James Phelps (2)

The events described in this book are fascinating and well deserving of a popular retelling. For most Australians, the First World War starts with the Gallipoli campaign and ends in the trenches of Flanders. The war at sea is largely unknown.

At the start of the First World War the German East Asia Squadron found itself far from home, communications links cut and surrounded by enemies. Admiral Graf von Spee, detached one cruiser as a commerce raider (the SMSEmden) and took the rest of his fleet across the Pacific with the aim of rounding Cape Horn and heading back to Germany. On the way he defeated a British fleet at the Battle of Coronel and in turn was defeated at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. Meanwhile, after sinking a great deal of shipping, the Emden was cornered by HMAS Sydney at Cocos Islands and defeated.

While these events have been recounted before, Phelps takes a perspective based on the Australian naval commanders and Australia’s nascent efforts at signals intelligence. At the start of the war, Royal Australian Navy (RAN) detained German merchant ships in Australian ports and with them captured some code books. With these, RAN College instructor F.W. Wheatley was able to read some of the German messages, and when the Germans later made crude changes to their key, he was able break these and continue to read coded messages. While code books were specifically intended for the German navy to communicate with merchant ships, this was the era where vessels were powered by coal and the movement of colliers revealed where the warships were likely to go.

Phelps picks up the argument that had the Admiralty paid more attention to Australian intelligence they might have intercepted the Germans earlier or avoided the disaster at Coronel. Perhaps. The Pacific Ocean is immense and tactical surveillance at the time was limited to what a man could see from up a mast. A fleet sent to find von Spee might miss him entirely. And Coronel had more to do with British misunderstandings and miscommunication than the weight given to Australian intelligence.

In the epilogue, the editor about to publish Wheatley’s account is quoted as saying “Thanks for being patient, but I had to dot my I’s and cross my T’s. This is one hell of a story and I had to be sure”. And this is where Phelps falls down. As a history book it is not sufficiently reliable.

Phelps does not explain what inspired him to write this book, as a sports journalist who had previously written “true crime books”. He merely thanks his publisher for providing a “non-fiction mandate” and allowing him to “move across genres”. He has not mentioned any interest in the Navy, espionage or military history. Nevertheless, I congratulate him on diving into the archive to find material for this book.

Phelps showed a bad habit of frequently referring to warships as “battleships”. This is not just a matter for naval nerds. The war was proceeded by an arms race which was marked by the construction of more and more powerful ships, at the pinnacle of which was the battleship. But apart from a handful of Japanese battleships, there were no battleships in the Pacific. Now while I could tolerate the odd reference to a battle cruiser as a battleship, calling the tiny French gunboat Zelee a battleship is particularly confusing.

In the authors preface, Phelps states that the dialogue has “often taken directly from letters, texts and reports, has occasionally been adapted to help this adventure flow”. On the contrary, it seems that most of the dialogue is invented. The bibliography lists few primary sources beyond official reports - and none are German or British. We can be pretty sure that the words attributed to von Spee and the crew of the Scharnhorst immediately before it was lost with all hands are sourced solely from Phelps’ imagination.

Factual errors litter the book, and while even the best historian occasionally makes errors, I can’t help feeling these were inserted to “improve”the story. Phelps reports that Admiral Fischer was recalled as First Sea Lord after the Battle of Coronel - it was before. HMAS Australia damaged a rudder transiting Magellan’s Strait - it was a propeller. HMAS Australia found a lifebuoy from the Scharnhorst on 1 January 1915 in “a sea of debris” - it was on 2 January and there was no sea of debris. Wheatley was awarded a CBE after his code breaking revelations in 1934 - actually it was in the 1932 Birthday Honours list

But the item that pushes this down to two stars is a slur directed at the captains and crews of Royal Navy cruisers at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. Phelps says that after the Nuremberg sank “HMS Kent opened fire with machine guns and shells. They slaughtered the survivors. All of them.” On the next page, Phelps accuses HM Ships Glasgow and Cornwall of firing on the helpless crew of the Leipzig. An allegation of a war crime is serious, but when I looked at other sources I found a different story. One where, in difficult conditions, the British ships went to great lengths to rescue the German sailors.

Two stars for Mr Phelps, which he can share with Harper-Collins. And if he publishes a new edition, it should be with corrections and an apology.… (mehr)

Australian author James Phelps takes a look at some of the most violent and notorious female prisoners behind bars in Green Is The New Black: Inside Australia's Hardest Women's Jails.

Phelps doesn't hold back describing the lives of the inmates so this isn't for readers with a weak stomach. Occasionally the writing appeared salacious and the shock factor swiftly wore off for me. I soon became disgusted by the practices of the inmates as well as the stories and encounters re-told in this book.

Particular stories felt sensationalised and despite some of the well-known prisoners and infamous true crimes mentioned, I lost interest early on.

Just as he did in Australia's Most Murderous Prison - Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail, Phelps occasionally inserted a narrative nonfiction style of writing, which seemed to fictionalise an inmate's experience as if it was taking place right now. There was no consistency to these changes in writing style, which left these sections oddly juxtaposed with the standard non fiction delivery.

Only recommended for hard core true crime fans with an interest in Australian prison life for female inmates. I'm sure there are better books out there for those wanting to read about the individual inmates mentioned.… (mehr)

The follow up to a fascinating book Australia's Most Murderous Prison, AUSTRALIA'S TOUGHEST PRISONS: INMATES tells the story of a number of people in prison - for a change not all of the usual role-call of participants that show up in these sorts of books. The definition of "toughest" here is something that's really up to the reader's perception - it could mean hardest to cope with, or most able to cope with dreadful circumstances.

There's something very off-putting about the opening to this book describing the behaviour of Martin Bryant. Perpetrator of one of Australia's horrifying massacres, Bryant is a rather pathetic character in jail, and you can't help wondering if his trading sexual favours for protection or chocolate is a great way to start a book like this - feeling as it does salacious or designed to shock on purpose.

Going from that story to those of some well-known prisoners, like John Killick who escaped from Silverwater in a stolen helicopter, and less well known, like the rugby player who became a drug mule, and even the founding members of Brothers 4 Life provides the author with an opportunity to explore some of the reasons why or even how repeat offenders or particularly violent individuals end up where they do. The consistency across these stories is variable though - obviously some have the benefit of subjects who were more forthcoming or there is more general information about the cases involved.

Because it is a considerably more personal telling than in the earlier book, TOUGHEST PRISON INMATES is a more confronting read. There are aspects that are of historical interest and there is some new information about why prisoners like Killick, for example, spent so many years in jail and why escape was seen as a viable option. There's also some interest in gangs, many of whom are particularly NSW centric and therefore not so well known in other states, or at least for this reader.

Written with the same engaging style as the earlier book, there's often a sense of connection between the author and some of the prisoners he talks to. There's certainly some glimpses behind the tough exterior to the thinking behind crimes and criminal lives and those sections of AUSTRALIA'S TOUGHEST PRISONS: INMATES were worthwhile and very interesting. Overall, sadly, this reader enjoyed this slightly less than the earlier book. There is some sort of weird sense of personal exploitation which made this harder to fathom, and then there's the sections on Martin Bryant, which flat out didn't contribute a thing that this reader needed to know.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-australias-toughest-prisons-inmat...… (mehr)