Australia Under Attack

Roland Perry’s 2024 book The Battle of the Generals takes a look at the relations between the American General, MacArthur, and the Australian General Blamey during World War II. It also spends a significant percentage of its pages covering the battles between Australian and Japanese troops in Papua New Guinea, which was then a protectorate of Australia within the British Empire.

As a reader, you’d be forgiven, based on the title of the book, for expecting some detail about sour relations between MacArthur and Blamey, maybe even some direct confrontations. There’s very little of that. Perry does lay out some of the ways that the two men worked around (and against) each other in attempting to maintain the favor of then Australian Prime Minister John Curtin — so maneuvering that brought to my mind “office politics” rather than “battles”.

Perry writes with somewhat of a chip on his shoulder. He clearly feels that the US general MacArthur, a showman who knew how to work a crowd and influence public opinion, gets more credit for the defense (defence in the Australian spelling) of Australia than the General specifically placed in charge of the country’s defense, Thomas Blamey.

Now I’m not an Australian, I’m just an American who has had the good fortune of spending many months visiting Australia over the last few years. I love history and bought this book with an interest in learning more from an Australian perspective.

So, I’m clearly no expert on Australian public opinion. While I know from my own reading of American histories that MacArthur’s weaknesses as well as his strengths are well known in the US, I wouldn’t be surprised to be told that MacArthur still benefited among Australians from the “halo” of his PR efforts while based in Brisbane during World War II. From my own experience in my time here I do know that older Australians definitely maintain a pretty hagiographic view of the US military.

So perhaps Blamey doesn’t get the respect he deserves from Australians. Another example I guess, of the prophet not getting honor among his own. Regardless, I can’t help but feel the book doesn’t live up to its title, given the shortcomings I noted above.

Unfortunately, I also felt it lacked detail and “fighting man” perspective in its history of the battles of New Guinea. Most of the battle stories were about the actions of the generals and troop leaders and those stories were then shoehorned into the overall thread of the perceived “battle” between MacArthur and Blamey. Blamey is said to have fired some of the leaders on the ground not because he necessarily agreed they had not led well, but because he feared for his own job if he didn’t fire them, due to McArthur planting seeds of doubt in the ears of Prime Minister Curtin. If that’s a correct reading of events (and who am I to say it’s not) it doesn’t speak well for any of the three men.

I wished for more of a front-line perspective to the action in New Guinea. A lot of Australians lost their lives repelling the Japanese from New Guinea and thus protecting the Australian mainland. Seeing things through their eyes would be the kind of history I’d like to read. I need to go looking for that book, I guess.

RATING: Two and a Half Stars ⭐⭐🌠

RATING COMMENTS: A well-researched Australian WWII history of Generals Blamey and MacArthur, and Prime Minister Curtin. It fails to achieve the promise of its title. A lot of time is spent on the action in New Guinea, but I wish there was more detail from the perspective of the soldiers doing the actual fighting.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I purchased my trade paperback copy from QBD Books in Brisbane.