[Mike K]

Listening to the ABC book show on Radio National this morning , a well known author has released a new book. The jist of it is: he claims the Japanese had no intentions of invading Australia. He said in plain language , the whole New Guinea campaign and Darwin bombings were just a minor sideshow in the bigger scheme of things . His surname is Stanley from memory.

He said most of the people killed at Darwin were U.S. servicemen anyway !

He sounded like a typical academic, with 3 or 4 degrees , who's never been beyond the cloistered realm of academia .

I wonder if he thought about this: if Port Moresby had a busy Japanese run airfield or two, well within range of Cairns, Townsville and other Northern ports . Would the Japs have just sat there, without taking on daily bomb runs to those cities . Think of the bombs raining down.

Mike