O SAY, DOES THAT STAR-SPANGLED BANNER YET WAVE ...

 ... yeah right. It does in the oddest places - mostly where people would rather it not.

Here's OK I guess - in the USA where they don't know better.

Not here - in New Zealand where we don't need this shit

And not being waved by what we thought was a true-blooded Kiwi

Those images were from a post I wrote in November 2020. see: LOONY TUNES

It seems that Robert is still at it though as seen in a recent post of his showing his new swimming pool and what became of his beloved flag:

When I remonstrated he edited the home page on his blog to show everyone where his loyalties lie:

Maybe he'll stop waving the Gay Pride flag ...

... and follow Trump in molesting "Old Glory':

When I said that flying the USA flag in his backyard  was insulting, this led to Robert claiming that Americans saved New Zealand and New Zealanders from the Japanese in the Second World War.

This is the sort of rewritten history that the Americans - particularly the MAGA Republicans are into with for example their denial of critical race theory and is heavily used in PlayStation - type video games of Americans at war. I spoofed this a bit: HERE

Mind you, the same can be said of the Brits with the sort of narrow-minded potted history fed to us as kids via comics such as VICTOR and COMMANDO where 'Tommy' virtually single-handedly wiped out Krauts, Eyeties and Japs.

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped." - George Orwell, '1984'

Robert's assertion that New Zealand and Australia was 'saved' by the Americans has been in dispute by real historians over the last 80 years. It's worth reading up on this - across the political spectrum and not just the gung-ho American oriented ones.

Here's a couple of views (Australian but it is relevant to New Zealand's position at the time) from QUORA:

Did the United States save Australia and New Zealand from the Japanese during WW2?

No not “saved”. Until late 1942, there was a fear with that the Japanese Empire, which was knocking at the door of Australia was going to invade. Australian Prime Minister Curtain was so concerned of this probable event, that he recalled his Army back to Australia and ended up in a diplomatic row with Churchill who wanted them sent to Singapore. Curtain got his way…so invasion was a real concern. With Britain heavily engaged in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East, Curtain turned to the US….. FOR ASSISTANCE….A-S-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E. This is NOT saving. It’s assisting. BIG difference.

Without three pages of writings here, the Aussies, fought a series of bloody, hard won battles on their frontier…New Guinea. They and to a lesser extent US troops, stopped the Japanese Empire at Australia’s doorstep. It was for all intensive purposes, Australia’s finest hour.

What the US really most likely “saved” Australia from, was the real possibility of strategic isolation. THAT was more attainable than a land invasion of Australia. The Battle of the Coral Sea (mostly USN but the Kiwi and Aussie navies were right alongside) and definitely Midway, ended any chance of Japan strategically isolating Australia… Because of the heavy loss of IJN Carriers in those battles, there was no chance of the IJN isolating Australia or invading her.

Assisting is helping someone up, across the street and beating up a stronger opponent. Saving is them getting the shit beat out of them and you block the punches and save the victim from certain death. I don’t like when my countrymen claim we “saved” Australia in WWII. It’s fake history and insulting. Read about New Guinea, the Australian assistance to the US forces in the Pacific, the RAN fighting in almost every naval battle against the IJN, the ANZACS “saving” American soldiers and Marines teaching them how to overcome jungle bacterias, tracking in the jungle, what equipment to use, and how to survive in the jungle environment and forget the saving. We ASSISTED.

And they ASSISTED us in Vietnam as payback.

No, the US did not stop Japan from invading Australia.

 

***********

 

No, they had nothing to stop. The truth is that the Australian mainland was NEVER in danger of being invaded. There is a popular myth in Australia that it was a hairsbreadth away from invasion by the Japanese. Sadly, the myth has been encouraged by Australian governments from time to time. This is not discounting the bravery and courage of American and Australian military personnel in World War 2, but it’s simply not true that the US stopped Japan from invading Australia. Here’s why:

By mid 1942 when the Phillipines, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, Indonesia and a large part of China were controlled and garrisoned by the Japanese, they were fully extended. They could not spare the manpower for a full scale invasion of Australia. The Japanese Army estimated that it would require 12 divisions to conquer Australia. They could not spare that number of troops.

Apart from the lack of manpower, there are a whole host of supplementary reasons that precluded an invasion. By July 1942, the Japanese were losing merchant shipping at the rate of 100,000 tons a month from American submarines. This was an unsustainable loss rate. They were unable to adequately resupply their existing conquered territories, let alone new conquests.

Besides the lack of men and material needed to mount a successful invasion, the Japanese did not have air superiority in the Coral Sea. They lost most of their aircraft carriers at Midway and the Battle of the Coral Sea. Any invasion would have been very vulnerable to air attack from the Australian mainland.

With respect to the role of the US in the Pacific war in general, there is no doubt that they did the bulk of the fighting, but considering the relative populations of Australia and the US at the time, this is to be expected.

In no way do these opinions, and mine, denigrate the valiant efforts of the young Americans who fought and died in the Pacific but, as I said in a comment to Robert, The Americans were following an agenda that wasn't about saving New Zealand from the Japanese. We just weren't that important to them other than as a base and sadly a rehabilitation centre for the wounded.