Plot
The point of divergence within the story is the loss of the Battle of the Coral Sea by the Allies. Unlike real history, the Imperial Japanese Navy manage to inflict heavy casualties upon the American naval forces. After a three-day engagement, with the loss of four capital ships and dozens of smaller craft, the Allies are forced to retreat.
The invasion of Australia begins on 12 June 1942, with the Japanese landing at Darwin, Cooktown and Cairns. A major assault is conducted on the New South Wales town of Newcastle, leading to the Battle of Newcastle, where two of the story's characters (Sawtell and Counihan) had previously seen action. The Japanese also make landings at Tweed Heads, Coffs Harbour and the Hawkesbury River. Sydney is subjected to naval bombardment and is dive-bombed by aircraft from the carrier Zuikaku. Sydney is evacuated in a rather chaotic and disorganised manner. In early July 1942, General Douglas MacArthur and the remnants of the US 41st Division sail from Melbourne and retreat to New Zealand. The Australian Federal government (presumably John Curtin and his cabinet) withdraw from Canberra and set up in Perth. It is noted that by the end of that year, members of the Volunteer Defence Corps are doing their best to implement the scorched earth policy to refuse the enemy access to any resources.
Read more about this topic: The Bush Soldiers
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)