Talk:North Western Area Campaign

Proposed merge
I think that the North Australia Air War article should be merged with this article. The campaign in northern Australia during 1942-1944 was actually a series of tit-for-tat raids between Allied and Japanese forces, so presenting material in an article which only focuses on half the story (North Australia Air War) seems a bit unsatisfactory. Other editors' views on this would be great. Nick-D (talk) 06:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - I agree with the proposal to merge the articles. Newm30 (talk) 08:57, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - per NickD. Anotherclown (talk) 10:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment -- I'm dubious about an article this extensive with so few citations, and sporting an "original footnotes" section. Given that there exists an AWM resource called The north Australian air war (admittedly not available online by the look of it), I'm not sure that even merging is a good idea until we can investigate a bit further. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:10, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I own the issue of the Journal of the Australian War Memorial (No. 8, 1986) that the article of that name was published in, and the North Australia Air War article was lifted almost word for word from it... I've just deleted the article per CSD G12. Nick-D (talk) 08:22, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I've restored the North Australia Air War article after an ORTS ticket was lodged confirming that its author had released it under a Wikipedia-friendly license, so this discussion should probably resume. Nick-D (talk) 08:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

An important bit of Australian history surely
I am no historian but I was raised in Australia "within living memory" of these events. Perhaps someone would like to look into the following claims.

When Darwin was bombed the first time, it was done 4 days after the fall of Singapore, by the Japanese carrier fleet that had attacked Pearl Harbour, minus a few planes; plus a few ground based aircraft. The population of Darwin at the time was 400, and the Australian Army was in the Middle East fighting for the British. Many Australian men of fighting age were not allowed to sign up (Including my uncle) because the most important thing was to produce food that could be shipped to England. Australia's (significant) contribution to the British war effort was premised on Singapore being a bulwalk against any possible Japanese threat.

The fall of Singapore may have caused concern, but the first bombing of Darwin caused panic. For the next 6 months Australia was on its own and, for the second time in its short history, was in charge of its own military. The troops were recalled from the Middle East, much to Churchill's consternation; the farms and prisons were emptied of their men to build an interum army; and a line was drawn between Brisbane and Adelaide that specified the bit they'd defend to the end.

These troops were green, and forward deployed to places like Port Moresby in PNG. My grade 6 teacher was one of them. The Japanese did not land on Australian soil (in force at least - Broome apparently..) but this was the start of an air war in which Darwin was bombed 142 times.

Six months in, General McArthur has been extracted from the Philipenes, where he had lost his army, and is put in charge of the Australian military. He orders the troops to "take the battle to the Japanese" and tells the troops to walk across PNG to engage them (including my grade 6 teacher, and a mate of mine's grandfather). They meet the Japanese, turn round and walk back. At this point my mate's grandfather orders the execution of his Japanese prisoners because there is just not the logistical support to get them and his men back. "Fuck McArthur" - I believe that is a quote from granddad. The Japanese follow the Australians back, get to see Port Moresby, and turn around because there is just not the logistics to attack it. At this point my Grade 6 teacher is using a flame thrower to clean out Japanese pill boxes. His description and his tears with the telling was traumatic for me - but hey it was the Vietnam War and the rest of the teachers were very anti war at this stage so I guess they thought it was worth it. I probably agree, but wish I could appologise to Mr Bradley .. and thank him. The rest is history. The term "island hopping" was the American strategy in the end that won the day and it is true that the North Western Area Campaign (Never heard it called that before!) was irrelevant. The sacrifices on the Kakoda trail were indeed pointless.

... except that the pointless sacrifice and suffering has become part of Australian mythology and an important part of Australian Identity. General Peter Cosgrove looked after his men (of both genders) during INTERFET and indeed in 2004 with the Abu Ghraib debacle. The Bali Bombings - no call to arms; just a feeling of another case of pointless stupid loss of life. I felt proud to be Australian. 31.125.39.26 (talk) 14:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Title
North-Western Area Command (RAAF) has a hyphen. Shouldn't these titles match? Also, is "North Western Area Campaign" a proper (official) name? Should "campaign" be lower-case? Srnec (talk) 03:14, 26 August 2023 (UTC)