Quote:
Originally Posted by Targan
I'd like to think that the ANZACs would've been there too. Maybe not though, MacArthur... obviously didn't think our guys rated. Try telling that to the men that fought on the Kokoda Trail, basically holding back the Japanese alone and buying time for Australia until the US committed troops.
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I want to preface this post by admitting that I don't know a whole lot about Australia's military involvement in WWII. I'm not trying to stir up drama here, or insult anyone. I want the Australian perspective on this issue and that's why I'm posting this here.
In his history of the final year of the Pacific theater,
Retribution, Max Hastings, a British historian, gives a scathing assessment of many Australian units in the Pacific theater, claiming that they fought neither hard nor well. He attributes this to the fact that the British sent the best Aussie units to fight in North Africa and Italy, leaving less well equipped, trained, and motivated troops behind to defend Australia. These units would later be sent to New Guinea and elsewhere in the PTO to fight the Japanese and, with a few notable exceptions, they did not perform particularly well. Hastings goes on to rip MacArthur for his costly vanity project of retaking the Philippines.
He also rips the Australian dockworkers for striking multiple times throughout the war, serious hampering Allied logistics.
How are these two issues seen by Australians? Is there anything there or is Hastings so sort of Australiophobe?