Novel references to Australia #3

Tiger Tanaka, head of the Japanese Secret Service, and, according to Dikko Henderson, a ‘bludger’, reflects on Japanese military strategy in WW2:

‘My dear Commander [Bond]. You were lucky that we struck at Pearl Harbour rather than at Australia. Can you doubt that we would have occupied that country and New Zealand if we had done otherwise? These are big and important land spaces, insufficiently developed. You could not have defended them. […] Personally, I have never understood the strategy behind Pearl Harbour. Did we wish to conquer America? The supply lines were too long. But Australia and New Zealand were ripe for the plucking.’

Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice (Penguin, 1964): 47.