Secondary sources

The Snowy: A History tells the story of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme through the experiences of the migrant workers, engineers, local residents and families whose lives it transformed. Drawing extensively on oral histories, Siobhán McHugh examines the scheme’s engineering achievements, dangerous working conditions and human cost, as well as its effects on the mountain communities and landscape. The book also explores the scheme’s important role in the emergence of multicultural Australia.

The Dutch Australian Cultural Centre (DACC) was founded in 1983 to provide a central organisation to preserve the rich Dutch history in Australia. Over the years the organisation has developed as a research and resource centre for study on the contributions of the Dutch to Australia. The DACC has rich collections in its reference library and archive, and is engaged in a range of activities. The Centre has hosted lectures and symposia, as well as exhibitions about Dutch maritime, migration, military and merchant history in Australia. 

A timeline of mens' and womens' internees camps in South Sumatra

Many Dutch people migrated to Australia in the wake of World War II. Many Dutch people lost their lives during the German occupation and Allied bombing and as Europe was facing economic and social devastation, survivors were encouraged by the Dutch and Australian governments to come to Australia. The Netherlands Australia Migration Agreement (NAMA) of 1951 facilitated the immigration of Dutch people to Australia, including those residing in the Netherlands East Indies.

Football in the Dutch Indies was still just taking baby steps in the early 1930s. The nation totalled approx. 4.000 members, spread over about 400 clubs. No league had been set up, as the archipelago was simply too expansive. The islands of Java and Sumatra did feature inner-city leagues, however. The winners of these leagues would contest for the title of champions of the Dutch Indies.

This feature is going to deal with a wonderful passenger liner that has proved to be a much-loved ship, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. Personally, I remember the day so well, when I boarded her for the first time, and then sadly I watched my beloved JVO leave our shores for the very last time as she departed Wellington New Zealand on January 30, 1963, and I would never see her ever again, except in the News papers with shocking news later in that same year! She departed Sydney Australia on February 3 for her final voyage, which was unofficially to an undisclosed destination, but it turned out to be Naples.

As we will discover in this work this gracious Dutch liner enjoyed six distinctive lives and several transformations during her long and distinguished career. To this day, she is remembered for her rather long and very difficult name, a name that most people had great difficulty in pronouncing. Of course, I have not as yet officially given her full name as yet, only those three capital letters. JVO

Belalau Camps, Loeboek Linggau, Lahat, Sumatra

Based on research by Judy Balcombe

In presenting to the reader the first edition of Isles of the East, it is hoped that its pages may prove of interest to those, who seek information regarding Java and the Dutch Indies generally, as a pleasure resort on the one hand, and as a country offering exceptional commercial opportunities, on the other.

Raymond Westerling’s Challenge to Terror is his account of his military career in the Netherlands East Indies during the Indonesian struggle for independence. It describes his counter-insurgency operations in South Sulawesi and Sumatra, including the controversial methods used by forces under his command against suspected Republican guerrillas. Written from Westerling’s own perspective, the book presents his justification for these methods and his interpretation of the violence and political upheaval surrounding the Indonesian Revolution.

An Indonesian historian living at the time of the social revolution explores its social and political background.

Through the eyes of young Major Jacobs, a full view emerges of the "boiling cauldron" that was Sumatra in 1945. In spite of the official Allied victory, Jacobs had to attempt to rule Sumatra using the existing Japanese military structure until British relief arrived.

An account of the Allied defence of Palembang, Sumatra, against the Japanese invasion in February 1942, focusing on the strategically vital Pladjoe and Soengei Gerong oil refineries, the Japanese airborne assault, and the desperate Allied attempts to defend and destroy the installations before withdrawing from southern Sumatra.

English translation of Nortier's article on the Japanese invasion of Palembang in February 1942

Snowy: The Making of Modern Australia recounts the construction of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme through archival research and interviews with those involved. Brad Collis examines both its engineering achievements and the experiences of the tens of thousands of workers drawn from more than thirty countries. The book presents the scheme as a nation-building project that helped transform post-war Australia into a modern industrial and multicultural society.

Mud, Sweat and Snow records the experiences of workers during the first decade of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. Drawing on Noel Gough’s own service with the Snowy Mountains Authority and the recollections of fellow workers, it describes the demanding conditions, isolated settlements and multinational workforce that built the scheme between 1949 and 1959. Illustrated with photographs and maps, it also shows how the project contributed to the development of multicultural Australia.

Betty Jeffrey’s *White Coolies* is a firsthand account of the Australian Army nurses imprisoned by the Japanese in Sumatra from 1942 to 1945. Based on her wartime diary, it records the women’s hunger, disease, forced labour and repeated transfers between camps, as well as the courage, humour and mutual support that helped them survive.

On 13 February 1946, Australian troops, the vanguard of a 37,000-strong British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), disembarked at the war-devastated Japanese port city of Kure, almost four years to the day (15 February 1942) after Singapore, the bastion of the British Empire in the Far East, surrendered to the Japanese Army. At its peak, there were some 12,000 Australians serving in BCOF.

The International Military Tribunals at Tokyo and Nuremberg were established immediately after the Second World War. Interpreting at the Nuremberg Trial has been described in numerous articles and books and is widely regarded as the origin of simultaneous interpreting. By contrast, historical and political science publications have rarely discussed interpreting at the Tokyo Tribunal, except to criticise its inadequate quality.

Drawing on interviews and trial records, this study first presents an overview of interpreting at the Tokyo Tribunal. It then examines in greater detail the interpretation of the cross-examination of Hideki Tojo, who was tried for his prominent wartime role as Minister of War and prime minister and was sentenced to death by the court.

This article examines how Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens made the documentary Indonesia Calling in Sydney in 1945–46. The film depicted the boycott by Indonesian seamen and Australian maritime unions of Dutch ships carrying troops and military supplies to Indonesia. It also explores the multinational support for the boycott, the film’s controversial production and its use in promoting the Indonesian struggle for independence.

Author explores the role of national mythmaking behind the Snowy Mountains Scheme as an icon of technological, economic progress and multiculturalism in Australia.

Ian Shaw’s *On Radji Beach* recounts the sinking of the *Vyner Brooke* and the massacre of Australian Army nurses and other survivors by Japanese troops on Bangka Island in February 1942. Centred on sole nurse survivor Vivian Bullwinkel, it examines the victims’ ordeal, the evidence surrounding the killings and the enduring legacy of the massacre.

Details of the reception camp for Dutch and Allied civilians and prisoners of war in Palembang at the end of the war.

Between 1966 and 1980, the War History Office of the National Defense College of Japan published the 102-volume Senshi Sōsho (War History Series). These volumes give a detailed account of the operations of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War. This book, vol. 3 of the series, describes in depth the campaign to gain control over the Indonesian archipelago. (copyright: the Corts Foundation)