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A Very Rude Awakening
Peter Grose
Allen & Unwin
$32.95
THIS book is an absolute cracker and is hard to put down.
Peter Grose has compiled a well-researche
d and carefully written account of the Japanese attack that shook Sydney during World War II.
Entertaining and informative, his research, which includes first-hand accounts and the official after-action reviews, lays bare how under-prepared and inept we were in defending ourselves at that time.
Uncompromisingly, Grose points the finger at those he concludes to be found wanting in their conduct leading up to and during the night of the attack.
Tracing the timeline of events is frustrating to the point of ridiculous.
Such as the fact it took five hours from the first sighting of a midget submarine to the time that the Naval Officer in Command in Sydney, RAdm Muirhead-Gould, sent a signal to ships in the harbour giving them any accurate information as to what was going on.
Of great interest were some of the unsung heroes of the event, which include the Navy clearance divers who, in the days following the attack, worked in dangerous conditions to help recover the bodies of the 21 men killed onboard Kuttabul and the two midget submarines – one of which still had its motor running during recovery.
Details about the volunteer who defused the torpedo that ran aground on Garden Island and Jimmy Cargill, the first person to spot a midget submarine trapped in the anti-submarine net and who rowed valiantly to alert harbour defences, also make for interesting reading.
I also found myself viewing the Japanese attackers differently. Grose tells of the lives of the Japanese who crewed the midget submarines and considers what it must have been like for them to go on what they knew to be all but a suicide mission.
In all, it makes a great read.
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