Thoughts of yesteryear

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Keith Morris
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Thoughts of yesteryear

Post by Keith Morris »

This was sent to me as an email--memories of past times and the "Red uinder the bed days".
The Traitors Within

They did the same in Sydney during the Vietnam War. e.g. one example I can well remember is that the Sydney wharfies stole all the vast and expensive tool kits that went with each of the Centurion tanks as they were loaded on board a ship for Vietnam. They had refused to load the tanks until they were taught to drive them from the tank transporters when they arrived on the wharfs, [a very short distance] to the edge of the docks, which obviously gave them the chance to steal the many thousands of dollars of tools, which had to be replaced urgently by air to Vietnam.

As the government pursue the union on power and corruption, a timely new book reveals the union movement’s role in one of the most shameful periods of Australian history. What the wharfies did to Australian troops - and their nation’s war effort - between 1939 and 1945 is nothing short of an abomination. Perth lawyer Hal Colebatch has done the nation a service with his ground-breaking book, Australia’s Secret War, telling the untold story of union bastardry during World War 2. Using diary entries, letters and interviews with key witnesses, he has pieced together with forensic precision the tale of how Australia’s unions sabotaged the war effort; how wharfies vandalised, harassed, and robbed Australian troop ships, and probably cost lives. One of the most obscene acts occurred in October, 1945, at the end of the war, after Australian soldiers were released from Japanese prison camps. They were half dead, starving and desperate for home. But when the British aircraft-carrier HMS Speaker brought them into Sydney Harbour, the wharfies went on strike. For 36 hours, the soldiers were forced to remain on-board, tantalisingly close to home. This final act of cruelty from their countrymen was their thanks for all the sacrifice. Colebatch coolly recounts outrage after outrage.

There were the radio valves pilfered by waterside workers in Townsville which prevented a new radar station at Green Island from operating. So when American dive bombers returning from a raid on a Japanese base were caught in an electrical storm and lost their bearings, there was no radio station to guide them to safety. Lost, they ran out of fuel and crashed, killing all 32 airmen. Colebatch quotes RAAF serviceman James Ahearn, who served at Green Island, where the Australians had to listen impotently to the doomed Americans’ radio calls: “The grief was compounded by the fact that had it not been for the greed and corruption on the Australian waterfront such lives would not have been needlessly lost.” Almost every major Australian warship was targeted throughout the war, with little intervention from an enfeebled Prime Minister Curtin.

There was the deliberate destruction by wharfies of vehicles and equipment, theft of food being loaded for soldiers, snap strikes, go-slows, and demands for “danger money” for loading biscuits. Then there were the coal strikes which pushed down coal production between 1942 and 1945 despite the war emergency. There were a few honourable attempts to resist union leaders, such as the women working in a small arms factory in Orange, NSW, who refused to strike and “pelted union leaders with tomatoes and eggs”.

This is a tale of the worst of Australia amid the best, the valour and courage of our soldiers in New Guinea providing our last line of defence against Japanese, only to be forced onto starvation rations and to “go easy on the ammo” because strikes by the wharfies back home prevented supplies from reaching them.

A planned rescue of Australian POWs in Borneo late in the war apparently had to be abandoned, writes Colebatch, because a wharf strike in Brisbane meant the ships had no heavy weapons.

There was no act too low for the unionists. For instance, in 1941, hundreds of soldiers on board a ship docked in Fremantle entrusted personal letters to wharfies who offered to post them in return for beer money. The letters never arrived.

At one point in 1942 a US Army colonel became so frustrated at the refusal of Townsville wharfies to load munitions unless paid quadruple time, he ordered his men to throw the unionists into the water and load the guns themselves.

In Adelaide, American soldiers fired sub-machine guns at wharfies deliberately destroying their aircraft engines by dropping them from great heights.

Australian soldiers had to draw bayonets to stop the same Adelaide wharfies from stealing food meant for troops overseas.

You will read this book with mounting fury.

Colebatch offers various explanations for the treasonous behaviour of the unions. Many of the leaders were Communists obsessed with class warfare. Fervent “identity politics” led them to believe they were victims, and that servicemen and women were “puppets of capitalism whose lives were of no consequence”.

Contrary to popular belief, strikes and sabotage continued to the end of the war, even after the Soviet Union became an ally, writes Colebatch, who contends that the Australian Left may have wanted to undermine the military in preparation for revolution after the war.

Whatever the reasons for the defective morality of those unionists who sabotaged our war effort, the traitors have never been brought to account.

This story has been largely suppressed for 70 years because Labor and the Left have successfully controlled the narrative of history.

But no more, thanks to Colebatch.

I'm now 85 years of age and living in WA, single (gave up looking), white hair, no teeth, no address, no money, no worries.
RobertNotBob
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Re: Thoughts of yesteryear

Post by RobertNotBob »

Could tell you a tale of the gutless bastards on the wharf at darwin after the bombing but find it hard to put down. Needless to say they showed their true colours that day.
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dapope
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Re: Thoughts of yesteryear

Post by dapope »

Thats appalling.
I used to be a fervent unionist, and was very active, as a national rep in my former workplace in NZ. Having said that, I would never have supported that sort of behaviour.
I quit when the NZ FOL folded to the government over the Employment Contracts Act, which cost the workers in NZwages and conditions. Howard used that legislation to bring in workchoices.
History of course is always written by the victor, and sometimes its hard to sort out what's what.
I describe myself as a left leaner. Working nearly 50 years with some of the most disadvantaged people does that to you.
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Busman
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Re: Thoughts of yesteryear

Post by Busman »

It is interesting to look more closely at that book, there is a lot of criticsm online, badly written, facts wrong etc. However if 10% was true the yank colonel had the right idea about chucking them off the wharf, just should have given each one of them a 155mm shell to hold onto.
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Grandad
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Re: Thoughts of yesteryear

Post by Grandad »

dapope wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:08 amI used to be a fervent unionist,
I'm with you 100%. I was, and still am pro-unions. I believe low union membership today is a big part of the wage stagnation Australia has suffered.

I too have been left-leaning since my first vote and have always and will continue to speak out on behalf of trade unions.

But, the wharfies were in a league all their own. Like any other part of politics, when one side goes extreme, bad things happen. And it doesn't matter if its the left or the right that does it.

If I remember my history, which is not always guaranteed to happen, both Hawkie and Howard played a part in bringing them down.

They were a law unto themselves and very un-Australian in my view.

Jim
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Shirley
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Re: Thoughts of yesteryear

Post by Shirley »

Think Unions have changed considerably since their early days & at one time you weren't able to work in many businesses unless you were a member of the appropriate union, where as now days it appears to be a voluntary decision if you join or not.
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T1 Terry
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Re: Thoughts of yesteryear

Post by T1 Terry »

Grandad wrote: Fri Dec 04, 2020 8:57 am
dapope wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:08 amI used to be a fervent unionist,
I'm with you 100%. I was, and still am pro-unions. I believe low union membership today is a big part of the wage stagnation Australia has suffered.

I too have been left-leaning since my first vote and have always and will continue to speak out on behalf of trade unions.

But, the wharfies were in a league all their own. Like any other part of politics, when one side goes extreme, bad things happen. And it doesn't matter if its the left or the right that does it.

If I remember my history, which is not always guaranteed to happen, both Hawkie and Howard played a part in bringing them down.

They were a law unto themselves and very un-Australian in my view.

Jim
I fully agree with you Jim, the wharfies were well and truly out of control and I wouldn't be surprised to learn were being lead by anti govt and anti Australian interest people. greed is a terrible thing and still is, we still suffer from the effects from both sides of politics.
Each side of politics tries to hide the problem their side is responsible for, like the sports rorts and paying obscene amount for land not even needed yet for Sydney's second airport, yet puts up a scheme to get money out of the most vulnerable without actually thinking it through ... ignores the problems put to them so often, then pays an out of court settlement to avoid the lid being lifted off the whole affair ....

My grandfather was a card carrying member of the communist party, a very strong unionist, yet he was also the head engineer in charge at Lithgow Small Arms Works that supplied many of the guns for the war effort and the engineer who designed and established the Port Kembla steel works with the Hoskins family .... so far left and communist don't go hand in hand with thugs, thieves and anti Australian sentiment. They are polar opposites to the extreme right of politics though .......

T1 Terry
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