"SUNSPOT SURGE: 2009 is ending with a flurry of sunspots. If the past two years have taught us anything, however, it is that the sun can be tricky and unpredictable."
"Once known as Clive Hamilton of the Evatt Foundation. Now Doc Evatt had some unusual ideas. Evatt's mental condition was questioned."
It is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war. No harder task can fall to the lot of a democratic leader than to make such an announcement.
Great Britain and France, with the cooperation of the British Dominions, have struggled to avoid this tragedy. They have, as I firmly believe, been patient; they have kept the door of negotiation open; they have given no cause for aggression. But in the result their efforts have failed and we are, therefore, as a great family of nations, involved in a struggle which we must at all costs win, and which we believe in our hearts we will win.
"So, was there a Battle for Australia?
No: not in the literal meaning of the term."
7 The troops at Torokina knew of the surrender on the 15th. That day Gracie Fields, the English singer, had arrived at Torokina. In her autobiography Sing As We Go (1960), pp. 151-2, she writes:
The General who had showed me the jungle clearing where I was to sing that evening cam e up white-faced with a sort of dazed excitement. "
'I want you to come with me now,' he said. It was midday. "He took me to the huge clearing. Already it was packed with troops. With all the top brass I stood facing them. The boys must have wondered about the small odd-looking creature I looked, all muffled up in creased khaki.
"The General stepped forward.
"`Men, at last I can tell you the only thing you want to know. The Japs have surrendered.' In the second's silence of wonderment and before the cheering could start, he held up his hand. `I have England's Gracie Fields here. I am going to ask her to sing the Lord's Prayer.'
"He led me to a small wooden box. I got on to it. There was a movement as of a great sea — every man had taken off his cap. "The matted green of the tall dark jungle surrounded us, but above our clearing the noon sun seared down from the brilliant sky on to...bare bowed heads.
"I started to sing. `Our Father which art in Heaven. . ‘Because of my cold I had to sing in a low key, but there was no sound except my voice. The hushed thousands of men in front of me seemed even to have stopped breathing. Each note and word of the prayer carried across the utter stillness of the rows of bent heads till it was lost in the jungle behind them.
"It was the most privileged and cherished moment of my life.
"I treasure the letters from the many soldiers who have written to me since, telling me it was their most wonderful moment too.”
For many months thereafter stories, either malicious or merely mischievous, of news received from survivors of Sydney in Japan, continued to emerge and circulate, causing pain and distress in a number of Australian homes.
Why Burnett did not use his aircraft, did not keep his distance and use his superior speed and armament, did not confirm his suspicions by asking Navy Office by wireless if Straat Malakka was in the area, are questions that can never be answered.
If, as is possible, Burnett's action in closing Kormoran was influenced by the implied criticism of Farncomb's standing off from Ketty Brovig and Coburg, one can but conjecture what he would have done had he known of Devonshire's experience. On the other hand, both Farncomb and Devonshire's captain had more positive reason for suspicion in their encounters than had Burnett in his; and it may well be that, influenced by the near approach of darkness, he was moved to determine the question quickly; and thus was swayed to over confidence; first in the genuineness of Straat Malakka; second in Sydney's ability, with all armament bearing and manned, to overwhelm before the trap, if such existed, were sprung. Yet to act as Burnett did was to court disaster should a trap exist, disaster at the worst total, as it was; at the best professional for Burnett; for even had Sydney triumphed in an action it is improbable that it would have been without damage and casualties, and Burnett would have been unable to explain the risks he ran. In such an encounter, with the raider an apparently innocent merchant vessel, the other an undisguised warship known to the raider as an enemy, the element of surprise must have remained with Detmers until Burnett's suspicions deepened into absolute certainty. In the circumstances Burnett created, he could not have reached such certainty until Detmers abandoned all disguise and struck - a matter of almost simultaneous decision by him and action by his guns, giving him the tremendous advantage of that vital second or two in the first blow at such close quarters. In the event, Sydney must have been crippled from the outset by those devastating initial salvos at point blank range, the torpedo hit, and the fire from her aircraft's petrol. That she managed to inflict fatal wounds on her adversary after such staggering blows is evidence of the undefeated spirit of those who survived them, and who fought on in "X" and "Y" turrets, with the secondary armament, and at the torpedo tubes. It is probable that Sydney sank during the night of the 19th-20th November 1941.
Apology to Di Yerbury AO
From February 8, 2007, the Herald published a number of articles in print and online, including news blog concerning Professor Di Yerbury who had served as Vice Chancellor of Macquarie University for more than 19 years to February 2006.
Professor Yerbury has alleged that the articles depicted her as dishonesty commingling her private art collection with the University’s own art collection and failing honestly to account for her use of the University’s credit card.
The Herald at no time intended to convey any such allegations against Professor Yerbury
If readers understood the articles as in any way reflecting upon her honesty and probity, the Herald withdraws those allegations and apologies for the hurt to professor Yerbury and any damage to her reputation.
"At 11p.m. on August 4th, English time, Britain declared war on Germany which was already invading those two countries. The present writer can remember how, after the following night’s work at a newspaper office, as he walked home in the small hours through Macquarie Street, Sydney, the clouds, dimly piled high in the four quarters of the dark sky above, seemed to him like the pillared structure of the world’s civilisation, of which some shock had broken the keystones. The wide gap overhead seemed to show where one great pillar after another had crashed as the mutual support had failed; and, as the sky peered through, the last masses seemed to sway above the abyss. The stable world of the nineteenth century was coming down in chaos: security was gone."
Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Cook C.G.M.C. M.L.A., N.S.W.. 1891/1901; Member of C‘wealth House of Reps., 1901/21. Prime Minister of Australia, 1913/14; Minister for Navy. 1917/20; Treasurer, 1920/21: High Commissioner, London, 1921/27. Of Bellevue Hill, N.S.W.: b. Silverdale. Staffs.. Eng, Dec. 1860.
"Interestingly, the differential is not just a result of the chains selling more goods; some of it has to do with the fact they are selling roughly the same quantity or a little bit more but at higher prices."
A few days before the declaration of war, but when it was imminent, the Postal Department held up a cablegram, in cipher, from the Imperial German Government to the chief officer in German New Guinea. Should the message be transmitted? Had the Commonwealth Government a right to stop a communication from a power, with which Great Britain was not at war, to its agent? But the transmission of the message might, in the existing circumstances, be embarrassing to the British Government. It might contain directions affecting the movement of German ships of war, or orders concerning the defence of New Guinea or Samoa. The Minister for Defence conferred with the Governor- General and the Attorney-General, and it was determined to send a cablegram to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, stating the facts, and to close the direct cable line from all other communications till a reply was received. This was immediately done, and within a few hours the reply came, consisting of one word: " Hold." The message was held.
One day I was rung up by the Prime Minister’s office and asked to call there. His secretary put in my hands a letter which Graebner had been fool enough to post to a friend in Germany. and whlch had been opened by the censor. I read only the first page, and handed it back disgusted; for it was a tissue of lies about his treatment here and about Australia generally. I said, “Shut him up,” and they did, as doubtless they would have done without a word from me. The worst of it was that poor Pringsheim had to share his fate.
As the Whitlam government began to lose public support following its re-election in 1974, Murdoch turned against Whitlam and supported the Governor-General's dismissal of the Prime Minister.
Rupert Murdoch has endorsed Labor leader Kevin Rudd, saying he would make a good Australian prime minister.
In Chapter XV – Medical Problems in Australia
We read
"The application of maritime quarantine from the 17th of October 1918 was an endeavour to prevent the entry of that type of influenza. During the seven months from October 1918 to April 1919 the quarantine service dealt with 149 uninfected vessels and 174 infected vessels, with a total personnel of 81,510 including 1,102 actual patients."
We also read
“Under its control, besides quarantine and the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine, came the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. The laboratories were themselves a very important outcome of the First World War. The following account of their institution is authoritative:
Towards the end of 1914, it became apparent that supplies of biological products especially diphtheria and tetanus anti-toxins, would be available in Australia only in limited quantities, if at all. The war situation had produced such demands on European and American supplies for British and French use that Australia was in danger of being left without any. Accordingly, after consultation with one or two people interested, Dr. Cumpston recommended to the Minister that the Government itself should immediately set about production so that it should never be caught in the some position again. This was agreed to and Dr. Cumpston was given a fairly free hand as to expenditure and staff. The building was opened for work while the war was still in progress; the first contribution on any large scale was the preparation of large quantities of influenza vaccine to meet the epidemic of 1918-19. The development of these laboratories proceeded with many initial difficulties, but with such ultimate success until, during the Second World War, they have supplied not only all Australia’s own requirements, both for the services and for civil needs, and for troops abroad as well as at home, but also most of the needs of the Government of New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaya, Dutch East Indies and India.93 In one case, that of the transport Somali, which arrived at Adelaide on Jan. 28, serious trouble took place. No case of influenza had occurred since the ship left Fremantle. The troops believed that quarantine at Adelaide would be avoided by continuous submission to treatment; but after two days’ delay, although an informal message was received that the South Australians were to be taken off and the ship allowed to go on, this was not carried out. On the 30th the troops threatened to take control of the ship. One of the leaders, a member of the Federal Parliament, Gnr. G. E. Yates, was afterwards tried by court martial and spent a month in detention, but through the death of his father was released before his full term ended.At the AEC we read G E Yates (ALP) 1914-19 and G E Yates (ALP) 1922-31
75 Afterwards Maj.-Gen Sir T. W Glasgow, commanding 1st Aust. Div.
76 A few days previously, when a shrapnel shell had burst very near, Col Howse. one of his few intimate friends, had said, General, you’ll be caught if you go risking any more of those.” Nex:t day, when Col. White during a burst of shell-fire advised his chief not to "give the Turks the chance they wanted," Bridges had consented to take cover till the shelling was over.
77 Upon a suggestion made in Parliament by the Hon. Littleton E. Groom
41 Lieut.-Col. E. L. Margolin, D.S.O. Merchant: of Collie, W. Aust., b. Bielgorod, Central Russia, 26 March. 1875.
34 Lieut. N T Svensen, 15th Bn Draughtsman, of South Brisbane, b Larvik, Norway, 17 Sept , 1878.
See Vol I , pp. 350-1.
Chapter XVI – The 3rd Brigade on the“400 Plateau”
From the Razorback the side of the plateau curved northward in front of the 10th to the point where it joined the Second ridge. Braund’s Hill, a minor back-jutting spur of the Second ridge, shut in the valley on the north. Along this valley ran a path, which had evidently been used by the Turks from inland for reaching the shore. The path wound very steeply up to a curious nick in the skyline at the northern corner of the valley-head.
Rudd upgrades Thailand travel advisory
The Rudd Government has upgraded its travel advisory for Thailand, in the wake of fresh clashes between anti government protestors and the military in the capital Bangkok.
In a revised travel advisory, DFAT recommends travellers 'exercise a high degree of caution because of the political instability in Thailand and the possibility of political demonstrations'.
