Australian War Memorial under fire for role in book’s massacre controversy

A group of eminent historians has criticised the Australian War Memorial for continuing to spruik a World War II biography which details the contested massacre of 25 European women by Japanese soldiers and subsequent revenge killings by Australian forces.

World War II veteran Reg Chard. Picture: John Feder

A group of eminent historians has criticised the Australian War Memorial for continuing to spruik a World War II biography which details the contested massacre of 25 European women by Japanese soldiers and subsequent revenge killings by Australian forces.

The massacre, which is alleged to have occurred in the darkest days of Japan’s assault on PNG during 1942, was published in a book by former journalist Daniel Lane called The Digger of Kokoda: The official biography of Reg Chard, which details the young soldier’s deployment in PNG.

In the book Lane describes how Australian soldiers set out to rescue 25 women only to find the Japanese had “stripped the women naked; lopped off the women’s heads; hacked the limbs from each body and then gutted them”, which provoked the Australians to go on a killing spree.

In addition to the allegation of a serious war crime which had gone unreported for 80 years, the historians also criticised the book for errors and inconsistencies from the soldier’s war records, which were revealed in The Weekend Australian last month. They’ve accused publisher Pan Macmillan of failing to verify the recollections of a 98-year-old war veteran who was not at fault, after historian David W. Cameron warned them about his concerns prior to publication.

Pan Macmillan defended its book as a “personal memoir” which was never intended to be a history of Kokoda and was “verified by fact-checking where possible”.

The war memorial has continued to sell the book through its online store and still has a post on its Facebook page promoting it, but has declined The Australian’s request for comment. The book has been endorsed by Australian War Memorial head of military history Karl James, whose praise is included in its early pages, author Peter FitzSimons, and former governor-general Peter Cosgrove.

University of NSW historian Peter Stanley, who was previously principal historian at the Australian Memorial, questioned how the memorial had come to endorse a book that was “inadequate”.

“They made a mistake and now they’re having to face the consequences,” he said.

“It diminishes their reputation and it’s so damaging to the memorial to be associated with a work which is so questionable.”

The book’s cover.

Professor Stanley said he remained sceptical that the massacre ever occurred and also questioned the likelihood that Mr Chard was on the Kokoda Trail during the period claimed by Lane, based on publicly available military records. “He was in PNG without a doubt, but he couldn’t have been at all the places Daniel Lane claims he was,” he said.

“To me it’s obvious this couldn’t possibly be true in every respect, but there is truth in there.”

Among the disputed claims is that Mr Chard and a handful of other soldiers were hand-picked by celebrated general Arthur Allen to leave the 55th Battalion and move to the frontline to reinforce the 2/33rd Battalion. However, his war records do not reflect this claim.

Australian National University military historian David Horner, who also questions the massacre and Lane’s claims that Mr Chard fought on the trail during 1942, criticised the Memorial for promoting the book as history.

“Rightly or wrongly the Memorial is seen as the source to go to for honest Australian military history,” he said. “They are the arbiters … they have a research centre whose job is to get the story right. They have a responsibility and in this case they have ducked that responsibility.”

Prof Horner said he was surprised at how willing people in the field had been to shrug off the controversy, putting it down to the rise of alternative facts. “We are in this post-truth era of made-up stories and innuendo and it also happens in the field of history,” he said.

In a statement, Pan Macmillan defended the book. “The Digger of Kokoda is Reg Chard’s personal memoir, told in his own words from his lucid, clear memory and verified by fact-checking where possible. The Digger of Kokoda is not a history of Kokoda, nor is it meant to be. We’re proud to publish the life story of a war veteran and national treasure.”