The Spell Broken
By Peter Brune
Interview by Stuart Beaton.
Peter Brune isn’t your average military historian. He’s never been in one of the Armed Forces, and doesn’t work at a University. Instead, he’s an average kind of guy – a teacher at Seaford Primary school, who just happens to have written a couple of best selling books on Australia’s involvement in the Papua campaigns of the Second World War.
"I’d always read military history, and read fairly large amounts of it since I was about 14. I stumbled on Papua – it was an accident, it was never a conscious thing. I interviewed a friend of mine’s father about Trobruk, because I’d become interested in oral history."
"So when I got to his Papuan involvement, I asked him where I could I find more about the subject. I got hold of the Official History, and I think the thing that really got me started was the notion that he was disputing the Official History - and he was mentioned in the Official History. So anyone who’s even remotely inquisitive is going to start asking questions about "What’s going on? Why is he saying one thing, and the book saying another?""
At that stage he still had no real idea that there was a book in it. "It just got me interested. So five years later, and about ten thousand buck from working in a hotel, it became "Those Ragged Bloody Heroes"" – and now it’s become his latest book, "The Spell Broken".
Peter believes that the Australian nation was born at Galipoli, and came of age at Papua:
"To me ANZAC day, the whole culture of an ANZAC day, and of reading history, is that the authors, and the television producers, and the movie directors ought to be getting hold of these stories, because, one, they’re just utterly remarkable, and, two, they’re giving the kids of today a sense of who they are, and where they’ve come from. Most of all, I think they’re an inspiration. They made mistakes, they’re not gods, you can’t put them on a little pedestal and worship them – but you take their inspiration, and you take their experience, and you carry that forward."
"Other countries do that – Australia’s very, very poor at learning from it’s own history, and using it as an inspiration. We wouldn’t need a "South Australia Great" campaign if we studied the people who’d come before us. The whole notion that you’ve got to have a radio and television campaign to gee people up to think that their own state’s great – that makes me sick to my stomach. The psychology of that is absolutely pathetic."
"If you turn around to those same kids, and tell them about the old man around the corner, who’s no better or worse than you, he’s just an ordinary Australian - or a woman who was a nurse during the war, or worked in a factory during the war. These people went through the biggest depression the world’s seen, and the biggest war the world’s seen – they’ve come out trumps in both cases. Now, if they can do that, what can these kids do?"
Peter is currently working on two books – a photographic history of the Papua campaign, and book on Multiculturalism’s role in shaping Australian society. So, what’s next for Peter Brune?
"Well, the photographic book is the last of the "book work" on the Papuan campaign. A film of "Those Ragged Bloody Heroes" is an ambition, because it’s the last of the trilogy – the book, Chris Master’s Four Corners special, and the film. The Multicultural book, because it’s historical, but moving away from military history. I’ve got Ralph Honners’ biography – that’s really an emotional trip, and it’s the best way I can think of thanking him, for what he did for me.
The more and varied types of writing I do, the more I become fascinated by it. I think you’re a better historian if you’ve written a Multicultural book, and the screenplay for a film. I’d probably always come back to military history, but I don’t see myself as being a military historian for the rest of my life. It’s exciting at the moment, just exploring new roads."
Peter Brune’s new book, "The Spell Broken: Exploding The Myth Of Japanese Invincibility" is available now in hardcover from Allen and Unwin, at all good book stores.