Why the Germans lost the war

 

 

Much has been written about why the Germans lost the war. Was it because the Spitfire was superior to the Messerschmitt? Was it because the British had cracked the Enigma Code? Or did the V2 come too late?

Taking into account the research by various eminent war historians and reading numerous Biggles books, the above video clip was compiled to sum up in thirty-five seconds why the Germans lost the war.

 

 

"There's no vay the vool you're pulling over our eyes."

 

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A picture is worth a thousand words

 

 

This old photo from the 'sixties of the Hotel Civic and its Civic Lounge (aka Star Crest Lounge) on the corner of Northbourne Avenue and Alinga Street in Canberra brings back many memories. Let's see if they amount to a thousand words:

 

Page 98 from the book "Pictorial History Canberra"

 

Somehow my memories of the Civic Lounge are not so much of alcoholic drinks as of milk because at the time I stayed at Barton House on the other side of the lake and, being a poorly paid Bank Johnny, relied on mates with cars to take me into Civic at night. One of those mates was a Danish cheesemaker whose name I only remembered after finding an old Barton House guestlist from 1967: "HANSEN Kurt milk plant foreman"

 

Taken from my other webpage riverbendnelligen.com/bartonhouse.html

 

Being fellow-migrants, Kurt and I hit it off almost immediately after we must've bumped into each other in the dark corridors of Barton House, although it was only after searching the National Archives recently that I came to realise how closely our migrant experiences had resembled each other: like me he had migrated at the tender age of twenty; like me he had arrived by ship from Bremerhaven; and like me he had gone through the Bonegilla Migrant Centre, albeit five years before me.

 

Registration card from Bonegilla Migrant Centre

 

Unlike me who had spent only two nights there, he had lingered on for almost a month before being shipped off to Villawood, another migrant hostel in Sydney. By the time we met in 1966 in yet another hostel, this time the privately-run Barton House in Canberra, he had already been in Australia for six years and could afford a single room (I occupied a much cheaper share-room) as well as his own car which brings me back to the beginning of the story (I'm trying to flesh this out to a thousand words).

 

The stamp on the back of this Passenger Arrival Card reads "3 May 1968"

 

I'd been in Australia for less than a year, but perhaps because the years I had already been away from home had equipped me better to mix with people, or because Kurt while tending his cheeses never got much chance to practise his English, it was left to me to chat up the girls when we hit the Civic Hotel's Star Crest Lounge on a Saturday night.

To gain entry to this venue, one had to pass muster at the door guarded by László, a bald-headed bouncer of uncertain ethnic origin; and to gain acceptance with the girls inside, one ordered a bottle of Barossa Pearl.

 

For a more serious exploration of this bubbly wine which changed
not only Australia's drinking habits but also its demography, click here

 

I still remember the night we joined two girls at their table. They were young public service recruits, also new to Canberra - in those days everyone was "new" to Canberra - and staying at Gowrie Hostel, colloquially known as the "Twin Towers of Sin". For me, it was just another good night out and I don't remember anything else, not even the names of the girls, but it must've been more to Kurt because I heard later that one of the girls had changed her last name to "Hansen".

I left again for Germany in late 1967. When I came back in April 1969 and checked back into Barton House, Kurt was no longer there. The story went that they'd gone for their honeymoon to Europe and come back on separate flights, a month apart, as things hadn't worked out.

At just over five hundred words, this is perhaps only half the story; the other half is for Kurt to tell. So, Kurt, if you read this, let me know.

 

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Tick tick tick ...

 

My advertisement on realestate.com.au

 

Yesterday I received what may well have been my last inquiry from a prospective buyer for "Riverbend". I didn't take long to reply, "Aren't you overly optimistic? We may all be dead before you had a chance to inspect the property."

Since then, we haven't heard any more from that psychopath inside the White House after his last threat that Iran's 'civilisation will die'. While he runts and raves and plays high-stakes poker, the Iranians are playing an old Persian game that requires more brain: chess. Shah mate, Trump!

 

 

Beyond the idiotic rhetorics of this mad president, let me remind you that EVERY administration, from Carter, Reagan, Bush (senior), Clinton, Bush (junior), Obama, to Biden, and Trump, said that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. So why did it take until now? Because Iran kept moving the goalposts, and the world kept letting them. By May 2025, the IAEA reported that Iran’s cache of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium had surged by 50 percent in just three months, putting Tehran one step away from having enough material for ten nuclear weapons.

China, the other superpower, is not an innocent bystander in this story — but then they may have kept in mind the famous quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake". Iran is central to Beijing’s entire overland trade and energy strategy. Iran sits at the heart of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the infrastructure network connecting East Asia to Europe through land-based transport and Persian Gulf energy routes. Without stable access through Iranian territory, Beijing’s supply chains have no alternative. Iran exported more than 520 million barrels of crude oil to China in 2025 alone. China buys over 80 percent of Iran’s oil. This isn’t ideological solidarity. It’s a dependency that neither side wants disrupted.

Which brings us to the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 13 million barrels of oil per day moved through the Strait in 2025, about 31 percent of all seaborne crude in the world. About 45 percent of China’s oil imports pass through it. Iran has threatened to close it. And here’s what that threat actually produced: China is now in direct talks with Iran, pressing Tehran to allow crude oil and LNG vessels safe passage.

The United States didn’t stumble into this war because Israel asked nicely. It acted on a threat that five decades of American presidents had kicked down the road. The world needed someone to act. The better question isn’t why it happened. It’s why it took this long. Of course, less hyperbole from a mad president would've been far more effective.

If the ballon goes up in the next hour-and-a-half and we'll all be blown to smithereens, I console myself with having saved a lot of money on my ever-increasing medical bills. As for the inspection on Saturday, 11 April, I think it'll be a no-show. Tick tick tick ...

 

 

The clock just stopped, as Trump gave himself a two-week deadline to come up with a new distraction from the Epstein files, whith the Irians saying that "our hands are on the trigger, and as soon as the slightest mistake by the enemy is made, it will be responded to with full force."

 

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Seventy years ago in New Guinea

 

Brian Darcey during his final years in Cairns

 

My old mate Brian Darcey wrote, apart from his first and only book, "Bougainville Blue", some very evocative articles on his blog darceyco.com (for more, click here), which, alas, is no more.

Well, neither is Brian who sailed - or flew - over the horizon in May 2018, but it would be a shame not to preserve some of his writing for his four children and five grandchildren and, indeed, all "Territorians" of the "taim bipo". Here it goes:

 

In 1955, I had just returned to Sydney from a trans-Tasman crossing to New Zealand in Kylie, a steel ketch which had taken up the previous two years of my young life as we built her in the sand dunes of La Perouse on Botany Bay.   The author at La Perouse before launching Kylie   As a newly married man, not yet gainfully employed, I was faced with two choices: Longreach in Western Queensland where a job as radio announcer awaited, or Port Moresby in what was then Australian Territory where Steamships Trading Company had a ship needing a supercargo, (Code for sea-going clerk/handyman/dogsbody). Port Moresby (which I had never seen) seemed the better alternative and I left Sydney with a one-way ticket to Port Moresby aboard a vintage DC4 leaving my new bride behind to follow 'later', when my employers would hopefully pay for her to join me. Port Moresby signalled my arrival with a shattering metallic clatter as the aircraft touched down on the wartime runway at Jackson's Airport, still covered with the ubiquitous marsden matting ; interlocking steel plates which the post-war territory used for purposes never dreamed of by its American inventors. Tank stands, pig fences, security barriers and fishtraps were just a few. I had invested in a new officer's cap complete with snow-white cover to complement my reefer jacket and long trousers; appropriate attire for my new career, or so I thought. Sweating profusely in the humid air, I went straight to my new ship, MV DOMA which was moored alongside Port Moresby's only wharf, fully loaded needing only its new supercargo before departing for Daru across the Gulf of Papua.   'Duali'. Sistership to Doma   Her shirtless skipper David Herbert, brother of Australian author Xavier, raised a bushy eyebrow at the appearance of this new Supercargo in wildly inappropriate attire and wordlessly poured me a very large glass of Negrita rum before turning to the Chief Engineer with what I later learned was his invariable signal for immediate departure…."Kick 'er in the guts Lofty!" he said, and we sailed for Daru without further ceremony. Doma was part of a fleet of small ships bought by Steamships Trading Company for peppercorn prices from the Australian Government, which disposed of the huge mass of machinery and equipment left behind by departing U.S forces to anyone with a cheque book. She was 120 feet overall. Flat-bottomed. Powered by twin diesel engines but without the usual benefit of contra-rotating propellers, which made her almost uncontrollable when going astern. She was designed by a general in the US Marines as a water tanker and general cargo carrier: if these small ships survived one beach invasion, this was all that was expected of them. Doma was fully loaded with a mixed cargo of rice, tinned meat, sugar, flour,tobacco and other staples below a single long hatch. The deck was completely covered with 44-gallon drums of highly volatile fuel, and this in turn was overlaid by over one hundred deck passengers, complete with pressure stoves, which were lit from time to time directly on top of the fuel drums.   Foredeck of Doma at Daru. Papuan Gulf   Navigation equipment was minimal. Depth sounding was by leadline. Other aids were completely absent. No Radar, no Radio Direction Finder; and no buoys, lights, or any other indication of position or depth for the hundreds of miles of shallow, mudstained water of the Papuan Gulf. The success (or otherwise) of a voyage was entirely dependant on the local knowledge of her officers and crew, mainly the latter, whose seagoing antecedents had sailed these seas in huge claw-sailed Lakatoi canoes for centuries. Doma successfully completed this, my first voyage, with no more than the usual number of groundings and missed landfalls. On return to Port Moresby, she was immediately loaded with an almost identical cargo for the reef strewn East Coast of Papua. Destination, Samarai, at the Southeast end of Papua.   Loading copra and rubber at Otamata, Papuan East Coast   More appropriately dressed now for my job, I approached the shipping manager for an advance on my princely salary of sixty pounds per month for an airfare for my new wife Ivy who was patiently waiting in Melbourne. To the astonishment of Skipper "Dave" Herbert, Steamships Trading Company agreed. "Yer must have caught them off guard by turning up sober," was his percipient comment. The voyage to Samarai was our honeymoon and attracted the close interest of planters at ports along the coast. They had been attentively listening to ships' radio Skeds carrying my messages to Ivy which included sentiments and detailed promises of connubial bliss better expressed in more privacy than that afforded by an open radio circuit ! Heat, dust, and an overall air of makeshift dilapidation pervaded Port Moresby, still showing the effects of years of military occupation, which ended in 1945. The streets were potholed. Traffic was chaotic, and wheeled transport was salvaged army jeeps or trucks and battered sedans with the occasional new car driven by one of the newly rich entrepreneurs of this frontier town. We set up our first home in an apartment in the dusty outer suburb of Boroko. Ivy started work as assistant to Dr Joan Refshauge in the Health Department and I went back to sea for two more trips on Doma. Sufficient sea time now accumulated, I sat for the rudimentary examination of the times, gained a Ships Master's Certificate and was immediately offered command of a small 85 foot motor vessel M.V. Moturina. I managed, with the considerable assistance of my Papuan crew, to safely negotiate the entire coast of Papua for the next three months. I will be forever grateful to those Papuan seamen for their help in keeping me off the reefs and mudbanks of their home waters. A tactful, discreet cough, followed by meaningful inclination of a bushy head translated as "Turn now boss or we'll all be swimming!"   Canoes at Pari village. Papuan coast   Moturina, like Doma, was another wartime legacy. Single-screwed with a high deck house aft. I first took command while she was on the slipway after a refit and proceeded to move her all of half a mile to the small ships wharf, where an official group consisting of the managing director, the shipping manager and the all-powerful harbour master, whose signature was hardly dry on my new masters certificate, awaited the arrival of the new Captain. For six months of the year, the Southeast Tradewind blows across Port Moresby harbour at 25 knots or better, and it was directly behind me as I approached the wharf and its assembled dignitaries. 'Slow Astern,' rung down on the rickety telegraph to the engineer two decks below, had no discernable effect on Moturina's headlong charge at the wharf… 'Half Astern,' followed by 'Full Astern!' had no time to take effect before wooden ship and solid timber wharf met with a rending crash, sending the welcoming committee down in a confused heap of white-clad limbs and bulging eyes, accompanied by a roar of alarm from the local wharf workers. Damage was confined to a few planks stove in above the waterline, which were repaired much sooner than the ego of her chastened skipper, who retreated to the Snakepit, the mariners' retreat at the nearby Papuan Hotel.

 

Thanks, Brian, for bringing back good memories of our times in the then Territory of Papua & New Guinea. Long after you had left, I also did a stint with "Steamies" to set up their tug-and-barge operations for the Ok Tedi Mine - click here -, so there's something else we had in common.

 

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There is a crack in everything

 

 

The chain of cause and effect that links human affairs is endless, which means they remain without a real explanation. I am here at "Riverbend" as a result of an infinite series of 'becauses', of which it is impossible to establish the first because there really is no beginning.

Perhaps it all comes down to fate, and fate is ineluctable, even though I have always wanted to be surprised by life and never believed in prophecies. Perhaps this is the meaning of Oedipus's prophecy: a fortune-teller tells his father, Laius, that his son will kill him and become his mother's lover. To avoid this, Laius gets rid of Oedipus by sending him far away. And just because of that act the returning Oedipus can kill Laius without knowing he is his father, and, without knowing that she is his mother, he can become Jocasta's lover. If Laius had ignored the fortune-teller, nothing would have happened; the prophecy is fulfilled precisely because he takes it seriously and does his best to avoid the consequences. The Greeks understood and said it all five centuries before Christ, and we're still rediscovering it today!

Which brings me, ever so conveniently, to where my train of thought had started its long journey: Greece. Of course, I should've stayed longer in Greece. And, of course, I should've stayed longer - perhaps forever - in my first real home, Pallarenda, just north of Townsville. And, yes, I should've stayed longer on Thursday Island. And I certainly should've stayed longer in Burma. But time is what keeps everything from happening at once, and had I spent more time in Burma, I would probably never have gone to Thursday Island, and had I settled at Pallarenda, Greece would still be just a place on the map for me.

Life is not a linear progression. It's full of twists and turns with plenty of pitfalls and setbacks, or, as the unforgettable and now late Leonard Cohen - who also had a strong connection with Greece - put it so well, "There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in".

 

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