A Stout Pair of Boots by Peter Stanley

Author:Peter Stanley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2008-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

Picquet lines: No-go areas?

We’re familiar with the ways geo-political analysts divide the planet between the First and Third Worlds. Developed nations are regarded as ‘First World’; developing nations as ‘Third’—that we know from newspaper headlines. But they also talk about ‘Second World’—nations formerly or still under central, usually communist regimes, and the Fourth World, the poorest, most economically under-developed and over-exploited nations, chronically afflicted with corruption, mismanagement, natural disasters or other travails. Obviously the categories are flexible and changing.

Australian battlefields and sites of military historical interest can be found in all of the world’s ‘Worlds’—the Western Front is First; North Korea, Libya and Viet Nam, Second; Papua New Guinea and Malaysia and Indonesia, Third. There are Australian war graves in several of the Fourth World’s poorest countries, such as Bangladesh and Burma. Travelling in these regions makes different demands on researchers. Battlefield research is possible in all places, but is clearly going to be more demanding in the poorer, more remote or less developed regions.

Some Australian battlefields are located in places hard to get to and harder to stay in. They include North Korea, Iran, Burma, Iraq and Afghanistan (for obvious reasons) and, sadly still, Bougainville. The first place to go before a travel agent is www.smartraveller.gov.au. The US Department of State (see travel.state.gov) will often explain why some regions may be risky, from an American perspective. Advisory websites will give you advice based on reports from diplomatic missions in those countries. You might still decide to go, but don’t say you weren’t warned.

Reports of security concerns can vary, and official warnings tend to the extremely cautious. In 2002, for example, it was absurd that Australian teachers should have been forbidden from travelling to Turkey on duty because of ‘security concerns’ when thousands of young backpackers and well-off over-50s went privately—and entirely uneventfully. On the other hand, take heed of the ‘travel advisory’ (even though ‘advisory’ is an adjective) for, say, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Lebanon or Georgia.

Northern Russia may be a very rewarding place to visit. Its vast fir forests may seem oppressive and monotonous, but experiencing its seemingly unchanging vastnesses would surely give a strong reminder of this neglected campaign. As I suggest earlier, finding the location of the two ‘Australian’ VC ‘exploits’ would lend purpose to visiting such a vast theatre of war. (The VCs are nominally Australian because their recipients were Australians who signed on for another go with the British regiment, the Royal Fusiliers, a battalion of which comprised mainly Australians.)

Myanmar (as the current regime calls Burma) is the site of 1300 Australian war graves, mainly around Tavoy in the remote south, but the DFAT website advises Australians to avoid Myanmar unless they have essential business. The 2008 cyclone made an impossible situation worse. North Korea is out of bounds except on bland, officially sponsored tours. This precludes a visit to Maryang San, described by Robert O’Neill in his official history as the site of ‘the greatest single feat of the Australian Army during the Korean War’.

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