- Australia's Secret Army: the story of the coastwatchers, the unsung heroes of Australia's armed forces during World War II, by Michael Veitch. Hachette, $32.99.
This book is full of surprises, an unusual thing to say about a book on aspects of Australia during the war. Readers may think every aspect of the Australian story at war has been well covered in exhaustive detail.
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Yet Australia's Secret Army reveals a story, and a cast of characters, of which we know little. For once, the tag line "unsung heroes" is absolutely justified. Well-written with passion, thoroughly researched, and eminently readable, this book will draw the reader into its story
This is an easy book to like as it absorbs the reader, but hard to review. Readers would not thank the reviewer for revealing too many of the surprises. It would remove the fun and joy of reading this very satisfying book.
Telling the story of the establishing of the coastwatchers, their recruitment, their work, their dangers and their substantial successes is as important as it is necessary. Readers meet Eric Feldt, previously almost unknown to Australian military history.
Feldt, born in 1899, was a member of the first intake of cadet midshipmen of the Royal Australian Navy. Enthusiastic, clever, wasted, he served during the First World War almost exclusively at Scapa Flow, thinking the navy had not made the most of his war service.
Returning to Australia in 1920, Feldt resigned in 1922, securing a position as a junior officer in the administration at Rabual. Feldt fell in love with Papua New Guinea, spoke the local language, Pidgin fluently, and thought carefully.
He foresaw the coming European war, seeing Japan as a potential threat. While the idea of coastwatchers, actually informants on enemy activity behind the lines, was not Feldt's, he embraced it enthusiastically. Invited by a former navy colleague 'to set up and command a large intelligence organisation' he agreed at once. And so the coastwatchers were born.
Most of the coastwatchers were well experienced in island work before the war, either as plantation owners or workers or government workers such as patrol officers. Initially recruited as civilians it seemed prudent to offer them commissions, fearing that, if captured the enemy would execute them as spies.
Grudgingly given, these commissions often were and largely ignored by the military. But those at the sharp end of the fighting, particularly American airmen, or those on the ground under attack, knew their value. They operated as an early warning system, identifying flights of enemy aircraft, allowing allied airmen time to get into the air to make a fight of it. They observed the movement of Japanese ships in the area and the movement of troops and their numbers.
Meeting one of the leaders of the coastwatchers, Paul Mason, American admiral William F. Halsey Junior required the man to remain seated as he struggled to his feet as the admiral entered the room: "When I'm in the room with you," he said, "I'll be the one doing the standing."
Informed readers would know something of the story of Lark Force and the disaster that befell it on New Britain. Barely offering any resistance to the Japanese landing, to survive they must evade the enemy, while waiting for rescue.
Michael Veitch writes movingly of their awful, arduous, struggle to survive. They walked great distances in demanding terrain, lived off the land where they could, and desperately hoped that the authorities would recognise that they must be rescued. Increasingly this looked unlikely.
Former district officer, Keith McCarthy, pleading in vain with the military authorities in Port Moresby for rescue after leading a substantial party of Lark Force soldiers across the island, was at his wit's end, near to despair There was nothing that could be done to rescue them, Moresby told him. It simply was not a priority.
Sitting on the beach with his men, McCarthy was desolate. Veitch wonders if McCarthy was praying for a miracle. It came anyway: "Deliverance arrived in the most unlikely of forms: a white, middle-aged woman" - one of the first and main surprises Michael Veitch offers readers.
It would be wrong to reveal more of this remarkable incident except to say that Mrs Gladys Baker delivered all of them safely to Cairns. So depleted and damaged were they that only a handful were allowed to continue to serve in the defence forces later in the war.
After the war, it was estimated the coastwatchers arranged the rescue just over 600 military personnel, and 450 civilians. Fifty-six of them, including 20 natives, died for their cause. None of them were honoured for their work in Australia and few of them received even the thanks of their country. Michael Veitch has rescued them.
