Wake Up Australia

by Viv Forbes

 

Today is Remembrance Day, an appropriate time to reflect on our ability to defend ourselves.

History holds lessons.

 

Back in Dec 1941, Japan suddenly attacked the huge US Naval base at Pearl Harbour. Three days later, two “invincible” British warships, “Repulse” and “Prince of Wales” were sunk by Japanese planes off Malaya. Soon Japanese armies were rampaging through Asia towards Australia. By Feb 1942, the British fortress of Singapore surrendered and Japanese bombs were falling on Darwin. By Sept 1942 the Japanese army had slashed their way down the Kokoda Track and could see the lights of Port Moresby. They were looking across Torres Strait to Australia. At that time, most of our trained soldiers were fighting Rommel in North Africa or in Japanese prison camps.

Suddenly Australia was on its own and needed to defend itself with what we had here. Armies need soldiers, weapons, bullets, vehicles, fuel, food (and cigarettes).

Rationing was introduced for petrol, food and cigarettes. An immediate critical shortage was copper for cartridge cases - we had mines producing lead, zinc, silver, gold and iron, but there was a critical shortage of copper.

The mill, Mt Isa, R Emerson Curtis, Australian War Memorial

Fortuitously, just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, an exploration drill hole at Mount Isa had struck rich copper ore.

Mount Isa was called on to avert a calamitous shortage of copper in Australia. With government encouragement, Mount Isa Mines made the brave decision to suspend the profitable silver/lead/zinc operations and convert all mining and treatment facilities to extracting copper.

The lead concentrator could be converted to treat copper ore, but the biggest problem was how to smelt the copper concentrates. Luckily the company had skilled engineers and metallurgists in the lead smelter. In a miracle of improvisation, scrap steel and spare parts were purchased and scavenged from old mines and smelters from Cloncurry, Mt Elliott, Mt Cuthbert and Kuridala and cobbled into a workable copper smelter. In 1943 the first Mount Isa blister copper was produced. Production continued after the war when Mount Isa returned to extracting the then more profitable silver/lead/zinc. Later new plant was built enabling both lead and copper to be produced from this fabulous mine.

This story of the importance of self-reliance has lessons for today.

The war on carbon energy, the carbon tax, the renewable energy targets, escalating electricity costs and the voices in Parliament calling for Emissions Trading Schemes have all unnerved our big users of carbon fuels and electricity. Smelting and refining have become threatened industries in Australia, and closure of the Mount Isa copper smelter and the Townsville copper refinery has been foreshadowed. Already six major metal smelting/refining operations have closed in Australia this century and more are likely. The closures have affected copper, lead, zinc, steel and aluminium – the sinews of modern industry. And the car industry, with all its skills and tools, is closing

Mt Isa mines sourced Herald Sun

Local production and refining of oil is also declining, while anti “fossil fuel” vandals are trying to 
prevent domestic exploration and production. More and more land and offshore waters are closed to exploration and mining, and heavy industry is scorned. It was estimated recently that by next year, half of Australia’s oil refining capacity will have closed. In the event of a disruption to tanker routes, Australia has just 12 days of diesel supplies before city fuel and food supplies start to dry up.




We are losing the resources, skills and machinery needed for our own security, while we fritter precious resources on green energy, direct action, carbon capture and storage and other pointless anti-carbon chimeras.

Our foolish green energy policies and the suicidal war on carbon fuels are killing real industry leaving us unskilled and defenceless – like a fat toothless walrus basking on a sunny beach.

Wake up Australia.
 Viv Forbes,
Rosewood    Qld   Australia
forbes@carbon-sense.com


For those who would like to read more:

Australian Fuel supplies very vulnerable to disruption. Food and fuel Chaos within days:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/25427007/al-qaeda-threatens-australias-overseas-oil-supplies-expert-warns-of-possible-society-collapse/

“Mines in the Spinifex – the Story of Mount Isa Mines” by Geoffrey Blainey, Angus and Robertson, 1960

“The Challenge of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” by Collin Myers, Congress of the International Mining History Association, Charters Towers, 2014.

Disclosure: Viv Forbes is a geologist, financial analyst and farmer. He has spent a lifetime working in various roles and places including Rum Jungle, El Sherana, Mt Isa, Goonyella, Blackwater, Nebo, Brisbane and Sydney. He is a non-executive Director of a small Australian coal exploration company and, with his wife Judy, breeds cattle and sheep at Rosevale in Queensland. He was the founder of the Carbon Sense Coalition.
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LEWIS GORDON BLACKMORE & THE BATTLE OF POZIERES 1916

Lewis Gordon Blackmore was the 7th Child of Edward Gordon Blackmore and Eleanora Elizabeth Blackmore (Nee Farr) Born Adelaide SA 21^st May 1886 - Killed in action 23^rd July, 1916 at Pozieres, France

From the excerpts below all young men have hopes and dreams that in this instance were cut short but have given us the freedom do live our own lives without much thought for the alternative

Lewis’ letters to brother John Coleridge Blackmore (my Grandfather)

June 24^th “As the Russians are doing so well and the Hun appear to have failed at Verdun I may be coming home earlier than I thought, of course not this year, and I can assure you I hope to return to the life on the land. We have had a fair amount of wet weather of late; it is wonderful how we escape colds. I really think we are getting immune to the ills of the flesh….”

June 29^th “How is land selling now? I have great ideas of sneaking out near the Warrumbungle Mts and buying a place if we can raise the wind….”

July 17^th “Well old sport, we shall be busy now so letters may be a bit irregular, but shall drop you a line at every opportunity.”

Then in a letter from Eric Shelly –

“We moved up on the village of Pozieres on the night of July 19^th and it was well into the morning of the 20^th by the time we had taken over from the Tommies. Lew’s battalion were in the front. All that day, the next and the next, we lay quiet letting the artillery do its work. The attack was timed for 12.30am on the night of the 22^nd-23^rd July. Two minutes prior to that time we started a violent artillery bombardment, then over our men went to the German first line and took it. For 30 minutes there raged another artillery bombardment our guns having lifted their range to the German 2^nd line, then a signal and over we went again. As close as I can gather this is where poor old Lew went down. The boy knew no pain thank God, a machine gun bullet got him in the forehead and he died instantly. I saw him a few hours previously and he went into it laughing and joking and full of hope and the surety he was coming out as well as he went in”

From Informant Cadet Pte Thos. 3261



Lewis Gordon Blackmore buried approx location at junction of Pozieres Trench and OG1

“On Sunday, 23^rd July I saw above-named killed, struck by a machine gun bullet. We were attacking Pozieres about 1 am. I saw that Blackmore was dead. An Australian, short, thick-set, dark, clean shaven, about twenty three”

From Service Records:-

“Buried just to the right of the right communication trench leading to Old German No 1 Trench near Pozieres.”

“(No Grave No, No cemetery and no clergyman. He was buried in the heat of the action)”

 

An Account of the Pozierers Battle of 23^rd-24^th July 1916

During the night of Saturday-Sunday, July 22nd-23rd, the troops took up their positions for the attack on the village. The attack was to be made upon the eastern and southern faces of the position by Australian troops and English Territorials. The English were to advance from the direction of Ovillers Hill and Mash Valley, upon the cemetery and that straggling end or outlier of the village which stretched out towards Thiepval. Their right was to rest upon the Albert-Bapaume Road, their left on the strong, newly converted enemy lines on Ovillers Hill.

The Australian left was to touch the English right at the road, to push up, in the main direction of the road, from Suicide Corner and Contalmaison, by way of the spur, the Quarry Road, and Hospital Road, so as to close in on the village from the southeast.

The Australian right, forming up from about Contalmaison Villa, outside Little Bazentin Wood, to O.G. 1, with their faces to the west, were to charge across the plateau, taking whatever trenches there might be in their path, right into the village, through the wood or copse, and across the gardens to the houses. It was known that the garrison of Pozières had been relieved by a fresh division, and that, like other enemy reliefs, this division had brought in plenty of food and drink.

The attack had been prepared by some days of shelling over the whole area. Not much of the village was standing, though one observer speaks of some parts of red-tiled roofs near the cemetery. The smash and ruin were general, but the place was not obliterated, nor were all the trees razed. The weather had cleared. It was hot, dry, dusty weather, with much haze and stillness in the air.

At midnight on the 22nd-23rd of July the attack was timed to begin. It was the first big fight in which the Australians had been engaged since the Battle of Gallipoli, almost a year before. Then they had fallen in in the night for an attack in the dark, which won only glory and regret. This time the battle was to be one of the hardest of the war, and there was to be glory for all and regret for very many, and the prize was to be the key to the ridge of Bapaume beyond the skyline, with possible victory and peace.

At midnight, when the men had reached their starting-places, the attack began, and a great wave of Australian infantry went across the plateau towards the east of the village. A part of this wave attacked the enemy who were still holding out in O.G. 1. The rest crossed the plateau, got into one enemy line, which was lightly held or held only by dead men, took it, got into another (really the sunken track of the light railway) which was held more strongly, took that, and so, by successive rushes, and by countless acts of dash and daring, trying (as it happened) to find objectives which our guns had utterly destroyed, they reached the outskirts of the place, across a wreck of a part of the wood. They made a line from about the southern end of the village to their starting-place near Bazentin Wood.

When the daylight came on that Sunday morning, the Australians were in the village, on the eastern side of the road with the road as their front. Beyond the road they had to their front the tumbled bricks of the main part of the village. To their right, they had a markless wilderness of plateau tilting very slightly upwards to the crest on which the O.G. lines ran.

Australians who were there have given accounts of the fighting which won them this position, but, as usually happens in a night attack, those who were there saw little. It seems to be agreed that the second enemy trench was more strongly held than the outer line, and that the right of the attack, which came under direct enfilading fire from the O.Gs., had the hardest task. Some have said that the eastern outskirts of the village were lightly held by the enemy, and that not more than 200 enemy dead were found in that part of the field after the charge, which is very likely, for it was the enemy's custom to hold an advanced post with a few men and many machine guns.



Pozieres before and after artillery bombardment

 

Remembering red poppys; forgetting white feathers

Today is Remembrance day where we stop on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to mark the end of World war 1. This war had a profound affect on Australia; the loss of life as a percentage of this young federated nation was massive. The loss of those young men in the years following the war was sorely felt.
In no way is the posting of this poem is intended to devalue the loss and sacrifice of World war 1. It is done so to remember all of our historical past.

White Features and the Great War

'Unconscionable hectoring',  she said, crushing the feather.

  'Two brothers I've lost. And you, your father and sister.

How much of family must family give? What kin can remain?

  They who sent this decline to give their names,

yet pit your conscience against you and are doubly cowards.

  Show me, George, a singular courage and ignore them.

Attend to me, your pregnant wife and sole companion.

 Stay for the birth; deny this war more death.'

But his eyes were far away and his manner agitated;

  to stay he'd have to volunteer and go.

'Here I have to live', he said, 'whatever I do,

  and here my son, or daughter, will question me.

Unlike some men, I'm capable, have height and health

  and no excuse not to offer; I have to go.'

'It's kicking', she cried of their unborn child. 'Put your hand here.'

  It kicked again. 'It must be a boy', he said.

'I'll keep my head down', he told his wife, embracing fullness.

  He'd cup that kick in his hand till the day he returned.

 

By Timoshenko Aslanides

This is the entry for the 18th July out of the book AnniVeraries: 366 Linked poems, one based on an historical event for every day of the Australian Year.

 

Previously published poem by Timoshenko Aslanides

John Monash Farewells Gallipoli

 

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Veteran’s deepest wounds

I enjoy listening to ABC radio The Conversation Hour with Richard Fidler and not so long back there was an interview with John Cantwell.

It is interesting to learn of John Cantwell’s career, born in country Qld, joined the army & rose through the ranks from a humble private to reach the rank of Major General. He served in the 1990/ 1991 Operation Desert Storm campaign as a major in charge of a British tank squadron. In 2006 he returned to fight in the second war in Iraq. He was given command of all Australian troops in Afghanistan, 2010. After 38 years’ service he retired to Cooroy, Qld. A more complete bio is available at Wikipedia.

The good thing about radio or audio is that you can take in another world, gain insights and learn while you continue with your daily tasks. The audio is available [here] of Richard Fidler’s interview with retired Major General John Cantwell; I thoroughly recommend you doing so. Cantwell does well in expressing what attracted him to the military and why he felt the challenge to prove himself in the field of battle. He gives accounts of his times in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan and lays open his life to the main subject of the book, Exit Wounds, that he released earlier this year, post-traumatic stress.

Radom House offers the following observation in its brief review of Exit Wounds 

Exit Wounds is the compassionate and deeply human account of one man's tour of the War on Terror, the moving story of life on a modern battlefield: from the nightmare of cheating death in a minefield, to the poignancy of calling home while under rocket fire in Baghdad, to the utter despair of looking into the face of a dead soldier before sending him home to his mother. He has hidden his post traumatic stress disorder for decades, fearing it will affect his career.

With the article, Home safe,but left torn by the horrors of war, the Canberra Times published a lengthy extract from John Cantwell’s book. Here we are introduced to the book when Major General John Cantwell returns home from Afghanistan and retires from the army and was forced to face what he had worked hard to supress for many years.

 Released from responsibility, it is as though a dam in my mind has cracked, flooding me with despair. The barriers I built and shored up over the years, especially over the past 12 months, start to shift and buckle, releasing a pent-up misery.

The sadness and regret that I had pushed deep down inside resurface, amplified. Memories flood my mind: cold bodies in a morgue, torsos violated by bullets or explosives or a shattered helicopter; the pain and uncertainty of the wounded whose lives have been forever changed; the horror in the eyes of men who have picked up pieces of their mates. My nights are tormented by ghastly nightmares, punctuated by sudden shouts as I come awake, shaking and confused. The melancholy that has lurked in my heart begins to tear at my sanity.

In retirement John Cantwell does what he can to support veterans with PTSD. In a Herald Sun article, General says he has no mortgage on PTSD, defense force chief General David Hurley is quoted as saying:

“But for some the stigma remains, with soldiers reluctant to come forward because of fears their careers will suffer.

"What I really felt we needed, and John provided an answer there, was for someone of seniority and significant experience to come forward and say, 'Hey, it's okay to be open about this,'"