Collie - On Our Doorstep

Craig Collie is the author of the highly acclaimed The Path of Infinite Sorrow andNagasaki, as well as The Reporter and the Warlords and Code Breakers. He is a TV producer-director by background and was head of TV Production at SBS.

First published in 2020

Copyright Craig Collie 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

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ISBN 978 1 76063 228 1

eISBN 978 1 76106 014 4

Maps by Mapgraphics

Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia

Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

Cover photographs: (front top) Australian War Memorialimage number 027058; (front bottom) Jack Mulholland

I cant understand the mentality of the Australian people. One day they are in a panic (about the war) and the next they want more race meetings. When things looked bad in New Guinea, morale sagged; now things are better everybody will probably want Christmas off.

John Curtin, Prime Minister
of Australia, off the record, 6 October 1942

In December 1941, the Japanese military launched strikes at several points around the Pacific Ocean and southeast Asia. An attack by Japan was not a surprise, but Japans new enemies were unprepared for its extent or its enterprise. Rolling south over the following weeks, the juggernaut seemingly had Australia in its sights. Not for the first time, Australiansthe government, the military, the peoplebelieved themselves under threat of invasion, but for the first time the threat felt imminent. The lingering uncertainty and what to do about it produced a range of responses from alarm to nonchalance. Sober assessment sat like a stranger somewhere in the middle.

Although Australia has not been invaded by a foreign power since 1788, it persuades itself from time to time that another invasion is just around the corner. In the colonial era, as an outpost of the British Empire, it had to live with the possibility of military action by Britains enemies and rivals. The French had arrived at Botany Bay a week after the First Fleet and, with this in mind, Governor Arthur Phillip set up fortifications around Sydney Cove and lookouts near the entrance to Sydneys harbour.

To the south, a second colony had been established at Van Diemens Land (now Tasmania), and it moved quickly to counter the menacing French. On arrival, Lieutenant-Governor David Collins decided protection was needed in case France sent a warship up the Derwent River. In 1804, two ships cannons were set up on an earthwork redoubt overlooking the port of Hobart Town, growing as a resupply station on the trade routes of the British Empire.

Captain Roger Kelsall of the Royal Engineers was sent out to Hobart Town in 1833. Declaring the port undefended, he devised a network of fortified batteries with interlocking firing arcs. No course could be plotted up the river that was at any point not in range of a shore gun. The cost was prohibitive with the British Empire temporarily at peace, but work started nonetheless with convict labour. Over the next 45 years, five batteries were built, but they were never called on to repel an invasion force.

That Governor Phillips fortifications and lookouts on Sydney Harbour were insufficient became clear one night in 1839. Under cover of darkness, two American naval ships slipped unnoticed into Port Jackson and dropped anchor in Sydney Cove. The town awoke the next morning to find foreign warships had been able to enter the harbour undetected. It wasnt a threatthese were ships of the Wilkes Antarctic expeditionbut it could have been.