Quote:
Originally Posted by Targan
This bit is of interest to me. The Cocos Keeling Islands are administered by my state jurisdiction (delegated authority from the federal government). The islands have a very contentious internal political history (a single white family ruled there like kings for 150 years, over a population of imported Malay workers).
There was a small military presence on the islands during WWI and a much bigger presence during WWII, including military airfields and bomber squadrons.
But the interesting part in terms of this T2K timeline is that under normal circumstances the stationing of US forces on the islands around that time would probably have been hugely contentious, but for three important factors:
1) The rapidly escalating WWIII.
2) The Liberal-National Coalition had won federal government in March of that year.
3) The Liberal-National Coalition retained government in Western Australia just 16 days before, but with an increased majority.
The new federal government was led by Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard, who was and is hugely pro-US (the Australian Liberal Party historically has always been so to some degree). With the Liberal Party also now having an absolute majority in the Western Australian Parliament, any political opposition to the decision to station US forces on the Cocos Keeling Islands would have been totally ignored.
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I'm glad I caught your itnerest! I try to put things in that will be interesting to everyone!
I read up a little on the Cocos Keeling Islands, and saw that the RAAF regularly launched P-3 patrols from there as well as a think tank proposal about 10 years ago to construct a major Diego Garcia-type facility with hardened aircraft shelters and a pair of two-mile runways. Much more than what I imagined the SEEBEEs would do, which was more oriented towards the housing, administrative and logistical upgrades needed to equip the existing airport with the minimal facilities needed to support the aircraft and their associated personnel.
I try not to delve too deeply into the political realm other than outcomes, and honestly I hadn't put a lot of thought into the domestic political implications. One additional thought I would throw out there would be - does the public (and even members of the political and military leadership) know that this is even occurring? The islands are isolated and have a small population. With wartime emergency measures, the civilian population could be evacuated or the communications links turned off. As time goes on these things become more difficult to conceal, but there were lots of secret agreements and plans that had been put in place in the Cold War, and maybe this was one of them?
I recently acquired a copy of "
Cold War Warriors: Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion Operations 1968-1991" and hope to find time to read through it and put in some things about RAAF P-3 operations, as well as anything it may have about plans for cooperation with the US.