Opinion: China delivered a masterstroke while the world watched Taiwan | Peter Hartcher
It turns out that most of the West’s experts were looking in the wrong place. While the noisiest commentators andAn attack on Taiwan would be violent and obvious.The family of the Australian man whose vigilance helped frustrate the Japanese Imperial Army’s invasion of the Solomon Islands 70 years ago certainly has noticed. And they’re very upset.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and then seized the “impregnable” British fortress of Singapore, the other Brits fled in fear. The big plantation owners, even Clemens’s boss, the commissioner, left. Improvisation was key. When the batteries eventually ran flat, Clemens used the citric acid from pineapple juice to recharge them. He had no money or supplies, only his wits and wiles and the local people.So when the Japanese started to build an air base, Clemens made sure the US Marines knew about it. This was the critical development.
Clemens was the embodiment of the vigilance that Australia and its allies seem to have neglected today. He had another vital lesson to offer contemporary times – how to win over the people of the Solomons. He could not have sustained his reconnaissance without them. The commander of the 1st Marines in the Guadalcanal campaign, General Alexander Vandegrift, added that Clemens won the trust of the Solomon Island locals by the “force of his character, by example and the personification of the virtues of our Western philosophy”.
Caroline Kennedy’s father owed his life to Martin Clemens, who stayed behind on Guadalcanal to send intelligence to the allies.Clemens told the scouts to organise a rescue, which is how Lieutenant John F. Kennedy and his crew came to be delivered from their week-long ordeal.
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