He worked in Singapore, Japan, China and the United Kingdom before observing the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain.
He played a significant part in the Royal Commission on Espionage (1954–55), in which the government alleged that he was a Russian spy.
[11][12][2] Black Armada is an account of an Australian contribution to the making of the Indonesian Republic.
Many forces contrived to make this happen: the Australian Government was a Labor government (from late 1941 to December 1949);[14] the Australian shipping unions of the time were largely communist led; a substantial group of Indonesian political prisoners (the Digul|Tanah-Merah prisoners)[15] had been interned in prison camps in Australian; and the Netherlands East Indies government-in-exile had been installed in Australia, at Wacol, Queensland.
The book details how these forces came together to create mutinies of Indonesian seamen and Australian boycotts at vital Australian ports, starting in September 1945 (with some shipping/waterfront strikes being broken in 1946) but continuing until 1949, affecting Dutch shipping to the Indies, and thus ensuring vital time for Indonesian nationalists to frustrate Dutch plans for post-war reimposition of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia.