Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

securing southeast asia: Malayan emergency and indonesian confrontation
nOTes
580 Letter by Prime Minister Howard to 16th Minesweeping Squadron Reunion Social Club on
the occasion of the unveiling of a commemoration plaque at the Australian War Memorial,
31 May 2006.
581 During the author’s visit to the UK Ministry of Defence, Naval Historical Branch in 2003
he was assured that CinCFE and COMFEF records had been returned to London after the
British withdrawal east of Suez but that they were destroyed because they were ‘smelly’.
Consequently, there has never been any attempt by the British to write an official history
of the conflicts.
582 Jeffrey Grey, Up Top: The Royal Australian Navy and Southeast Asian Conflicts 1955—1972,
Allen & Unwin, Sydney,1998, pp. 42—70.
583 NAA A816, Item 14/301/371 — Directive for the guidance of the Defence Department and
Department of External Affairs: Defence Policy and National Security, 15 February 1946,
p. 9.
584 NAA A5954/69, Item 1662/1 — British Commonwealth Conference 1946: Briefing Paper
‘Defence and Security’.
585 LD MacLean, ANZIM to ANZUK — An Historical Outline of ANZAM, Department of Defence,
Canberra, 1992, pp. 2—3.
586 Donohue, From Empire Defence, pp. 82—84. The Radford-Collins agreement was essentially
a formal confirmation of what had been agreed as early as 1948 between Admiral Ramsay,
USN, Radford’s predecessor, and CNS Admiral Collins.
587 NAA A5799/15, Item 125/1952 — Responsibilities of ANZAM chiefs of staff in relation to the
external defence of Malaya, attachment to CNS letter of 10 June 1952.
588 NAA A5954/69, Item 1631/1 — Strategic Planning in relation to British Commonwealth
defence: basis for planning the defence of sea communications in the ANZAM region:
COSC Agendum (50) 68 of 17 February 1950, p. 3. This was a significant step for the RAN,
which formerly had had no strategic planning responsibilities. [Alastair Cooper, ‘At the
Crossroads: Anglo-Australian Naval Relations, 1945—1971’, Journal of Military History 58,
1994, pp. 699—718.]
589 A contrary view is put by the leader of the Communist Party of Malaya, Chin Peng, who made
the claim that the Australian foreign minister, Dr HV Evatt, showed interest in providing
assistance to the British as early as August 1948. However, he conceded that it took two
years for any assistance to eventuate, and seven years before Australian troops joined the
battle. [Chin Peng, My Side of History, Media Masters, Singapore,2003, pp. 248—253.]
590 It was felt that the hard work that Australia was putting into the development of the Colombo
Plan (1950) might be placed in jeopardy by too willing a toeing of the British line on Malayan.
[O’Neill, Strategy and Diplomacy, p. 38.]
591 NAA A5954, Item 2292/3 — Malaya 1949 — Nov 1952 file 3, Memorandum of 19 May 50.
The Bridgeford Mission.
592 The report cast doubt on the value of bombing the jungle but noted a need ‘for additional
naval vessels’. [NAA A816, Item 6/301/650 — Report on Malaya by Australian Military
Mission to Malaya July—August 1950 of 11 September 1950.]
593 NAA A1209/23, Item 1857/4152 — Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy 1953, Defence
Committee minute 368/1952 of 8 January 1953.
594 The specific matters addressed are listed in MacLean, ANZIM to ANZUK, p. 6.
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