Additional information
| Weight | 526 g |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 230 × 150 × 24 mm |
| ISBN | 9781925877267 |
| Format | |
| Imprint | Boolarong Press |
| Page extent | 330 |
| Publication Year | 2019 |
| Subject | Military |
Right Man, Right Place, Worst Time – Commander Eric Feldt His Life and His Coastwatchers
$32.99
Betty Lee
In May 1939, Australia’s Naval Intelligence had the foresight to set up a network of men located on various islands north of Australia to report on suspicious shipping movements near their coast. Only one man was considered ideal for commanding this top secret mission — Eric Feldt. Feldt was given the title Staff Officer Intelligence in Port Moresby. His task — recruit the civilian volunteers to be Coastwatchers.
When war came to the Pacific these men were critical to the security of Australia and the US South Pacific Fleet. US Fleet Admiral Halsey told a gathering of the Australian-American Association, ‘I could get down on my knees every night and thank God for Commander Eric Feldt.’
This is the story of Eric Feldt and his Coastwatchers.
admin –
One of Australia’s unsung heroes, Eric Feldt oversaw the secret intelligence that gave the Allies the winning edge over the Japanese invaders. Betty Lee’s Right Man Right Place Worst Time shines a brilliant light on Feldt’s remarkable contribution to preserving Australia’s liberty in WWII.
Patrick Lindsay, author of The Coast Watchers (2010)
admin –
Betty Lee has written a vivid and sensitive biography of Commander Eric Feldt who led the famous coastwatchers of World War II. Importantly, she highlights how his careers both in the Navy and then in the New Guinea colonial service uniquely prepared him to lead this rugged and individualistic group of men and one woman in their extremely dangerous but vital work in the war against Japan.
In this biography Eric Feldt’s intelligence, warmth and complexity shines through the pages. Importantly, Betty Lee shows how Eric Feldt’s outstanding contribution to Australia was only possible through the loyalty he showed to his coastwatchers, which was readily returned, and also by the close bonds he had with his classmate Commander Rupert Long and Hugh MacKenzie.
This book is more than a biography of Eric Feldt, it evocatively tells the story of the selfless deeds of his heroic coastwatchers.
Vice Admiral Peter Jones (Ret), author of Australia’s Argonauts
John Reid, Devonport –
As a youngster at the end of World War II, I used to sit spellbound listening to my Uncle Jack speak of wartime, including his years as a ‘guest of the Japanese.’ When initially returned demobbed, he spent time in Brisbane with a bloke he thought the bravest of the brave. I was told that this (unidentified) civilian, with others, had gone voluntarily onto tropical islands to help protect Australia from the Japanese invader.
I thought Uncle Jack said they worked underwater. (He used the word submersive but finally, after asking about it and having it shown to me in a dictionary, I learnt a new word, subversive!) He explained patiently about these brave people who helped ensure Australia’s safety. He spoke of radios and binoculars used to warn us – and the US Navy – about approaching Japanese convoys. Thus, seventy five years ago, did I develop some initial understanding of the Coastwatchers.
Betty Lee’s book, Right Man, Right Place, Worst Time, tells how her father, Lt Cdr Eric Feldt, developed the Coastwatchers, and a whole lot more again, including an in depth record of the family’s Swedish background, emigration in the 1870s and their hard life in the Queensland canefields. Eric, born in 1899, was an excellent student. He won a scholarship to Queensland Grammar and, from there, was one of the 28 original inductees to enter the Royal Australian Naval College, all members of the Pioneer Class.
World War I took him to Britain where he served out of Scapa Flow and later at Harwich, prior to spending several months at the Naval College Greenwich. He returned home to Australia as a Lieutenant, but decided on a different life direction and resigned his commission, leaving the RAN. Most of the next two decades were spent in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. Responsibility for its administration had been taken from Germany, following its defeat in WWI, and placed in Australian hands. His time there, mainly as a Patrol Officer, and later in the Solomons, developed skills and established relationships he would put to exemplary use at a later time.
In 1939, Eric was to pair up with Head of Naval Intelligence, Rupert Long (with whom he’d been inducted all those years before in the Pioneer Class). Much of what’s been written about the Coastwatchers has proven of intense interest over the years, but Betty Lee’s book about her father, Eric Feldt, adds a totally new dimension to an understanding of the man whose infant it became.
The organisation formed almost two decades earlier, in 1922, but Eric Feldt, with a wealth of understanding gained in both his naval and colonial administration background, made wholesale changes as Staff Officer Intelligence. At the start of WWII, the Coastwatchers had greater than 700 members spread judiciously across northern Australia, Papua New Guinea and through the islands to the north. Feldt, while re-equipping and retraining the organisation, developed new procedural methods for its operation, establishing how best to use and apportion the information provided.
Right Man, Right Place, Worst Time is a proud daughter’s biography of a father who was an important part of our country’s defence, arguably at the time of its greatest danger. Betty Lee researched a mass of material in the preparation and writing of the book, much of it in the public domain. More information came from naval and other armed forces sources, but a great deal arose from family history, some oral, some written. It is from such origins that the story assumes its impact and some understanding of Eric Feldt’s mindset and work ethic.
I must add here that the man himself was reticent about any form of self-promotion, but his capacity to get on with issues and people shows through. Unfortunately, although he lived on until 1968, a heart attack in 1943 brought about an early retirement from his work with Coastwatchers. Their history remains a tribute not only to them but to the man at the helm.
Right Place, Right Man, Worst Time now nestles proudly among the special books I hold on those special people who protected us in both world wars.
Vale.