Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories by Jim Haynes

Author:Jim Haynes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2016-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

Of all the fields of human endeavour, there is, perhaps, none that produces more truly strange and unbelievable stories than war.

Although rivalry, competition and conflict are obviously part of human nature, there is still something quite puzzling about what men will do to one another when given the opportunity to do it for a reason, be it nationalism, religion, revenge, commercial gain or supposed justice.

There are many unbelievable stories from that period of time in Australian history when Britain invaded and settled this continent and established the colonies that eventually combined to form the nation we know today.

Some of the saddest and most unbelievable of these stories concern the conflict between the European settlers and the Indigenous inhabitants of the continent, but those stories are not told in this collection as I find them mostly too poignant and upsetting to be ‘unbelievable’ in the sense of ‘interesting and entertaining’.

I have, instead, restricted myself to telling and retelling some stories from the major conflicts in which Australia has been involved since European settlement. Some of the stories concern things that Australians ‘know’ but don’t really know much about. I have tried to explain why the Battles of Villers-Bretonneux were such amazing events for our nation, and why the Battle of the Coral Sea was one of the strangest ever fought.

Events like the Battle of Brisbane and the Cowra breakout shocked and puzzled Australians when they occurred, and it is fascinating to look at them in retrospect and attempt to see what it was about them that seemed so inexplicable. I certainly found it interesting and enlightening to research these events and attempt to explain why they occurred and why they were so puzzling.

One of my favourite characters from our colonial past is the totally unlikeable Colonel Henry Despard, who did his best to lose the Maori Wars and then precipitated the mutiny of the 99th Regiment in Sydney.

Seen with the benefit of hindsight, and in the light of a different era, he comes to us from the pages of history as a kind of archetypal British buffoon, whose place in Australian colonial military history was established by two major errors of judgement.

Despard was born in 1784 and saw active service in several campaigns in India between 1808 and 1818. He then spent twenty years as a staff officer, inspecting regiments until 1842, when he took command of the 99th Regiment of Foot, stationed in Sydney.

On 1 June 1845 Despard and two companies of his regiment arrived in Auckland and he took command of all British troops in New Zealand, in a battle against the Maoris led by Chief Hone Heke.

With a force of 600 men, the largest British force ever seen in New Zealand, Despard laid siege to Ohaeawai, the first Maori stockade, or pa, designed to resist artillery fire. Its 100-strong garrison was protected by a complex of bunkers and trenches. Although no breach had been made in the stockade, Despard lined his troops up shoulder to shoulder and marched them at the impenetrable defences.

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