Some winnable wars

Many wise pundits have pointed out that a War on Terror is impossible to finish. When can we actually stand down the troops? Is Terror going to surrender? Etc. All good points.

Here is my list of winnable wars we could consider as an alternative. While most of these targets are not evil, certainly not in the al-Qaeda class, I think the benefits to the morale of the western world of a short, sharp, successful blitzkrieg, outweigh the [very few] negatives.

• War on Terrines
• War on Terriers
• War on Terry Towelling (followed by the War on Terylene, together known as the Fabric Conflicts)
  
• War on Terri Irwin
• War on Terracotta Statuary
  
• War on Terrazzo Contractors
  
• War on Terrariums
• War on Pteradactyls
• Waugh, Ontario

WW1 dazzle ships

From an exhibition at Rhode Island School of Design (documented here).

The father of camouflage, Abbott Thayer described animal coloration as a way to conceal or disrupt an object. Dazzle is disruptive (think of a zebra). French artists developed military camouflage in World War I. Ships were hard to camouflage against U-boats because the sea and sky were always changing and of the smoke they produced. Norman Wilkinson, a marine painter who was in the Royal Navy, is credited with being the first to develop dazzle camouflage for ships. The Royal Navy allowed him to test his idea. When the test went well Wilkinson was told to proceed, however, he was given no office space. So he went to his alma mater the Royal Academy and was given a classroom. Wilkinson hired Vorticist Edward Wadsworth to be a port officer in Liverpool, England and oversee the painting of dazzle ships. In 1918, Wilkinson came to United States to share his dazzle plans. 1,000 plans were developed through this partnership.

Kokoda by Peter FitzSimons

I thought I knew something about the story of the battle for the Kokoda Track in New Guinea during WW2. I realise now I knew more about many other battles, remote in time and place, than I knew about this one, so close to home and so crucial to my parents' generation. If Australia had lost this battle my Mum and Dad might well have grown up in a country partly or wholly occupied by Japan.

So now, with the zeal of the converted, I can see that all Australians should be educated about this pivotal moment in our history, and learn from both the mistakes made and the incredible heroics displayed there. If you don't know much about it, get hold of one of the many books on the subject or look it up in Wikipedia - it makes for staggering reading.

This is by way of a review of one of the books, Kokoda by Peter FitzSimons (2005, Hodder Australia). As it introduced me to a gripping story I have to say I could hardly put it down. (I saw the film Kokoda when it came out a couple of years ago, but it concentrates on one patrol and doesn't convey much of the big picture. OK film though).

While I was fascinated by the remarkable individual stories, the waxing and waning fortunes of the two sides, and the quite incredible official blunders, I found the style of writing pretty ham-fisted. Before this FitzSimons had written one or two military histories, but his main gig has been rugby books. This one has a bit of rugby about it, and a lot of the Commando comics "banzai Japs".

"..seeing as this particular Jap spoke English and therefore probably understood it, many of the diggers took the opportunity to express their own thoughts on the matter and to tell him just where he could stick his bloody bayonet and, while he was at it, to tell the murderous bastards he was with that they were gonna get their own throats slit before long! And so it went.

Really though, what the hell? In a choice between them screaming or shooting at you, the Australians would take screaming any day. The main thing was that Captain Symington had passed the word that, once it was dark, they were going to pull out anyway and get back to Deniki. [...] They had held the airfield for two days now without Morseby flying anything in to them, so what was the bloody point?

No point, cobber. Saddle up. We're out as soon as the captain gives the word."

It's so liberally sprinkled with bloodies, buggers, bastards and so on, it's as if your only witness to history is a bloke most of the way through a carton of stubbies. All this above is his own author's voice, he's not quoting anyone. The book has sold very well, and I'm sure the old diggers love the way its written, but its not to my taste.

On the plus side FitzSimons gives a fairly balanced warts-and-all picture of the variety of Australians who fought at Kokoda. There are brave, brilliant, cowardly, clueless, compassionate and merciless officers. There are the bronzed Aussie regulars of the AIF, the ragtag 39th Battalion of part timers, and the even less imposing 53rd Battalion, many of whom felt they had been shanghaied. (They signed up on the understanding they would only fight on Australian soil - New Guinea was Australian soil only on a fine technicality.)

The Americans (led by the famous Gen. Douglas MacArthur) generally are depicted as arrogant, selfish and rude, the Australian top brass (led by Gen. Sir Thomas Blamey) as pompous, remote, ignorant and even corrupt. I am keen to read more about the events and personalities to see if there might possibly be another side to the story.

I am proud to say that my mum's father Frank Jackson fought in the New Guinea campaign, although he was not on the Kokoda Track. He didn't speak about his war much, and now he's gone I am trying to find out more about his story too.

More Sikorsky (by popular demand)

The Ilya Muromets (Sikorsky S-22) was designed and constructed by Igor Sikorsky at the Russo-Baltic Carriage Factory (RBVZ) in Riga in 1913 [...] (It) was first conceived and built as a luxurious aircraft. For the first time in aviation history, it had an isolated passenger saloon, comfortable wicker chairs, bedroom, lounge and even a bathroom. The aircraft also had heating and electrical lighting. [...] If it had not been for World War I, the Ilya Muromets would have probably started passenger flights.

With the beginning of World War I, Sikorsky decided to change the design of the aircraft to become the world's first purpose-designed bomber. Internal racks carried up to 800 kg of bombs, and positions for up to nine machine guns were added for self-defense in various locations, including the extreme tail. The engines were protected with 5 mm-thick armor.

But of course they kept the comfortable wicker chairs.

Uses for the intestine of the yak

This short quote comes from The Albert Coates Story, by Albert Coates and Newman Rosenthal. Coates was an Australian surgeon in World War Two, who was captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore. Here it is 1943, he is in a camp in Burma, and a Dutchman named Captain van Boxtel has recently arrived. In civilian life van Boxtel was a chemist - and he is able to prepare some cocaine in the correct concentration for anaesthesia, from some pills Coates had been carrying for years.

Anaesthesia below the groin was perfect and my first amputation under a cocaine spinal injection was accomplished. It is not to be recommended under civilised conditions, but any port in a storm, and we got off to a good start with the amputations. In the next few weeks one hundred and twenty legs came off; many a toe was removed without anaesthesia and with scissors only. We made ligatures of catgut from the peritoneal coat of the intestine of the yak and sterilised the skin with alcohol prepared by van Boxtel from Burmese brandy and waste rice