Since antiquity, political leaders and military commanders have used informants, deployed covert operatives, and cultivated turncoats to further their tactical, operational, strategic, and political objectives in war. Biblical sources point to a local prostitute aiding the Israelites’ capture of the city of Jericho. At Troy, the Greeks used a wooden horse filled with soldiers to infiltrate and help capture the fortified city. On the Indian subcontinent, the military general Mir Jafar turned against the Nawab of Bengal and helped the British triumph at the decisive battle of Plassey. States at war or confronting the prospect of war have accordingly found it prudent — even necessary — to guard against subterfuge. They have also actively attempted to weed out quislings and informers who might compromise their defences and security.
Robert Loeffel examines the subject in this study of the Australian experience with enemy agents during the Second World War. The book brings to light the Australian authorities’ concerns and operations against alleged fifth columnists. It offers insight into how the fears and hostilities toward certain groups of people were generated. It further addresses the issue of domestic repression and the prevailing prejudices that members of the Australian elite and public harboured toward aborigines, new immigrants, and religious minorities — predispositions brought sharply to the surface by the threat of war.
Loeffel argues that the Australian anxieties in the Second World War were more often the products of cultural prejudice, racism, and xenophobia rather than prudent actions mounted against hostile agents shrewdly working to sell out Australia's national interests. Reviewing the record, he finds little evidence of the treachery attributed to the alleged saboteurs, rumour-mongers, and collaborators. The Australian government, nevertheless, entertained suspicions toward these allegedly subversive communities. Officials also found reasons to justify the repressive actions taken against them. Gripped by war fever and a heightened fear of the subversive capabilities of the plotters, the Australian government cracked down on or put under close surveillance peoples who were deemed to be fifth columnists.
Those considered disloyal and dangerous included members of the fascist Australia First Movement. They included, until Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, members of the Communist Party of Australia and communist sympathisers. They included German and Italian migrants. Jews fleeing persecution in Europe also came under intense scrutiny, with officials believing these refugees could be coerced through Nazi blackmail and manipulation to undermine Australian interests. Another group whose loyalties were thought to have been bought by German missionaries and Japanese agents were the aborigines. Pacifists such as the Jehovah's Witnesses were likewise regarded as likely to undermine Australia's security.
Loeffel ably traces the ebb and flow in intensity of the Australian anxiety toward the alleged subversives. Narrating the story chronologically, he notes that the government's and public's attitudes shifted over time. Newspapers, newsreels, radio stations, and public entertainment played their part in shaping and reinforcing these perceptions. They reported on the internment of conspirators, which effectively affirmed the suspicions of the suspicious. They also generated and circulated rumours about quislings undertaking sabotage operations, undermining public morale, and attempting to assist the enemy in invading Australia.
The media's coverage and the popular portrayals of military developments in Europe and Asia especially stoked or dampened concerns in Australia. The swift German victories over France and Norway in 1940 were attributed to betrayal and espionage, heightening Australians’ fears of the subversive capacities of their own domestic turncoats, communist sympathisers, Jewish refugees, and opportunists among the migrant German and Italian communities. After German raiders attacked merchant ships in Australian waters in early 1941, misgivings toward pacifists in Australia deepened. As Japanese forces successfully advanced across Southeast Asia from late 1941, it became comforting for Australian officials and members of the public to blame indigenous collaboration for the startlingly swift defeat of the American and European colonial powers. Among Australians entertaining those thoughts, attention invariably turned to the prospective assistance aborigines could furnish Japanese invaders. The presence of Japanese soldiers in New Guinea and Japan's aerial assault on Darwin heightened those fears.
The panic in Australia peaked in 1942. It receded once the allied forces turned the tide against Japan in the Pacific. Australian worries, though, were not completely assuaged. The threat of foreign invasion and the prejudices toward refugees sustained the concern until the war ended. By then, new anxieties had emerged. During the early Cold War, politicians were quick to extract political mileage from the danger of communism. Loeffel traces the continuities in elite and public opinions about the fifth column, and ends his study by noting how the ruling Liberal Party exploited the Vladimir Petrov affair to benefit politically in the 1954 federal election. The cost of the threat exaggerations since 1940, however, was not altogether insignificant. By overinflating the danger of domestic subversion, the Australian government and media created an environment that was marked by suspiciousness and hostility. Although Australia suffered little physical damage during the war, it did witness the persecution of innocents and minorities.
Loeffel's research is extensive and impressive. The book includes a helpful series of cartoons, photographs, and posters on the fifth column scare. If a criticism can be levelled, it is that the work would have benefited from a more sustained discussion of race relations, religious tensions, and identity in Australia. The appeal of communism and fascism among members of the population could also have been given more focused attention. These subjects have longer histories than those explored in the text. A deeper appreciation of them would provide greater insight into the anxious Australian wartime search for domestic enemies, and why some groups — beyond their direct association with adversarial foreign state actors — were more susceptible than others to be linked to subversion and treachery. Those missed opportunities aside, scholars will still profit much from reading this elegantly written volume.
