Talk:Battle of Brisbane

Accuracy

Removed sentence saying that Australian troops only being used in mop-up operations in Pacific . Quite incorrect .

In 1942-1943 Australian troops were engaged in a desperate struggle with the Japanese army on the Kokoda Track and northern PNG ,and were the first allied troops to defeat the Japanese Army in the Pacific in battle .

Verify

I've lived in Brisbane for 8 years and never heard about it. I didn't even know there were American troops here in 1942. It's on Google Earth, but the description is replaced with a link to this article. Aleksei 08:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what the reference to Google Earth has to do with the Battle of Brisbane but yes American troops were stationed in many cities in Australia. Possibly one of the boiling points that go with the phrase "overpaid, oversexed and over here". The incident itself has been the subject of a documentary as well as several books. More info here:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s228063.htm

http://aspen.conncoll.edu/politicsandculture/page.cfm?key=359

The fact that it followed the Brownout Murders in Melbourne earlier that year may have possibly contributed to the anti-American feelings of the Australian troops.~ Brother William 12:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Just worth noting- I'm a 24yo Sydney-sider and I like to think I'm relatively well educated and have picked up my fair share of general knowledge, however, I've never once heard of this. Fascinating stuff. Stuntaneous ([[User

talk:Stuntaneous|talk]]) 21:00, 29 November 2010 (UTC) The Saying Oversexed, Overpaid and Over here orginated in Britain. The British men started saying it and the Americans responded by saying The British were Underpaid, Undersexed and Under Eisenhower. It did not orginate in Australia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.178.162 (talk) 07:15, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Race relations

"...American military police assaulting or killing black troops simply for crossing the Brisbane River". I don't buy that for a second. Guys, please don't paste passages from some site into this article just because it sounds provocative.

Note on abbreviations

I'm assuming "Pte." is Private, which is abbreviated "Pvt." in the US. dafydd 23:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Removed what appeared to be spam

Per WP:BB, I've removed what I believed to be spam from the infobox on this article. "(Unable to do much.)" was written after "Queensland Police" in the belligerents section.

If anyone has reason for that to be put back (I'm really not sure), then go ahead, but try to source it…I guess. --Sauronjim (talk) 13:21, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

"Differing views on race"

The section named "Differing views on race" is made up, and nothing in it is supported by ANY of the sources given.

The paragraph starts:

To a lesser degree there was also tension over the treatment and segregation of the African-American soldiers by the U.S. military.[8]

The source given is: http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-battles/ww2/battle-brisbane.htm.

Nowhere in this source is it said there is tension between the Australian troops and American troops over race, or segregation. It says:

The other, and the major problem, was the rapidly developing gulf between the US and Australian forces. The Yanks had smart, tailored uniforms, were well paid and accordingly drew the bulk of female attention and they were mostly extremely well mannered and pleasant. In the eyes of the hostile Aussies running second on their own turf the Yanks were "overpaid, oversexed and over here". Apart from the competition for the girls there was further friction caused by the lack of amenities for the Australians in the city. Australian units had wet canteens in their unit lines. The US Forces had well appointed clubs (P.X's') offering merchandise, food, drinks and cigarettes at very low prices. The Aussies were not allowed into those clubs.

It also says:

The town of Ipswich was out of bounds to blacks and in Brisbane they were confined to the south side of the Brisbane River. Accordingly they had a sense of being unjustly treated and provided much exercise for the gun toting baton wielding Yank MPs.

This says that black American soldiers felt unjustly treated, it has nothing to do with Australian soldiers or how they felt. The source eventually writes:

The bad feeling between the two forces came to a head in November 1942 a couple of weeks after we left Brisbane. Up to that time brawls between the two forces were frequent. According to one authority up to 20 occurring each night. The tension culminated in the famous "Battle of Brisbane". This started through the typical Digger concern for the underdog. The long smouldering animosity between the two forces ignited when a couple of Diggers saw an American M.P. bashing a drunken US soldier with his baton. In the US Army batons are used to control riots. In the Australian Army their use would provoke a riot. The Aussies went to the aid of the US soldier.

Race is not mentioned here at all as a factor.

I have removed this section, but a vandal has repeatedly put it back, and labelled my edits (fraudulently, and against the rules of Wikipedia) as "vandalism", a very dishonest thing to do. I will leave this section up here, if someone can quote a section from the source which backs up anything in the relevant section, I will leave it. If not, I will permanently remove the section, and the user will be reported.

110.175.159.167 (talk) 16:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Update (22/02/2016): It has been more than a month and there has been no objections to my proposal. I will now remove the section entitled "Differing views on race". Parts of the section do have a source, however they are not relevant to whether there were "differing views on race", and should thus be elsewhere in the document if they are still desired. I am not prepared to move them into the correct part of the document, someone else may do this. I will now remove the infringing section.

110.175.159.167 (talk) 14:26, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Your edits ARE vandalism. You deliberately ignore the other sources to the segment and misattribute statements covered by them, to a single, cherry picked reference. Unilaterally removing a segment as critical to the article as this is clearly ideologically motivated. I am going to revert them now.Senor Freebie (talk) 22:44, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

You are incorrect. I have comprehensively shown that no such proof of the claim exists in the sources given. You will have to show me a quote that proves otherwise, or it will stay removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.159.167 (talk) 04:25, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

The "diggerhistory" link is only the supporting link for the first sentence. The rest of the paragraph is sourced from Politics and Culture 2004 issue No 4. I had a look for other sources and there were several that mentioned the 208th Coast Artillery/394th Quartermaster Battalion riot, the most detailed being issue 16 of Studies in Australian History 1995 by Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake which was similar to the P&C article in content. Admittedly there are few sources on the incident, likely a result of the heavy censorship in place. I have thus restored the paragraph. Wayne (talk) 13:47, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The book The American Occupation of Australia, 1941-45 2013 by John McKerrow goes into a lot of detail on Australian and American attitudes to African Americans in Brisbane but doesn't mention any specific incidents of conflict. It often mentions the praise they received from Australians and interestingly, in official Australian police reports on their good behavior compared to that of the white Americans. Wayne (talk) 14:22, 20 September 2016 (UTC)