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The day the empire died in shame (Read 4881 times)
falah
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The day the empire died in shame
Feb 19th, 2012 at 9:51am
 
The US Empire is likely to endure a similar defeat soon at the hands of China.

Is it time that Australia reassessed it security and foreign policy?


The day the empire died in shame


...
Grim fate ... British officers, including Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, are escorted to the formal surrender of Singapore.


The historian Dr Peter Stanley says there are several misconceptions about the Allied attempts to repel the Japanese during their nine-week, 1000-kilometre advance from Thailand to Singapore between December 1941 and February 1942...

...Stanley, who was principal historian at the Australian War Memorial for 20 years, says the full story of Australia's troop involvement in Singapore has not been told.

"Stories of Australian deserters circulate but no one has nailed down the numbers. But there is evidence that up to a third of the Australian force became stragglers [deserters]," Stanley says. "Australians will probably continue to be sensitive about it until well after the last veterans are dead and possibly even after their children are dead...

...Claims of cowardice and desertion by Australian troops in Singapore surfaced in 1993 when a secret report by the British general Sir Archibald Wavell was discovered in London. It baldly said: "For the fall of Singapore itself the Australians are responsible."

The report, withheld from Australia by the British government for 50 years, concluded that the behaviour of the Australians in the days before Singapore fell set a very bad example...

...the ignominy was compounded by the British historian Peter Elphick, who wrote in his 1995 book Pregnable Fortress that official files refer to damning indictments of the Australians, including "mass desertion, looting, rape and murder".

"There is no doubt that some Australians fought well but overall they performed badly and there is substantial evidence in these files to prove it," Elphick said at the time...

...By February 14, the records say, the Japanese had captured Singapore's reservoirs and pumping stations. As bombing, fighting and shelling continued, many Allied troops "wandered around aimlessly and the hospitals were crowded and overflowing".

"Some troops were deserting and others had become separated from their units," records say.

On February 15, Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, the British commander in Singapore, called for a ceasefire and decided to surrender. Australia's commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Gordon Bennett, had by then escaped the island, for which he was later severely criticised.

More than 130,000 Allied troops became prisoners of the Japanese. Little was known of the fate of more than 15,000 captured Australians until late in the war when some prisoners, sunk in a ship on the way to Japan, were rescued by US Navy submarines.

Australians at home then learnt of the slave labour conditions the men endured, including on the Thai-Burma railway and the Sandakan death march in Borneo. By the end of the war, one third of the Australian prisoners were dead.

Lachlan Grant, historian at the Australian War Memorial, says the fall of Singapore woke Australia up to its responsibilities as an independent nation in the British commonwealth. "[it] certainly led the Australian government to be more assertive in looking after its own interests," he says.

Grant says that by the time Singapore fell, some of the Australians who had entered Malaya from February 1941 were questioning their place in the empire they had volunteered to defend. He says members of the Eighth Division, the largest single group of Australians to enter Asia up to that point, identified equally as Australian and British, patriotic both to the nation and the empire.

"However, they were entering a region with strong racial and social hierarchies," Grant says. "Class divisions meant that ordinary soldiers - the non-commissioned officers and the rank and file - were barred from the prestigious clubs and hotels such as Raffles in Singapore."

"This was a great affront to the Australian soldiers, who were not used to this kind of discrimination … they had come to defend the British Empire but the representatives of the empire - the white European community - did not want to know them socially."

Grant says the Australians were forced to socialise in the Indian and Chinese clubs. "Such actions, as well as some of the merrymaking and larrikin behaviour of the troops, led the white colonial community to accuse the men of the AIF of lowering white prestige," he says.

Grant says that while the Allied troops defending Singapore were poorly led, the Japanese were ''decisive, well-organised and mobile".

"They attacked aggressively and were able to punch through the ill-prepared lines of defenders, often outflanking them," he says. "This caused panic and confusion and resulted in the series of Allied withdrawals down the peninsula to Singapore."...

...Stanley, who wrote the 2008 book Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia, 1942, says the attempted defence of Malaya and Singapore heralded seismic changes in white Australia's relationship with Asia, because it was the first time thousands of Australian had interacted with Asians. "...in the long term it brought Australia into a new relationship with the peoples and polities of a new Asia. Tragic in the short term, but not all bad after that."...

...Only five days after the fall of Singapore, Japanese planes bombed Darwin, an event to be remembered at services in the Top End on Sunday, and which the federal and Northern Territory governments want to elevate in the consciousness of Australians to the level of Gallipoli and Kokoda..."The Japanese wanted the resources of the region and got them over 1941 to 1942," Stanley says...

...Stanley says in the 70 years since the fall of Singapore many Australians have come to affectionately know Japan, its people and its culture...

Grant says that while the battle has been recognised as a symbolic moment in Australian national history..."It was Britain's greatest military defeat, the beginning of the end of the British Empire.

"For Singapore and Malaysia it is seen as a departure point on the road towards independence."

http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-day-the-empire-died-in-shame-20120214-1t462.html
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« Last Edit: Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:00am by falah »  

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Frances
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #1 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:06am
 
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 9:51am:
The US Empire is likely to endure a similar defeat soon at the hands of China.


And exactly what are the similarities between the present situation that the US finds itself in and this rather well known piece of WWII history?
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falah
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #2 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:29am
 
Frances wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:06am:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 9:51am:
The US Empire is likely to endure a similar defeat soon at the hands of China.


And exactly what are the similarities between the present situation that the US finds itself in and this rather well known piece of WWII history?


The US is an arrogant, English-speaking, white-run, Empire that has past its zenith in terms of global dominance.

In the early 20th century Japan was rapidly industrialising as China has been doing, but on a far larger scale.

Meanwhile the US economy stagnates as did Britiain's in the early 20th century.

Japan hungrily fed on Australian resources, including iron, in the early 20th century. Today China does the same but on a far greater scale.


Britian lost expensive war in Afghanistan...today the US is about to lose a far more expensive war in Afghanistan.


Britain spent the early part of the 20th century meddling in the Middle East, while installing and propping up pro-British dictators. In the past 60 years the US has been doing the same in the Middle East.

Britain had been considered the most powerful military (navy) in the world. Today, the US military is considered superior.

Prior to WWII, Australia had a "rely on Britain" foreign policy. Today, Australia has a "rely on the US" foreign policy.
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freediver
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #3 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:42am
 
I think what Falah is trying to say is, they are not Muslim, therefor they are doomed. The rest is just details.
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NorthOfNorth
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #4 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:46am
 
Wait till he finds out what the Chinese have in mind for fundamentalist religious zealots... (Particularly Muslims).

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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #5 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:54am
 
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:29am:
The US is an arrogant, English-speaking, white-run, Empire .


??
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #6 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:56am
 
Frances wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:06am:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 9:51am:
The US Empire is likely to endure a similar defeat soon at the hands of China.


And exactly what are the similarities between the present situation that the US finds itself in and this rather well known piece of WWII history?


Basically none whatsoever....
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falah
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #7 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 2:12pm
 
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:54am:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:29am:
The US is an arrogant, English-speaking, white-run, Empire .


??


Obama was brought up whites. He is just puppet of the white elites.
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falah
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #8 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 2:13pm
 
freediver wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:42am:
I think what Falah is trying to say is, they are not Muslim, therefor they are doomed. The rest is just details.


You seem obsessed with Muslims. I never mentioned Muslims, Islam, or not being Muslim once.
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Mnemonic
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #9 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:13pm
 
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:29am:
The US is an arrogant, English-speaking, white-run, Empire that has past its zenith in terms of global dominance.

In the early 20th century Japan was rapidly industrialising as China has been doing, but on a far larger scale.

Meanwhile the US economy stagnates as did Britiain's in the early 20th century.

Japan hungrily fed on Australian resources, including iron, in the early 20th century. Today China does the same but on a far greater scale.

Britian lost expensive war in Afghanistan...today the US is about to lose a far more expensive war in Afghanistan.

Britain spent the early part of the 20th century meddling in the Middle East, while installing and propping up pro-British dictators. In the past 60 years the US has been doing the same in the Middle East.

Britain had been considered the most powerful military (navy) in the world. Today, the US military is considered superior.

Prior to WWII, Australia had a "rely on Britain" foreign policy. Today, Australia has a "rely on the US" foreign policy.


The major difference however, is that Britain had to fight against the Germans. The US won't be held back by another major war this time. The British couldn't fight the Germans and Japanese at the same time.

I think what is really happening is the lead-up to the 21st century version of the Battle of Jutland.

At the time of that great battle, the British were blockading the Germans and preventing them from reaching out and extending their naval firepower to the rest of the world. This is like what is happening between the U.S. and China today. The Americans have set up naval and air bases in Japan, South Korea and other places in case something happens to Taiwan.

China is developing a blue water navy. In the last century, the Germans were making more powerful battleships. China is said to be working on a "carrier killer missile" and has a prototype for a stealth fighter. There is definitely an arms race in the seas surrounding China, just like a century ago between the British and Germans for more powerful battleships.

The Battle of Jutland revealed major problems in the British fleet. The Germans were outnumbered but had fewer losses. British shells often failed to penetrate the armour on German ships. The British were still using flags for ship-to-ship communication while the Germans were already using radio. There were also problems with the methods used by the British to target the enemy. Will a war in South-East Asia reveal problems in the U.S. Pacific Fleet?

It's not impossible for countries in South-East Asia to suddenly start aligning themselves with China in the event of a major military defeat. The Germans and Japanese were able to achieve this. Iran and Venezuela and some African nations are already making deals with China. Nazism spread throughout Europe and took over their governments. The Japanese had their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Would China be crazy enough to do this? It's not unthinkable after what Argentina did with the Falkland Islands. Just like the Japanese were motivated by economic needs, China might just lash out following an economic or political collapse.

When that happens ........ keep your eyes open and watch Indonesia closely. China might be making a few more friends.

....... next on the menu, the Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere. Cheesy
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #10 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:21pm
 
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 2:12pm:
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:54am:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:29am:
The US is an arrogant, English-speaking, white-run, Empire .


??


Obama was brought up whites. He is just puppet of the white elites.



You make him sound like a wolf.
He was brought up by his grandmother in Hawaii.
He went to university and was involved in the African-American law society, then moved into a law firm where he met his now wife Michelle - also African American.

I just find it funny to call America 'white run' when that photo (which stares at you every time you go down those stairs at Los Angeles Airport!) is quite clearly a black leader!
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #11 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:17pm
 
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:21pm:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 2:12pm:
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:54am:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:29am:
The US is an arrogant, English-speaking, white-run, Empire .


??


Obama was brought up whites. He is just puppet of the white elites.



You make him sound like a wolf.
He was brought up by his grandmother in Hawaii.
He went to university and was involved in the African-American law society, then moved into a law firm where he met his now wife Michelle - also African American.

Not forgetting his stint in Indonesia... Singularly probably the most informed President on non-American cultures... Most of them would have been having a lucky day if they could find Java on a map... Bush 2 didn' even know it was a whole other place Grin
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #12 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:26pm
 
Quote:
Claims of cowardice and desertion by Australian troops in Singapore surfaced in 1993 when a secret report by the British general Sir Archibald Wavell was discovered in London.


1993??? I have a late 1960's published Purnell's History of the Second World War where they state that the Australian troops were routed by the Japanese and ended up tying up brit troops in Singapore itself after going on the rampage against the local population.

It's hardly newly discovered information - okay, not 1990's discovered information.
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Andrei.Hicks
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #13 - Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:40pm
 
NorthOfNorth wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:17pm:
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:21pm:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 2:12pm:
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:54am:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:29am:
The US is an arrogant, English-speaking, white-run, Empire .


??


Obama was brought up whites. He is just puppet of the white elites.



You make him sound like a wolf.
He was brought up by his grandmother in Hawaii.
He went to university and was involved in the African-American law society, then moved into a law firm where he met his now wife Michelle - also African American.

Not forgetting his stint in Indonesia... Singularly probably the most informed President on non-American cultures... Most of them would have been having a lucky day if they could find Java on a map... Bush 2 didn' even know it was a whole other place Grin


A tad harsh.
How many Australians you stop in the street could accurately place either Wyoming or Iowa on the map?

How many Australians if asked which state Kansas City is in would say Missouri?
And how many would incorrectly say Kansas?

So, why should Aussies know?
Why should Americans know where Java is?
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Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination - Oscar Wilde
 
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Re: The day the empire died in shame
Reply #14 - Feb 20th, 2012 at 9:58pm
 
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:40pm:
NorthOfNorth wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:17pm:
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:21pm:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 2:12pm:
Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 11:54am:
falah wrote on Feb 19th, 2012 at 10:29am:
The US is an arrogant, English-speaking, white-run, Empire .


??


Obama was brought up whites. He is just puppet of the white elites.



You make him sound like a wolf.
He was brought up by his grandmother in Hawaii.
He went to university and was involved in the African-American law society, then moved into a law firm where he met his now wife Michelle - also African American.

Not forgetting his stint in Indonesia... Singularly probably the most informed President on non-American cultures... Most of them would have been having a lucky day if they could find Java on a map... Bush 2 didn' even know it was a whole other place Grin


A tad harsh.
How many Australians you stop in the street could accurately place either Wyoming or Iowa on the map?

How many Australians if asked which state Kansas City is in would say Missouri?
And how many would incorrectly say Kansas?

So, why should Aussies know?
Why should Americans know where Java is?

Well... I guess being mid-Atlantic you'd need to be geo-American up-town... Prove your balls to your new tribe n' all... i.e. got to know your US geo ABCs...

Being formerly all-English (if you were) you'd comprehend the need to know the tribe to beat the tribe...

Americans... Well... How many could point out Iowa on a map?

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