Wednesday, January 21, 2009

landing a force to seize the island of Oahu

As we read in: The Japanese Thrust - Awaiting the First Blow

"Although some officers favoured landing a force to seize the island of Oahu, in which Pearl Harbour is situated, it was decided that there would not be enough transports for this purpose as well as for the southward move."


The questions could be asked what if?

If Japan controlled Pearl Harbour? No battle of the Coral Sea? No battle of Midway? No Guadalcanal? And New Guinea invaded soon after? Australia?

Or as we read in Japan's Decision for War

"Perhaps the major Japanese error was the decision to attack the United States at all. The strategic objectives of the Japanese lay in southeast Asia and if they had limited their attacks to British and Dutch territory the United States might not have entered the war."

So having decided to attack Pearl Harbour and then having missed the fuel storage and dry docks, and not landing a force on Oahu. They gained Malaya, and then the NEI, and Burma, and parts of PNG but lost the war.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

The Dismissal

Having just finished reading Sir John Kerr's book, I find the whole Labor scenario a joke. Yet many people continue to believe Labor "history".
"The Dismissal: The Real Truth of the Matter" Speech by Sir David Smith at a Luncheon for Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, Parliament House, Sydney 11 November 2005
"Probably no event in Australia's political history has received as much coverage in the media and in the history books as has the dismissal of the Whitlam Government by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, on 11 November 1975.
And certainly no event in Australia's political history has received so much inaccurate and misleading coverage.
There was no constitutional crisis:- It was a political crisis that the Parliament could not resolve, so the constitutional umpire - the Governor-Geneal be needed to do in order to be able to refer the issue to the ultimate umpire - the people - for resolution at a national election. During last year's federal election campaign, the media developed a great interest in truth in politics. My challenge to the media is that they should make this new-found interest in truth in politics retrospective, at least to 1975. They should invite Whitlam down from the pedestal on which they have placed him and call on him to explain the litany of lies, which he and his acolytes have spun about the dismissal."