On Our Doorstep

With special guest:

• Craig Collie
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

The threat of invasion was very real to the Australian people in World War II. Within families decisions were made to kill wives and daughters rather than leave them to be raped and murdered by a ruthless invader.

Our guest today is Craig Collie who has explored what was really going on in 1942. What were the leaders of Australia, Great Britain and the USA doing about the threat? How real was the threat from Japan anyway?

In On our Doorstep we get a fully researched explanation of some of the myths that have been handed down through a couple of generations. We hear about the “invasion currency” and the “invasion map of Australia”. We hear about the eccentricities of General George MacArthur who had all the Australian military reporting to him as well as the Pacific forces of the USA. Craig gives us a proper appreciation of the 97 attacks on the Australian mainland by the Japanese.

It may be hard to imagine in the current climate but when the eastern suburbs of Sydney including Dover Heights were being attacked and there were midget submarines in Sydney Harbour it was a scary time for everyday Australians. Wartime censorship made it difficult to find out what happened in Darwin let alone in Malaysia and Singapore but it was clear that Singapore was no longer a bastion for the protection of Australia. And Great Britain had other priorities than protecting their far flung empire. Craig tells us what the reaction of the man in the street was.

This story takes us from Washington USA to London in the UK to Tokyo in Japan through Malaysia, Singapore and Papua New Guinea to our own doorstep in Darwin. A fascinating story made more exciting because it really happened.

Craig Collie

Craig Collie is the author of the highly acclaimed The Path of Infinite Sorrow: The Japanese on the Kokoda Track and Nagasaki: The massacre of the innocent and unknowing, as well as The Reporter and the Warlords: An Australian at large in China’s republican revolution. He is a TV producer-director by background and was series producer of A Big Country and Quantum. He has been Production Executive at the Australian Film TV & Radio School and head of TV Production at SBS.

Song selection by our guest: Mary Ann by The Temptations

Note: This program is an encore presentation of the one aired on 25 February 2021.

Podcast (mp3)