Comportment!

This is coolbert:

Here are several instances from World War Two [WW2] where American soldiers, stationed in the Australia, DID NOT comport themselves in the best manner possible.

(1) "The Brownout Strangler"

Eddie Leonski. American soldier and serial killer [the term was not in usage at the time] who took it upon himself to terrorize the city of Melbourne by strangling Australian women.

"Edward Joseph Leonski (December 12, 1917 – November 9, 1942) was an American serial killer who committed his crimes in Australia. Leonski is known as the Brownout Strangler"

Caught, tried, convicted, hung. With all dispatch.

This "affair" was made into a pretty good made-for-TV movie: "Death of a Soldier".

"Leonski confessed to the crimes and was convicted and sentenced to death . . . MacArthur personally signed the order of execution . . . Leonski was hanged at Pentridge Prison on November 9, 1942"

"the trial of Edward Joseph Leonski trial was unique in Australia's legal or civil history. 'It was the first time that any person has ever been tried in this country by a military tribunal for a crime which violated civilian law.'"

[it was too a violation American military law. Crimes however, committed off-base, against "foreign nationals", while actually on foreign soil.]

The Leonski Case was unique in that NO DUE PROCESS EXISTED AT THE TIME FOR TRYING IN AUSTRALIA COURTS AN AMERICAN SOLDIER ACCUSED OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR. NO STATUS OF FORCES AGREEMENT [SOFA], PROTOCOLS, LEGAL OR STATUTORY COVENANTS HAD BEEN AGREED UPON BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND THE UNITED STATES!

General Mac Arthur, obviously to "assuage" public sentiments in Australia, saw that justice of a swift and certain nature was carried out. Leonski swung from the end of a rope, and that was that!!

(2) "The Battle of Brisbane". American and Aussie soldiers, allies in the war against Japan in the Pacific, fighting it out in the streets in Brisbane. Rioting of a vicious nature, all the result of the proverbial "misunderstanding" between two soldiers, BOTH OF THEM AMERICANS!!

coolbert.