pretty amazing pancho...pretty amazing that we arnt speaking Japanese now too, but its come out a bit that the Japanese never viewed Australia as a takeover target...too big, too hard to supply far too many people. they were happy to bomb the crap out Darwin and the airfields to keep air supremacy, I read recently that Yammamoto knew he had 6 months to achieve the New guinea objective and consolidate it before the Yanks would get angry...he was spot on as nearly exactly 6 months after pearl harbor the yanks wrote off 4 of his 6 carriers in one afternoon.
I love reading about this stuff, puts life into perspective. any of the allied airman caught by the Japanese were beheaded. no questions asked. lovely.
interestingly, the fall of malay, Singapore and Indonesia was a shocking example of hopeless leadership. about 5000 japanese troops, miles from home and with poor supply lines took control of the 60,000 troops and people on those countries.
a simplification but basically what happened. if any group had got organised and stood up, they could have thrown them back into the sea.
I read1 pilots account of finding the Palumbang invasion group in 6 barges on the river and belting the crap out of two barges before running out of ammo...on landing they were told to fly back to Singapore! 1 more trip and there wouldn't have been an invasion group... weird. the top brass panicked, called all the planes back closer to home to "protect them" and the bombers got the lot. end of story
sorry I get carried away with this history
its why we can go riding pretty much when we want.
