Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra
That was quite a haul!
Now, how did that CMP water tanker end up in Bataan?
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And not just the Cab 11, but a British Universal Carrier. It would seem that these were captured in either Malaya or Singapore without being disabled or destroyed, and as Mike Cecil has suggested, transferred to elsewhere in the Japanese-controlled domain.
But the really interesting question is was the magazine article supplied, with illustrations, to Australia in Aug 1942? The Tribune was an English-language paper published in the Phillipines after the occupation by the Japanese. The illustrations are obviously of Japanese origin, and the tone of the article leans strongly towards celebrating the fortunes of the Japanese in the Philipines.
Was this paper/magazine actually a Japanese provocation, distributed to Allied troops as a "Tokyo Rose" type English language propaganda piece? It's effect on the Allied troops, or the general Australian Public, who were contemplating turning the tide of war following the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Milne Bay Campaign and taking the fight to the Japs, would have been demoralising. If so, the quoted quantities of vehicles may be an exaggeration.
Gen Douglas MacArthur, a vain egotist and notoriously touchy about any suggestion that he was responsible for the loss of the Philipines, had been appointed Supreme Commander since his arrival in Aust in May '42 and had unprecedented censorship control of all Australian Media. He would have been severely embarrassed by any illustrated accounting of the materiel gains made by the Japs, particularly at the time of mounting a counter-campaign needing all the Australian resources he could muster. An article such as this would have undermined his prestige quite badly