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Victory

 

Soon after arriving back in Brisbane the Japs threw in the towel and what happened next has got to be seen to be believed.  Every night for the best part of two weeks there was dancing in the streets: no cars, nothing except people; Yanks, Ozzies, men and women; dancing, kissing, hugging, fraternising, you name it.  Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, everywhere.  Ask Joan, she was part of it.

Finally I arrived back in Sydney and became very disillusioned with the army; both the media and the people were saying that young Australian lives had been lost unnecessarily. Islands like New Guinea, New Britain, Bougainville and Malaya had long been bypassed by the Americans in their island hopping campaign on their way to get bases nearer to Japan for their B52-bombers.

All the Japanese that were ‘holed up’ in these islands were a threat to nobody.  They couldn’t go anywhere; America had control of the sea and the air.  They were virtually self-contained prisoners of war; left to wither on the vine, as it were; growing vegetables and whatever.  We would have been much better off fighting alongside the Yanks at Iwo-Jima and Okinawa.

What sickens me most is that solders like Stewart and Col Goodenough did not lose their lives fighting for Australia; they died for a lost cause.  They died for nothing.  But ours is not to reason why, ours is to do and die.

Anyway, I soon forgot about all that because I came down with my third bout of malaria and was hospitalised.

Let me tell you how malaria is transmitted.  There is only one mosquito that can give you malaria and that is the Anopheles and even then it’s only the female of the species. They first bite an infected person, and then when they bite you they inject this fluid in their system into your body to stop your blood from congealing.  It is then that the malarian parasite enters your bloodstream and very soon after you have malaria. 

When I came out of hospital I was transferred to a transport unit at Glenfield and one night I went on leave to Luna Park.  I met this sheila there, she told me her name was Joan.  End of story.

 

Ross Smith

 

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Travel

Berlin

 

 

 

I'm a bit daunted writing about Berlin.  

Somehow I'm happy to put down a couple of paragraphs about many other cities and towns I've visited but there are some that seem too complicated for a quick 'off the cuff' summary.  Sydney of course, my present home town, and past home towns like New York and London.  I know just too much about them for a glib first impression.

Although I've never lived there I've visited Berlin on several occasions for periods of up to a couple of weeks.  I also have family there and have been introduced to their circle of friends.

So I decided that I can't really sum Berlin up, any more that I can sum up London or New York, so instead I should pick some aspects of uniqueness to highlight. 

Read more: Berlin

Fiction, Recollections & News

Love in the time of Coronavirus

 

 

 

 

Gabriel García Márquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera lies abandoned on my bookshelf.  I lost patience with his mysticism - or maybe it was One Hundred Years of Solitude that drove me bananas?  Yet like Albert Camus' The Plague it's a title that seems fit for the times.  In some ways writing anything just now feels like a similar undertaking.

My next travel diary on this website was to have been about the wonders of Cruising - expanding on my photo diary of our recent trip to Papua New Guinea.

 


Cruising to PNG - click on the image to see more

 

Somehow that project now seems a little like advocating passing time with that entertaining game: Russian Roulette. A trip on Corona Cruise Lines perhaps?

In the meantime I've been drawn into several Facebook discussions about the 1918-20 Spanish Influenza pandemic.

After a little consideration I've concluded that it's a bad time to be a National or State leader as they will soon be forced to make the unenviable choice between the Scylla and Charybdis that I end this essay with.

On a brighter note, I've discovered that the economy can be expected to bounce back invigorated. We have all heard of the Roaring Twenties

So the cruise industry, can take heart, because the most remarkable thing about Spanish Influenza pandemic was just how quickly people got over it after it passed.

Read more: Love in the time of Coronavirus

Opinions and Philosophy

A Carbon Tax for Australia

 12 July 2011

 

 

It's finally announced, Australia will have a carbon tax of $23 per tonne of CO2 emitted.  This is said to be the highest such tax in the world but it will be limited to 'about 500' of the biggest emitters.  The Government says that it can't reveal which  these are to the public because commercial privacy laws prevent it from naming them. 

Some companies have already 'gone public' and it is clear that prominent among them are the major thermal power generators and perhaps airlines.  Some like BlueScope Steel (previously BHP Steel) will be granted a grace period before the tax comes into effect. In this case it is publicly announced that the company has been granted a two year grace period with possible extensions, limited to its core (iron and steelmaking) emissions.

Read more: A Carbon Tax for Australia

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