Question for Greg Parker

[Len Colby]

From the rules of behaviour for the forum:

"(iv) Members should not make personal attacks on other members. Nor should references be made to their abilities as researchers. Most importantly, the motivations of the poster should not be questioned. At all times members should concentrate on what is being said, rather than who is saying it. It is up to the reader to look at the biography submitted by the poster, to judge whether they are telling the truth or not. The word “xxxx” is banned from use on the forum. [Emphasis mine throughout.]

And Mr. Colby asks:

"So my question to you is you really so careless that you posted the quote without reading the preceding sentences in the paragraph OR were you trying to “pull a fast one”?"

Does Mr Colby not question BOTH the abilities AND the motives of the researcher with his question ? The first part of Mr. Colby's question appears to question the abilities of the researcher...

Incorrect Mark - just because someone, Greg in this case, was careless on one occasion doesn’t means he is habitually so let alone that he is incapable of doing better research is he so desired. That said though he was repeatedly sloppy in the threads were we discussed the Darwin bombings.

I’m also curious as to how you’d categorize what he seems to be admitting was a mistake, he quoted a sentence from a text without having read the paragraph it came from. Do really think saying he was “careless” was inappropriate?

You should also bear in mind that Greg was the first to make such an accusation, he wrote:

Pat,

thanks for trying to be conciliatory, but no need. Len is wrong. His superficial research is no different than quoting the Dallas Morning Herald quoting the Warren Report that Oswald acted alone.

So perhaps these rules don’t apply to Mr. Parker.

...while the second appears to question the motives of the researcher, IMHO.

The clause about not questioning “the motivations of the poster” was be generally interepreted as prohibiting suggesting he or she has some ulterior motive (such as working for the CIA etc), something I’ve never done here. More applicable would the banning of ‘the word “xxxx”’ which has been interpreted as any accusation that a poster was dishonest but I always made it clear I though Greg’s errors were due to sloppiness rather than an intent to deceive.

And since you are so concerned about members following the rules you should berate Greg for repeatedly ignoring number 5:

v) Members should take care over the accuracy of their postings....

[Greg Parker]

I was referring of course to you providing the quote about Broome as if it were about Darwin

Er. No, it was YOU who did that.

Of course you ignore you bring caught up on your shoddy research once again, one the books you cited put the refugees there in 1944 not 1942. The second had an unknown number there a month before the attacks. Lockwood (pg 40) and Timothy Hall in Darwin 1942: Australia's Darkest Hour (pg 27) reported that at the time Darwin was served by “civil airliners, such as they were, flying scheduled services from Adelaide and Brisbane” additionally the town was connected by road, train and ship to other parts of the country and thus refugees and migrant laborers would have had plenty of opportunities to leave. Indeed on pages 12 and 13 (your bad luck!) of Darkest Hour Hall wrote that:

There are ALWAYS refugees in Darwin. That was the point. What's yours?

As for airlines etc... the call to evacuate was limited pretty much limited to (white) women and children. Connected by road. Yes. One road. And that is STILL the case. Usually inaccessible for part of the wet season which goes from November through to March.

…one of the more unedifying sights in Darwin had been of able-bodied men physically pushing women and children aside to buy for their own use seats that had been ear-marked for the evacuees. These men, a large number of whom were migrant workers, took so many of the seats originally allocated to the evacuees that it was more by chance than good management that the women and children had been evacuated by the time the Japanese finally attacked

[…]

…evacuation plan went to the airlines and pleaded with them to take several pregnant women who were among the refugees waiting to be air-lifted to safety. A similar plea to a group of migrant laborers who had just bought seats on the aircraft went completely unheeded.

So it seems non-citizens (migrant laborers in this case) were able to leave town in significant numbers and were not ones to be pushed around, more on this later. Even you concede that the expected layover time for refugees in Darwin could be “one or two months”. According to your ONLY source an undefined number of refugees already were in there when a ship arrived a month before the attacks. i.e. they could have been there a month already.

You're confusing migrant laborers with refugees. Whilst the migrant laborers were non-citizens, assuming they were in the country legally, their identity was not a problem.

"As I've indicated - default assumption - given various known conditions would be that the refugees were still in Darwin at the time of the attacks. And that fits with eye-witness reports of bodies being towed to sea. Those bodies would only be of people who "didn't count" "

Report, you have only one and it is a 2nd hand paraphrase, we don’t even know his name. As for your “default assumption” see above.

You haven't touched any assumptions. Migrant workers do not = refugees. In any case, you ignore the fact that I've said Aborigines would have made up the larger proportion.

"Wonder why?? Oh, I know! Shades of Dealey Plaza and the call to "get something out quickly to show that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone". Propaganda needs prominence to put the public back to sleep."

Wait are you complaining that the story was given too little or too much “prominence”? Both can’t be true.

Why am I not surprised you don't get it? The story was buried when reporting on bare facts with or without a sprinkling of government sanctioned misinfo.

It got prominence when the story included bold barefaced propaganda eg that there was limited damage to the town.

Based on the Lowe Report and seemingly the conclusion of every historian to study the attacks (other perhaps than Forrest) - yes, the number of dead was close to the true number Curtin's assessment of the damage however was not straight forward. I don’t know of anyone claiming Lowe underestimated the damage, he said several buildings were “a total loss”.

The Canberra Times story you defend including the line "the damage done to Darwin was very small..." and this was, if I remember quoting or paraphrasing the LR. The town was destroyed. Between the bombing and Cyclone Tracy, there is only one building standing that pre-dates WWII.

No I never said or indicated I thought you did it on purpose.

Yeah, you did. But in that same post, you also said you gave the benefit of the doubt. You can't keep track, that's all, basically because you don't care. Facts aren't what this is about from your side. Anyone wanting to torture themselves, can review the threads and see for themselves.

My god you really showing how confused you are now. Did you down a couple of Foster’s “oil cans” or smoke some doobies before posting? I cited the wiki page on out of context quotes YOU cited their page about “Argument from authority”. That page has only one link and it’s to Nizkor.

No pulling the polyester over your eyes, is there? Naughty me, naughty wiki. However, if you look at the overall work they've done on logical fallacies, there is more than adequate citation. Nizkor, from memory, does not provide any cites.

There were an estimated 900 to 1100 killed in the initial bombings."

Estimated by a few old men decades after the fact, a number not supported by anyone who researched what happened that day. I have repeatedly suggested you consult the 1966 book by a journalist who was there that day, but you’ve show no interest in it. Most curious.

Cute. Those "old men" had told the same story when they were young to family members.

I don’t suppose a citation for this claim will be forthcoming?

Correct. As explained a number of times, I won't subject witnesses to your peculiar form of cynicism.

What I would be willing to do is pass the information to a disinterested party who can verify what I've said is true.

Of course it’s nothing more than “speculation out of thin air” your case that 900 or more people were killed is more legless than a billion worms

Now that's the funniest line so far! Don't know how I'm going to top it.

and you’ve presented zero evidence that Lowe was aware of these supposed additional fatalities. All you have is about 5 eyewitness reports out of the thousands of survivors and the barely interesting footnote that LBJ was briefly in the country well almost 2 months after Lowe reported on the number of people killed in Darwin.

Nope. I've got witnesses who said contemporaneously that the number of deaths was much higher, that military was sworn to secrecy, the fact that LBJ was a political animal and the Darwin bombings and the coverup would have been useful information on a number of levels.

What I've got includes that Australia was looking to the US by then instead of the UK and as a "junior" partner, information was shared mainly one way. - from Aus to US... very little the other way... and with the mission he had, along with his "Rising Star" of politics badge, there would have been a scramble to give him all sorts of information.

Finally, what I've got is LBJ faced with his own need for a cover up and opting for his own version of the Lowe Committee to achieve it.

[Len Colby]

I was referring of course to you providing the quote about Broome as if it were about Darwin

Er. No, it was YOU who did that.

??? WTF are you talking about? I think your strategy is to get this “debate” going into pointless circles hoping I will give up. I asked YOU for evidence there were refugees in DARWIN at the time of the attacks YOU provided the quote, “Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies” as it referred to DARWIN when in fact it referred to BROOME 2 weeks later!

Of course you ignore you bring caught up on your shoddy research once again, one the books you cited put the refugees there in 1944 not 1942. The second had an unknown number there a month before the attacks. Lockwood (pg 40) and Timothy Hall in Darwin 1942: Australia's Darkest Hour (pg 27) reported that at the time Darwin was served by “civil airliners, such as they were, flying scheduled services from Adelaide and Brisbane” additionally the town was connected by road, train and ship to other parts of the country and thus refugees and migrant laborers would have had plenty of opportunities to leave. Indeed on pages 12 and 13 (your bad luck!) of Darkest Hour Hall wrote that:

There are ALWAYS refugees in Darwin. That was the point. What's yours?

There is zero evidence significant numbers of refugees were in Darwin on the day of the attacks and only indirect evidence suggesting some might have been there at the time

"As for airlines etc... the call to evacuate was limited pretty much limited to (white) women and children."

"You're confusing migrant laborers with refugees. Whilst the migrant laborers were non-citizens, assuming they were in the country legally, their identity was not a problem."

One of your few witnesses speculated that many (or was it most?) of those killed were migrants, in any case it is reasonable to expect that if migrants were able to get plane tickets refugees would have been able to as well.

The government sponsored evacuation of white and Asian Australian women and children is one thing, other people including migrants and presumably refugees leaving on their own is another. Some times the latter displaced the former.

"As I've indicated - default assumption - given various known conditions would be that the refugees were still in Darwin at the time of the attacks. And that fits with eye-witness reports of bodies being towed to sea. Those bodies would only be of people who "didn't count" "

Report, you have only one and it is a 2nd hand paraphrase, we don’t even know his name. As for your “default assumption” see above.

You haven't touched any assumptions. Migrant workers do not = refugees. In any case, you ignore the fact that I've said Aborigines would have made up the larger proportion.

Your speculation shifts like the wind, you previously indicated you thought many of the uncounted were migrants (and refugees). I haven’t ignored anything and indicated why it is unlikely large numbers of uncounted Aborigines or any other types of people were killed that day:

1) No reports from friends or relatives

2) No explanation why Aborigines (or other non-citizens) would have been killed in such disproportionately high numbers compared to whites especially since the Japanese targeted military and other government installations

3) No explanation why so many more people would have been killed than wounded on dry land during the attacks.

4) Darwin historian Peter Forrest’s indication most witnesses believed the toll was less than 486

You of course choose to ignore this in your reply.

GREG:"Wonder why?? Oh, I know! Shades of Dealey Plaza and the call to "get something out quickly to show that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone". Propaganda needs prominence to put the public back to sleep."

LEN:Wait are you complaining that the story was given too little or too much “prominence”? Both can’t be true.

GREG:

Why am I not surprised you don't get it? The story was buried when reporting on bare facts with or without a sprinkling of government sanctioned misinfo.

It got prominence when the story included bold barefaced propaganda eg that there was limited damage to the town.

You really are confused both articles appeared the same day and had the same (or essentially the same) text.

Based on the Lowe Report and seemingly the conclusion of every historian to study the attacks (other perhaps than Forrest) - yes, the number of dead was close to the true number Curtin's assessment of the damage however was not straight forward. I don’t know of anyone claiming Lowe underestimated the damage, he said several buildings were “a total loss”.

The Canberra Times story you defend including the line "the damage done to Darwin was very small..." and this was, if I remember quoting or paraphrasing the LR. The town was destroyed. Between the bombing and Cyclone Tracy, there is only one building standing that pre-dates WWII.

I cited it I didn’t “defend it”. It cited Curtin quoting the report. Curtin lied; the report said the town was extensively damaged. The number of buildings destroyed in 1974 has no bearing on whether Lowe omitted damage to locations were hundreds of uncounted Aborigines, refugees or migrants could have been killed.

No I never said or indicated I thought you did it on purpose.

Yeah, you did. But in that same post, you also said you gave the benefit of the doubt. You can't keep track, that's all, basically because you don't care. Facts aren't what this is about from your side. Anyone wanting to torture themselves, can review the threads and see for themselves.

Nope I’ve always said it was probably due to sloppiness. Apparently you’ve confused because I cited the following from the wiki page about quoting out of context:

“The problem here is not the removal of a quote from its original context (as all quotes are) per se, but to the quoter's decision to exclude from the excerpt certain nearby phrases or sentences (which become "context" by virtue of the exclusion) that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words.”

You excluded the “nearby…sentences…that serve[d] to clarify” that the refugees were not in Darwin by your sloppiness. It is unreasonable to expect the author to have foreseen someone coping a Google search result without opening the page.

My god you really showing how confused you are now. Did you down a couple of Foster’s “oil cans” or smoke some doobies before posting? I cited the wiki page on out of context quotes YOU cited their page about “Argument from authority”. That page has only one link and it’s to Nizkor

No pulling the polyester over your eyes, is there? Naughty me, naughty wiki. However, if you look at the overall work they've done on logical fallacies, there is more than adequate citation. Nizkor, from memory, does not provide any cites.

Cute trick, using sarcasm to avoid acknowledging you made a couple of completely false statements. The number of citations there are in Wikipedia’s OTHER articles on logical fallacies has nothing to do with your completely false claim the one about argument from authority cited “numerous” ones when in fact it only cited Nizkor. Nor does it have anything to do with your confused claim the article in question was the one about quoting out of context.

GREG:There were an estimated 900 to 1100 killed in the initial bombings."

LEN: Estimated by a few old men decades after the fact, a number not supported by anyone who researched what happened that day. I have repeatedly suggested you consult the 1966 book by a journalist who was there that day, but you’ve show no interest in it. Most curious.

GREG:Cute. Those "old men" had told the same story when they were young to family members.

LEN:I don’t suppose a citation for this claim will be forthcoming?

GREG: Correct. As explained a number of times, I won't subject witnesses to your peculiar form of cynicism.

I presume that was an excuse for not being able to back your claims. You seem to be implying you’ve spoken to witnesses yourself and still are in contact with them, is that the case?

“What I would be willing to do is pass the information to a disinterested party who can verify what I've said is true.”

If Tink, John, Andy or any ex- or current moderators (other than Peter) are willing to be intermediaries I’d take their word on it. Preferably your ‘witnesses’ will OK being quoted directly and ID at least indirectly (e.g. ‘a local policeman who participated in the burial teams said “I place hundreds of corpses on to barges which were towed out to sea”’ I imagine however a new excuse will be forthcoming.

“Nope. I've got witnesses who said contemporaneously that the number of deaths was much higher, that military was sworn to secrecy, the fact that LBJ was a political animal and the Darwin bombings and the coverup would have been useful information on a number of levels.”

Perhaps you do, but after all this you’ve yet to present such witnesses or evidence. The closest you’ve come so far is a single 85 year-old witness saying something along those lines 2/3 of a century after the fact.

“What I've got includes that Australia was looking to the US by then instead of the UK and as a "junior" partner, information was shared mainly one way. - from Aus to US... very little the other way... and with the mission he had, along with his "Rising Star" of politics badge, there would have been a scramble to give him all sorts of information.”

“Finally, what I've got is LBJ faced with his own need for a cover up and opting for his own version of the Lowe Committee to achieve it.”

Like I said speculation with no evidentiary basis

EDIT - expanded list of acceptable intermediaries.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Len Colby

[Greg Parker]

??? WTF are you talking about? I think your strategy is to get this “debate” going into pointless circles hoping I will give up.

No. That was YOUR strategy harking back to the very old thread you resurrected. And I have no problem with you continuing it.

I asked YOU for evidence there were refugees in DARWIN at the time of the attacks YOU provided the quote, “Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies” as it referred to DARWIN when in fact it referred to BROOME 2 weeks later!

The confusion was and remains yours regarding Broome. You conflated the figure of 900 for all the attacks across the Top End wih the estimates of 900 to 1100 for initial Darwin attacks. You seemed at the time to labor under the misapprehension that Broome and Darwin were side by side.

There is zero evidence significant numbers of refugees were in Darwin on the day of the attacks and only indirect evidence suggesting some might have been there at the time

Lack of evidence is not evidence that none were there. Under the circumstances, I'd hardly expect there to be any evidence. That is what you're not getting. As refugees, identities were mostly unknown. If they were among those towed to sea, then the bodies could not be counted.

"As for airlines etc... the call to evacuate was limited pretty much limited to (white) women and children."

"You're confusing migrant laborers with refugees. Whilst the migrant laborers were non-citizens, assuming they were in the country legally, their identity was not a problem."

One of your few witnesses speculated that many (or was it most?) of those killed were migrants, in any case it is reasonable to expect that if migrants were able to get plane tickets refugees would have been able to as well.

What with? Paw paws? Mangoes?

The government sponsored evacuation of white and Asian Australian women and children is one thing, other people including migrants and presumably refugees leaving on their own is another. Some times the latter displaced the former.

Your speculation shifts like the wind, you previously indicated you thought many of the uncounted were migrants (and refugees). I haven’t ignored anything and indicated why it is unlikely large numbers of uncounted Aborigines or any other types of people were killed that day:

Try and grasp reality here okay? Just for a second.

1) No reports from friends or relatives

Friends and relatives of refugees and Aborigines could have reported them missing????? :-D

Friends and relatives of refugees were almost certainly still back in the country of origin and would have no clue of their fate. I'm trying to imagine Aborigines in the '40s deciding they should tell their white "protectors" that their loved ones were missing and the mental image is just impossible to take seriously.

2) No explanation why Aborigines (or other non-citizens) would have been killed in such disproportionately high numbers compared to whites especially since the Japanese targeted military and other government installations

As I've explained, Darwin is situated on a ludicrously small tract of land. You could not single out "government instalations" without taking out most of the town. Indeed, as happens elsewhere in the world with such isolated outposts, government administration accounts for a disproportionate share of the job market. It's a curious place that both embodies the last frontier AND suckles on large amounts of government money. But I digress...due to the climate and in some cases, for cultural reasons, Darwin also has a very large proportion of those living on the streets.

3) No explanation why so many more people would have been killed than wounded on dry land during the attacks.

February is at the end of the Wet season. The land would not be "dry" and rain, humidity, and a third world hospital would no doubt ensure many of the wounded ended up on the dead list through secondary infections and diseases.

4) Darwin historian Peter Forrest’s indication most witnesses believed the toll was less than 486

Name the witnesses and how old they were when they gave those figures.

You of course choose to ignore this in your reply.

Ignore what?

You really are confused both articles appeared the same day and had the same (or essentially the same) text.

I don't recall the other article playing down the amount of damage Darwin endured.

I cited it I didn’t “defend it”.

Okay. Great. Progress. You don't defend the newspaper stories which helped play down the damage and the number of deaths.

It cited Curtin quoting the report. Curtin lied; the report said the town was extensively damaged. The number of buildings destroyed in 1974 has no bearing on whether Lowe omitted damage to locations were hundreds of uncounted Aborigines, refugees or migrants could have been killed.

Nope I’ve always said it was probably due to sloppiness. Apparently you’ve confused because I cited the following from the wiki page about quoting out of context:

Like I said, anyone who wants to torture themselves can go back and check that you did indeed make contradictory claims. Neither of those theories was on the money.

“The problem here is not the removal of a quote from its original context (as all quotes are) per se, but to the quoter's decision to exclude from the excerpt certain nearby phrases or sentences (which become "context" by virtue of the exclusion) that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words.”

You excluded the “nearby…sentences…that serve[d] to clarify” that the refugees were not in Darwin by your sloppiness.

I had nothing to do with the refugees not being in Darwin. I wasn't even born!

I presume that was an excuse for not being able to back your claims. You seem to be implying you’ve spoken to witnesses yourself and still are in contact with them, is that the case?

“What I would be willing to do is pass the information to a disinterested party who can verify what I've said is true.”

If Tink, John, Andy or any ex- or current moderators (other than Peter) are willing to be intermediaries I’d take their word on it. Preferably your ‘witnesses’ will OK being quoted directly and ID at least indirectly (e.g. ‘a local policeman who participated in the burial teams said “I place hundreds of corpses on to barges which were towed out to sea”’ I imagine however a new excuse will be forthcoming.

I have no doubt you imagine lots of things.

There will be no quoting, or any other information posted which might assist you find anyone.

I will pass the information on to John. He can verify my claims or not as he sees fit by eg confirming/not confirming that the witness states what I have indicated.

[Len Colby]

??? WTF are you talking about? I think your strategy is to get this “debate” going into pointless circles hoping I will give up.

No. That was YOUR strategy harking back to the very old thread you resurrected. And I have no problem with you continuing it.

I asked YOU for evidence there were refugees in DARWIN at the time of the attacks YOU provided the quote, “Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies” as it referred to DARWIN when in fact it referred to BROOME 2 weeks later!

The confusion was and remains yours regarding Broome. You conflated the figure of 900 for all the attacks across the Top End wih the estimates of 900 to 1100 for initial Darwin attacks. You seemed at the time to labor under the misapprehension that Broome and Darwin were side by side.

I find it hard to believe you can really be as confused as you act and assume you are being disingenuous so as to avoid having to explain your blunder. But I’ll play along. Here’s the deal, intentionally or not you are conflating two separate matters.

1) The first is our differing interpretations over the meaning of the following sentences:

“From the first raid on 19 February 1942 until the last on 12 November 1943, Australia and its allies lost about 900 people…”

AND

"Local sources estimated that between 900 and 1100 people were killed."

From this article:

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/art.../darwinbombing/

The problem is that it is unclear whether those numbers applied to all 97 raids on northern of Australia or just the 64 on Darwin or in the case of the second just from the Feb. 19 raids. I’m not really interested in going over that once again other than to point out once again I brought this up on another forum and (NOT counting me) 73% of respondents agreed with my interpretation of the 1st sentence and 82% with me about the 2nd, if you would count Dave Rodgers who said he didn’t vote but leaned towards my interpretation that would be 75 and 83% respectively.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=155084

2) The second, the one you want to avoid discussing at all costs, the one I have wanted you to explain since starting this thread is your blunder, i.e. providing the following quote as if it referred to DARWIN on February 19 when in fact it referred to BROOME 2 weeks later!

“Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies...”

If you had bothered to open the page, instead of simply copying the snippet from your Google search results you would have know that it was not about Darwin here’s the whole paragraph:

Other areas of northern Australia

also suffered attacks at various times. The next most devastating was on

3 March 1942 at Broome

. Again without warning, Japanese aircraft swept in low, bombing and strafing

Broome’s harbour

, township and airfield. Dozens of people were killed or wounded and 24 aircraft were destroyed. Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia) whose flying boats were sitting defenceless on

the harbour.

www.ww2australia.gov.au/underattack/airraid.html

So we are talking about different sentences in different paragraphs in different articles on different websites discussed in different posts and relevant for different reasons (the total number of fatalities vs. whether or not any of them were refugees). To make a long story short two entirely separate issues but I’m sure you will continue to conflate them so as to avoid discussing your blunder. Do you really think people reading this are so dumb they won’t notice?

So as to give you less room to avoiding dealing with the above I will only deal with the rest once you reply to it. One exception though. Did John send you a PM (or e-mail) saying he was willing to serve as an intermediary? If not I wouldn’t presume to impose on him. One thing I would expect him (or whoever does this) to do is take steps to verify the people really are who you/they claim they are. If you would trust him (and if he’s willing) Evan might be the best person if your witnesses are military veterans.

Also your insistence on paraphrasing your 'witnesses' stinks. There is no way directly quoting an e-mail will allow me to contact them.

EDIT - Formatting

Edited October 15, 2009 by Len Colby

[Greg Parker]

So we are talking about different sentences in different paragraphs in different articles on different websites discussed in different posts and relevant for different reasons (the total number of fatalities vs. whether or not any of them were refugees). To make a long story short two entirely separate issues but I’m sure you will continue to conflate them so as to avoid discussing your blunder. Do you really think people reading this are so dumb they won’t notice?

So as to give you less room to avoiding dealing with the above I will only deal with the rest once you reply to it. One exception though. Did John send you a PM (or e-mail) saying he was willing to serve as an intermediary? If not I wouldn’t presume to impose on him. One thing I would expect him (or whoever does this) to do is take steps to verify the people really are who you/they claim they are. If you would trust him (and if he’s willing) Evan might be the best person if your witnesses are military veterans.

Len,

1. I have dealt with "the above". You are merely making excuses to avoid dealing with my last post.

2. No I have not sent any PM to John. Your entire response to my offer is based upon your own assumptions. Here's the deal: If John or anyone else on your trusted list wants to contact me, I'll give them the information. They can decide for themselves whether I've fairly represented it here or not and let you know via this thread or privately.

Also your insistence on paraphrasing your 'witnesses' stinks. There is no way directly quoting an e-mail will allow me to contact them.

There won't be any quoting, let alone paraphrasing. All you're getting is a simple confirmation that I've fairly represented what they recall, or that I have not.

[Len Colby]

So we are talking about different sentences in different paragraphs in different articles on different websites discussed in different posts and relevant for different reasons (the total number of fatalities vs. whether or not any of them were refugees). To make a long story short two entirely separate issues but I’m sure you will continue to conflate them so as to avoid discussing your blunder. Do you really think people reading this are so dumb they won’t notice?

So as to give you less room to avoiding dealing with the above I will only deal with the rest once you reply to it. One exception though. Did John send you a PM (or e-mail) saying he was willing to serve as an intermediary? If not I wouldn’t presume to impose on him. One thing I would expect him (or whoever does this) to do is take steps to verify the people really are who you/they claim they are. If you would trust him (and if he’s willing) Evan might be the best person if your witnesses are military veterans.

Len,

1. I have dealt with "the above".

BS you’ve gone to great lengths to avoid “deal[ing] with the above”. All you’ve done is deny you did anything wrong and once almost half admit you might have. You made 7 posts before the one above on this thread:

Post 5 – Avoided explaining what happened

Post 8 – Avoided explaining what happened

Post 9 – Denial “you did exactly that which you falsely accused me of doing”

Post 12 Denial “you are guilty of what you falsely accuse me of.”

Post 14 – Denial followed my an ambiguous seeming admission of error “I didn't mangle any quotes. That's not to say I didn't make a mistake,”

Post 17 - Avoidance/Denial “Er. No, it was YOU who did that.”

Post 19 – Avoided explaining what happened

So go ahead, prove me wrong quote from an earlier post where you explained your misleading quote.

I see only 3 possibilities, in order of probability. You

1) …copied the Google search without opening the page

2) …opened the page and copied the phrase without reading the paragraph

3) …read the paragraph and knew the phrase referred to Broome but quoted it as if it were about Darwin anyway.

If there are any other possibilities please spell them out. In the 1st two scenarios you were horribly sloppy in the 3rd you committed intellectual fraud

...You are merely making excuses to avoid dealing with my last post.

Don’t count on it. Give me a STRAIGHT answer and I will proceed with the rest forthwith. I even have a tidbit waiting for you, direct evidence there were some Dutch people in Darwin the 19th

2. No I have not sent any PM to John. Your entire response to my offer is based upon your own assumptions. Here's the deal: If John or anyone else on your trusted list wants to contact me, I'll give them the information. They can decide for themselves whether I've fairly represented it here or not and let you know via this thread or privately.

Also your insistence on paraphrasing your 'witnesses' stinks. There is no way directly quoting an e-mail will allow me to contact them.

There won't be any quoting, let alone paraphrasing. All you're getting is a simple confirmation that I've fairly represented what they recall, or that I have not.

Since you or your intermediary posting direct quotes would in no way allow me to track your witnesses down (your supposed concern) your method of dealing with this is highly suspicious. Will he (or she) get e-mails from your supposed ‘witnesses’ or just copies of their statements from you?

Edited October 16, 2009 by Len Colby

[Len Colby]

Greg,

I’m not in the least surprised to failed to address your mangling of the quote which is apparent to anyone paying attention on this thread. With your numerous erroneous claims and misunderstandings of your own sources on this and the earlier thread you’ve demonstrated that no one should accept any of your claims unless they’ve checked your citations

There is zero evidence significant numbers of refugees were in Darwin on the day of the attacks and only indirect evidence suggesting some might have been there at the time

Lack of evidence is not evidence that none were there. Under the circumstances, I'd hardly expect there to be any evidence. That is what you're not getting. As refugees, identities were mostly unknown. If they were among those towed to sea, then the bodies could not be counted.

I doubt even their specific “identities were mostly unknown”. Unless they snuck in they would had to have identified themselves to government authorities. But obviously the presence of large numbers of refugees would not go unnoticed, yet it seems that none of several books about the attacks mentions them being there except for 2 brief references (one apparently copied from the other) to planes flying from the Dutch East Indies (DEI) to Darwin. Nor are they mentioned in any of the other books on Google with ‘Darwin’ and ‘1942’ in their titles nor in any of the articles you and I dug up, nor in the book about the role of the Dutch Naval Air Service in the DEI 1941-2 even though it mentions the evacuation of refugees to Broome. The only other reference was to an unknown number being there a month earlier. The most reasonable assumption is that there was only a small number of them there that day.

I did however find a contemporary reference. On April 2, 1942 the Nambour Chronicle, a weekly paper from a small town north of Brisbane, reported [on page 5] that during the evacuation of Darwin “Red Cross workers gave…Assistance [to]…various Dutch people and sailors who found themselves without clothing.” So there were some Dutch people in town that day but several of them survived and none it seems ever said anything about their relatives/friends/compatriots getting killed and dumped at sea. So in this case yes absence of evidence is evidence of absence of "significant numbers of refugees...in Darwin on the day of the attacks"

http://www.nambour-chronicle.com/download....80&type=pdf [(free) registration required]

"As for airlines etc... the call to evacuate was limited pretty much limited to (white) women and children."

"You're confusing migrant laborers with refugees. Whilst the migrant laborers were non-citizens, assuming they were in the country legally, their identity was not a problem."

One of your few witnesses speculated that many (or was it most?) of those killed were migrants, in any case it is reasonable to expect that if migrants were able to get plane tickets refugees would have been able to as well.

What with? Paw paws? Mangoes?

What makes you assume they were destitute? I know lots of refugees from Europe during the same period and their descendents. Most of them were Jews many were family members. I’ve also met refugees from Spain, Cuba, Vietnam and the USSR, most had a reasonable amounts of money when they left. If the ones in Darwin were so destitute how did they pay for their tickets THERE in the 1st place? Blocks of smoked Gouda and clogs?

A few days before the raids the Director-General of Health and Medical Services in Queensland, one of two states with direct air service to Darwin warned that there was an increased danger of malaria bearing mosquitoes and that “this is especially increased owing to the entrance to Australia at present of numbers of refugees from the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines”. Though he did not say they were in his state it seems unlikely they would be of concern to him and Queenslanders unless they were. Take a look at a map and keep in mind the 2420km maximum range (down to 563km with max payload) of DC3’s it is very unlikely Brisbane or even any of the small towns in the north of the state was their port of entry.

http://www.nambour-chronicle.com/download....22&type=pdf [(free) registration required]

http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=188

The government sponsored evacuation of white and Asian Australian women and children is one thing, other people including migrants and presumably refugees leaving on their own is another. Some times the latter displaced the former.

Your speculation shifts like the wind, you previously indicated you thought many of the uncounted were migrants (and refugees). I haven’t ignored anything and indicated why it is unlikely large numbers of uncounted Aborigines or any other types of people were killed that day:

Try and grasp reality here okay? Just for a second.

1) No reports from friends or relatives

Friends and relatives of refugees and Aborigines could have reported them missing????? :-D

Friends and relatives of refugees were almost certainly still back in the country of origin and would have no clue of their fate.

If they were there in significant numbers many would have known each other. Once again based on the refugees (or their descendents) known to me personally they usually travelled in groups my mother escaped Europe with her parents, bother and a friend of the family. My dad who had just earned his PhD travelled with a friend from his university. They all went to Cuba where they befriended other European refugees (mostly Jews), the death of any one (let alone hundreds) of them would not have gone unnoticed.

"I'm trying to imagine Aborigines in the '40s deciding they should tell their white "protectors" that their loved ones were missing and the mental image is just impossible to take seriously."

Strawman, I never said they should have complained in the 1940’s. To the contrary I pointed out that for the last few decades many Aborigines have become more vocal about the wrongs done to them. Even with shorter life expectancy many of the Aborigines in town that day or who had loved ones there would still have been alive in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and even the beginning of the 21st century.

2) No explanation why Aborigines (or other non-citizens) would have been killed in such disproportionately high numbers compared to whites especially since the Japanese targeted military and other government installations

As I've explained, Darwin is situated on a ludicrously small tract of land. You could not single out "government instalations" without taking out most of the town. Indeed, as happens elsewhere in the world with such isolated outposts, government administration accounts for a disproportionate share of the job market. It's a curious place that both embodies the last frontier AND suckles on large amounts of government money. But I digress...due to the climate and in some cases, for cultural reasons, Darwin also has a very large proportion of those living on the streets.

So at best we would expect the ratio “non-citizens” killed to approach that of whites. But even if we make the unreasonable assumption there were equal numbers of civilian citizens and “non-citizens” for your numbers to add up the latter would have to have been killed at a rate 10 – 30 X higher than the former, they even would have to have died at a rate higher that military personnel on the ground.

3) No explanation why so many more people would have been killed than wounded on dry land during the attacks.

February is at the end of the Wet season. The land would not be "dry" and rain, humidity, and a third world hospital would no doubt ensure many of the wounded ended up on the dead list through secondary infections and diseases.

Was that a failed attempt a humor or were you being obtuse?! Obviously I meant people on land as opposed to those on ships or in planes. If you don’t own a dictionary several free ones are available online.

4) Darwin historian Peter Forrest’s indication most witnesses believed the toll was less than 486

Name the witnesses and how old they were when they gave those figures.

Why don’t you ask him? And how many of your “witnesses” can you name? He seems to have done most of his research 2000 – 2. Presumably the people he and other historians spoke to were on average the same age as those now claiming the toll was close to or over 1000.

Lockwood who witnessed the attacks published his book in 1966 and spoke to many survivors, but apparently he didn’t question the death toll. Odd that you’ve shown no interest in reading it, I even provided you with a link listing the libraries in your state that have it.

You really are confused both articles appeared the same day and had the same (or essentially the same) text.

I don't recall the other article playing down the amount of damage Darwin endured.

Grose didn’t provide the whole text but as he points out the death toll “was played down by the newspapers”. The Argus also published their article on page 3 and it quoted Curtin as saying “The damage to the town itself was small” based on Grose’s comments the Herald’s article was based on his statement as well. I'll amend my earlier statement "...both articles appeared the same day and gave similar information"

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8240009

You excluded the “nearby…sentences…that serve[d] to clarify” that the refugees were not in Darwin by your sloppiness.

I had nothing to do with the refugees not being in Darwin. I wasn't even born!

As above I’m unsure if you were trying to be funny or were being obtuse, I was referring to your mangling (intentional or not) of the quote about refugees in Broome on March 3, 1942 so as to make it appear they were in Darwin on February 19.

Edited October 18, 2009 by Len Colby

[Len Colby]

Bumped for Greg.

[William Kelly]

Bumped for Greg.

Greg is one of the most knowledgeable and responsible JFK assassination researches currently working on the case, and there is nothing Len Colby can do or say to change that fact.

He is only losing credibility by bothering to engage in a discussion with you, someone who is recognized as a person intent on spewing arguments and discord.

I advise Greg not to bother responding to any of your antagonisms and insults and spend the time doing what he does best.

Bill Kelly

[Len Colby]

Bumped for Greg.

Greg is one of the most knowledgeable and responsible JFK assassination researches currently working on the case, and there is nothing Len Colby can do or say to change that fact.

I’ll take your word for it regarding his research regarding the assassination, unfortunately I can’t say the same about his work regarding the Darwin raids, it has been very sloppy and replete with gross errors.

He is only losing credibility by bothering to engage in a discussion with you, someone who is recognized as a person intent on spewing arguments and discord.

Oh yes recognized by people like Peter and Jack who label those who disagree with them ‘the Borg’, ‘brownshirts’,‘disinfo’ agents and people who should be hung by their thumbs. I have been more polite with Greg than vice versa.

I advise Greg not to bother responding to any of your antagonisms and insults…

If you go back over the two threads you’ll see that he started the “antagonisms and insults”. Unlike him I haven’t use profanity, accused the other of being intentionally deceptive or attacked his character.

…and spend the time doing what he does best.

Bill Kelly

The reason Greg didn’t reply is because he can’t rebut my points, he made a claim which he can’t defend. You have essentially acted as his fire brigade saving him from having to respond

[William Kelly]

There's nothing Greg can do or say that can help you improve your image.

It's quite clear that your intention isn't to determine the truth as to what happened, but to attack Greg, and that seems to be your intention and style, and therefore there's no reason to continue to the dialog.

BK

[David Andrews]

There's this late John Ford picture called "The Horse Soldiers." John Wayne and William Holden (who resembled David Atlee Phillips) play Union officers in the Civil War. From the beginning of the film they're at each other's throats, and in the fourth quarter they have a punch-up. As fists fly, a cannonball is hurled into the frame and it explodes. "The Rebs are over here!" someone shouts, and our heroes go back to their real business.

Sam Peckinpah lifted that bit for the end of his splendid western called "Major Dundee." This time, the French are breaking up the donnybrook, down in Mexico, between Charlton Heston and Richard Harris. Peckinpah made sure that the actor who calls out, "You boys want a real fight? Over here!" is the Ford actor, Ben Johnson.

It is remarkable how many war narratives in American film are based on the protagonists fighting among themselves when not engaging the enemy - Howard Hawks' "Air Force" being the exemplar, and an influence on "Star Wars." I believe that Hollywood likes this story because it expresses the myth of its self-image, celebrated each year at the Academy Awards.

Edited October 25, 2009 by David Andrews

[Kathleen Collins]

Bumped for Greg.

Greg is one of the most knowledgeable and responsible JFK assassination researches currently working on the case, and there is nothing Len Colby can do or say to change that fact.

He is only losing credibility by bothering to engage in a discussion with you, someone who is recognized as a person intent on spewing arguments and discord.

I advise Greg not to bother responding to any of your antagonisms and insults and spend the time doing what he does best.

Bill Kelly

Greg Parker was the only researcher to solve the Oxnard Call controversy -- it had nothing to do with Karyn Kupcinet as Penn Jones, Jr. maintained.

Kathy C

[Greg Parker]

Bill and Kathleen, thanks guys... you say the nicest things! I've been getting a gentle kicking privately for my part in this quagmire...

David, I love old Westerns... watched "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" today... a twist on your theory, I think?

Len,

The reason Greg didn’t reply is because he can’t rebut my points, he made a claim which he can’t defend. You have essentially acted as his fire brigade saving him from having to respond

You should have realised I'm not hiding from you. I've been waiting for one of your trusted personages to contact. I don't intend to continue anything before then - and certainly will not be wasting much more on this, anyway. Life's too short.

I’ll take your word for it regarding his research regarding the assassination, unfortunately I can’t say the same about his work regarding the Darwin raids, it has been very sloppy and replete with gross errors.

Only you could categorise one citation error as "gross errors". Mostly what this amounts to is you misreading my comments, or trying to second guess what I really mean and basing replies around that instead of what was actually said. This is something you have continued to do right up to your own version of what you think I was offering in regard to witnesses.

Oh yes recognized by people like Peter and Jack who label those who disagree with them ‘the Borg’, ‘brownshirts’,‘disinfo’ agents and people who should be hung by their thumbs. I have been more polite with Greg than vice versa.

So? Have I said any of those things? If not, what's your point? Trying to cast me in the same light? I don't think that boat has any sails...

As for who has been polite... you're being disingenuous. You have wrapped your insults in coy language. I on the other hand, have been up front and honest in my insults. I don't disguise them in cute questions.

If you go back over the two threads you’ll see that he started the “antagonisms and insults”. Unlike him I haven’t use profanity, accused the other of being intentionally deceptive or attacked his character.

In fact, you did start it by asking if I had made a particular fact up out of whole cloth. My so called "insult" was only in response to that: "How $%$&()_ dare you?" I believe is what I said. I then demonstrated that I had NOT made anything up. That was an honest response - your question was only in that form to avoid any accusation you'd breached any rules and because you wanted to be able to say later how freaking polite you are by comparison. Your "politeness" however, is as contrived as your hairstyle.