[Homer_J_Simpson]

Gamble, Bruce. Darkest Hour: The True Story of Lark Force at Rabaul, Australia’s Worst Military Disaster of World War II. St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2006. 270pp. ISBN 978-0-7603-2349-6.

“MORITURI VOS SALUTAMUS” – Gladiator’s hail to Caesar, “We who are about to die salute you”.

When one thinks of Rabaul during World War II, they often think of the Japanese fortress that dominated the north end of the island of New Britain. Fewer people realize that before the beginning of Japan’s expansion into the South Pacific, Rabaul was part of Australia’s “Northern Barrier” of defensive works. However, it would be a misnomer to say that Rabaul and the other defensive Australian positions were a force to be reckoned with. Manning the island of New Britain were approximately 1400 men of the 2/22nd Battalion designated Lark Force. This small force would face off against a Japanese landing force of over 5,000 troops supported by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo and his 1st Air Fleet. Needless to say the fate of the men of the 2/22nd was sealed long before the first Japanese soldier set foot on the beach. These men on New Britain would all be locked in a desperate struggle for survival as the Japanese crushed their defensive positions. Most of them would not live to see the end of the war and many of those who did would carry the scars from their ordeal on this jungle island.

Bruce Gamble examines the plight of Lark Force and its supporting units in his book “Darkest Hour: The True Story of Lark Force at Rabaul, Australia’s Worst Military Disaster of World War II”. The stories that he relates are almost always tragic in nature. He begins by showing just how woefully inadequate the defenses of the island were. Gamble describes the two shore batteries that were all that protected Rabaul from invasion, both of them on the same hill one on top of the other. He describes the island’s air defenses that consisted of only two 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and one of the two had a crack in its breachblock. From air support consisting of too few and obsolete aircraft, to the two pounder anti-tank guns only supplied with solid steel shot, Gamble paints a picture of peril for these men as the Japanese approached them.

But the author is only getting started when describing the fighting condition of the 2/22nd. Once the Japanese landed and quickly overran the Australian defensive positions, the men of the 2/22nd were in a constant struggle just to survive. Gamble describes some of the atrocities committed by the Japanese as they took control of the island including the massacre of 160 Australians who surrendered on the Tol Plantation. Others escaped into the jungle only to be ravaged by malaria, beri beri, and the ever-present threat of starvation. In the end only 385 soldiers from New Britain and its neighboring defensive post on New Ireland would escape the Japanese and make it back to Australia. The rest would find themselves back in their old barracks at Rabaul which had been converted into a P.O.W. camp. But in the end most of these men would never see home again due to the cruelest twists of fate. Bruce Gamble makes mention of the worse tragedy to confront the men of the 2/22nd in his introduction and then revisits it in greater detail towards the end of his book. He describes the incident where the U.S. submarine Sturgeon sunk an unmarked maru while patrolling the South Pacific waters. Unbeknownst to them, on board that maru were over 1,000 prisoners from Rabaul being transferred to the island of Hainan. All of the enlisted men from the 2/22nd who had not escaped capture were aboard that ship.

This book is superbly written and very detailed as it recounts the individual events and stories that took place in the first months of 1942 on New Britain. Its focus on some of the individuals involved and following their story to their escape, or more often to their demise is gripping and heart wrenching. Bruce Gamble has done an excellent job in telling the story of Rabaul. The biggest fault with the book would have to be its citation. Gamble made the decision to print the book with only an abbreviated citation. This means that as far as looking at the source material he used in this book, there is often no entry for some of the data he has put out there. The author does point out, however, that there is a complete bibliography that can be provided separately from the book if desired. This makes this book difficult to use from an academic standpoint. It is clear by the use of the abbreviated citation, that the author is more focused on the entertainment value of the book than he is its academic relevance and for this reason, I would not recommend using this book as a scholarly resource unless you go through the trouble to obtain the full bibliography.

For the casual reader of history, I highly recommend this book. It will provide the reader with a unique aspect of the Second World War. This is one of those rare books that take the time to examine one of the lesser known aspects of the war. While there are many books that look at the major events of the conflict, there are too few out there that are like this one that take a minor story of the war and presents it in a way that is informative and interesting. This book is very hard to put down.

CougarGA7

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Roseman, Mark. The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration. New York: Picador, 2002. 172pp. ISBN 0-312-42234-2.

It is always difficult for the common man to wrap their mind around the Holocaust. The thought of a government creating a national policy of destroying a singular sect of their own citizenry is almost inconceivable. Yet there are many examples of such genocidal policies throughout history. The Nazi’s policy of extermination of the Jews is the most prolific and well known of such government policies. However, the transition of the Nazi’s policy of exclusion to eventual extermination is not a clear one. There is no set list of orders that show clearly when Hitler and Himmler made the decision to embark on a quest of Jewish extermination. This has led to many studies that try and determine when the “Final Solution,” as it will be known, was decided upon.

One marker towards the “Final Solution” was a conference held in a lush section of Berlin on the shores of Lake Wannsee. This meeting was conducted by Heinrich Himmler’s right hand man, Reinhard Heydrich. In this meeting he calls together not only members of the SS, but others from the civilian government side to coordinate details as to what the fate of Jews under German rule as well as those outside German borders. This conference, which will be called the Wannsee Conference, was held on January 20th, 1942. Clearly, this conference cannot be considered the beginning of a policy of mass murder since large scale killings had already begun long before this actual meeting. However, a look at this conference may show the effort to solidify national policy on Jewish extermination as well as put any dissenters to the policy on notice to fall in line.

In Mark Roseman’s book, The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration, another look at the significance of this conference is taken. Roseman takes an analytical approach to exploring the purpose of this conference from not only the players involved in the conference itself, but in general policy that would occur as a result of the conference. The author is quick to point out the fact that just knowing about this meeting at all is an exception instance in history. The Nazi’s went to great lengths to destroy as much of the evidence to the Holocaust as their position in the war became more desperate. Of course the scope of the Holocaust was so large that this was a largely impossible task and as a result much evidence was left behind. A copy of the minutes from the Wannsee Conference was one of these items that slipped through the cracks. Initially there were only 30 copies of this document made for a very limited distribution list. Of those 30, only one survived to be found by Allied prosecutors just as the Nuremberg Trials were underway.

An important aspect of Roseman’s evaluation of the Wannsee Conference is in his evaluation of the individuals who were involved in the conference itself. From an overall perspective this could be broken into two groups; Hitler’s government secretaries, and SS hierarchy. However, Roseman shows the importance of one section of the participants that almost places them in their own category. Representatives from the Generalgouvernement present at the meeting, including Hans Frank’s right hand man Josef Bühler had a particularly strong investment in the issue of the Jewish question. Roseman points to Frank’s desire to make the Generalgouvernement into a jewel of the German occupied areas. This desire would include ridding the land of the 2 million plus Jews that were already there or shipped to the region as a result of other efforts to relocate the Jews. As the policy of “evacuation” was discussed, which really was just a euphemism for extermination since there really was no set plan as to where to evacuate these Jews to, Bühler was quick to volunteer the Jews in the Generalgouvernement to be among the first “evacuated” pointing out the proximity of these Jews would make them easier to transport to wherever they were to be sent in the east.

Another primary issue of the Wannsee Conference that the author takes time to look at in detail is the fate of the Mischlinge. These were individuals who were only part Jewish, being either half-Jew (first degree Mischlinge), or a lesser percentage (second degree Mischlinge). These individuals were discussed in terms of who would be treated as full Jews and “evacuated” and who would be sent to the so-called “old-age ghetto” in Thereseinstadt. Roseman points out that this policy was only a temporary salvation since most of the occupants of Thereseinstadt would eventually end up in Auschwitz. However, he also shows the degree of detail in which this very grey area in the Nazi policy was addressed with the conference itself showing a clear shift against the Mischlinge in question.

This book is truly designed for the academic reader and not the casual history fan. The source material used for Roseman’s work is extensive and mostly consisting of original Nazi documentation. Because of this, the individual who is seeking out his sources will find that the vast majority of them are in the German language. Included in Roseman’s sources is the Wannsee Protocol itself, which he attaches in total at the end of his book to allow the reader to go over the primary source, used by the author and capture the context in which he refers to it. If you are a casual reader, this book may not be for you. It is an analysis of a single meeting held by the Nazis and is not designed to be gripping reading. However, for those who are just interested in obtaining a better understanding of the Nazi mindset that led to a national policy of murder, this book will provide a very revealing look at this progression. The Wannsee Conference shows an official jump from oppression to slaughter and Roseman does an extremely good job at analyzing the nuances of this progression.

CougarGA7