Left hates that there’s no Australia without US

ACROSS the United States tomorrow, Americans will honour their war dead on Memorial Day, a commemoration that dates back to the bloody civil war which ended 149 years ago. In Australia, former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser is peddling his latest book, Dangerous Allies, in which he argues our nation is now a strategic captive of the US. Since his defeat by Bob Hawke in the 1983 election, Fraser has become an increasingly embittered character who has moved ever farther to the left in search of a constituency either too young or too foolish to recognise his contradictory narrative. Last year he even gave support to Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who childishly dismissed the deaths of hundreds of people lured by weak Labor-Green border protection policies to attempt ­illegal entry with the flippant statement “accidents happen”. Fraser makes the equally stupid argument that Australia should cut its defence ties to the US, close Pine Gap, ask the US Marine Air-Ground Task Force to leave its Northern Territory base, and withdraw an RAN frigate from deployment with the US Seventh Fleet. Few conservatives will shed a tear for Fraser in his declining years but many Australians, no matter their political persuasion, will be angered by his Green-Left dismissal of the US as our nation’s greatest ally. Some even younger than the ageing former prime minister still remember the huge contribution American servicemen and women made during World War II in the ­Pacific and Indian oceans. One story which could not be told during the war, and which was lost in the aftermath and has only recently been pieced together from wartime diaries and service records, highlights the special bond that tied Australians and Americans then and serves to illustrate the shared values which unite our people today. Melbourne author Tom Trumble has published a truly remarkable account of the survival of a group of Australian airmen stranded in Japanese-occupied Timor after the bombing of Darwin and later Broome destroyed the Australian flying boats which might have been able to extract them. Their leader was 24-year-old meteorological officer Bryan Rofe, the author’s grandfather. The young man’s attempts to keep his band alive and rally their spirits are heroic, but that is just part of this extraordinary story. After evading Japanese pat-rols, living off the land, assisted by some but by no means all Timorese, and ravaged by ­malaria, the small group was effectively abandoned by the Australian military. However, the US navy overheard their radio transmissions and launched a rescue. The submarine USS Searaven was sent to the area and after several frustrating days managed to make contact with the survivors. Members of the US crew swam ashore at night so as not to alert Japanese spies. The men were weak, barely able to stand. Getting them off the beach could not be completed in one night and, at huge risk, the US submarine stood off for several days until all the men were aboard. Five days after they had left, a fire broke out in a main power unit and another US submarine had to take it in tow on the surface, vulnerable to aircraft attack, to Fremantle. The full story is contained in Trumble’s book, Rescue at 2100 Hours, and it is gripping. US Lieutenant Commander Hiram Cassedy, captain of the Searaven and Ensign George Cook, who repeatedly swam through shark-infested waters to reach the men, received the US Navy’s second highest decoration for valour, the Navy Cross. Two crewmen were awarded the Silver Star. Rofe survived to head the Australian Antarctic Division. This is a story of heroism. It is a great pity it has come to light so late and that generations of Australians who don’t know the true history of the Australian-US alliance will only have the flawed perspective offered by the left-leaning historians favoured by the left-leaning curriculum. Generations never told of attempts by waterside workers and other trade unions to sabotage the war effort. Generations never taught about communist influence in the Labor Party and in the offices of Labor leaders in government during the war. Fraser, old, angry and confused, rants about the alliance even as Russia and China form new ties built around energy that will inevitably damage the Australian economy. Russian President Vladimir Putin is, as Prince Charles ­accurately described “doing just about the same as Hitler”. China is pushing naval strength into the Indian and Pacific oceans and intimidating Vietnam and the Philippines. In saluting America’s war dead tomorrow, let us remember Australia needs the US alliance now as much as, if not more, than it did in World War II.