A glimpse into Major Hashida's Notebook by Craig Collie

Read an extract from Major Hashida's Notebook by Craig Collie.

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Wednesday, 15 January 1941

A swell carried the Canberra Maru between steep, rocky walls and into Sydney’s harbour. Standing on the cargo liner’s deck, Major Hashida noted the defence value of the heads, North Head and South Head. Such things interested a military man. There were no residential buildings among the stunted scrub on the headlands, perhaps due to their strategic importance. A ship-sized ferry crossed inside the heads on its way to Manly.

Inside the harbour, the wind died and a wide expanse opened up, softened in early morning mist. Bays and coves ran off in all directions. Skirting the shoreline and stretching back in suburban silence, houses with red-tiled roofs reached around areas of bushland. A pilot clambered on board from a Maritime Services launch and lines were thrown to a tugboat that would guide the ship in.

A distant work of steel engineering came into Hashida’s view. He had read about Sydney’s bridge and was keen to form his own opinion of it. A fleeting thought distracted him as they passed Fort Denison’s Martello tower. Surely that couldn’t be the level of Sydney’s defences. The arched bridge resting on four oversized granite blocks soon consumed his attention, its towering muscularity looming over the delicate masts of Canberra Maru as it turned into Walsh Bay.

Four finger wharves built of heavy timber jutted into the bay, each with a one- or two-storey cargo shed running its length. Workers were bustling around the wharf preparing to unload the liner’s cargo, their shouts mixed in with the squawking of gulls. Overhead, travelling cranes clanked into position. Groups of people waiting to meet the handful of disembarking passengers were yelled at to move out of the way.

A customs official, having boarded the ship before the public gangway was dropped into place, looked at departing passengers’ entry documents in the chief steward’s office. He gave Hashida’s documents a cursory glance with minimal comment, ignoring the eye patch Hashida had reinstated with the clearing sky.

‘Welcome to Australia, sir,’ the official murmured as he handed back the paperwork.

Up on the deck, Hashida was met by Kenichi Otabe, from the Japanese consulate, and Nobuji Okada, the local manager for Mitsui, the owners of Canberra Maru. Otabe had arranged for Hashida’s luggage to be taken to the Australia Hotel where the visitor was booked for his stay in Sydney.

In his thirties, bespectacled with a boyish face, Otabe was, like Hashida, slightly built. They weren’t to know it then, but the military man and the diplomat would be spending much of the next two months in each other’s company.

Otabe was clearly there to meet and greet, but the reason for Okada’s presence was not obvious to Hashida and wasn’t explained. Okada chatted briefly with him and then went about other business. Hashida wondered if it was just a chance meeting because Okada and Otabe had been chatting when he appeared, or if Okada had been briefed from somewhere in the labyrinth of Japan’s fractured government to make contact. He was from a zaibatsu (large business conglomerate) and Otabe was with the diplomatic corps. Neither was a military man. Hashida had been trained to regard everyone and everything with suspicion, so he wondered if they were there to hinder or to help.

Carrying a small suitcase, Hashida followed Otabe down the gangway to where three reporters had gathered to meet him. Otabe briefly told him who they were: two were from Sydney dailies, The Daily Telegraph and The Sun; the third, whom he introduced in person, was Masaiti Kurata, the Sydney correspondent for Dōmei, Japan’s official news agency. The two Japanese men bowed briefly and politely.

One of the Australians said, ‘We’d like to talk to Major Hashida’ (pronouncing it Ha-shee-da so Hashida didn’t at first recognise his own name) ‘about his visit here.’

Mystified as to how they were aware of his visit, Hashida was thrown by the prospect of a press interrogation for which he had made no preparation.

‘Do they speak German here?’ he asked Otabe in Japanese.

It was a language he could handle better than English.

‘It’s inadvisable,’ said Otabe, sensing his unease. ‘Do you wish to talk to them through me as interpreter?’

‘Yes.’

Otabe had learnt English at an American university. ‘I’m Otabe, a vice-consul here in Sydney,’ he said in clear, American- accented English. ‘This is Major Hashida of the Imperial Japanese Army. He is unable to speak English so you will have to address your questions through me. He will tell you what he can about his visit here, but he’s not authorised to discuss policy on behalf of the Japanese government.’

 Asked what he planned to do in his time in Australia, Hashida said through his interpreter, ‘If permitted, I’d like to meet army officials and, if permission can be granted, I would like to see Australian military training methods. I hope to see your industries at work and find out all I can about Australia.’

Hashida caught a glimpse of Okada standing a few paces away, watching proceedings. Before he could wonder if this meant anything, he was asked why an army officer would want to study Australian industries. ‘I am interested in industry,’ he replied. Sensing that wasn’t sufficient, he went on. ‘This is my first visit here. I have come officially for the Department of the Army. I’m still a serving officer.’

He said he had served in the Manchukuo and China campaigns. One of the reporters asked if Hashida’s eye patch was for an injury sustained in one of the campaigns. Otabe smiled impishly, conferred and replied that the major had a painful stye. Sensing the session was losing momentum and might leap to areas best left undisturbed, Otabe brought it quickly to a finish, thanking the reporters for their interest. Major Hashida, he explained, needed to check into his hotel and get some treatment for his eye.

Hashida noticed that Okada had gone now, but two other men were on the periphery. He thought they might be under- cover police. By the time Otabe hailed a taxi to take them to the Australia Hotel, those men had disappeared too.

Otabe had little to say in the short journey, leaving Hashida to mull over the interview he’d just given. He thought it had gone well; the questions had been polite, not aggressive. But he started to worry that he’d relaxed and said too much, that he’d placed too much emphasis on seeing the Australian military in action. There was little he could do about it now.

Hashida followed his companion through the Australia Hotel’s Castlereagh Street entrance into its polished granite foyer and up a majestic staircase in white and grey marble. While Otabe dealt with the booking, he looked back down at the squared columns of red Italian marble.

His doubts about the exchange with the Australian reporters and other niggling uncertainties about his mission were swept away by the grandeur. These surrounds reflected his station, the prestige of an officer of the Imperial Japanese Army.

The two Japanese men made their way to Hashida’s eighth- floor room. It conveyed the tone of gentility the hotel’s foyer had promised. Otabe waited to one side while Hashida drank it in, standing for a while at the room’s window. Way below, trams glided silently down Castlereagh Street and pedestrians criss- crossed Martin Place.

They spent the mid-morning there, making a broad preliminary plan of whom and what Hashida would want to see as a priority and whom he might like to see in addition. First, he was told, he should meet with the consul-general and elaborate on his mission and any requirements that needed to be dealt with at consular level.

Extracted from Major Hashida's Notebook by Craig Collie available now from your bookstore of choice.

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Major Hashida's Notebook

by Craig Collie

After 80 years in the shadows, Craig Collie unearths the mystery of Japanese military intelligence officer Major Sei Hashida, a fascinating spy story set in World War II Australia.

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