrawal. Nevertheless, everything in the plans depended on one thing: up-to-date intelligence on the area and the prisoners.

The third part of the ‘Kingfisher’ plan was the naval part. The Royal Navy ships were to be used for the evacuation of the POWs, the parachute troops and the Kingfisher team. The plan was to use large Infantry Landing Ships (LCI), which would despatch smaller Landing

Craft Assaults (LCA) to pick up the POWs and attacking troops in Sandakan Harbour.136

The ships to be used were part of a Royal Navy force, called ‘X Force’, which had been used to transport several hundred US Army Air Force personnel from New York, USA to

133 Project Kingfisher Plans, p. 3, Box 484, RG 496, NARA. 134 JB Dunn, Eagles Alighting: A History of 1 Australian Parachute Battalion, Australian Parachute Battalion Association, 1999, Hawthorne, p. 12. 135 Dunn, Eagles Alighting, p. 155. 136 Jack Eaves, HMS Glenearn 535 Flotilla 6th June 1944 and ‘Force X’ August 1944 to March 1945, Royal Marines Association Queensland, viewed 17 March 2016, 74

Finschhafen, Papua New Guinea in 1944. After disembarking the US troops, discussions were held between the British and the US about using the British ships of X Force for the invasion of the Philippines. However, when the US naval commanders insisted that only US landing craft were to be used, the Royal Navy ships were not able to participate. Supposedly because of the differences in ship configuration between the US landing ships and the Royal

Navy landing ships, the Royal Navy ships were not able to be used.137 (It is also possible that the US reluctance derived from national sensitivity.)

After delivering its cargo of US troops, X Force was broken up, with some ships sent to

Australia. Glenearn and Empire Spearhead were sent to Cairns and Townsville to train

Australian units for amphibious landings. These training exercises were called Exercise

Octopus and took place in November 1944. The ships were also instructed to practice re- embarking troops from a beach. It is important to understand that the issue with re- embarking troops onto landing craft is getting off the beach with a full load. When landing troops, the craft drives up on the beach, and becomes lighter when the troops disembark. But troops re-embarking can cause craft to become stuck on the beach. The way to avoid this was to go slowly astern while the troops are boarded, a manoeuvre that needed to be practiced.

The British ship captains were informed that the training was for an operation in North

Borneo with the Australian army. First, they needed permission from the US Navy, as they were under US command, and the Borneo operation was in a British territory. Jack Eaves, in his article ‘HMS Glenearn 535 Flotilla 6th June 1944 and with ‘Force X’ August 1944 to

March 1945’, affirmed that, ‘I believe that this was part “Project Kingfisher” the plan to rescue the 2400 allied POWs at Sandakan’.138 While little formal evidence exists to support

137 Eaves, Force X, p. 3. 138 Eaves, Force X, p. 3. 75 that claim, there is strong circumstantial evidence: the Glenearn and Empire Spearhead were the only ships in SWPA, that had trained for re-embarkation required for the rescue operation, as mentioned earlier in this chapter..

In early January, Chester arrived in Fremantle to start the ‘Agas I’ mission. This fact has to be seen as a major mistake on Chester’s part, as he arrived only a few days before the mission started, and had no idea whether the preparations had been completed. From the start things began to go wrong. In fact the entire initial ‘Agas I’ operation was a series of mistakes and bad decisions that ended any chance of success the mission may have had. The first issue had been the delay in getting the mission approved before monsoon season. Chester then found out the aerial photos of the Borneo entry point that he had requested in early October had not been taken. The request had sat with SRD until 6 December before being sent AIB and from there to the wrong department. This was followed by a number of the ‘Agas’ team becoming ill and not able to go on the mission. 139

Things continued to go wrong after Chester arrived in Fremantle and reported to US Navy, for the final arrangements for transport by submarine. He found out that its staff had not been informed of the new departure date, or that the original mission had been postponed.

Chester was forced to arrange for the RAAF to transport the whole ‘Agas I’ team, plus supplies, to Darwin, in the hope that they could find an available American submarine able transport them to the insertion point in Borneo.

Improvising to save the mission, Chester was able to find an American submarine, USS

Tuna, that could take ‘Agas I’ to its entry point. He was also able to find replacements for the two members that had become ill. Chester still did not have the aerial photographs which

139 Silver, Conspiracy of Silence, p. 195. 76 he had requested, but he decided to go without them. This decision would end up playing a major role in the history of Kingfisher.

‘Agas I’ finally left Darwin on 16 January 1945, reaching the insertion point at Bisa Island, between Kudat and Kota Belud, on 28 January. On arrival, a periscope reconnaissance appeared to show buildings, smoke from fires and radio masts, indicating that there were

Japanese at the entry point. Without the aerial photographs, there was no way to confirm or not confirm the presence of Japanese troops. Unfortunately, what was taken to be radio masts were actually two tall burned trees: there were no Japanese troops there.140 This would have been shown on the aerial photographs had they been taken.

The lack of aerial photographs for any AIB operation had been raised with Colonel Roberts,

AIB Controller, in a memo from Lieutenant Commander Albert Fresco, Assistant Director of Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service, dated 17 July 1944. In his memo, Fresco pointed out that a failed mission, ‘Prawn’ had been unable to land at the selected landing zone because of the terrain. Because there were no aerial photos taken before the attempted landing, the mission had to be aborted. Later aerial photos were taken of the landing zone and it was found that a suitable insertion point was just two miles away. Fresco makes the point in his memo that ‘It would have been difficult indeed to discover the suitability of this part of the coast for landing, from the periscope of a submarine, being only a feet or so above the surface’.141

Astonishingly, Chester had not selected alternative entry points, so he decided that ‘Agas I’ simply had to return to Australia. They were lucky in that they could be transferred from the

USS Tuna to the USS Bream, which was on its way back to Australia after completing its

140 G.B. Courtney, Silent Feet: The History of ‘Z’ Special Operations 1942-1945, Slouch Hat Publications, McCrae, 1993, p. 39. 141 Memo, A.A. Fresco to C.G. Roberts, 17 July 1944, Part 25, 423/11/6, AWM 54. 77 patrol. Otherwise, ‘Agas I’ would have had to remain with the USS Tuna while it completed its regular patrol. ‘Agas I’s operatives arrived back in Australia on 8 February, completely unaware how wrong they had been about their entry point and returning without any intelligence of Japanese occupied Borneo. This fiasco was to continue the blunders, miscalculations and bad luck which was to dominate the entire saga.

The insertion of the ‘Kingfisher’ team had not yet taken place when ‘Agas I’ team returned to Australia. Chester advised SRD senior officers that he had been unable to land on the west coast of Borneo, and that ‘Python’s former area was not an option. Chester advised he now wanted to enter Borneo on the north-east coast, near Sandakan. At a meeting on 12 February

1945, a new ‘Agas I’ mission was decided. Chapman-Walker and Chester decided that as

Chester wanted to enter through the ‘Kingfisher’ entry point, ‘Agas I’ and ‘Kingfisher’ should be merged into one mission. There would be changes in personnel for the combined mission, with some members of Kingfisher joining ‘Agas I’. However, the objectives for both teams were to remain as originally planned. ‘Agas I’ was to set up intelligence networks and train guerrillas, while ‘Kingfisher’ members were to get the intelligence required for the

POW rescue mission. The orders given to the new ‘Agas I’ team were very clear, ‘AK162

[Chester] will go by boat to meet ‘Agas II’ and will leave remainder of party to carry out the

‘Kingfisher’ task’. 142 Major Derek Sutcliffe, who had been leader of the Kingfisher party, became second-in-command for ‘Agas I’, with the specific task of obtaining the intelligence required for the rescue mission. Their orders, as clearly stated in the minutes of the meeting combining ‘Agas I’ and ‘Kingfisher’, were,

To establish a party in the area of Sandakan BNB for the purpose of obtaining and

relaying to Australia the detailed intelligence essential for the planning of a combined

airborne naval operation on the PW camps in this area, aimed at affecting the rescue

142 AGAS Project, A1/1, A3269, NAA ACT. 78

and withdrawal by sea of the prisoners therein and such information as is laid down

under the Project known as Kingfisher.143

The new ‘Agas I’ left Darwin on the American submarine USS Tuna, on 24 February. The team landed on the north-west side of Labuk Bay on the night of 3 March. The landing went well, and the team landed on a small island up an unnamed creek. Once they had established a camp, they set up the radio and made contact with the Dutch station at Batchelor on 7

March. At this point, the two teams were now to start their defined separate missions.

However, this did not happen. The movements of ‘Agas I’, which are well documented, show that no attempt was ever made to gather the required intelligence at the Sandakan POW camp, as specified in the orders from the meeting combining ‘Agas I’ and ‘Kingfisher’. The

‘Agas I’ progress reports show that,

‘Immediately radio contact had been satisfactorily established with Australia, all of

the party, except the signals section which was left at the base, , moved off in two

folboats on a series of reconnaissance of the coastal region from the Tagahan River

to Kuala Paitan. During this period close reconnaaissances were made of the

estuaries of the rivers Sesip, Sugust, Mamahat, Arabar and Paitan’.144

All of these rivers are located in an area away from the Sandakan POW camp. From ‘Agas

I’ and ‘Kingfisher’ landing point at Labuk Bay, Sandakan was 43 kilometres south-east.

Chester and the ‘Agas I’ team travelled north-west from Labuk Bay. The farthest point that the ‘Agas’ team went to was over three hundred kilometres away from the Sandakan POW camp. This report also shows that Sutcliffe accompanied Chester during the entire trip to the areas above. The report of the operation makes it clear that Sutcliffe made no attempt to approach Sandakan for any intelligence that was required for the rescue mission. In the

143 AGAS Project, A1/1, A3269, NAA. 144 AGAS 1, History of SOA – Operations, O8/A, A3269, NAA. 79 reports there is no mention of any discussion or argument regarding Sutcliffe accompanying

Chester on his trip to the north-west. After extensive research for many months, I was able to find the reason that Sutcliffe went with Chester instead of going to Sandakan. That reason is that Sutcliffe was actually an SOE agent, and based on the information available today, and the actions and movements of Sutcliffe in Borneo, it would be a logical assumption that

Sutcliffe had received orders to accompany Chester and not to go to Sandakan. .145 The information that Sutcliffe was actually a SOE agent was not known because his military file was closed until 2016.

On 4 April 1945, Chester sent a message to SRD, which was forwarded to AIB, stating,

‘Reliable information from a native chief in Sugut area states that the Sandakan PW have been moved in groups overland to Jesselton. The incidence of beri-beri among PW is reported high and those who were unable to travel were shot’146.

This raises a number of questions, firstly, why would Chester rely on possible second-hand or even third-hand gossip on the POWs? Secondly, how could Chester believe this information, as Sugut is 200km away from Sandakan? The use of information from Malays or Chinese, and their reliability, had often been an issue for SRD operatives. Because

Europeans were inserted into Borneo, and their appearance differed so materially from the local population, reliance on locals for information was essential. As explained by Ooi Keat

Gin, in his article ‘Prelude to invasion: covert operations before the re-occupation of

Northwest Borneo, 1944-45’, ‘Local informants may not always have been privy to the required information and consequently passed on rumours to SRD operatives, not because

145 Derek Stuart Sutcliffe, HS 9/1429/5, UK National Archives. 146 SRD Intel Report No. 65, Project 309A, A28, A3269, NAA. 80 they deliberately intended to mislead but owing to their inability to differentiate between fact and opinion, truth and mere talk’.147

Based on the report Chester received from the native chief, and the fact that there were

POWs on the march towards Ranau, Chester presumed that all of the POWs at Sandakan were being moved. However, if he and Sutcliffe had followed their original orders, they would have at least obtained some corroborating evidence from other natives, or sent

Sutcliffe to see for himself. Chester did not attempt to locate any of the Sandakan POWs, either on the trail to Ranau, nor at the Sandakan prisoner camp.

Chester’s inaction led Willoughby to believe that the Sandakan POW camp was empty, and as a result led to Sandakan being bombed by aircraft and bombarded by PT boats on 27 May

1945. This in turn caused the Japanese to start the second and third Death Marches, as the

Japanese reasonably believed that the Allies were about to invade Sandakan. There were reports of a number of different Japanese orders concerning the POWs at Sandakan, regarding where they would be sent and how they would get there. However, no firm order had been issued by the Japanese command to close the Sandakan camp and move the remainder of the POWs. ‘The local commanders decided to close the POW camp at that point and immediately transfer the remaining prisoners inland. Sandakan was out of radio contact with Japanese Borneo Command for 14 days during the period of the Allied attack.

This clearly shows the Sandakan Japanese commander made the decision to start the second and third death marches. Whether the second and third death marches would have occurred without the Allied attack on Sandakan, on 27 May, remains a moot point’.148 The

147 Ooi Keat Gin, ‘Prelude to invasion: covert operations before the re-occupation of Northwest Borneo, 1944-45’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, Vol. 32, October 2002, p. 13. 148 Richard Wallace Braithwaite, Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2016, p. 217 81 surviving POWs were forced on these marches, to keep them from being liberated by the invading forces.

By sending this message about the Sandakan POWs, Chester was saying that there were no

POWs at Sandakan, so no rescue mission was now needed. Chester’s message, which was in fact completely wrong, not only stopped the rescue mission but also led to the second and third Death Marches. This one message effectively killed what remaining POWs were still alive at Sandakan, and led to so much pain suffering and death.

Tragic though the fate of the Sandakan POWs was, it occurred in the context of the wartime alliances between America, Britain and Australia. It is in those relationships that the broader explanation for events in Borneo in 1945 must be sought.

82

CHAPTER 4:

‘WINSTON IS A DICTATOR’:

THE ALLIANCE OF BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA

With the Sandakan rescue mission seemingly aborted, it is necessary to consider the joint special operations in SWPA involving officers from Britain, America and Australia in the context of the wider wartime alliance. I would now like to leave the AIB and the

‘Kingfisher’ rescue mission and examine other influences that affected the rescue mission.

These influences were the relationships between America, Britain and Australia, and the post-war goals of each. These rivalries affected their decision-making during the war. The first of the alliances to be studied is the Imperial one of Britain and Australia.

The key figures in the British-Australian relationship were Winston Churchill, Robert

Menzies and later John Curtin. Their backgrounds and attitudes need to be understood as well as their roles in the events with which this thesis deals.

Churchill was born in 1874 to a British father and an American mother. He attended

Sandhurst and joined the army, in which he served from 1895 – 1899, seeing action in India on the northwest frontier and in Sudan at the battle of Omdurman in 1898. While still a soldier, Churchill began writing reports for newspapers. When he left the army in 1899, he continued as a war correspondent, reporting on the Boer War.

Churchill’s political career began in 1900 when he was elected as a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party. He was following his father who had also been in politics. In

1904 Churchill switched to the Liberal Party, serving in a number of positions that included being appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies in 1905. At the Colonial

Conference of 1907 in London, Churchill had his first battle with Australia, with the then

83

Prime Minister of Australia, Alfred Deakin. The two engaged in arguments over the powers of the state premiers and the federal government of Australia, and over imperial trade preferences. Churchill would later believe that these disagreements with Deakin tainted his opinion of the Australians during World War II, because during their conflicts Churchill came to believe that any Australian leader who stood up to him, was only doing so because of domestic politics in Australia. 149

In September 1911, Churchill became the First Lord of the Admiralty. During the Great War he was instrumental in promoting the disastrous Dardanelles campaign. Churchill resigned his ministerial position and returned to uniform briefly to command a battalion of the Royal

Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front. Returning to politics in 1916, Churchill served as minister in a number of portfolios, including Colonial Secretary, where he reordered the post-war Middle East. In 1922, losing his seat in Parliament he re-joined the Conservative

Party, becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, until 1929 when the Conservatives were defeated. On 10 May 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister and Minister of Defence at the age of 65. 150 It is a widely accepted view that Churchill was the right man for the job as

Prime Minister of Britain during World War II, and that was a major factor in the Allied victory in Europe. Churchill’s commitment to the re-establishment and maintenance of

British imperial power in Asia arguably influenced many of his decisions during the war.

Robert Gordon Menzies was born 20 December 1894 in a small Victorian country town,

Jeparit. He was able to study at Scotch College and Melbourne University by winning scholarships. Menzies was admitted to the Bar as a barrister in 1918 in Melbourne. Menzies started his political career in Victorian politics in 1928 and was a state representative until

1934. In that year, Menzies was elected to the House of Representatives for the Melbourne

149 Graham Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2008, p.26. 150 Winston Churchill – Prime Minister, A&E Television Networks, 9 November 2016, viewed 9 March 2017, http://www.biography.com/people/winston-churchill-9248164 84 seat of Kooyong. Menzies was soon appointed Attorney-General and Minister for Industry in the government of Prime Minister Joe Lyons. While holding these ministerial positions,

Menzies made a number of trips to Britain, which confirmed his love of British culture.151

Menzies became Prime Minister when Joe Lyons died, leading a minority United Australia

Party. He was sworn in on 26 April 1939, just four months before the German invasion of

Poland and the start of World War II. Menzies was profoundly pro-British, and followed

Britain’s lead in everything, including declaring war on Germany.

John Curtin was also born in a small Victorian town, Creswick, on 8 January 1885. He had a poor childhood and was forced to leave school at the age of 14. At 18 Curtin became involved in Victorian state politics, campaigning on behalf of Frank Anstey for a state seat.

From there Curtin joined the Victorian Socialist Party. In 1911 he became Secretary of the

Victorian Timber Workers Union and set up the Timber Worker, a union newspaper and his first work as a journalist.152 During World War I, Curtin became an active anti-war and anti- conscription campaigner. He was jailed in 1916 for not reporting for military service when trainees were called up, but was only in jail for three days before appeals by friends saw him released.153

Curtin was elected to the House of Representatives on 6 February 1929 representing the seat of Fremantle, his fourth attempt to win a seat. In 1931, Labor lost the federal election and

Curtin lost his seat as well. He spent the next few years working as a journalist and performing jobs for the West Australia government. In 1934, Curtin was again elected to represent the seat of Fremantle, a seat he would hold until his death in 1945.154 Menzies and

151 A.W. Martin, ’Menzies, Sir Robert Gordon (Bob) (1894-1978)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 15, 2000, viewed 14 April 2017, 152 John Curtin, Australia’s Prime Ministers, NAA, viewed 14 April 2017, 153 John Edwards, John Curtin’s War, Penguin Random House, Melbourne, 2017, p. 25. 154 Edwards, John Curtin’s War, p.59. 85

Curtin were about as different as could possibly be, one a university educated barrister and the other an active Socialist campaigner. As discussed later in this thesis, Menzies sought to gain a political position in Britain, while Curtin refused to leave Australia during the war.

Discussions between the British and Australian governments on Pacific defence started in the 1920s, in response to a growing Australian concern about Japan. 155 Japan had begun to flex its military muscle and adopt an aggressive, expansionist approach to politics, and

Australia became concerned about future Japanese expansion in the region. Australian concerns became even more acute during the ‘Far East Crisis’ of 1931-33, when Japan invaded Manchuria and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo as well as leaving the League of Nations.156 It was at this stage that Britain and the US realised that they would not have the military resources in the Pacific to halt Japan’s military expansion into Manchuria.

Neither country had any fortified naval or air bases in the Pacific. As Christopher Thorne wrote, ‘Japan could plunder Western possessions in her part of the world and down to

Southeast Asia before being checked in a long-term contest’.157 Australia also realised that it was at risk because of the lack of British defences in the Pacific, which led to some

Australians demanding Britain do more to protect Australia. Australians generously put their full faith in the belief that Britain would defend Australia and continually sought assurances from Britain of this. 158

An Imperial Conference in 1923, decided on the construction of a naval base at Singapore.

159 The new plan envisaged building a naval base in Singapore against the possibility of

155 Jeffrey Grey, A Military History of Australia, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008, p. 126.

156 Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the war against Japan, 1941 – 1945, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978, p. 29. 157 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 29. 158 Christopher J. Baxter, ‘A Question of Blame? Defending Britain’s position in the South China Sea, the Pacific and South-East Asia, 1919-1941’, The RUSI Journal, 1 August 1997, Vol. 142, No. 4, pp. 66-74, p. 69. 159 Grey, A Military History of Australia, p. 126.. 86

Japanese aggression in Asia, and especially to protect Australia and India as well as the vital shipping lanes to Asia. During the 1930s a large naval dockyard was built in Singapore to allow Britain to ‘project naval power throughout the Asia-Pacific region’. 160 The plan or strategy did not call for British naval vessels to be stationed in Singapore, but to be despatched from Britain when needed: Britain, hard hit by the depression, could not afford a fleet large enough to be stationed in home waters and in Asia. The ‘Singapore Strategy’ became the cornerstone of Australian defence policy as it meant that Australia did not have to incur the full cost of building up its own military naval power. The situation was not helped when Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-29), ‘delayed and downsized the work at Singapore, ensuring that the base would be neither a deterrent nor a defence’.161

The obvious flaw in the Singapore Strategy was exactly what happened when Britain found itself faced with wars in Europe and Asia at the same time.

An Anglo-Japanese Alliance had been signed in 1902 and further revised in 1905 and 1911.

It allowed Britain to focus its naval forces on Germany in World War I while Japan looked after Asia. 162 But looking after Asia also involved Japanese expansion into China and it was these Japanese expansionist plans for China that caused concern in Britain over a renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1919. 163 Britain was faced with a major dilemma in which it could not make a new alliance with Japan because of concerns of America and the British dominions over Japan’s invasion of China, and the country could not afford to build up its navy to defend both east and west because of the Five Powers Naval Treaty. In

1921-22, the Five Power Treaty limited the number of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers that each nation would be allowed according to an agreed ratio of ships. The treaty

160 Jeffrey Grey, A Military History of Australia, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008, p. 126. 161 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 171. 162 Christopher Baxter, ‘A Question of Blame? Defending Britain’s Position in the South China Sea, the Pacific and South-east Asia, 1919 – 1941’, RUSI Journal, Vol. 142, No. 4, August 1997, pp. 66-75, p. 67. 163 Baxter, ‘A Question of Blame’, p. 67. 87 was established between America, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy to stop a naval race between the major world powers at the time. The ratio for capital ships, such as battleships and aircraft carriers, was agreed at America 5 ships: Britain 5 ships: Japan 3 ships: France 2 ships: Italy 2 ships. The five powers maintained that ratio until, in 1934, Japan demanded that it be given the same ratio of ships as America and Britain. When Japan’s request was refused, it withdrew from the Five Power Treaty. 164 In hindsight, this heralded the Japanese becoming an aggressive expansionist.

There was another factor considered in Britain’s planning for Asian defence and that was racism. Christopher Thorne used a line from Oliver Goldsmith’s poem ‘The Travellers’, when he said the British saw themselves as ‘Lords of humankind’ in Asia because of technological and scientific superiority over Asians. 165 The western way of thinking, that the Asians were inferior but had the same values and thinking of a westerner, led to many mistakes in Asian defence planning. Britain’s plans were erroneously based on the premise that the Japanese thought in western terms of gain and loss and world opinion, but the

Japanese had completely different values from the Westerners. This was seen during the

Pacific war with the Japanese way of fighting the war shocking and surprising the western allies, through their Japanese beliefs that it was better to die than surrender. Weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill ordered HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales to

Singapore; not because he believed they could defend Singapore, but because he believed their mere presence in the Far East would restrain Japanese foreign policy. 166 The British had ruled Asian colonies for nearly 200 years and maintained a number of prejudices in their

164 Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty, United States History, viewed 8 April 2017, 165 Oliver Goldsmith, ‘The Travellers’, English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald, Vol. XLL, The Harvard Classics, New York, P.F. Collier & Son, 1904-14, Bartleby.com.2001, viewed 30 October 2018, http://www.bartleby.com/br/04101.html. 166 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p.313. 88 way of thinking in what Asians could or could not do. These misconceptions of the Japanese cost Allies dearly in the early stages of the Pacific war.

Australia had implemented racial policies aimed at the Japanese, before the First World War, firstly with the ‘White Australia Policy’ passed in 1901. ‘The legislation was specifically designed to limit non-British migration to Australia and allowed for the deportation of

‘undesirable’ people who had settled in any Australian colony prior to federation’. 167 The policy was aimed at groups of non-whites, particularly people of Asian descent, who were seen as being less advanced morally and intellectually. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference,

Prime Minister Billy Hughes came to the conference with three goals. Firstly, he wanted reparations from Germany to pay Australian war debts, secondly, he came to defend

Australia’s White Policy and lastly, the protection of the ocean approaches to Australia by annexation of German New Guinea. 168 It was the protection of the White Australia Policy that affected the Japanese to a great extent. At the Paris Peace Conference, Japan strongly proposed a ‘racial equality’ clause to be in the League of Nations charter. Hughes was concerned about Japan’s growing strength and believed that there was a strong possibility that Australia and Japan could be at war with each other in the future. For the Japanese, it was a matter of their ‘honour and status’. When the Japanese refused to remove the immigration clause from the racial equality proposal, Hughes saw this as a double attack on

Australia, military and migratory. 169 However, following a vote by delegates, which Japan received 11 out of 17 votes, which should have been enough to carry the motion. But, due to Hughes’ backroom negotiating, US President Woodrow Wilson changed the rules and stated that the vote needed to be unanimous to pass. 170 After the conference, many things

167 National Museum Australia, ‘White Australia Policy’, viewed 8 November 2018, . 168 Paul Kelly, ‘Aftermath: The Price of Peace’, The Weekend Australian: The Great War: Part Four Endgame and Aftermath, 6-7 October 2018, pp. 42-49,p. 47-48. 169 Kelly, ‘Aftermath’, p. 47. 170 Kelly, ‘Aftermath’, p. 47. 89 were written about the racial equality vote, such as ‘The Japanese did not forget and blamed

Australia’ and ‘Hughes had given ammunition to the anti-Western, ultra-nationalist lobby in

Japan seeking to lead a pan-Asian movement to drive the West from Asia’. 171

From 1939, Britain needed all its naval resources for its war with Germany and later Italy.

However, Churchill continued to assure Australia that Britain could protect Australia through the Singapore strategy (despite his earlier actions), and as soon as Australia was in danger of being invaded, Britain would send a fleet to the South China Sea to defend

Australia and the Far East. 172 Churchill had enormous faith in ‘Fortress Singapore’, despite the many years of under-resourcing it. He strongly believed that the Japanese would not attack western colonies in Asia because they would not risk a war with the United States or

Russia. Churchill also believed that Singapore could hold out for a year if attacked by the

Japanese. This belief did not take into account the fact that Japanese troops took over

Indochina after the French surrendered to the Germans in Europe. With the Japanese in

Indochina, Malaya the ‘backdoor’ to Singapore was now exposed to attack by the Japanese from the north. 173

Throughout the 1930s, Churchill had little influence on the Singapore Strategy or any other

Asian defence policy because he did not hold any cabinet positions. On 3 September 1939, the day that Britain declared war on Germany, Churchill was made First Lord of the

Admiralty for a second time. Once he took up this position he did have some influence on defence decisions and policy. As soon as Churchill took up his new position Menzies demanded that ‘Britain reaffirm the pre-war pledges to send a powerful fleet to Singapore

171 Ibid., p. 47. 172 Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1991, p. 644. 173 Baxter, ‘A Question of Blame’, p. 70. 90 in the event of a war with Japan’.174 However Churchill advised both the Australian and

New Zealand governments that it would be ‘false strategy to undertake to keep a fleet at

Singapore without regard to the actual naval situation, Japan could immobilise half of our

(British) sea power with a paper declaration of war’.175 Churchill did reassure Australian and New Zealand representatives that Britain would ‘never allow Singapore to fall, nor permit a serious attack on either Australia or New Zealand’.176 In saying this, Churchill’s intention was that no British naval ships would be sent until there was an actual attempt by

Japan to capture Singapore or actually invade Australia or New Zealand. 177

On 10 May 1940, Churchill became the Prime Minister after the resignation of Neville

Chamberlain. Churchill was now able to make decisions for the defence of Britain and dictate policy and strategy as he saw necessary. His defence plans were based on the premise that France and Britain would fight Germany, and Italy if they entered the war. Combined, the British and French navies were larger than the combined German and Italian navies.

These plans were thrown into disarray, on 10 June 1940, when first, Italy declared war on

Britain, followed on 22 June 1940 by the surrender of the French to the Germans. Churchill now found Britain and its empire by itself against Germany and Italy.

Churchill changed his strategy to reflect these new developments in the war. He still believed that Japan would stay occupied with China and not attack Western possessions in Asia. He also believed that Japan would be fearful of a possible war with Russia or the United States of America, which meant he could keep his navy in the Mediterranean. His plan was to use the British fleet to destroy the Italian fleet as quickly as possible. This would take away the

174 Christopher M. Bell, ‘Winston Churchill, Pacific Security, and the Limits of British Power 1921-41’, in John H. Maurer (ed.), Churchill and the Strategic Dilemmas Before the World Wars: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel, Routledge, New York, 2013, pp. 51-87, p. 71. 175 Bell, Winston Churchill, p. 71. 176 Ibid., p. 72. 177 John Gooch, ‘The Politics of Strategy: Great Britain, Australia and the War against Japan, 1939-1945’, War in History, 2003, Volume 10, No. 10, pp. 424-447, p. 427. 91 naval advantage that Germany and Italy had over Britain. 178 But more than this, Churchill saw his Mediterranean strategy as a way to keep Britain fighting until America could join the war. This meant that Churchill now saw holding Egypt second in importance to preventing a German invasion of Britain, leaving Singapore a distant third. 179

Churchill’s thinking was that it was paramount that Britain be saved, even if that meant that

British interests in Asia were lost to the Japanese. He realised that he had finite resources and to split them between Europe and the Pacific would guarantee defeat on both fronts. For this reason, Churchill was essentially prepared to sacrifice Asia, beat Germany and then re- take Asia. 180 Menzies realised that Australia’s security was ‘inextricably inter-linked with the defence of Britain‘s core interests in crucial regions and sent Australian forces to Europe and the Middle East’. 181

On 6 September 1939, the Australian Parliament met and the leaders of the Labor and

Country parties both gave Menzies’ declaration of war their full support. No one in

Parliament questioned the correctness that ‘Australia was a part of Britain’s declaration of war’. 182 However, because of Menzies concern about Japanese plans for the Pacific, he did not immediately offer Australian troops to Britain. Menzies was also concerned about the lack of British defences in the Pacific and the failure to fully develop Singapore as a defensive base. But Churchill repeated his promise that if there was the threat of a Japanese invasion of Australia or New Zealand, he would send the British fleet. At the same time,

Churchill continued to point out (in his opinion) that the Japanese were not in a position to wage war on both Britain and the USA. On 24 November 1939, an unconvinced Menzies

178 Bell, Winston Churchill, p. 72. 179 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 228. 180 Christopher J. Baxter, ‘A Question of Blame? Defending Britain’s Position in the South China Sea, The Pacific and South-east Asia, 1919 – 1941, The RUSI Journal, 1 August 1997, Vol. 142, No. 4, p. 72. 181 Baxter, A Question of Blame, p. 70. 182 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 206. 92 and a divided Cabinet agreed to send the 6th Australian Division overseas, most likely to

Egypt or Palestine. Churchill caused more displeasure for Menzies when he despatched ships to carry Australian troops to the Middle East and did not consult or advise the

Australian government until they were already on their way. 183 This was an example of how

Churchill took things for granted, concerning Australian resources.

In January 1941, while Menzies was travelling to Britain he stopped off in Singapore, where he inspected the defences and met military commanders, but neither impressed him. On arrival in Britain, Menzies again sought firm assurances from Britain regarding the naval defence of Singapore, better defence for Malaya and the status of the Australian orders for aircraft. Churchill and other British government figures gave Menzies the same replies as they had in previous discussions; that they did not see Japan attacking British interests in

Asia. Churchill invited Menzies to join the British War Cabinet for the duration of his stay in Britain. It was at a British War Cabinet meeting that a plan to use Australian troops in the

Greek campaign was put forward. Menzies raised a number of questions about the operation and was doubtful of the campaign’s chances of success, but gave his support. 184 The situation demonstrated how the British viewed Australia in the war as they were using

Australian troops in North Africa and now in Greece, also using Australian airmen in the

RAF but at the same time would not commit any ships to the defence of Singapore nor would they fill the existing Australian orders for aircraft.

As things began to go bad for the Allies in Greece, decisions on the use of the Australian troops there were made without consulting any Australian official or representative. This was to be a continual complaint of Australian governments, that British politicians and commanders took Australian compliance for granted by making major decisions affecting

183 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 211. 184 Grey, A Military History of Australia, p. 160. 93

Australians. Menzies first raised this point 20 September 1939 when he said ‘things were happening, and would continue to happen, which vitally concerned Australia but about which it knew nothing’. 185 In March 1941, Churchill negotiated the transfer of units of the

American Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic, which had been planned in the War Cabinet Defence

Committee (Operations), which had possible implications for Australian security. Menzies was presented with a fait accompli before he could make any protest about the lack of consultation with Australia and New Zealand. Menzies ‘witnessed another demonstration of

British action which meant that even the presence of an Australian Prime Minister in London did not mean that he would be consulted on a matter which concerned Australian security’.

186 This lack of consultation by the British would continue throughout the war with first

Menzies and then Curtin.

In Graham Freudenberg’s book Churchill and Australia, in the first page of the Prologue he claimed ‘Not for the first or last time, Australia seemed to bring out the worst in Winston

Churchill’. He was referring to Churchill’s Doctor, Sir Charles Wilson, wrote while attending Churchill in Florida on 9 January 1942. ‘He [Churchill], told us that he had sent a stiff telegram to Curtin, the Prime Minister of Australia. The situation was making Australia jumpy about invasion. Curtin was not satisfied with the air position. He [Curtin], renewed his representations to London in blunt terms. The P.M. fulminated in his reply. London had not made a fuss when it was bombed. Why should Australia? At one moment he took the line that Curtin and his [Labor] government did not represent the people of Australia. At another that the Australians came of bad stock. Not for the first time or last time, Australia seemed to bring out the worst in Winston Churchill’. 187 Churchill’s requirements of

Australia was for it to provide as many troops as possible to be used as Churchill saw fit,

185 J.M. McCarthy, ‘Australia: A view from Whitehall 1939 – 1945’, Australian Outlook, 1974, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 318-331, p. 318. 186 McCarthy, ‘Australia’, p.323. 187 Graham Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, Macmillan, Sydney, 2008, p. 1. 94 without Australian government interference. As long as Australia did this, Australians were wonderful people to Churchill. But as soon as they began to request Australian troops be sent home, they became ‘bad stock’, in reference to their convict past. 188 The personal and working relationship between Churchill and Menzies was a very mixed one because of the interference of Menzies in Churchill’s plans using Australian troops. On one hand Menzies wrote in his 1941 diary on 2 March, ‘Churchill grows on me. He has an astonishing grasp of detail’. 189 But after some weeks Menzies became disillusioned. At the British War

Cabinet meeting on 14 April 1941, Menzies wrote in his diary what he really thought of

Churchill and the War Cabinet;

The Cabinet is deplorable – dumb men most of whom disagree with Winston

but none of whom dare say so. This state of affairs is most dangerous. The

Chiefs of Staff are without exception Yes men, and a politician runs the

services. Winston is a dictator; he cannot be overruled and his colleagues fear

him. 190

At these War Cabinet meetings, Menzies had become known for questioning Churchill on some of his decisions, something Churchill did not like. It would also be something that

Churchill would hold against Menzies for the rest of the war. Later in the war, in 1944,

Churchill informed the Prime Minister of Canada, Mackenzie King that Menzies had tried to oust him (Churchill) three years previously. 191 There were anti-Churchill MPs and others in government reportedly having discussions regarding getting rid of Churchill and making

Menzies Prime Minister of Britain. 192 Whatever the reason, Churchill did everything within

188 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 2. 189 Sir Robert Menzies, Dark and Hurrying days: Menzies’ 1941 Diary, A.W. Martin and Patsy Hardy (Ed.), National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1993, p. 71. 190 Menzies, 1941 Diary, p. 112. 191 McCarthy, ‘Australia’, p. 322. 192 John Edwards, John Curtin’s War, Penguin Random House Australia, Melbourne, 207, p. 235. 95 his power to make sure that Menzies did not return to Britain during the war in any official capacity.

Menzies was not aware of these ill-feelings of Churchill and believed that they enjoyed a friendship. When Menzies resigned as Prime Minister in late 1941, he cabled Churchill with the news of his resignation, he stated ‘he regretted that it now meant that he could no longer look forward to a renewed association in London’. Churchill replied that it was ‘he who was the gainer of our personal friendship’. Menzies meant it, Churchill did not. 193 Menzies had no chance of success during his three months in Britain, because as John Gooch wrote in

‘The Politics of Strategy’, the Australian Prime Minister could ‘only make a feeble challenge to Churchill’s strategy, because Menzies had no strong strategic cards in his hand’. 194 This episode from 1941 might at first appear to be unrelated to the rescue of Sandakan POWs, but it is significant because it gives an insight into Churchill’s opinion of Australians. To

Churchill, Australia remained a colony of Britain, which should do as it was told by the

Prime Minister of Britain. This was the way things were done in the late nineteenth century, and Churchill saw no reason why they should have changed.

On Menzies’s return to Australia, all he could think of was how was he going to be able to return to Britain. He faced falling support among the people and even within his own party.

He continued to push the Labor party to form a National Government, which would allow him to return to Britain. But Curtin and Labor would not agree to a National Government, which they saw as demonstrating greater disunity. 195 On 17 June 1941, Menzies announced his plans for ‘unlimited war effort’ to parliament, which included crackdown on the

Communist Party and banning industrial strikes. Unfairly Menzies had been blamed for the

193 McCarthy, ‘Australia’, p. 324. 194 John Gooch, ‘The Politics of Strategy: Great Britain, Australia and the War against Japan, 1939-1945’, War in History, 2003, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 424-447, p. 433. 195 J.P. Buckley, ‘A Soldier’s Tribute to John Curtin’, Defence Force Journal, July/ August 1985, No. 53, pp. 3- 33, p. 13. 96 disasters in Greece and Crete. Menzies’ popularity continued to fall, even with the new policies and other actions taken by him to boost his support.

The second half of 1941 was a period of political change in Australia. Following the

September 1940 election, in which Menzies failed to win an outright majority, he was forced to work with two independents to stay in power. Menzies again proposed to Curtin the formation of an all-party National government, which Curtin refused and instead proposed an Advisory War Council which would include members of all parties. This council would allow the members to be informed of the running of the war and offer advice. However, the political responsibility of the decisions was still up to the Menzies government. 196

Menzies was becoming desperate to get back to England and offered to resign as Prime

Minister if Curtin would head a National government. But Labor once again rejected the proposed National government and saw this latest attempt as a reason to claim that Menzies was ‘no longer able, as Prime Minister, to provide stability in the Government and effective leadership of the nation’.197 Rather than face an election, Menzies resigned in late 1941 and

Country Party leader Artie Fadden became Prime Minister.198

Curtin and Fadden had developed a good working relationship on the War Advisory Council during Menzies’ absence in Britain. But as soon as Fadden was sworn in as Prime Minister,

Curtin let the nation know that Labor was ready to govern. The Fadden government lasted only 40 days, when Fadden presented his budget to parliament and Labor opposed the budget to test government support. On 2 October 1941, the budget was voted down forcing Fadden to resign as Prime Minister and making Curtin the new Prime Minister.199 Churchill now had to deal with Curtin as the Australian Prime Minister, who was very different from

196 David Horner, Inside the War Cabinet: Directing Australia’s War Effort 1939-45, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1995, p.20. 197 Letter (copy), Curtin to Menzies, 26 August 1941, MS 2396/15/112, Ward Papers, NLA. 198 Edwards, Curtin’s War, p. 259. 199 Day, Curtin, p. 458. 97

Menzies. Whereas Menzies was inherently pro-British and could be swayed by Churchill,

Curtin’s first priority was Australia and its safety. All of Curtin’s decisions would be based on how it affected Australia.

When Curtin took power, Australia was virtually defenceless because the majority of its trained troops were overseas. The 6th, 7th and 9th Divisions were in the Middle East, the 8th

Division was in Malaya, the majority of Australian air force personnel were in Europe or training in Canada to be sent to Britain and the Navy was scattered in the Atlantic,

Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific oceans.200 But at first he made very few changes, because most of the policies and decisions had been agreed on in the War Advisory Council of which he had been a member. Curtin also didn’t push the recall of Australian troops from North

Africa and he continued to send air force trainees to Britain. Curtin still believed Churchill’s promise that he would abandon the Mediterranean and send a British fleet to the Pacific to hold Singapore or if Australia was seriously threatened. Churchill did send HMS Prince of

Wales, a battleship, HMS Repulse, a battlecruiser, and four destroyers to Singapore, which arrived in early December 1941. Churchill did not think they would actually see action, but were more for a show of strength to the Japanese. Unfortunately, the aircraft carrier, HMS

Indomitable, had run aground in Kingston harbour, Jamaica, so was not able to accompany the Repulse and the Prince of Wales, which was to prove to fatal for these ships.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the situation in the

Pacific changed from a possibility to reality. On 10 December 1941, with Japanese troops advancing down the Malayan peninsula towards Singapore, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were sunk by Japanese aircraft. Curtin began to realise that the imperial defence that Australia had been promised for many years was not coming. He also realised that, because Australian governments had depended on the Imperial Defence promise so strongly,

200 Buckley, ‘A Soldier’s Tribute’, p. 13. 98 they had not built up Australian defences and were now greatly impaired against a possible

Japanese invasion.

It was at this stage, just twelve weeks after becoming Prime Minister, that Curtin’s New

Year message was published in the Melbourne Herald, entitled The Task Ahead, on 27

December 1941. In it, Curtin called for Russia to declare war on Japan to relieve the pressure on Australia. Churchill was totally against Russia declaring war on Japan, as he needed it to concentrate its fighting forces on Germany, just as he needed the USA to focus on the

Germany First strategy.201 With Britain unable to meet its promises to defend Australia, even though the war in the Far East had not yet been lost, Curtin looked for others who would assist with the defence of Australia against the possible Japanese invasion. After publication of the article, Churchill sent a letter to Curtin on 29 December 1941 expressing his displeasure regarding the article and its ‘harsh tones’. His letter went on to say that ‘Curtin had not begun to feel the weight of this war’, and that Churchill could not understand

Curtin’s ‘mood of panic’. Churchill finished the letter with the threat to broadcast directly to the Australian people.202 Roosevelt also expressed displeasure with the speech, calling it

‘disloyal’. Interestingly, Churchill was staying at the White House when the article was published, meeting Roosevelt to confirm the Germany First strategy was still in place. With

Curtin’s article ‘The Task Ahead’, Curtin tried to show that Australia would not be bullied and wanted to be taken as a serious alliance partner. But, it also showed just how anxious

Curtin was in the current situation.

Throughout the war, Churchill continued to disregard Australia’s sovereign status and neglect the views of Menzies and Curtin. However, Australian Prime Ministers did not see their country as a colony of Britain, but as a sovereign nation and a self-governing dominion

201 Day, Curtin, p.484. 202 Letter from Churchill to Curtin, 29 December 1941, John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library. USA-Curtin’s appeal to US 1941. JCPML00869. Original held by UK National Archives, 4/50/15. 99 of Britain. Churchill’s failure to consult Australian leaders when making major decisions that affected Australia during the war was a continuing point of friction between the two countries. Roosevelt at the start of the war ‘did not or would not understand that Churchill, as Prime Minister of Britain, was not also the head of Australia’.203 This led to Roosevelt supporting Churchill’s decisions against Curtin during the early part of the war.

The first confrontation between Churchill and Curtin was actually not started by Curtin but by Menzies, who sent the first message on 20 July 1941. It was regarding the relief of

Australian troops at Tobruk, who had been defending the Libyan port for three months.

When General Blamey requested the relief of the Australian troops in Tobruk, to the British commander in the Middle East, General Claude Auchinleck, he in turn sent the request to

Churchill for advice. Churchill was against the withdrawal and tried to persuade Fadden, who had become Prime Minister when Menzies resigned, to leave the Australian troops in

Tobruk. But Fadden continued to press for the troops to be withdrawn and, soon after Curtin became Prime Minister, he too continued to demand the troops be withdrawn. Churchill was finally forced to agree to relieve the Australian troops at Tobruk with British troops.204

The relief of Australian troops from Tobruk became the start of what has become known as war of cablegrams between Churchill and Curtin. The next point of friction between the two leaders was the defence of Singapore. On 17 January 1942, Curtin sent a cablegram to

Churchill outlining all of the deficiencies of men, aircraft and ships for the defence of

Singapore. In his cablegram Curtin highlighted the fact that over the years Britain had continually promised that these resources would be made available if Japan attacked

Singapore.205 Curtin sent another cable on 22 January 1942 when Earle Page, Australian

203 Buckley, ‘A Soldier’s Tribute’, p. 17. 204 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 300. 205 Cablegram from Curtin to Churchill about the defence of Singapore, 17 January 1942, Item 581/17, A5954, NAA. 100

London Envoy, advised Curtin that Churchill was considering abandoning Singapore. In this cablegram Curtin stated, ‘After all of the assurances we have been given, the evacuation of

Singapore would be regarded here and elsewhere as an inexcusable betrayal’.206 A number of historians believe that Dr Herbert Evatt, Minister for External Affairs and Attorney

General in the Curtin Cabinet, actually wrote the cable that was sent to Churchill.207 In

Churchill’s first draft of a reply to Curtin’s cablegram, an indignant Churchill wrote, ‘You have really no right to use such language to me as inexcusable betrayal. I make all allowances for your anxiety and will not allow such discourtesy to cloud my judgement or lessen my efforts on your behalf.’208 The cable containing these statements was not sent but demonstrate the belief that Churchill held that even a Prime Minister of Australia should not be allowed to talk to him in that way. Curtin’s fears were realised on 15 February 1942 when

Singapore surrendered to the Japanese. The Japanese were one step closer to being in a position to invade Australia.

The next cablegram battle between Churchill and Curtin was the biggest and most telling of

Churchill’s consideration of Australia’s sovereignty. AIF Divisions left the Middle East on

30 January 1942, bound for Netherland East Indies and Australia. It was Churchill who suggested, in December 1941, that the Australian troops be withdrawn from North Africa.

But it was not his intention for them to be sent back to Australia but to Burma or even

Singapore.209 Curtin rejected the idea of sending AIF troops to Burma but was willing to send them to Singapore. The troops were still en-route from the Middle East when it became apparent that Singapore would fall to the Japanese. Churchill now turned his attention to

Burma and decided that he would send the Australian 6th and 7th AIF Divisions there to help defend Rangoon. Churchill had Roosevelt’s support for the Australian troops to be sent

206 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 365. 207 Day, Curtin, p. 491. 208 McCarthy, ‘Australia: A view from Whitehall’, p. 326. 209 David Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1996, p. 97. 101 to Burma, as Roosevelt saw the need to keep the supply route from Burma to China open to support General Chiang Kai Shek.210 When Singapore fell on 15 February 1942, Curtin became even more determined to bring the Australian troops back to Australia, while

Churchill became more determined to send part of them to Burma. On 17 February, Curtin sent a cable to Churchill demanding the return of all of the Australian troops to Australia.211

On 19 February, the bombing of Darwin by Japanese aircraft strongly reinforced Curtin’s decision for Australian troops to be returned to Australia.

Curtin found himself at odds with this decision from Churchill, Roosevelt and even

Australia’s London representative Earle Page, who understood the implications of a global war effort.212 Churchill and Roosevelt continued to push Curtin to send Australian troops to

Burma, which he refused. But Churchill, after sending the cable requests to Curtin on 21

February, had already ordered the Australian convoy to steam to Burma, without Australian approval. On Sunday 22 February, Churchill informed Curtin that he had ordered the convoy to sail to Burma and the ships no longer had enough fuel to reach Australia without stopping in Ceylon. Curtin sent a cable in reply to Churchill in which he restated his decision for the troops to return to Australia, that any loss of life ‘would be on Churchill’s shoulders’, and that after talking with the American President ‘he fully understands and appreciates the reasons for our decision’.213 In his cable, Curtin went on to say that, ‘we feel a primary obligation to save Australia not only for itself but to preserve it as a base for the development of the war against Japan’.214 After receiving this cablegram, Churchill agreed to return most of the Australian troops to Australia. It was agreed that two brigades of the 6th Division would remain in Ceylon as a temporary garrison, as an attempt to appease London and

210 Gooch, ‘The Politics of Strategy’, p. 438. 211 Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 101. 212 Edwards, John Curtin’s War, p. 422. 213 Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 108. 214 Draft cablegram from Curtin to Churchill, 23 February 1942, Item 573/2, A5954, NAA. 102

Washington.215 But in exchange, Curtin demanded that the 7th, the rest of the 6th Divisions as well as the 9th still in the Middle East, be returned to Australia. But things did not happen as expected by Curtin; the two brigades in Ceylon did not return to Australia until August

1942 and the 9th Division did not return until early 1943. As a footnote to this episode of the battle between Churchill and Curtin, the ‘Cablegram War’ only gets a small mention in

Winston Churchill’s book The Grand Alliance: The Second World War Volume III. In it,

Churchill does admit that things for Australia looked very bad with little or no assistance from Britain or America to help them against the Japanese. Churchill provides a cable that he sent to Curtin, which outlined all of the measures he [Churchill] was taking to protect

Australia in co-ordination with Roosevelt. This cable in his book was re-written in a much kinder tone than is shown in any other historical account of the event.216

A major factor that had not been considered by Churchill was when the 6th and 7th Divisions were loaded onto their ships for the return to Australia, they were loaded on converted passenger ships. This meant that there was no storage on the ship for their heavy weapons.

The weapons were loaded on separate slow moving cargo ships, which soon after departure fell many hundreds of miles behind the troops. So if the troops had been sent to Burma, they would have arrived with no heavy weapons to fight with.217 Because the 7th Division was not sent to Burma, it was able to return to Australia, rest, re-arm and train for jungle conditions before going to Papua New Guinea to fight the Japanese. But if Curtin had allowed the 7th Division to be sent to Burma, they would surely have been captured by the

Japanese when they took Rangoon.

215 Day, Curtin, p. 503. 216 Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance: The Second World War Volume III, Penguin Books, London, 1950, p. 592. 217 Edwards, John Curtin’s War, p. 426. 103

The next cablegram battle between Churchill and Curtin was over the appointment of

Richard Casey as British Minister to the Middle East with a seat in the British War Cabinet.

But rather than making the decision on the basis of qualifications, Churchill’s reason was one of political issues. Churchill was under pressure following the surrender of Singapore and there was a push to have more dominion representation in the War Cabinet. Churchill believed that Casey, who was currently the Australian Minister in Washington, was perfect for the job. He was an Australian, easily influenced, would spend most of his time in the

Middle East not at War Cabinet meetings and, most of all, Menzies would not get the position.218 Curtin was very much against this change, as he believed Casey needed to stay in Washington and continue his work procuring arms from the Americans. But Curtin was unaware that in January, Churchill and Casey had shared a train from Florida to Washington and Churchill had already asked Casey if he would accept the posting, which Casey said he would.219 On 13 March, there were two cable exchanges between Churchill and Curtin on this matter with no firm decision made, as far as Curtin knew. On 19 March, the BBC announced the appointment of Casey as the new British Minister to the Middle East, which was before Curtin had received his resignation. Once again Churchill had ignored

Australia’s sovereignty, making decisions that affected Australia without getting its government’s consent.

What made this battle between Churchill and Curtin so serious was that Curtin made a complaint to the British High Commissioner, Sir Ronald Cross, about the way the whole matter had been handled by Churchill and released a press statement stating the Australian government would have preferred Casey to stay in Washington.220 Churchill took offence to these actions and sent Curtin a cable that stated, ‘I do not understand the tone of your public

218 Day, Curtin, p. 509. 219 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 400. 220 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 253. 104 statement and I shall be forced to quote your telegram to me, unless some way or other you can clear up the situation’.221 Curtin responded by challenging Churchill to publish all of the telegrams on the matter. But Curtin stopped the feud at this stage and declared that the misunderstanding was not the fault of Churchill but of Casey.

However, this public fight between Churchill and Curtin made headlines in a number of major US newspapers. Roosevelt was deeply upset at this in-fighting between Britain and

Australia and the disunity it demonstrated to the world. Roosevelt also believed that he had a part in the matter, as he had told Casey that he hoped he (Casey) would take the position in the Middle East ‘because of his knowledge of American, Australian and British matters’.222 Churchill, however, was still angry over the matter and continued to complain to Roosevelt about Curtin and the Australians.

The battles between Churchill and Curtin ceased in March as American troops and supplies continued arriving in Australia for the future counter-attack into the Pacific. The original plan was to use Australia as a staging post for sending reinforcements to the Philippines, but when the Philippines fell to the Japanese, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that

Australia would be used as the building up point for the planned thrust into Japanese held territories. General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia on 18 March 1942 on

Roosevelt’s orders, and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the South West Pacific Area, shortly after. Finally Curtin had the support he had been asking for from Churchill but with no success. It was at this stage of the war that Curtin transferred Australia’s primary allegiance from Britain to America via MacArthur.

There are a number of issues raised in the alliance of Britain and Australia and the relationship between Churchill and Menzies/ Curtin. Britain had suffered more damage from

221 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 402. 222 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 402. 105 the Germans than Australia ever did from the Japanese. Churchill also had a much greater understanding of the global war than Curtin, who seemed to focus only on Australia. But at the same time, Churchill was prepared to sacrifice everything to keep Britain fighting until he could get the Americans in the war against Germany. Churchill expected Britain’s dominions to follow his orders without argument, and to provide whatever resources were required to keep Britain fighting until the Americans arrived. Churchill knew that Britain could not defeat Germany alone, even with its empire. This single-minded focus was clearly demonstrated when, after the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese, Churchill raced to

Washington to meet with Roosevelt. The main purpose of his visit was not to discuss how to handle the combined threat of the Germans, Italians and the Japanese, but to confirm that

America would stick with their agreement to beat Hitler first. This is despite the fact that the

Japanese attacked America, not the Germans. The generally accepted theory on what saved

Australia was that the Americans decided on a ‘holding action’ in the Pacific, which, as will be seen in this thesis later, pushed back the Japanese. But as we now know, what saved

Australia was the fact that the Japanese never intended to invade Australia, as they just did not have the men and resources to do so. 223 Just as Australia’s relationship with Britain was complex and difficult, the wartime relationship with America would prove to be complex and difficult, but in other ways. Australia’s alliance with Britain and America would have great influence on shaping events in 1945.

223 Peter Stanley, Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia, 1942, Viking, Camberwell, 2008 106

CHAPTER 5:

‘THE BEST OF ALLIES’:

THE USA AND BRITAIN ALLIANCE

The second alliance bearing upon events in Borneo in 1945 was that between the USA and

Britain or, more specifically, Roosevelt and Churchill. A large number of books and articles has been written about the two men, their relationship, their friendship and the effects of their decisions during World War II on the post-war world. However, this thesis is about neither their relationship nor their friendship, but will focus on their secret war: the different post-war goals each had and was trying to achieve without interference from the other. For

Roosevelt, an American liberal, it was the end of colonial rule, and for Churchill, a British imperialist, it was restoring and maintaining Britain’s pre-war colonial empire.

Churchill and Roosevelt have been credited by many as the main factors in the Allies winning World War II. This chapter looks at whether their opposing goals during and after the war could have influenced or even caused a POW rescue mission to be cancelled. It is true that there was a strong personal friendship between the two men, however they were also Leaders of their country’s governments and as such their respective countries were their first priority. In the last months of the war Churchill and Roosevelt believed so strongly in their own post-war goals that they ordered actions to be taken to try and prevent the other from achieving their post-war goals.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on 30 January 1882 in Hyde Park, New York. He was the only child of James Roosevelt, who was fifty-three when Franklin was born, and Sara, who was only twenty-seven. Franklin Roosevelt’s uncle was President Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin married Eleanor, daughter of Theodore’s brother Elliott and a fifth cousin.

During his career, Roosevelt would be a New York state senator, assistant secretary of the

107 navy, the 1920 Democratic nominee for vice president, governor of New York state and president for four terms.224 In August 1921, Roosevelt contracted Polio, which left him unable to walk on his own again. During his terms as president, he would have to deal with the Great Depression and World War II. Roosevelt would die on 12 April 1945, just thirty- seven days before the surrender of Germany and only four months before the surrender of

Japan225.

The first face-to-face meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill had a strong impact on

Roosevelt, while Churchill did not even remember it. The two first met in 1918 in London, at a dinner hosted by the British Cabinet, while Roosevelt was on an official visit to England as assistant secretary of the US Navy. Roosevelt later told Joseph Kennedy, in 1939, that

Churchill ‘had acted like a stinker at dinner I attended, lording it all over us’.226 But it was

Roosevelt who started communications with Churchill when, on 11 September 1939, he wrote a letter to Churchill after he became Britain’s First lord of the Admiralty.227 When

Roosevelt was asked why he had started correspondence with Churchill, he stated that, ‘I’m giving him attention now because there is a strong possibility that he will become Prime

Minister and I want to get my hand in now’.228 In his letter to Churchill, sent late September

1939, Roosevelt stated that he would welcome the opportunity to keep in touch on a personal basis on any subject matter. Churchill was ecstatic on receiving Roosevelt’s letter and sent a reply immediately agreeing to the communications between the two and signing his letter

‘former Naval Person’.229 During World War II there would be a large number of letters and telegrams between Roosevelt and Churchill, 788 from Roosevelt to Churchill and 1,161

224 Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, Radom House, U.S.A., 2004, p. 6. 225 James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, U.S.A., 1970, p. 600. 226 David Stafford, Roosevelt & Churchill: Men of Secrets, Thistle Publishing, London, 2013, p. xiv. 227 Meacham, Franklin & Winston, p. 45. 228 Stafford, Roosevelt & Churchill, p. xiv. 229 Ibid., p.19. 108 from Churchill to Roosevelt. (It should be noted that not all of these messages were actually written by Roosevelt or Churchill, but by staff members).230

Roosevelt’s first letter and Churchill’s reply was followed by a telephone call from

Roosevelt to Churchill on 5 October 1939, regarding a possible plot to blow up an American freighter as it neared the U.S.A. coastline. Fortunately, the plot proved to be a false alarm, but it was the first time the two had spoken to each other since that awkward dinner in 1918.

231 The correspondence between Roosevelt and Churchill continued as Churchill sought to keep Roosevelt interested in the European war. On 10 May 1940, Roosevelt’s prediction came true when Churchill became the Prime Minister of Britain.232

On 15 May 1940, Churchill sent Roosevelt a cable advising, ‘Although I have changed my office, I am sure that you would not wish me to discontinue our intimate, private correspondence’.233 Churchill went on to give Roosevelt a report on the war in Europe but finishing with statements that would demonstrate that Britain was prepared to continue the war alone if needed. At the end of this cable, Churchill used the opportunity to give

Roosevelt a list of urgent needs for Britain to continue in the war. Churchill requested older

US destroyers, aircraft, weapons, ammunition, steel as well as shows of US naval strength in the areas near Ireland and Singapore.234 As argued by Harry Jaffa in his article ‘In Defense of Churchill’, ‘Britain at this juncture was a sinking raft in the North Atlantic. The United

States could have continued pumping air into it, but not as fast as Hitler could let it out’.235

Britain urgently needed America to increase its assistance by providing more protection for the convoys sailing to Britain.

230 Martin Gilbert, ‘The Big Two’, The New York Review of Books, 14 February 1985 issue, pp. 1-11, p.2. 231 Meacham, Franklin, p. 46. 232 Graham Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, Macmillan, Sydney, 2008, p.213. 233 Meacham, Franklin, p. 49. 234 Ibid., p 49. 235 Harry Jaffa, ‘In Defense of Churchill’, Modern Age, Chicago USA, Vol. 34, No. 3, Spring 1992, pp. 277-282, p. 278. 109

The association between Roosevelt and Churchill was based on a common goal of how much support Roosevelt could give Britain while not upsetting isolationist American politicians.

During the last week of July 1940, Churchill sent a cable to Roosevelt informing him of the terrible destroyer losses that Britain was suffering at the time. In his cable Churchill went on to propose that Roosevelt send Britain ‘50 or 60 of your oldest destroyers’.236 Roosevelt made a counter proposal that the US would send Britain fifty older US destroyers in exchange for 99 year leases on British naval bases in British West Indies, Newfoundland and Bermuda.237 Churchill was aware that the US got the better part of the deal, but Churchill knew that Roosevelt had to sell the deal to US Congress and Senate. Churchill’s main goal had been to ‘entangle the two nation’s affairs and interests beyond possibility of separation and divorce’.238 Of the fifty destroyers only nine were fit for immediate action and by May

1941, twenty were still not operational.239

The next major step in the alliance between Roosevelt and Churchill, and support for Britain, was Lend-Lease. Roosevelt had been searching for some way he could increase the amount of aid from the US to Britain, but at the same time keep Congress compliant. After his

Presidential victory at the 1940 election, Roosevelt took a ten-day cruise through the

Caribbean. While Roosevelt relaxed, his staffers were searching for a way to increase aid to

Britain. Production officials had confirmed that American industry could produce enough war material for both American and British needs. The only problem was that the British had run out of money so could not pay for the increased aid. It was up to Roosevelt to find a way to provide additional aid to Britain and at the same time sell it to the American public.

What Roosevelt came up with was Lend-Lease, ‘The simple notion that the United States

236 James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom, p. 11. 237 Jaffa, ‘In Defense of Churchill’, p. 71. 238 Burns, Roosevelt, p. 11. 239 Lynn Picknett et al., Friendly Fire: The Secret War Between the Allies, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2005, p. 184. 110 could send Britain munitions without charge and not be repaid in dollars, but in kind, after the war was over’.240

One of the reasons that Roosevelt devised the Lend-Lease concept was so America would not have to fight the war for British goals. Lend-Lease was used to try to keep America out of the war.241 But Roosevelt still had the problem about how to get congressional and public support for Lend-Lease ‘That would give decisive aid to the democracies, but a measure that would be unfamiliar to most voters, expensive to taxpayers and obviously un-neutral’.242

Additional advantages of the Lend-Lease Act for America, besides not having to commit troops to the war, included creating new jobs for the American workers as American continued to come out of the 1930s Depression. The Act would also allow America to have some influence on countries receiving the aid. Finally, the Lend-Lease Act would require any country requesting aid to provide a detailed financial report on their country’s financial position.243

The bill put forward to Congress, given the number H.R. 1776, would give the power to the

President to provide war material to any country he decided was necessary to fight the Axis.

After much debate and making a few amendments, the bill passed both Congress and the

Senate on 11 March 1941. The Americans believed that the way to stay out of the war was to send aid to Hitler’s enemies rather than to Hitler.244 The Lend-Lease act did not just apply to Britain, but to any other country that Roosevelt deemed necessary to send aid to. During

World War II, the United States sent US$42 billion worth of war goods and other supplies through the Lend-Lease program. Of this total amount, Britain received about half of the

240 Burns, Roosevelt, p. 25. 241 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 110. 242 Burns, Roosevelt, p.43. 243 Evgeniy Spitsyn, ‘Roosevelt’s World War II Lend-Lease Act: America’s War Economy, US “Military Aid” to the Soviet Union’, Global Research-Oriental Review,13 May 2015, pp. 1-4, p. 1. 244 Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World At Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005. 111 total amount, the USSR received about $10 billion, the French $3.5 billion, while China and other countries received smaller amounts. About 55% of the Lend-Lease aid was in the form of armaments and the remainder were for industrial and agricultural products.245

The next milestone in the Roosevelt and Churchill relationship was one that would highlight their differences in envisaging a post-war world order. Early August 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill left their respective countries secretly for a clandestine pre-arranged meeting in Argentia Harbor in Newfoundland. This was to be the first face-to-face meeting between the two since the unfortunate dinner in 1918. For Roosevelt, the purpose of the meeting was to ‘merely meet Churchill, feel him out, exchange ideas and information, and achieve a moral and symbolic unity’.246 As expected, the two discussed the war situation in Europe,

Russia and additional aid, the Lend-Lease program, and what action they should take against

Japan. At this meeting, the views of Roosevelt and Churchill differed on how to handle the

Japanese threat (though Japan had not yet entered the war). Churchill believed that America should maintain a firm position with Japan and give Japan an ultimatum to withdraw from

Indochina. He felt that a strong American position would keep the Japanese from war with

America. Churchill’s biggest fear in the Pacific was that Japan would only attack British interests in Asia and Britain would be left alone to fight the Japanese. Roosevelt believed that a softer approach with Japan would prevent a war. Roosevelt did advise Churchill that if the soft approach did not work he was prepared to take stronger steps, which could lead to war between America and Japan. Churchill’s gamble, of America taking a strong position with Japan, would either stop Japanese expansion or start a war with America. But Roosevelt preferred to play for time until America’s military forces were much stronger.247 What

Roosevelt did not realise was that America’s clock and Japan’s clocks were running at

245 Evan Mawdsley, World War II: A New History, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2009, p.337. 246 Burns, Roosevelt, p.127. 247 Ibid., p. 129. 112 different speeds. Roosevelt believed that he had plenty of time to continue negotiations with the Japanese. While the Japanese decision to go to war, was being forced by the American oil embargos, because Japan was running out of supplies and time. The approach of a point of no return was coming much quicker for the Japanese than Roosevelt had expected.

The meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill in Newfoundland became best known for the document released as a result, the Atlantic Charter. This secret meeting took place before

America had entered the war, so there could be no mention of any military discussions between America and Britain. What was released to the public was the details of the Atlantic

Charter. The Atlantic Charter was a simple document, only 312 words in all, which laid out policy for a post-World War II world. The document had eight articles, covering global trade and economics, freedom of the seas, global peace after the war, disarmament and most controversial, self-determination and self-government.248 The self-determination and self- government articles were clearly targeted at European colonies around the world. Articles 2 and 3 actually state:

They desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with freely expressed

wishes of the peoples concerned.249

They respect the right of all people to choose the form of government under which

they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to

those who have been forcibly deprived of them.250

These two articles put Roosevelt and Churchill at the opposite ends on the question of

European colonies in Africa and Asia and their future. Roosevelt had made it clear that he wanted to see the end of colonisation by European powers, while Churchill had no intention

248 W. Arnold-Forster, ‘The Atlantic Charter’, The Political Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2, April 1942, pp. 144-159. 249 Arnold-Forster, The Atlantic Charter, p. 146. 250 Ibid., p.148. 113 of giving up Britain’s colonies. The two disagreed on the issue of colonialism and would for the rest of the war: positions followed by their respective governments and their armed forces. Churchill promised that he would not ‘preside over the liquidation of the British

Empire’.251 Despite the difference of beliefs on colonialism the two men would remain firm friends until Roosevelt’s death in 1945. There is, however, only so far a friendship can go when national matters have to be considered and actions taken.

The question that must be asked is why Churchill would sign the Atlantic Charter, which included articles two and three, when he was such a staunch imperialist? There are a number of reasons that Churchill would agree to these articles guaranteeing self-government and self-determination. Firstly, in September 1941, Churchill publicly confirmed that,

‘developments within the British Empire were not affected by the Charter, and that he and the President had had in primarily the restoration of the sovereignty, self-government and national life of the states and nations now under the Nazi yoke’.252 Of course another reason was that Churchill pragmatically wanted to continue to draw Roosevelt and America further into the war and to continue supplying Britain with aid.

The extensive literature on Roosevelt and Churchill’s relationship shows that there was a special friendship between the two that was not normal for two leaders of different countries.

While Roosevelt never visited London, Churchill made four trips to Washington. The main purpose of each visit was to discuss crucial elements concerning the war, the two also spent free time together. Roosevelt always insisted that Churchill stay at the White House. Both had a love of history and the navy and would sit up late into the night talking and drinking.

Roosevelt took Churchill to the Presidential retreat named Shangri-La, later to be named

Camp David, for some free time. But even while relaxing together, they would still engage

251 Meacham, Franklin and Winston, p.118. 252 Christopher Thorne, Allies of A Kind, p. 61. 114 in serious discussions on strategy and matters regarding the war. 253 At the Argentia Bay meeting, Roosevelt said to Inspector Walter Thompson, Churchill’s bodyguard, ‘Look after the Prime Minister. He is one of the greatest men in the world’.254 At the same meeting,

Churchill said to Roosevelt Jr., Franklin’s son, ‘Your father is one of the greatest men of our day’.255 Their mutual admiration would continue despite their political differences.

But the goals that Churchill took to the meeting in Newfoundland were actually not met.

Churchill had gone to this meeting hoping to get some indication that Roosevelt would enter the war against Germany. But Churchill did not get his hopes up too high, as he had been fooled once before in 1940. As France was being invaded by German troops, Churchill was led to believe that America would enter the war. But Roosevelt lacked the support of the

American people in 1940, and at the Argentia Bay meeting, to enter the war against

Germany.256 On 29 July 1941, just days before the Argentia Bay meeting, Churchill in a speech to the House of Commons stated that, ‘The United States is giving us aid on a gigantic scale and is advancing in rising wrath and conviction to the very verge of war’.257 At the meeting in Newfoundland, Churchill put forward his proposals to Roosevelt for additional aid of war material and for America to protect the lines of supply in the North Atlantic.

Churchill said that with the extra material he would take the war to the Germans to ‘break

Germany’s morale’.258

253 IV. Statesman & Commander in Chief: FDR in World War II, Chapter 8, The Special Relationship: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, viewed 8 June 2017, http://fdr4freedoms.org/statesman-commander- in-chief.

254 Meacham, Franklin and Winston, p. 118. 255 Ibid., p. 119. 256 Martin Gilbert, ‘The Big Two’, The New York Review of Books, 14 February 1985 issue, pp. 1-11, p. 5,viewed on 2 June 2017, http://www.nybooks.com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/articles/1985/02/14/the-big-two

257 Meacham, Franklin, p. 104. 258 Ibid., p. 112. 115

Before the war, most Americans had little knowledge of Asia, European colonies or Asian people, and what knowledge they did have was from the European view. Asians were portrayed as backward, childlike and lazy, and not able to govern themselves, which is why simplistically European powers had to look after the countries for them. With these concepts of Asia in America, it is understandable that there were very few anti-colonialists before

World War II.259 Americans had seen the effects of colonialism during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the European powers used protectionism and government controlled commerce to protect themselves and their colonies that adversely affected American economic interests.260 Americans saw the European powers as using their Asian colonies, with vast raw materials and cheap labour, to get market advantages over American commercial interests around the world.

Roosevelt, as war-time President, did not see as his mandate the protection or restoration of colonialism particularity in Asia and to a lesser degree in Africa. While his anti-colonial stance was important, he was also aware that he had to keep the alliance of America and

Britain together in order to defeat the Axis. These two opposing objectives led to some confusion by others when Roosevelt would appear to switch his views about colonialism.

Roosevelt blamed the European powers and their colonies for the Pacific war. At the

Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Roosevelt told his son Elliot, ‘Don’t think for a moment, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if it hadn’t been for the short- sighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch’.261 Roosevelt’s anti-colonial position was to address a number of points, which are contained in the Atlantic Charter. The right of all people to have the freedom of self-determination and self-government and

259 Marc Frey, ‘Visions of the Future: The United States and Colonialism in Southeast Asia, 1940-1945’, Amerikastudien/ American Studies, Vol. 48, No. 3, pp. 365-388, p. 372. 260 Frey, Visions of the Future, p. 373. 261 John J. Sbrega, ‘The Anticolonial Policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Reappraisal’, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 101, No. 1, pp. 65-84, p. 66. 116 freedom of trade between countries. Roosevelt’s plan was to establish world organisation with ‘three parts: General Assembly of all nations; an Executive Council of the Big Four

Powers, (US, Britain, Soviet Union and China), and an Advisory Council made up of the

Big Four plus six or eight other nations’.262 It would be through this organisation that

Roosevelt hoped that de-colonisation would take place. Roosevelt envisaged a trusteeship system for the colonies to prepare them for future self-government. Initially, Roosevelt had proposed that trusteeship for the decolonisation process be run by the Big Four powers

(America, Britain, Russia and China). Later in 1942, he modified his concept of the trusteeship to be run by the international organisation.263

As the war went on, Roosevelt became much stronger in his anti-colonial views and more vocal about them as well. He used the American trusteeship of the Philippines as an example of what the European powers should be doing with their colonies. In a radio address on 23

February 1942, Roosevelt argued that because of the relationship between the Filipinos and the Americans, they were fighting side by side against the Japanese, something that did not occur in the European Asian colonies. Roosevelt in this address also said that the ‘Atlantic

Charter not only applies to the parts of the world that border on the Atlantic, but for the whole world’.264 At the end of the 1943 Casablanca conference, Roosevelt entertained the

Sultan of Morocco at a dinner at the resort where the President was staying. With Churchill present, Roosevelt talked to the Sultan about post-war independence and the end of imperialism.265 Churchill was horrified, as would have been the French if they had known of the discussion.

262 Sbrega, ‘The Anticolonial Policies of Roosevelt’, p. 71. 263 Ibid., p. 72. 264 Frey, ‘Visions of the Future’, p. 366. 265 Burns, Roosevelt, p. 323. 117

In 1942, a serious situation developed in India, with the Americans involved in the Indian

Crisis of 1942. At this time a combination of factors had led to serious political unrest within

India.

Congress Party ministries in the provinces had resigned, an individual civil-

disobedience movement had arisen, and nationalists had not been placated by a

British declaration in 1940 which described the Government’s goal as being the

attainment of dominion status by India “with the least possible delay” after the

war.266

This unrest came after the fall of Singapore and while the Japanese were advancing against the British in Burma. There was strong pressure on Churchill and the War Cabinet to make some kind of new political gesture to try and calm the situation. Churchill and his cabinet refused to make any change to the current policies until they became concerned about

American opinion on the India issues. In addition, because of the war, India and its current political situation was being seen by more and more outsiders than ever before. In 1942, a number of American missions went to India and found that while the political situation was difficult, the military possibilities could have serious implications for the war effort. There were questions raised over what the Indian population would do if the Japanese did invade

India, would they join the Japanese against the British. Sumner Welles, Foreign Policy

Adviser to Roosevelt, told him that, ‘A desperately serious situation is going to break out in

India and this is a vital concern to our own military and naval interests in the Far East’.267

The other problem facing America in India was the possibility that America would become identified as partners of Britain in the eyes of the Indians. An official statement was issued by the Americans advising the Indians that the American troops were in India ‘for the

266 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 233. 267 Sumner Welles to Roosevelt, 29 July 1942, Roosevelt Papers, MR Box 2. 118 purpose of aiding China, and that they would not become involved in suppressing local disorders, unless they themselves were attacked’.268

Many in America believed that America had a right to make its view on the Indian situation known because of the amount of aid being sent to Britain. In addition, India was also now receiving Lend-Lease aid. Roosevelt prepared and sent a carefully worded message to

Churchill on 10 March 1942, in which he proposed the setting up of a temporary government headed by a small representative group ‘covering different castes, occupations, religions and geographies. Roosevelt raised the proposal with Churchill again in April after negotiations with supporters of the Indian National Congress broke down. But in April, Roosevelt stated that in American opinion it was the British government’s unwillingness to negotiate that was causing the problems.

Chiang-Kai-shek and his wife visited India in February 1942. Before his visit, he requested a meeting with Gandhi, who was in prison after being arrested by the British following his

‘Quit India’ speech, but Churchill refused Chiang Kai-shek’s request. During Chiang’s visit he did encourage Indian soldiers to fight ‘wholeheartedly against the savage Japanese’, but at the same time he sympathised with Indian aspirations and called on Britain to ‘give India real political power’.269 Later in August 1942, Chiang proposed that the United States should be invited to mediate between the British government and the Indian Congress, many of whose members had been imprisoned. Chiang advised Roosevelt that if the British did not change their approach to the Indian requests India would fall to the Japanese. India was key to the Allies as firstly a base for a counter-attack against the Japanese in Burma and as a supply route to China. The threat to the supply route to China from India, gave Chiang real reason to be concerned about the political situation in India.

268 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 241. 269 Ibid., p. 237. 119

Roosevelt asked Churchill for his comments before replying to Chiang. Churchill replied that America and China should refrain from interfering. Earlier in May, Churchill had responded to Roosevelt on his reasons why India would not be given immediate self- government. His reasons were in his opinion that the Congress party did not represent all

Indians, and that the military classes, who were loyal to the British, would have their loyalty

‘gravely impaired’ if government was handed over to Congress. In reply to Roosevelt’s comment on American opinion, Churchill started his reply by saying that ‘anything like a serious difference between you and me would break my heart and would surely deeply injure both of our countries’. 270Churchill then followed with a veiled threat that he would resign,

(as Prime Minister of Britain), if Roosevelt continued to push him on the Indian question of self-government.271 Both men knew that the most important thing needed to win the war was for the alliance to remain intact. But it did show Roosevelt that Churchill would not stand for outside interference in the British Empire and that Churchill would block any attempt by

Roosevelt to dismantle British colonial systems.272

In the final meeting of Churchill and Roosevelt, with Stalin at Yalta in February 1945, the issue of dismantling the British Empire came up again. Things were not going well for

Churchill at the Yalta conference, as he could see that he had lost his special relationship with Roosevelt, who was now spending more time with Stalin in private meetings, excluding

Churchill. Churchill was becoming defensive as he felt that Roosevelt and Stalin were teaming up against him, or as someone stated the Yalta conference was a meeting of the Big

Two and a Half.273 At this conference the issue of the British colonies was not raised, but the issue of trusteeships being handled by a United Nations organisation was. When a draft

270 Meacham, Franklin, p. 180 271 Meacham, Franklin, p. 180. 272 Sbrega, ‘Anticolonial Policies’, p. 68. 273 Lynn Picknett et al., Friendly Fire: The Secret War Between the Allies, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2005, p. 398. 120 proposal was being read that the Big Five should consult on territorial trusteeships and dependent areas, Churchill could take no more. He interrupted the meeting stating ‘he would never consent to forty or fifty nations thrusting interfering fingers into the life’s existence of the British Empire’. Churchill continued to say the words, ‘never, never, never’ and repeated this a number of times.274 A break in the meeting was called to give participants a chance to calm down.

But it was during this break, that American and British officials were able to reach agreement that the trusteeship would only be applied to ‘existing mandates of the League of Nations; any territories detached from the enemy and any other territory that may voluntarily be placed under trusteeship’.275 Roosevelt believed that the trusteeship compromise would still allow his post-war goals of self-government to be achieved. For the few remaining weeks of his life, Roosevelt firmly believed that the United Nations would dissolve the imperialist colonies. But with the compromise of voluntary submission to trusteeship authority, he guaranteed that the European powers would retain their pre-war colonies.276

At the start of World War II, the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt was that of equals. Neither believed nor tried to be more superior to the other in their discussions or planning. But this began to change in 1943, as the war began to turn in the Allies’ favour and America became the major player in both the European and Pacific wars. Many historians have claimed that by the 1943 Cairo Conference, America was claiming to be the senior partner of the alliance. As stated by Christopher Thorne, ‘The days when he

(Churchill) could initiate and impose his private strategic concepts had ended. American predominance and Russia’s increasing self-confidence remained prime factors until the end

274 Morton J. Frisch, ‘Roosevelt on Peace and Freedom’, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 29, No. 3, August 1967, pp. 585-596, p.593. 275 Sbrega, ‘Anticolonial’, p.76. 276 Ibid., p. 77. 121 of the war’.277 Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. wrote that ‘The Roosevelt-

Stalin axis is gaining strength and the Roosevelt – Churchill axis is losing strength in about equal ratio’.278

The relationship between the US and Britain, while not quite equal – Britain needed US support desperately in 1941 and 1942 – was at least between the two world powers. The relationship between Australia and the US, by contrast, was markedly unequal. That imbalance was to decisively affect the outcome of events in Borneo early in 1945.

277 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 275. 278 Christopher Thorne, ‘Indochina and the Anglo-American Relations, 1942 – 1945’, Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 45, No. 1, February 1976, pp. 73-96, p. 74. 122

CHAPTER 6:

‘FREE OF ANY PANGS’:

THE AUSTRALIA AND UNITED STATES ALLIANCE

Because Australia and the US were closely allied in SWPA, the US and Australia alliance actually had the greatest impact on the cancellation of Operation Kingfisher. That relationship between the US and Australia was much more complex than the Australia and

British alliance and involved many different people and personalities. It also operated on a different scale of influence than the British/America and the British/Australia alliances, because of how Churchill and Roosevelt viewed Australia.

As we have seen, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and made rapid advances through

Southeast Asia, John Curtin realised that Britain was unable to come to Australia’s rescue.

It seemed that Britain and Australia’s worst case scenario was about to come true. Britain did not have the resources to fight the Germans in Europe and the Mediterranean, and the

Japanese in the Pacific. This left Curtin with only one option and that was to appeal to

America for help in saving Australia from Japanese invasion, which he wrongly presumed was imminent. The question of whether the Japanese planned to invade Australia is irrelevant, because Curtin and his advisors firmly believed they would. This belief by Curtin and his advisors was strongly reinforced by the actions of the Japanese when they invaded and occupied many of the islands, (eg Ambom, Rabual), in Australia mandated territories in

Papua and New Guinea. As such, Curtin was frantically looking for assistance to save

Australia from seemingly imminent invasion.

123

Interestingly, Curtin was not the first Australian Prime Minister to appeal to Roosevelt for aid. During May and June 1940, Menzies made three appeals to Roosevelt.279 But there was a major difference between Menzies’ appeal and Curtin’s appeal to America. Curtin’s appeal was for assistance for Australia while Menzies’ appeal was for assistance for Britain.

Menzies was aware that Churchill had been communicating with Roosevelt directly, requesting aid for Britain to fight Germany. Menzies suggested that the Prime Ministers of

South Africa, Canada and New Zealand should all make appeals to Roosevelt at the same time, to show the unity of the British Empire in Churchill’s requests. But the response from the other dominions was ‘decidedly cool’, as they felt that the joint appeal would show

‘panic or extreme weaknesses to Roosevelt’.280 The lack of support from the other dominion

Prime Ministers did not stop Menzies, who sent his own message to Roosevelt through his

Australian Minister in Washington, Richard Casey. After sending a copy of his message to

Roosevelt to the other Dominion Prime Ministers, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Peter

Fraser, sent a message to Roosevelt through Casey.281 The appeals by Menzies did not result in additional aid for Britain, but neither did they alienate either Churchill or Roosevelt.

But there is a question as to why Curtin would make such a public appeal in ‘Australia looks to America’: what led him to think he would get a positive reply from the article? Before the publication of this article, there had been a great deal of discussion within the Australian government regarding what support they could count on from America in the event of Japan attacking Australia. On 5 July 1939, Menzies had stated to his cabinet ‘that there could be no certainty that the United States would be either willing or able to come to Australia’s aid in the event of an attack by Japan, but the Japanese could be no surer either’.282

279 P. G. Edwards, ‘R.G. Menzies’s appeals to the United States May-June 1940’, Australian Outlook, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1974, pp. 64-70, p. 64. 280 Edwards, R.G. Menzies, p. 65. 281 Edwards, ‘R.G. Menzies’s Appeal to the United States’, p. 66. 282 Records o of the Cabinet, Menzies and Fadden, 2 May 1939 – 1 October 1941, NAA, A2697, 187, CA3. 124

In November 1940, to try to get a better understanding of America’s policy on the Pacific and Japan, Australian naval officers were sent to Washington. There they held meetings with

US naval counterparts to find out what was the current American policy and planning on the

Pacific in the event of Japanese war. At a meeting between Australian naval attaché,

Commander Henry Burrell and Captain Richmond Turner, director of the plans division of the US Navy, Turner stated that ‘on the question of supplies for units in the Far East, it is certain that plans for passage of units and their maintenance do exist’.283 In a report of a meeting with United States naval aviator Commander Frederick Sherman stated that he ‘was particularly interested in the reinforcement of Singapore via Australia by U.S. Navy aircraft

(both land planes and flying boats)’.284

What the Australians were not aware of was the preparation of an American strategy which called for ‘an eventual strong offensive in the Atlantic as an ally of the British, and a defensive one in the Pacific’.285 This was something that both Churchill and Roosevelt would agree upon in March 1941, and Churchill went to great lengths to make sure that

Roosevelt stuck to the agreement. For some months the Australians in Washington did not learn of the American adoption of ‘Germany First’ and so never reported it back to Australia.

Based on the information gathered by the Australians during their time in Washington, they reported back in error that the United States was giving the Pacific the strategic priority.

This error was not corrected as Australians were not included in further meetings between the British and the Americans on strategic matters. Nor were the British passing on information and decisions from these meetings to the Australian government. 286

283 G St. J. Barclay, ‘Australia Looks to America: The Wartime Relationship, 1939-1942’, Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 46, No. 2, May 1977, pp. 251-271, p. 255. 284 Barclay, ‘Australia looks to America’, p. 256. 285 Roger Bell, Unequal Allies: Australia-American Relations and War in the Pacific 1941-1945, Melbourne University Press, Clayton, 1977, p. 67. 286 G. St. J. Barclay, ‘Australia Looks to America’, p,257. 125

It was on the basis of the erroneous information from the Australian naval officers sent to

Washington that Curtin made his call ‘Australia Looks to America’, in December 1941. But this was not only a call to America, which he fully expected to be answered, but also his global view of how things should now proceed in the fight against Japan. When the article was published, Churchill was actually in Washington, staying at the White House, to re- confirm Roosevelt’s commitment to the Germany First agreement. The situation in late

December 1941 had descended into Churchill asking for all possible support America could give to go to Britain. While on the other side, Curtin was asking for American aid and support for Australia. It is easy to picture Roosevelt in the middle with Curtin on one arm and Churchill on the other, pulling in opposite directions. Unfortunately for Curtin,

Roosevelt confirmed his commitment to his senior ally’s Germany First strategy.

While Churchill had his promised Germany First policy, Curtin was to benefit from a United

States defensive position in the Pacific. Just seven days after Pearl Harbor, General George

Marshall, Chief of Staff of the U.S., Army ordered a staff officer, Dwight Eisenhower, to work out a general plan of action for the Pacific. Eisenhower’s initial plan called for assistance to be given to MacArthur in the Philippines, but more importantly: ‘The United

States must keep open the Pacific lines of communication with Australia and establish a base there’.287 His plan had the support of both the US Navy and Army and was approved by

Roosevelt, so that Roosevelt was now able to promise Curtin large amounts of supplies and reinforcements. The US Chiefs of Staff believed that by using Australia as a base, and with

China, they would be in a position strike back at Japanese occupied territories.

Australia had begun a new and different way of diplomacy by establishing direct, and separate from the British, legations in Washington, Tokyo and Chungking. 288 With

287 Burns, Roosevelt, p 204. 288 Roger N. Bell, Unequal Allies, p. 25. 126

Australian representatives in Washington, Menzies and then Curtin were able to directly lobby politicians and senior military officers in America. The Australian representatives also gave the Australian Prime Ministers another channel for sending messages to Roosevelt.

Curtin also used these representatives to try and influence American policy, most notably attempting to change the Germany First policy to Japan First.

But how much influence did Australia really have with Roosevelt and America? There can be no doubt that, at the start of the Pacific war, Australia was America’s most important ally in the Pacific. The Americans needed Australia as a base to build up forces for the re-taking of Japanese territories. Britain had virtually been driven out of the Asian sphere and were fighting in Burma to protect their interests in India. True, China was also an important ally of the United States, but Australia was a much more practical starting point for America to begin its campaign to push back the Japanese. Despite this important role in American planning and strategy in the Pacific, Australia had very little influence in America. As Roger

Bell explained in Unequal Allies: ‘Most significant in the wartime relationship between

Australia and the US was the great disparity in each country’s military power, economic capacity, and influence in international politics’.289 The Americans firmly believed that they were the biggest and strongest, and no matter what Australia thought or wanted it would be the American way that prevailed.

As much as America needed Australia as a base for holding and counter-attacking Japan, it was clear that Curtin needed America more. Curtin was never really able to leverage

America’s need for a base in Australia to gain more influence with the Americans. Curtin continued to push for more Australian involvement in decision making on matters in the

Pacific, he also lobbied strongly to change the American priorities from Germany First to

Pacific first, and finally he requested more war material. Curtin and his representatives were

289 Bell, Unequal Allies, p. 25. 127 unable to achieve any of these goals. Australia and New Zealand demanded direct contact with the Americans instead of a membership in a Far East consultative body based in London and headed by the British. In the end, Australia and New Zealand got their wish and a Pacific

War Council was set up in Washington. The Australians felt completely justified with this decision in May 1942, when Curtin and the War Cabinet learned of the Germany First strategy that had been reconfirmed by Churchill and Roosevelt at the Arcadia meeting at the

White House, 22 December 1941 to 14 January 1942.290 But the Pacific War Council did not operate as expected by Curtin, as it turned out to be a meeting of American, British, and

Australian and New Zealand representatives receiving updates from Roosevelt on the war’s progress, not a decision-making body.

The Australian representatives sent to Washington to lobby for reinforcements were considered to be very forceful in their appeals. ‘Doc’ Evatt, Minister for External Affairs and Attorney-General in the Curtin government, became known for his overbearing manner in his appeals for assistance for Australia. Richard Casey, Curtin’s Minister in Washington was known as a very capable man in his position and was replaced in April 1942 by Owen

Dixon, a former High Court Judge.291 With so many Australian requests, lobbying and meetings, the key people in Washington were becoming ‘Fed up with Australia’s incessant demands, and with what they saw as its extraordinary myopia – as if other countries were not equally imperilled by the Axis’.292 Another issue in the relationship between Australia and America was the limited role of the Australian Military Forces AMF usually called the

Militia. There was a strong feeling of resentment in America as to why American conscripts were ‘being sent thousands of miles away to defend Australia, while the AMF could not be

290 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 256. 291 Philip Ayres, ‘Australia’s War in American Eyes’, Quadrant, Vol. 28, No. 2, April 2003, pp. 23-31, p. 23. 292 Ibid., p. 23. 128 sent overseas’.293 Until 1943, the Militia was prevented by the Defence Act from serving outside Australian territory.

After the fall of Singapore in February 1942, relations between Australia and Britain were at a low ebb. Curtin now knew that Churchill would not be able to keep his promises to defend Australia from Japanese attack, if it was to come. The personal relationship between

Curtin and Churchill was bad and getting worse after a series of disputes. On the other hand,

Australia, as well as the Pacific, was now recognised as being an American responsibility.

The first supply convoy from America, which had been intended for the Philippines, had landed at Brisbane and discharged a cargo of men and supplies in December 1941. On March

26, MacArthur was driven from Melbourne to Canberra for his first meeting with Curtin and the Advisory War Cabinet. MacArthur gave an optimistic assessment of the situation in

Australia, saying that he didn’t believe the Japanese would try to invade Australia and that he would be amassing troops for a counteroffensive against the Japanese. Later that same night, at a dinner in the parliamentary dining room, MacArthur gave a speech, using phrases such as he had come ‘as a soldier in a great crusade’ and ‘we shall win or we shall die, and to this end I pledge you all of the resources of all the mighty power of my country and all the blood of my countrymen’.294 These were strong words and certainly Curtin felt much better about Australia’s situation after hearing them.

The ‘defensive strategy’ designed for the Pacific was decided by the Americans. The British and Chinese were not considered effective enough in the war to warrant a seat at the table.

The Americans decided to use two strategies in the Pacific, the first was a ‘defensive- offensive operation’, ‘begun in the Southwest Pacific, up the ladder of the Solomon Islands and along the northern coast of New Guinea towards the Philippines’. The other strategy

293 Ibid., p. 24. 294 David Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1996, p. 113. 129 was a direct route by the US Navy across the Central Pacific, ‘through the Gilbert, Marshall and Caroline Islands to the former US possessions in the western Pacific’. These two strategic options were to be commanded separately by the US Army with General

MacArthur, Commander-in-Chief of the Southwest Pacific Area and reporting to the Joint

Chiefs of Staff in Washington, and the US Navy with Admiral Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet also reporting to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington.295 MacArthur’s forces had to re-take more occupied land (New Guinea, Philippines), while Nimitz would have the shortest route to Japan and only small islands to re-take.

To establish a defensive position in Australia in early 1942, men and materials were needed in Australia. After the arrival of the first American convoy, a second convoy with a second

American army division was sent to Australia with American aircraft for the defence of

Australia’s northern coast. With the material being sent to Australia, it had a significant effect on the build-up for the Germany First strategy, it was with Churchill’s approval that the additional American troops were sent to Australia. As it would allow the Australian troops to remain in North Africa fighting under British command. The sending of additional men and equipment to Australia showed the US two major issues. The first was that they would need to have a much larger ship building program to handle the shipping requirements for both Europe and the Pacific. It also had the effect of delaying the invasion of French northwest Africa by a year.296

MacArthur had very strong beliefs on how the war campaign would be waged in SWPA. He started by dealing with Curtin as an equal, much in the same way he had dealt with the

295 Theodore Gatchel, ‘The Shortest Road to Tokyo: Nimitz and the Central Pacific War’, in Daniel Marston (ed.), The Pacific Companion: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2005, pp. 154- 176, p. 156. 296 Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World At Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2010, p. 331. 130

Philippine government.297 Regular private meetings were held between MacArthur and

Curtin, with Shedden included to record the meetings and decisions made. Australian military commanders and other government ministers were not included in these meeting unless something specific was required of them. Curtin and MacArthur began to use the other one in their requests to Washington for more equipment and troops. Curtin would co- ordinate his appeals to Washington with those of MacArthur for maximum effect. 298

However, there have been a number of questions raised on the way that Curtin handed

Australian sovereignty to MacArthur on his arrival in Australia. Soon after MacArthur’s arrival in Australia, he demanded that he deal with Curtin alone, on an equal basis. This evolved into the previously mentioned meeting of the three, Curtin, MacArthur and

Shedden. As Joan Beaumont explained in her address to the Sydney Institute on 21 August

1996, ‘The Australian Chiefs of Staff were replaced as the main source of military advice to the Australian cabinet by a foreign general. Curtin lacked any military experience, and was loath to challenge MacArthur’s advice’.299 Why would Curtin allow MacArthur to have such a strong influence on Australian military direction and even influence Australian political direction? Could it have been that Curtin and Australia were so desperate for assistance against the Japanese? Britain was unable to provide any assistance, but the Americans did and Curtin was willing to take extreme steps to keep the Americans in Australia to protect it.

Another issue that demonstrates the influence of MacArthur on Australian political direction was the question of conscription in Australia. During the First World War, Curtin had been an anti-conscriptionist, very active in the public movement against the introduction of

297 Jeffrey Grey, A Military History of Australia, p. 177. 298 Grey, A Military History of Australia, 177. 299 Joan Beaumont, Address to the Sydney Institute, The Sydney Papers, Winter 1996, 21 August 1996, pp. 130-137, p. 136. 131 conscription. The vote on the plebiscite, in 1916, was close but was defeated.300 So why did

Curtin go against his own beliefs of the First World War and the opinions of the Labor party in 1942-43? Initially, Paul Hasluck claimed that Curtin’s reasons were that ‘his calculation of political chances at the coming election and his shrewd response to the political campaigning of the opposition’, led to Curtin’s complete change of mind on conscription in

World War Two .301 But there were a number of theories that there was some involvement in this matter from MacArthur. Peter Love in his article ‘Curtin, MacArthur and

Conscription 1942-43’, suggests that ‘in light of recently discovered material makes possible a different interpretation: that General Douglas MacArthur precipitated the move, and that a web of military and diplomatic considerations was paramount in Curtin’s decision’.302

Curtin was faced with a restriction on the use of the compulsorily enlisted Australian Militia outside of Australia and its territories, while the AIF was able to be deployed anywhere ordered. In January 1942, Churchill, in replying to another Curtin request, ‘broadly implied that Australia might use her own resources more fully’, clearly referring to the two army situation.303 In August 1942, Curtin asked Churchill and Roosevelt for more troops for

Australia because he felt -wrongly- that Australia was still in danger of a Japanese invasion.

Both refused his request, Roosevelt because he believed there were sufficient troops in

Australia and Churchill because he did not believe the Japanese were going to invade

Australia. Curtin and the Australian Chiefs of Staff were concerned about the manpower position of Australia, since they would not be receiving additional troops from Britain or

America. The Australian Chiefs of Staff proposed two options, the first was build up a heavily fortified mainland which would require twenty-five divisions and the second was to

300 Day, Curtin, p. 256. 301 Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People 1942-43, Canberra, 1970, p. 349. 302 Peter Love, ‘Curtin, MacArthur and conscription, 1942-43’, Historical Studies, Vol. 17, No. 69, 29 September 2008, pp. 505-511, p. 505. 303 Love, Curtin, p. 510. 132 employ ‘offensive operations with limited objectives with the object of clearing the enemy out of bases now in his occupation, from which he can launch attacks against Australia and interfere with our lines of communication’.304 When Curtin discussed these issues with

MacArthur, MacArthur agreed with the second option, but expressed his concern at the growing shortage of Australian troops. With MacArthur’s plan, more Australian troops would be needed outside of Australia, but the Australian Militia could not be used under the current Defence Act. The solution now became clear to Curtin, in that he would need to amend the Defence Act to allow the AMF to be sent outside Australia. 305

How much influence did MacArthur have on Curtin’s decision has been shown through two sources. The first was a transcript of Curtin’s confidential press briefing made by Frederick

Smith, a journalist working for several press agencies, both Australian and American. Smith recorded Curtin telling him that ‘The request on the one army question came to Curtin, from

MacArthur, in Perth. Curtin does not want it said, however, that MacArthur actually asked for it because, technically, MacArthur should have no concern with a political matter.

Technically, he was asking for all handicaps to be removed which would prevent his disposition of troops wherever they were needed’.306 The second source was from the journals of Colonel Gerald Wilkinson, the British Liaison office on MacArthur’s staff, which

Christopher Thorne used for his article ‘MacArthur, Australia and the British, 1942-1943’.

In an interview with MacArthur, recorded by Wilkinson, MacArthur stated that when he arrived in Australia, Curtin had promised him that Australian troops should go wherever he needed them.307 Curtin’s promise to MacArthur was another reason for his change to the

Defence Act regarding the Australia Militia. But even after the amendment, the Australian

304 ‘Defence of Australia: Appreciation by Chiefs of Staff, September 1942’, No 48/1942, A2679,NAA. 305 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 450. 306 Fredrick Smith Papers, 20 November 1942, No 34, MS 4675, National Library of Australia. 307 Christopher Thorne, ‘MacArthur, Australia and the British 1942-1943: The secret journal of MacArthur’s British liaison office (part II)’, Australian Outlook, Vol. 29, No. 2, 20 March 2008, pp. 197-210, p.197. 133

Militia could only go as far as Australian territory and to a limited area beyond, not the full

SWPA area.308

Before MacArthur was appointed as Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area,

Curtin did demand an amendment be made to the proposed directive from Washington. The directive gave MacArthur the authority to deploy Australian troops outside Australian territory, something not allowed for the conscripted Militia at the time. The amendment was made giving the Australian government the final say over the sending of Australian troops outside of Australian territories.309 The actual relationship between Curtin and MacArthur has received a mixed response from historians. Joan Beaumont said ‘Curtin’s relationship with MacArthur seems excessively dependent’.310 David Day in his book John Curtin: A

Life wrote, ‘there was also a mutual respect and even affection that quickly developed between the drab, socialist politician and the colourful, conservative general. They bridged the gap between them with a shared love of poetry and an overwhelming commitment to secure the defence of Australia’.311 Christopher Thorne in his book Allies of a Kind claimed

MacArthur told his British liaison officer in October 1942, that ‘Curtin and co more or less offered him the country on a platter when he arrived from the Philippines’.312 Finally, in

Jeffrey Grey’s book A Military History of Australia, he proposed that, ‘It is not suggested that MacArthur used Curtin solely for his own end, but by 1944-45 the benefits in the relationship flowed one way and there is some evidence that towards the end of his life

Curtin regretted the degree of control which he had given MacArthur’.313

308 Thorne, MacArthur, Australia and the British, p. 198. 309 Day, John Curtin, p. 514. 310 Beaumont, Address to Sydney Institute, p. 135. 311 Day, John Curtin, p. 512. 312 Thorne, Allies, p. 260. 313 Grey, A Military History of Australia, p. 177. 134

In 1942, two major battles took place that changed the Pacific war entirely. The first was the battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, followed by the battle of Midway in June 1942. These two naval battles stopped the Japanese advances in the Pacific and changed the tide of the war. Before the battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese main fleet had been in constant action since 26 November 1941, starting with the attack on Pearl Harbor.314 After the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese fleet sailed to the Indian Ocean to attack the key supply route for the

British in India and Burma. An invasion of India or Ceylon was out of the question, as the

Japanese Army refused to provide the troops. But the Japanese navy did manage to inflict serious damage on the British navy and carry out raids on Colombo, the naval base at

Trincomalee and shell some positions on the Indian coast.315 At the end of the naval operations at Ceylon on 10 April 1942, the Japanese fleet was forced to return to Japan for urgent repairs and replacements for casualties and aircraft. The plans for operations scheduled by the Japanese high command now meant that the timetable was very tight to meet the objectives.316

The first planned operation for the Japanese fleet after leaving Tokyo was the landing of troops at Port Moresby. The Japanese were looking to secure their defensive perimeter to the south in New Guinea. But an American carrier task forced blocked their way and the ensuing naval battle became known as the battle of the Coral Sea. American losses were greater than the Japanese, but it was a clear strategic victory for the Americans. Because for the first time in the war the Japanese had been stopped, the battle of the Coral Sea was followed closely by the battle of Midway. Once again the Japanese were looking to secure their defensive perimeter to the east by taking the island of Midway. The Americans had the upper hand going into the battle using intercepted Japanese messages and in the battle sank

314 Weinberg, A World At Arms, p. 329. 315 Jeremy Black,’ Midway and the Indian Ocean’, Naval War College Review; Washington, Vol. 62, No. 4, Autumn 2009, pp. 131-140, p. 136. 316 Weinberg, A World at War, p. 329. 1,038 kilometres 135 four Japanese carriers. This was the end of an offensive Japanese navy. While still powerful, it would be unable to take the initiative again in the war.317

On land in the southwest Pacific, two major battles took place that further turned the tide of the war against the Japanese. The first was the battle for the Kokoda Trail in Papua, starting when the Japanese landed at Buna on the north coast on 21 July 1941. The Japanese were pushing the Australian Militia back towards Port Moresby. On 7 August 1942, the

Americans landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Although the battles were roughly 1,400 kilometres apart, each had an effect on the other. When the Americans invaded Guadalcanal, the Japanese reinforcements destined for New Guinea were sent to

Guadalcanal. This left Japanese troops on the Kokoda Trail with no supplies or reinforcements and they were ordered to retreat from within sight of Port Moresby back to

Buna by Japanese high command. The fighting on Guadalcanal was much more intense and it took until February 1943 before the battle for Guadalcanal would be over.318

With the naval victories at Coral Sea and Midway, and the land victories at Kokoda and

Guadalcanal, it was clear that there would be no attempted Japanese invasion of Australia.

Japan did not have the troops, the naval strength, or, indeed, any reason to invade Australia.

But Curtin continued to push Roosevelt and Churchill for more men and aircraft to protect

Australia against a possible Japanese invasion. Curtin was still privately receiving material from MacArthur to use in the Australian case for more aid from Roosevelt and Churchill. It was not until June 1943 that Curtin finally publicly admitted that Australia was not in danger of a Japanese invasion319.

317 Robert Love, ‘The Height of Folly: The battles of the Coral Sea and Midway’, in Daniel Marston (ed.), The Pacific War Companion, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2005, pp. 75-105, p. 79. 318 David Horner, ‘General MacArthur’s War: The South and Southwest Pacific campaigns 1942-45’, in Daniel Marston (ed.), The Pacific War Companion, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2005, pp. 123-139, p. 128. 319 Peter Stanley, Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia, 1942, p. 181. 136

Interestingly, although Roosevelt was fully committed to a Germany First policy, the amount of men and materials sent to Europe and to the Pacific show a different story. At the end of 1943, there were 1,878,152 US servicemen in the Pacific against 1,810,367 US servicemen in Europe. The number of American aircraft sent to the Pacific totalled 7,857, while 8,807 were sent to fight Germany. In combat ships, 713 ships went to the Pacific and

515 ships to the European war.320 These figures show that despite a Germany First strategy, the Pacific war was receiving equal if not more of the material from the US.

As the advance against the Japanese moved further north, MacArthur’s attention turned more toward his return to the Philippines. While most historians are in agreement that the relationship between Curtin and MacArthur was still strong, cracks were starting to appear in the alliance as a whole. To start with, when MacArthur set up his SWPA command, he appointed Americans to all command positions. This was despite the fact that there were a number of qualified Australian officers and the majority of the active troops at the time were

Australian. MacArthur did appoint Blamey as Commander of Allied Land forces, but

MacArthur made sure that he was never able to command any American troops.321

Another incident which caused strain in the Australian/American relationship was the relieving of the Australian Lieutenant-General Sydney Rowell, commander of New Guinea

Force fighting the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail. Canberra and Washington were worried that Port Moresby would be taken by the Japanese, despite reinforcements being sent there from Australia. MacArthur, concerned about his reputation and possible loss of command of SWPA, instructed Blamey to go to New Guinea and relieve Rowell of command. This is despite the fact that the Japanese were now retreating from Port Moresby. When Blamey took command of New Guinea Force, which caused a major rift between Blamey and

320 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 289. 321 Grey, A Military History, p. 177. 137

Rowell, because of the way in which Blamey mis-handled the replacement process of

Rowell.322 Blamey further alienated himself from the Australian troops when he called the

21th Brigade ‘Running Rabbits’, because he believed that the 21th Brigade had not stood and fought the Japanese but had retreated or run away from the Japanese advances. 323 The general feeling in SWPA and among the senior Australian military officers, was to send

Blamey to New Guinea so that if the operation failed, he would take the blame. The fighting in New Guinea showed a strained relationship between the Americans and the Australians with claims by the Americans that the Australians wouldn’t fight. Curtin stated in an off- the-record interview that the ‘problems in New Guinea were due to the fact that the

Americans could not fight’.324

As the war in the Pacific progressed further north, Curtin began to see a concerted effort by

MacArthur to sideline the Australian troops from any real part in the war against Japan.

Curtin and his cabinet fully understood that ‘Australian participation in the war effort would impart leverage in the peace settlement’.325 In a letter from Major General Richard Henry

Dewing, Head of the British Services Mission, to Wilkinson in February 1943, Dewing wrote ‘I am convinced that MacArthur is working steadily to exclude the Australians from any effective hand in the control of land or air operations or credit them, except as a minor element in a U.S. show’.326

While in London, during the Curtin and Blamey visit for the Commonwealth Prime

Ministers’ conference, May 1944, Blamey engaged in discussions with the British Military on a British force to be sent to the Pacific. Both the British and Australians believed that there was a need for a strong British presence, for post war negotiations. In these discussions,

322 David Horner, Blamey: Commander-In-Chief, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1998, p. 332. 323 Peter Brune, A Bastard of a Place: The Australians in Papua, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2003, p. 257. 324 Day, John Curtin, p. 539. 325 Peter Stanley, Tarakan: An Australian Tragedy, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1997, p. 22. 326 Thorne, MacArthur, Australia, Part II, p. 199. 138 the matter was raised that Blamey would command the British/ Australian forces in Asia, outside the command of SWPA. In an effort to “protect” his Australian troops for the new

British/ Australian force, Blamey advised MacArthur, at a meeting in Brisbane on 24 June

1944, that the Australian troops would not be available for the Philippines invasions. On 26

June 1944, Curtin and Shedden returned to Australia from their trip to Britain and America,

(they came by ship, Blamey returned by airplane), following which there was a meeting between Curtin, Shedden and MacArthur. In this meeting, MacArthur informed Curtin and

Shedden that Blamey had advised that the Australian troops would not be ready for the

Philippines invasions. MacArthur was also aware of he discussions between Blamey and the

British military, regarding Blamey’s promised command of the new joint British and

Australian Asian force. It was at this stage, that MacArthur ruled out Australian participation in the Philippines campaign.

Curtin had turned to the Americans when he saw that Britain could not protect Australia and would not give Australia a say on British matters affecting it. When the Americans took over responsibility for Australia, protection seemed possible and there were promises of Australia being given more of a say in matters affecting Australia in the war in the Pacific. Curtin and

Shedden tried to use their ‘close and cordial relationship with MacArthur to try and influence global strategy, as decided in Washington, however these efforts achieved little’.327 Despite the fact that Australia was the most important Commonwealth ally in the Pacific in 1941-

1945, they were being pushed to the side more and more by the Americans. The Americans were now determined to conduct the war as they saw fit, simply because they were the biggest power in the Pacific. By running an American operation exclusively, there would be no need for consulting or getting approvals from other governments.

327 Peter Edwards, ‘Curtin, MacArthur and the surrender of sovereignty: a historiographical assessment’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 175-185, p. 178. 139

It was at this stage that Curtin turned back to Britain and became a strong member of the

Empire. Curtin had realised that Australia could achieve nothing with America on its own, but would have a better chance as a part of the British Commonwealth. In September 1944,

Curtin sent a message to Churchill warning

There is developing in America a hope that they will be able to say they won the

Pacific war by themselves… I am deeply concerned at the position that would arise

in our Far Eastern Empire if any considerable American opinion were to hold that

America fought a war on principle in the Far East and won it relatively unaided,

while the other allies including ourselves did very little towards recovering our

lost property.328

On 4 July 1944, Curtin sent Churchill a cablegram in which he outlined the best possible way for British forces to become involved in the Pacific War. In the cable Curtin advised that he had spoken to MacArthur and that the best contribution that the British can make would be British naval forces. Curtin was aware that the British army and air force would not be free from Europe for some time and states that ‘MacArthur believes his air and ground forces are adequate, his weakness lying only in his naval strength’.329 Curtin goes on to say in the cable, ‘It is the only effective means for placing the Union Jack in the Pacific alongside the Australian and American flags’.330 In the space of two and a half years, Curtin had gone from anti-British/pro-American to anti-American/pro-British. Australia would now start assisting Britain in re-establishing government control in the Commonwealth colonies in

Asia.

328 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 479. 329 Graham Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, MacMillan, Sydney, 2008, p. 490. 330 Roger Bell, Unequal Allies, p. 177. 140

CHAPTER 7:

RELEGATED TO A SIDESHOW

POST-WAR PLANNING AND OPERATIONS

Having established that the parties in the wartime alliances had very different, and even conflicting, interests in Asia, it is now necessary to examine how they viewed the region’s post-war future. In this chapter I will show how the America, British and Australian alliances came to have such influence on Allied clandestine missions in Asia, and how the bigger goals of the powers came to have such an impact on field operations, especially in Borneo.

This chapter also shows how many times, as history has shown, soldiers are sacrificed for the ‘bigger picture’.

As discussed earlier in this thesis Churchill was as determined to re-gain British colonies in

Asia as Roosevelt was to keep the British from re-gaining them. In Roosevelt’s Christmas broadcast of 1943, he stated that victory would mean ‘The restoration of stolen property to its rightful owners and the recognition of the rights of millions in the Far East to build up their forms of self-government without molestation’.331 But just the previous year, Churchill had announced to the British public that ‘We shall hold our own after the war’ and that he

(Churchill) ‘had not become the King’s first minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire’.332 Roosevelt and Churchill were both well aware of the other’s view of the British colonies in Asia. But neither one was prepared to sit down and discuss the issue preferring to maintain their friendship and keep the Germany First policy. Since the two leaders refused to discuss the issue, it was left to officials under the two leaders to try and achieve what their leader wanted, but would not discuss openly. The best government

331 Lawrence James, Churchill and Empire: Portrait of an Imperialist, Phoenix, Great Britain, 2013, p. 318. 332 James, Churchill and Empire, p. 318. 141 organisations to achieve these goals were the intelligence agencies, Britain’s SOE,

America’s OSS and Australia’s SOA.

British planning for post-war re-establishment of British government control of its Asian colonies began in 1942. At that time both the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office began examining ways to re-organise the British government controls of Malaya States, the Straits

Settlements, Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei.333 Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei were critical to British post-war financial and world status plans. The British had suffered a huge loss of prestige and ‘face’ when the Japanese captured British territories in Asia. In addition,

Britain was heavily in debt to America and recognised that the oilfields in Borneo could provide large amounts of revenue, as could the income from rubber and timber. But because the Borneo region was under the sphere of control of MacArthur’s SWPA, the British had to find a way to ensure that the Americans did not liberate and then set up American civil affairs units there. 334

Following these studies by the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office, a new organisation was established called the Malayan Planning Unit (MPU), in the mid-1943.335 The MPU was given the job of planning in advance the role of the Civil Affairs section, which would be working with the military services for re-establishment of British control of the South- east Asian colonies following their liberation. The MPU would also determine the best method of setting up government control of the various Malayan states, Sarawak, North

Borneo and Brunei. However, the MPU did decide that the amalgamation of all of these colonies into one was not practicable. Its officials proposed

333 A.J. Stockwell, ‘Colonial planning during World War II: The case of Malaya’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2008, pp. 333-351, p. 338. 334 Graeme Slingo, The Backroom Boys, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, 2013, p. 233. 335 Sah-Hadiyatan Ismail, ‘Second Colonial Occupation: The United States and British Malaya 1945-1949’, Asian Culture and History, Vol. 4, No. 1, January 2012, pp. 29-40, p. 30. 142

Singapore should be a separate colony because of its special status, while the Borneo

territories were considered ill-prepared for a union. It was agreed to appoint a

governor general, who would have direct control over all the chief officers of the

several administrations and be able to co-ordinate policy throughout the region.336

But to make these changes the British would still need to negotiate new treaties with the

Malayan Sultans – and would need to liberate the erstwhile colonies from the Japanese. It was concluded that the best time to negotiate these new treaties would be immediately after the Allied invasion to liberate Malaya and the other colonies. Once an area had been liberated, the military and the Civil Affairs units would take over government control of the area, ensuring the British regained control of their colonies without American interference.

The MPU’s plan for the re-organisation of Borneo, Brunei and Sarawak was different from the one for the Malayan states. This was because of the way that they had been governed before the war. Sarawak had been ruled by Sir James Brooke as a ‘White Rajah’, and his family, since 1841. An English gentleman-adventurer, Sir James Brooke assisted the Sultan of Brunei in putting down a rebellion. As a reward, the Sultan of Brunei gave Brooke the governorship of Sarawak, which remained with the Brooke family until after World War

II.337 American, German and English individuals managed to acquire concessions and grants from the Sultanates of Brunei and Sulu in the area known as British North Borneo. Alfred

Dent, an English investor, managed to obtain a royal charter by Britain’s parliament, which in turn created the British North Borneo Chartered Company in November 1881, which governed North Borneo.338

336 Stockwell, ‘Colonial Planning’, p.339. 337 Ooi Keat Gin, The Japanese Occupation of Borneo, 1941-1945, Routledge, Oxfordshire UK, 2011, p. 7. 338 Gin, The Japanese Occupation, p. 8. 143

The post-war plans for Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo all involved negotiations with the various governing bodies and their exiled representatives: the Sultan of Brunei, the Rajah

Brooke of Sarawak and the British North Borneo Chartered Company. As the British government required complete government control of all of these territories, at a meeting on

31 May 1944 of the British War Cabinet, approval was given to a plan:

to acquire the above territories by a) negotiating the purchase of the sovereign and

administration rights of British North Borneo from the British North Borneo

Company, b) to incorporate the Settlement of Labuan in the new administration for

North Borneo and c) conclude new treaties with the Sultan of Brunei and the

Rajah of Sarawak, which place these territories under direct British rule.339

There was a major complicating factor in the British plans, as mentioned before, that all of these territories were in the United States sphere, under the command of MacArthur in the

Southwest Pacific Area. The British report also proposed a way around this problem with

MacArthur, by invoking the terms of the Charter of the Combined Civil Affairs Committee.

Under this charter, the British government was entitled to provide the American Commander

‘with directives on Civil Affairs policies in these British territories’.340 After the liberation of areas in these territories, British Civil Affairs officers would follow the military and set up government control as soon as possible. The British decided to approach the Australian government in August 1944 and ask it to use Blamey to negotiate with MacArthur and

SWPA on matters related to Borneo. Blamey continued to work with the British Directorate of Civil Affairs and MacArthur on the structure and makeup of the British Civil Affairs unit, which then had to be approved by MacArthur. In January 1945, MacArthur asked Blamey

339 British Cabinet Report of 29 August 1945, ‘Policy in Regards to Malaya and Borneo, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, viewed 5 May 2016, http://filestone.nationa archives.gov.uk/pdfs/small/cab-12g-1-cp-133.pdf., p. 7. 340 British Cabinet Report, Policy in Regards to Malaya and Borneo, p. 4. 144 for his views on the British proposal and Blamey advised that he found it lacking in being able to perform the necessary duties with a combat formation. It was at this stage Blamey decided to form the Australian Civil Affairs unit.341 By using the British/ Australian Civil

Affairs Units in Borneo, following in after the military operations, government control would be established by the British at the war’s end.

But it was important that purchasing North Borneo and securing new treaties with the Sultan of Brunei and the Rajah of Sarawak be completed before the liberation, so that the taking control by British Civil Affairs would be legal.

In a message from Stanley Bruce, the Australian Representative London, to Curtin on 24

October 1944, Bruce stated,

Penetration of the British territories should be by a British organisation which would

maintain such contact with the natives as will demonstrate to them the undiminished

interest of Great Britain in their liberation and a reminder that they will be returning

to the British Empire.342

There could be no doubt that whatever else they were intended to achieve, these operations planned to return the pre-war British colonies to British rule after the war. Even if Roosevelt and Churchill had different views on this, they did not discuss the return of British rule until the conference in Yalta, known as Argonaut, on 4 – 11 February 1945. At this conference,

Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that ‘within the sphere of Southeast Asia Command that the status-quo of the pre-war western colonial possessions would be maintained’.343 A decision was also made on Borneo at the Yalta conference. Wartime northern Borneo ‘would be restored to British Borneo, namely Sarawak to Brooke Raj, Brunei as a British protected

341 Graeme Sligo, The Backroom Boys, p. 194. 342 31/301/ 343A, A816, NAA. 343 Ooi Keat Gin, Post-War Borneo, 1945-50: Nationalism, Empire and State Building, Routledge, Milton Park UK, 2013, p. 51. 145 territory and North Borneo to the British North Borneo Chartered Company, with all 3 territories designated British protectorates as they were pre-war’.344

But how did they get Roosevelt to agree to the return of all of Britain’s pre-war colonies after the war, something he had been so determined to prevent. In January 1945, many inside

Roosevelt’s inner circle were becoming concerned about Roosevelt’s health and state of mind. ‘By January, the President appears to have becoming somewhat muddled in his thinking’.345 This comment was made in relation to the question of post-war Indochina and the French. Roosevelt had been strongly anti-French, especially in terms of the French re- gaining their colony of Indochina. In January 1945, Roosevelt began making contradictory statements about the French and Indochina, such as the one to Edward Stettinius, US

Secretary of State, ‘I still do not want to get mixed up in any Indochina decision’. Another statement he made was in regards to the liberation of Indochina, when he said ‘From both a military and civil point of view, action at this time is premature’. He claimed to have made this clear with Churchill at the Quebec Conference, but the records show that the matter was never raised.346

At the Yalta conference, various observers commented on how frail Roosevelt was and how thin his face was. Eden thought him ‘vague and loose the first evening’ and Lord Moran,

Churchill’s personal physician, wrote him off as a ‘dying man’.347 Charles Bohlen,

American diplomat and translator and Soviet Union adviser to Roosevelt at Teheran and

Yalta, stated that at Yalta, Roosevelt was ‘ill, the most important of the wartime conferences, but he was effective’.348 But Lord Moran also recalled, in his book Winston Churchill: The

Struggle for Survival 1940-1945, ‘Everyone seemed to agree that the President had gone to

344 Gin, Post-war Borneo, p. 51. 345 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, o. 628. 346 Ibid., p. 628. 347 Burns, Roosevelt, p.573. 348 Meacham, Franklin and Winston, p. 319. 146 bits physically… He intervened very little in the discussions, sitting with his mouth open’.349

It is very clear that Roosevelt was gravely ill, and he would die two months later. At the

Yalta conference, Roosevelt was not able to be as powerful as he had once been at the meetings of the Big Three. This would explain the decision to give back control of the Asian colonies to Britain.

The MPU planned for the re-establishment of British government control in the territories of British Borneo by having Civil Affairs officers follow the frontline troops as they liberated villages and towns. The Borneo Planning Unit was established in October 1943, within the Colonial Office, to plan for the military administration of the liberated territories in Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo.350 The Borneo Planning Unit was militarised in

February 1945 and renamed 50 Civil Affairs Unit. No less than fifty Civil Affairs Units teams were sent to Australia in March 1945 to prepare to enter Borneo to set up British civil administration.351

The idea of a post-war civil affairs unit was raised on 18 October 1944, in a memo from

Lieutenant.-General Sir John Lavarack to Blamey. In his memo, Lavarack stated that ‘It appears to me that we should, if not already done, make immediate arrangements to have a pool of Australian officers of the fighting services trained in Civil Affairs in order that they may be available to accompany any Australian force which may be available if requested by either the War Office or the War Department at a later date’.352 So they set up an Australian civil affairs unit to re-establish military civil administration in areas of Borneo as they were liberated. Thus, the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit was formed (BBCAU) and attached to the Australian Military Forces but were to work parallel to the British 50 Civil Affairs

349 Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival 1940-1945, Sphere, London, 1968, p. 250. 350 Gin, Post-War Borneo, p. 54. 351 Ibid., p. 54. 352 Memo from Lavarack to Blamey, Dated 18 October 1944, 376/5/14, 54, AWM, p. 1. 147

Unit.353 But when the British learned what the Australians were planning, the plans were changed, and the British 50 Civil Affairs Unit was merged with British Borneo Civil Affairs

Unit into one unit known as British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit. But the members of British unit and the Australian unit were selected on very different criteria. The British unit

‘consisted of elderly British civilians in uniform, some of whom had worked for the Brookes in Sarawak or for the North Borneo Company… Many of them were generally unfit for service with a combat formation during the operational phase’.354 The Australian members came from the Australian 9th Division, and were serving soldiers, with the fitness to accompany combat troops in Borneo.355 In 1944, the British had been requesting Australians to serve in the British unit in Borneo under British command. But because of the operational requirements in April 1945 meant that the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit would be

Australian and the ‘British would supplement the Australian unit’.356

In exchange of cables and letters, the strategy became clearer on exactly how the SRD would be used in gaining British control in Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei. In a letter from Major-

General Frank Berryman to Blamey and copy to Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Chapman-

Walker, Berryman advised that,

S.R.D. officers will act wherever possible as advance representatives of BBCAU,

who will furnish S.R.D. with all policy directives intended for CA (Civil Affairs),

officers, and will keep S.R.D. informed on all matters of general policy in connection

with the administration of territory. 357

This message confirms the fact that the British and Australian governments realized that there was a need to increase the speed of establishing control over more territory before the

353 Gin, Post-War Borneo, p. 55. 354 Sligo, The Backroom Boys, p.197. 355 Sligo, The Backroom Boys, p. 198. 356 Ibid., p. 199. 357 Letter to from Berryman to Blamey, dated 21 June 1945, 376/5/4, 54, AWM. 148 end of the war with Japan. To do this, they were using SRD teams in the field as civil affairs officers because the BBCAU were unable to get through the Japanese occupied territory of

Borneo.

At the same time as the establishment of the British and Australian civil affairs units, there were other operations in place to ensure the re-establishment of British rule in Asia. As claimed by Max Hastings in The Secret War, ‘Once the British and American secret services realised that they could contribute little to the defeat of Japan, both focused their energies on the advancement of rival post-war commercial, political and strategic interest’.358 On the basis of the research undertaken for this thesis, I would argue that both had been pursuing both wartime and post-war agendas for some time. Since Churchill refused to discuss the return of British colonies with Roosevelt, all actions to achieve this goal had to be kept secret from the Americans. Although the Americans, however, were very much aware of what the

British were trying to achieve in Asia for after the surrender of Japan. John Paton Davies,

Chief Political Adviser to General Joseph Stilwell, commander of the American China-

Burma –India Theatre, wrote a commentary on ‘Anglo-American Cooperation in East Asia’ for Stilwell and OSS Washington. In his report he explained that,

The re-acquisition and perhaps expansion of the British Empire is an essential

undertaking if Britain is to be fully restored to the position of a first class power.

Therefore reconquest of the Empire is the paramount task in British eyes. The

raising of the Union Jack over Singapore is much more important to the British

than any victory parade through Tokyo.359

358 Max Hastings, The Secret War, William Collins, London, 2015, p. 514. 359 Richard J. Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, p. 5. 149

Because Roosevelt and Churchill refused to discuss port-war colonies, it was left to the

Foreign Office and the State Department officials, none of whom wanted to make any decisions on the matter. As a result of this lack of guidance, the intelligence agencies were forced to fill in the gaps by trying to work out what they were expected to do in regards to the other’s post-war objectives, both economic and political. This left the British SOE fighting the American OSS to set up operations in Southeast Asia to promote what they considered to be their respective government’s wishes. As Richard Aldrich explained in his book Intelligence and the War against Japan,

Secret services quickly became key players in the struggle between Churchill and

Roosevelt over post-war Asia. Their initial task was to report on the rival plans and

ambitions of the Allied governments, headquarters and civil affairs staff. By

1944 this had translated into a barely disguised ‘Great Game’ to achieve the

upper hand in clandestine pre-occupational strategies across South East Asia. At

times the war against Japan appeared relegated to a sideshow.360

The OSS and SOE battles were not however happening in SWPA because MacArthur would not let the OSS or the SOE operate within his area of responsibility. MacArthur wanted to keep total control of SWPA and who was allowed to operate in it. Throughout the war in the

Pacific, Col. William ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, head of the OSS, made repeated requests to

MacArthur to ‘run subversive or psychological warfare programs in SWPA’361. MacArthur refused every request, even when Donovan approached the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they also refused his requests because they did not want to put pressure on MacArthur on Donovan’s

360 Aldrich, Intelligence and the War against Japan, p. xv. 361 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 30. 150 behalf.362 There were three reasons that MacArthur would not allow OSS to operate in

SWPA, they were:

Willoughby’s ambition to control all Intelligence work in SWPA, MacArthur’s

objection to independent agencies in his command area and the inevitable clash

between two strong personalities, [MacArthur and Donovan], equally fixed in

purpose.363

SOE did manage to have some involvement in SWPA through SOA, which was operating in SWPA, but only as a part of the AIB and under MacArthur’s control, or so he thought.

This left the main battles between SOE and OSS taking place in Indochina.

In Indochina there was so much happening there involving the French, British and the

Americans, all trying to push post-war objectives. ‘French Indochina witnessed the most intense Anglo-American conflict of all, OSS officers were determined to prevent France from re-gaining control of its cherished colony, while the British strove to assist the French cause’.364 In early 1944, the SOE was pushing for the insertion of 1,200 French Special

Forces operatives, under French command, from North Africa, into Indochina. This would provide a strong resistance group within the country to fight the Japanese. The British also saw that if they could help the French and Dutch re-gain their Asian colonies, they would present a stronger united force against the Americans. Roosevelt blocked the transfer and, while Churchill was pressed to raise the matter with Roosevelt and get him to change his decision, Churchill refused to do so.365 The Dutch government had made a proposal to the

Australian government to allow 30,000 Dutch troops and civil servants be stationed in

Australia until the time was right for them to go to East Indies and re-establish Dutch rule

362 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 30. 363 Corey Ford, Donovan of OSS, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1970, p. 253. 364 Hastings, The Secret War, p. 517. 365 Aldrich, Intelligence, p. 207. 151 there. Australia at first agreed with this proposal, but later withdrew the offer, claiming adequate facilities could not be found for the Dutch troops and civil servants.366 Like the

British, the French were keen to be seen as having fought against the Japanese to liberate

Indochina, to give them reasons to have ‘pre-occupation elements in place at the end of the war’.367 Also in August 1944, so confident of victory over Japan, ‘The French Committee of National Liberation and the Dutch government-in-exile began to formulate a joint policy for their former colonies, with an eye to re-possessing them’. To Roosevelt, it confirmed his fears that the old European powers were working together to take back their Asian colonies368.

To counter this decision by Roosevelt’s decision to not allow the transfer of 1,200 French

Special Forces from North Africa to Indochina, SOE developed the ‘Belief’ program in May,

July and autumn 1944 to deliver French officers to Indochina to ‘organise local resistance and W/T communications’. But the OSS discovered that on the ‘Belief II’ mission, Baron

Francois de Langlade, Head of the Free French in the Far East, and two other French officers were inserted into Indochina, carrying messages from de Gaulle to General Eugene Mordant, head of the Vichy French military in Indochina. To make matters worse, the SOE had not informed the British Foreign Office, nor Esler Denning, political adviser to Admiral Lord

Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, of this mission. The OSS informed Washington that the SOE had dropped de Gaullist agents into

Indochina using American airfields. On 17 February 1944, Roosevelt had made his position clear that there was to be no American assistance to the French in liberating Indochina. It was proposed that SOE and Free French not be allowed to use American facilities and the

366 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 648. 367 Ibid., p207. 368 Lynn Picknett et al, Friendly Fire; The Secret War Between the Allies, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2005, p. 401. 152 matter was raised at the White House. Although there is no record of Roosevelt’s reply, immediately the SOE’s air-staging rights through Kunming China were withdrawn.369

This episode had further reaching ramifications, in that a dispute started between

Mountbatten and Major General Albert Wedemeyer, Commander of US Forces in China, regarding rights over clandestine operations into Indochina. Wedemeyer claimed that, as commander of US Forces in China, he also had command of Indochina as previously agreed by the British and American senior commanders. As such, Wedemeyer would have the right to veto any SOE operations there. In late 1944, the British Chiefs of Staff requested that

Churchill intervene, which as he always did in these matters involving Roosevelt, he passed the matter on to his Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. When the dispute was finally raised with Roosevelt, on 10 January 1945, at a meeting with Lord Halifax, British Ambassador to

Washington, Roosevelt stated to Lord Halifax in regards to clandestine operations in

Indochina,

If we felt it was important, we had better tell Mountbatten to do it and ask no

questions. He did not want to appear in any way committed to anything that would

seem to prejudice the political decision about Indochina in a sense favourable to the

French status quo ante.370

But Roosevelt’s comment had no effect on Wedemeyer, who continued to ban British special duties flights using American facilities at Kunming and to veto any SOE operations into

Indochina.

With SOE now denied use of the American airfields in China, they were forced to use RAF’s

Special Duties squadrons to make the extremely long flight from Burma to Indochina to maintain the supply of men and weapons to the French resistance. Also, because of the

369 Aldrich, Intelligence, p. 208. 370 Aldrich, Intelligence, p. 209. 153 dispute with Wedemeyer, SOE did not inform the Americans of these flights to Indochina.

On the night of 22/23 January 1945, ‘an American P-61 Black Widow night fighter of the

US 14th Air Force appears to have shot down two RAF B-24 Liberators carrying French agents into Indochina, with the loss of all on board’.371 In the book Friendly Fire, the authors claim that ‘Several British aircraft were shot down by US fighters’.372 Air Vice-Marshal

Harcourt Smith wrote a month later on the incident ‘I am convinced that it will be in the best interests of all concerned if we adopt sealed lips on these incidents and drop all ideas of any investigation’.373 As in Borneo, national post-war objectives prevailed over allied strategy.

There have been many theories on what happened to the British aircraft that disappeared en route to Indochina carrying French agents. Interestingly, the British official history of the

SOE makes no mention of the missing aircraft. Others have put the blame on tropical weather, which could rip an aircraft apart with its winds. While others have pointed to the high incidence of ‘Friendly Fire’ being the cause of many of the night time kills of the US

14th Air Force. But the fact remains that if Wedemeyer did use the shooting down of British aircraft as a deterrent to stop the British from delivering French agents and supplies to

Indochina, it did not work. For the first eight weeks of 1945, ‘seventy-one successful sorties were flown by the RAF Special Duties aircraft to northern French Indochina’.374

In January 1945, at the Yalta conference, Roosevelt reconfirmed his opposition to the despatch of 1,200 French Special Forces to Indochina. Rather than object to Roosevelt’s statement, Churchill simply gave SEAC his ‘unilateral approval’ to continue to support the

Free French’.375 SOE then increased their efforts to assist the Free French with their

371 Hastings, Secret War, p. 517. 372 Picknett eta al, Friendly Fire, p. 402. 373 Aldrich, Intelligence, p. 210. 374 Martin Thomas, ‘Silent Partners: SOE’s French Indochina Section, 1943-1945’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 34, No. 4, October 2000, pp. 943-976, p. 959. 375 Picknett et al, Friendly Fire, p. 403. 154 operations in Indochina. By the end of February 1945, ‘approximately one hundred personnel had been inserted into Indochina and another three hundred were in training in

India. Large quantities of weapons, explosives and more than a million rounds of ammunition had been dropped’.376 But, in the end, the requirements of the French proved too large for SOE to maintain with only airdrops.

When OSS and SOE were started during World War II, their initial agendas were to fight the Axis. But as the war went on and victory became a certainty, their agendas changed to one of political and economic focus. In 1944-45, SOE and OSS became instruments of their government’s post-war objectives. While establishing resistance groups in occupied territories and gathering intelligence on the enemy were still important; finding out the other’s post-war objectives and operations to achieve these goals was just as important. As stated in Richard Aldrich’s article ‘Imperial Rivalry’,

While many such operations were designed to gather intelligence upon, or to

facilitate resistance against the Japanese, the possibilities for establishing influence

with senior political figures in these countries, or alternatively, laying the foundation

for the return of colonial rule seem considerable. Thus both British and American

intelligence organisations mounted rival political operations, which ironically, they

were unable to conceal fully from each other because of the degree of practical inter-

Allied co-operation in all Asian theatres.377

The methods used by both the SOE and OSS became more and more daring and bold. The

OSS had been concerned about efforts of the SOE to get inside the China OSS organisation and, in April 1945, claimed to have finally gotten the evidence. OSS claimed that it had

376 Aldrich, Intelligence, p. 211. 377 Richard Aldrich, ‘Imperial rivalry: British and American intelligence in Asia, 1942-46’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 5-55, p. 22. 155 obtained a document proving that one of the British missions in the China theatre was there for the purpose of ‘counter-espionage and to plant employees in the OSS, American Army and Air Force units’.378 But the OSS was not innocent either, ‘as well as spying on the

Japanese, the OSS in Calcutta reported to Washington on the political situation in India, while the propagandist American Office of War Information (OWI) set up offices around

India in 1942’.379

But what was now clear was that the British had a plan to re-establish government control in Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei using the British Borneo Civil Affairs Units and Special

Operations Australia. The plan started with the insertion of a number of SRD teams for intelligence gathering, which was one of Mac Arthur’s main requirements. This intelligence was needed for the upcoming landings at Tarakan (1 May 1945), Brunei (10 June 1945), and

Balikpapan (1 July 1945). Starting in March 1945 until the surrender of Japan, there were six ‘Agas’ teams inserted into North Borneo, three ‘Semut’ teams inserted into Sarawak, one ‘Squirrel’ team inserted into Tarakan, ten ‘Stallion’ teams inserted into various parts of

North Borneo, Brunei and Sarawak, and twelve ‘Platypus’ teams inserted into the

Balikpapan area.380

As shown in C. A. Brown’s series of books, The Official History of Special Operations –

Australia, the inserted SRD teams did gather and report back intelligence and did try to train guerrilla fighters from the local population. But they also set up rough forms of administration and ‘Agas II’ set up a hospital to treat the locals. Food stores were dropped in for the local population, Japanese collaborators were captured, and air strips were built for small aircraft and ‘organising the native population’.381 By these actions, it can be seen

378 Aldrich, Imperial Rivalry, p. 27. 379 Picknett, Friendly Fire, p. 365. 380 Brown, Special Operations – Australia, p. iv-v. 381 Ibid., p. 181. 156 that the SRD teams were starting the process of re-establishing British control, which would be completed with the arrival of civil affairs units. Once the civil affairs units arrived, they would, as planned, set up a more official form of government. When the war ended in

August, the British were well established and in control of Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei.

The covert aspect between Britain, America and other allied services over the restoration of

European rule in Asia explains the context of the cancellation of Operation ‘Kingfisher’.

157

158

CONCLUSION: A LACK OF PRIORITY

There are two key points to be considered as to why the Sandakan POWs were not rescued.

The first is that there can be no question that Gort Chester effectively killed the Kingfisher rescue operation in two ways. The first was that Captain Derek Sutcliffe did not go to

Sandakan with the ‘Kingfisher’ team to gather the last-minute intelligence on the Sandakan

POW camp so the rescue mission could be started. The second when Chester incorrectly signalled that all POWs had been moved out of the Sandakan POW camp. When Chester sent his message of 4 April 1945, saying all Sandakan POWs had been moved out of the prison camp to Ranau, GHQ took this message to mean there were no POWs at Sandakan to rescue. Operation ‘Kingfisher’ was cancelled on the basis of this message from Chester, which was based on false information, gathered from a local chief, two hundred kilometres away from the Sandakan POW camp.

However, now that it is known that Sutcliffe was actually a member of SOE, and based on his actions in Borneo, it could be easy to conclude that the SOE never intended for there to be a POW rescue mission. Chapman-Walker had been in constant contact with SOE London, and Chester had only just returned from London, where he met with SOE, less than two months previously. Both would have been fully informed of the British government plan to re-gain control of North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei by inserting as many SRD agents as possible. These agents would establish the initial British control of these areas until the

BBCAU units could arrive and take over. This was clearly the plan, because this is exactly what happened.

The decision to combine the ‘Agas’ and ‘Kingfisher’ teams, using the ‘Kingfisher’ entry point, was made by Chapman-Walker without any consultation with his senior officers. Such a major change in a mission which involved the rescue of POWs and required the use of

159 aircraft and ships should have surely needed GHQ approval. The report of the final meeting of 12 February 1945, before the ‘Agas’/ ‘Kingfisher’ teams departed, was full of details of the objectives and duties of the ‘Kingfisher’ part of the team. In this report, it clearly states that ‘AK162 [Chester], will go by boat to meet Agas II and will leave the remainder of the party to carry out the Kingfisher tasks’. 382 The fact that Sutcliffe was also an SOE agent now explains why he did not go to the Sandakan POW camp to get the last-minute intelligence needed for the rescue mission. It would seem that Sutcliffe was under the same orders as Chester, which makes it clear why he went north with Chester.

When Chester was given the information by the local chief that the all of the Sandakan

POWs had been moved out of the camp, it provided him with the perfect cover story on why the ‘Kingfisher’ mission was not carried out. This was a great piece of luck for Chester and

Sutcliffe, as it would explain why Sutcliffe did not go to Sandakan to get the required intelligence for the rescue. It is amazing that no one ever questioned why the information on the POWs came from a local, two hundred kilometres from the camp and was never verified.

Chester’s message and his failure to verify the information on the POW had grave consequences. Based on the faulty information from Chester, the Americans believed the

Sandakan camp was empty and bombed Sandakan and the POW camp as part of a diversion for the Tarakan landings. As a result of the bombings, the Japanese believed that an Allied landing at Sandakan was imminent and started Death Marches 2 and 3. Any remaining prisoners who were too ill or weak to walk on the marches were then killed by Japanese guards and their bodies buried at the camp. So a message with incorrect information and a failure to carry out orders led to a cancelled POW rescue mission and the deaths of the

382 A1/1, A3269, NAA. 160 remaining Sandakan POWs, either in the Sandakan camp, on the road to Ranau or at the

POW camp at Ranau.

When an American PT Boat picked up Richard Braithwaite, on 15 June 1945, one of the six

Australian POWs who escaped from the Death Marches, he was able to inform the Allies of what had really happened to the Sandakan POWs. 383 The Allies had been operating under the false impression that all of the POWs had been moved out of Sandakan POW camp, based on Chester’s message of 4 April 1945. Braithwaite was able to tell the interviewers that only about 500 of the POWs had been sent out on the first Death March, in January

1945, while the remaining POWs remained at Sandakan. He was also able to inform the persons conducting the de-briefing, that following an air attack and sea attack by American

PT Boats on Sandakan that Death Marches 2 and 3 had started. The truth was now out for everyone to see and the consequences of Chester’s incorrect message advising that ‘all’

POWs from Sandakan had been moved out. When the real story of what had happened to the Sandakan POWs was known, the SRD teams in British North Borneo sent a local agent named Willie, (possibly someone known to Chester before the war), to go to Sandakan to see if any POWs remained at the Sandakan POW camp. As reported in an Intelligence report dated 15 July 1945, covering SRD activities up to 27 June 1945, ‘the Agas agent who was sent by Agas to ascertain the position, did not return to Agas but continued to do good work’.

384

There can be no question that an actual rescue mission did exist for the POWs at Sandakan and that it was called ‘Kingfisher’. This plan was approved by MacArthur and his staff on 2

December 1944, and confirmed to Wills, when he visited GHQ after he took over command of AIB. ‘Kingfisher’ is mentioned in a number of reports and documents found in archives,

383 Richard Wallace Braithwaite, Fighting Monsters, p. 269. 384 Intelligence Report No. 11, Dated 15 July 1945, p. 10, HS 1/244, UK Archives. 161 in Australia, UK and in America.385 There is also evidence of the Australian parachute battalion training for a POW rescue mission, and British landing craft ships training to evacuate personnel off beaches. As shown by the monthly GHQ Aircraft Status reports, there were more than enough aircraft for the rescue mission during the period of December 1944 to May 1945. The ‘Kingfisher’ rescue mission, and the requirement for last minute intelligence for the rescue mission to start, is even mentioned in the final meeting report combining ‘Agas I’ and ‘Kingfisher’.

The real clue as to the actions of Chester and Sutcliffe lie in a statement made to Gubbins,

Head of SOE, by another SOE officer, when he wrote:

The real S.O.A. objects of his mission, (Chester and Agas I), namely the softening

of local inhabitants, the training of guerrillas, and the arrangements for ex-

government officials to resume government of the Colony as soon as it has been

liberated, have not been mentioned to S.W.P.A. as they are matters in which they

would have no interest.386

When the ‘Agas I’ team was unable to land in Borneo on their first attempt in January 1945, it was deemed too dangerous to try any other landing spot, except the Kingfisher landing spot. It was imperative that Chapman-Walker get ‘Agas I’ into Borneo to carry out its mission, (re-establish British contact with the locals), the POW rescue was considered unimportant in the big picture. But this was the way in which Chapman-Walker liked to run

SRD, or rather wanted to run it. It was only that all the leaders of the ‘Agas I’ and

‘Kingfisher’ missions were SOE agents that the changes made could take place without consulting senior command. As I have shown throughout this thesis, the British were intent

385 NAA, NARA, MacArthur Memorial 386 AD4/ 2348, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, to CD, Major-General Colin Gubbins, HS 1/239, UK National Archives. 162 on recovering their Asian colonies after the war. The British needed the financial returns from the colonies as well as the prestige, to remain a first class world power.

But there is another critical aspect that research for this thesis has uncovered, and that is

Chester’s part in a cover up of the failed POW rescue mission. In chapter 2, reference was made to a statement made by Chester to Jack Wong Sue in Borneo that Blamey was planning to blame MacArthur for the cancellation of Operation ‘Kingfisher’. 387 This statement was reportedly recorded by Silver in an interview with Jack Wong Sue many years after the war.

But it does raise the question of if Chester and Blamey were both involved in developing a cover story to explain the lack of action of ‘Agas I’/ ‘Kingfisher’. At this time period, the reports that there were still POWs at Sandakan would have been known. So a cover up of his responsibility in the failed POW rescue mission, when he didn’t allow Sutcliffe to gather the Sandakan intelligence was needed. A cover story that was later used by Blamey with first Lieutenant-Colonel Overall and then at the RSL in Melbourne on 19 November 1947.

Evidently both knew that there was never going to be a rescue mission from the time that

Operation Kingfisher was merged with ‘Agas I’.

This raises another point, and that is the involvement of Blamey with the SOE and the operations to re-establish control in Borneo post war. In 1942, when the SOE wanted to set up a similar type organization in Australia, they approached Blamey. After being dismissed from the AIB, Mott in a letter to SOE London, stated, ’I [Mott], never realised until too late, that it was a private bargain between SOE and the C.-in-C. [Blamey]’, for the establishment of Inter-Allied Services. 388 When Chapman-Walker had his falling out with Willoughby,

SOE advised in a message that Chapman-Walker was to wait until Blamey returned to

Australia before making his official reply. The fact that Blamey later denied supporting

387 Lynette Silver, Interview with Jack Wong Sue, Sandakan: A conspiracy of silence, p. 335. 388 Letter from Lt-Col GE Mott to Sir Charles Hambros, Head of SOE, 11 March 1943. HS 1/232, UK National Archives. 163

Chapman-Walker, would fit Blamey’s personal operating style. Blamey was also aware that two sets of plans were being produced, one for GHQ approval and the other for what SOE really wanted to achieve. Finally, during the writing of the official history of SOA, it was found that Blamey had ordered files from Mid-1942 to early 1943 to be destroyed, as well as advising that only two unabridged copies of the SOA history were to be published, with one copy for himself and the other for SOE. It is reasonable to think that the ill feelings between Blamey and MacArthur would make Blamey more supportive of the British cause and to do work for SOE. But the question that would have to be asked, would Blamey have known that the planned rescue mission of the Sandakan POWs was not going to take place, because the British government placed a higher priority on re-establishing government control in Borneo?

As I have also shown, there was a constant battle between the Allies and within AIB sections for independence of operations from GHQ. The reason for this was that SOE and its operatives working as section commanders wanted more freedom from SWPA GHQ so they could carry out missions to meet British goals and objectives. The officer who started

Special Operation Australia, Mott, an SOE agent, ended up being replaced as head of the

SRD section because of his fight for more freedom for his section. His replacement,

Chapman-Walker, also an SOE agent, also lost his position for trying to run SRD as an independent operation of GHQ.

It has been documented that Chapman-Walker was placed in Australia on the orders of SOE and was suggested to Blamey by SOE as the replacement for Mott. Blamey in turn recommended Chapman-Walker to MacArthur, who approved his appointment. 389As mentioned earlier in this thesis, Chapman-Walker was reporting to SOE, the British War

389 Telegram from General RH Dewing, SOE London to Lt-Col Mark Chapman-Walker, Head of SRD, 23 March 1943, HS 1/232, UK National Archives. 164

Cabinet and to C-in-C AMF (Blamey), on SRD activities. Chapman-Walker would have been well briefed on the British post-war objectives and their plans to re-gain government control of their Asian colonies. It would have been his duty to assist the British government to carry out their orders to achieve the post-war re-establishment of government control.

The other fact that needs to be reviewed is Chester’s visit to London in 1944. When ‘Agas

I’ approval was delayed and then postponed until January 1945, Chester left Australia to go to London. Chester was working for SOE during the war on loan to the AIB. It was no secret that, while he was in London, he visited SOE headquarters to brief them on Borneo and a most likely assumption can be made that there would be some discussion on re-gaining

British control of Borneo,. Chester’s commanding officer at SRD was of course, Chapman-

Walker.

Based on this information, a logical conclusion would be that Chester and Chapman-Walker were operating on orders from SOE and the British government when they failed to send a team to get the final intelligence on the Sandakan POW camp for the rescue mission. They were ordered to go to meet local informants, re-establish contacts with pro-British residents, establish guerrilla forces, and set up local administrations. The British plan to establish control over as much of Borneo and Sarawak as possible, before the end of the war, took precedence over the rescue of the Australian and British POWs.

As I have demonstrated, planning for this had started in 1942, with the establishment of the

Malayan Planning Unit. The MPU developed plans for the British government to take control of Singapore, Malaya, Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei at the end of the war. Britain badly needed these colonies to maintain prestige as a world power and to pay for the huge debt it had incurred during the war. From these Asian colonies, Britain could count on income from oil, tin, timber, rubber, copra and many other commodities. So it was important

165 that Britain had British or Australian officers on the ground in these colonies to be able to claim control of them.

The insertion of British/Australian intelligence gathering SRD teams provided the perfect way to have significant numbers of troops in place in Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei. As I have shown, thirty-one teams had been inserted into these areas, giving a wide coverage of the territory, besides providing intelligence, training guerrilla forces and attacking the

Japanese, as an ‘end of mission’ report showed,

They, (local natives), could see a tangible effort being made to get them back to a normal way of life while hostilities were still in progress. Food was brought in from SRD stocks, augmented by the purchase of local produce. Relief was established and controlled, collaborators were rounded up and held for trial while evidence was collected. The nucleus of a police force was organised under pre-war lines. Law and order were established in the area under Semut II control, pending the arrival of the military civil affairs unit.390

This process was repeated in all of the areas where the SRD teams were operating. In some areas, make-shift hospitals were set up to treat the natives, with doctors flown in to treat them. There was a need to provide inter-tribal law and order to prevent civil unrest, inter- tribal wars and head-hunting. In effect, the SRD teams reasserted British control even before the troops arrived in the invasions in June 1945.

As has been shown in this thesis, Churchill’s entire focus was on getting America to enter the war and then adopt a beat Hitler first strategy. The fighting in North Africa was critical to Churchill to be able to show Roosevelt that Britain was not helpless but was holding its own against Hitler. To achieve this, Churchill needed as many troops as possible, including those from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, the Gurkhas of Nepal as well as

390 Brown, Special Operations Australia, p. 209. 166

Free French, Poles, Greeks, Czechs and Yugoslavs. But while Churchill was fighting with

Curtin to keep the three Australian divisions, he was maintaining forty-five divisions of

British troops and five Canadian divisions in Britain to protect against a possible German invasion. This was long past the time when Churchill had found out that Hitler had cancelled plans to invade Britain and had attacked Russia instead.391 Churchill was firm in his belief that if he could keep Britain free until America entered the war with Britain to beat Hitler, he could re-take any territories lost, including Australia and New Zealand.

Roosevelt, in his dealings with Churchill, was not always straight as it seemed. For all of

Roosevelt’s assistance to Britain, there always seemed to be an advantage gained by

America. When Roosevelt traded fifty old destroyers for 99 year leases on British naval bases, most of the destroyers were unfit for active service. With the passing of the Lend-

Lease Act by Congress, Churchill got his aid, but Roosevelt was able to kick-start the

American economy, which had been struggling to break out from the depression. The

Atlantic Charter became known for giving countries around the world self-determination and self-government, directly aimed at the European colonies. It was to provide freedom for millions of people under European rule, but at the same time it was to stop British trade preferences within the Commonwealth, which had restricted American international trade.

It was clear that Churchill needed Roosevelt to win the war, just as Roosevelt knew he needed Churchill. It is also true that there was a real friendship between the two, despite their differences. Because, at the end of the day, a personal friendship can only go so far when you are head of a country. At some stage, there will be differences in what your friend wants and what your country needs. For Churchill it was the anti-colonialist views of

Roosevelt, and for Roosevelt it was the restricted trade barriers used by the British before the war. Roosevelt had plans for a post-war world with free trade, which would allow

391 Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia, p. 435. 167

America to become the dominant power. Roosevelt also saw America and Russia as the world policemen to prevent future world wars. Britain was not a part of the global police, because Roosevelt saw Britain’s colonies as being broken up, and, broken by the war, it would no longer be a world power. What Roosevelt did not count on, of course, was how powerful Stalin and the Soviet Union would become, and how sick and helpless he would become.

As a result, the ‘Kingfisher’ POW rescue mission failed not because MacArthur would not release the aircraft needed, nor was it Blamey’s misjudgement, but because of positioning by the British government for post-war trade wars with America in Asia. In the end, all but six POWs were killed or died at the Sandakan POW camp or on the Death Marches.

It is probably said best by Alan Powell, in his book War by Stealth, when he wrote:

Wars are essentially cruel and brutal and in the execution of the principal object no

activity which does not contribute to the achievement of that objective can be

entertained. The men of Sandakan and Ranau died because they did not have the

priority to give them life.392

We now know what that higher priority actually was: the restoration of British colonial rule in Borneo.

392 Powell, War by Stealth, p. 283 168

Appendix I – GHQ SWPA – Monthly Aircraft Status Reports – December 1944 – May 1945

December 1944: Total On Hand Out of Service

C47 556 59

C46 144 24

Gliders 74 7

January 1945:

C47 518 38

C46 220 14

Gliders 62 0

February 1945:

C47 521 47

C46 212 29

Gliders 61 11

March 1945:

C47 488 52

C46 262 27

Gliders 187 1

April 1945:

C47 481 50

C46 271 32

Gliders 186 0

May 1945:

C47 467 36

C46 309 39

Gliders 359 0

169

Appendix 2 – 1903 Map of British North Borneo

170

Appendix 3 – The Japanese Empire in 1942

171

Appendix 4 – Map of the movements of Agas I

172

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