A New Book About Crocodile Harry

Times change but also remain the same. When Arvīds Blūmentāls, aka Crocodile Harry, enlisted at 17 in 1942, it was to help prevent the Soviets from re-invading Latvia. Today the Baltic States’ large neighbour again threatens democracies at its borders. Harry’s 3 years at war, fighting in the Latvian Legion, resulted in him being severely wounded, losing his homeland and becoming a POW and later a Displaced person. No wonder he ended up hunting crocodiles in Australia!

In her new book about Harry (Love, War and Crocodiles. A Life of Arvīds Blūmentāls, aka Crocodile Harry), author Ināra Strungs follows his life from a well-to-do upbringing on the family farm in Dundaga (in Kurzeme in western Latvia), now the site of a large concrete statue of a crocodile. There is description of his war service on the brutal Eastern Front, his first love and the sea journey to Australia.

Harry wrote two books about the crocodile hunting he started in Northern Australia after being unable to settle elsewhere. These books, with their descriptions of the art of hunting, and the nature and history of Northern Australia, are retold in the new book and are fascinating. He also taxidermied small crocodiles, and the author’s grandmother sold them, getting Ināra interested in Crocodile Harry.

When crocodile hunting was banned, Harry was at a loose end, doing gravity surveying and lobster fishing until he settled in Coober Pedy in the Australian Outback, mining opals and living underground in a dugout. There were many love affairs and even a doomed marriage, much drinking and partying, collections of underwear and hats and flags, famous people like Tina Turner visiting and movies being made in the dugout (Mad Max 3).

Harry died at age 81 in 2006 but townspeople in Coober Pedy still remember his unique and humorous ways, stories that the author gathered. There were also a few more developments – an offspring turned up, and there was a continuing dispute about his property.

Harry’s life was characterized by love (of family, homeland and women), war and crocodiles. This book is worth reading for its representation of an interesting, chameleon-like character, both rugged and sensitive and well-read; the interesting things he did; and the historical significance of a generation of men shattered by war.

Latvians (and other Balts) have had to fight in many wars over the centuries. Few ex-soldiers and patriots have reacted as flamboyantly as Harry!

 

Love, War and Crocodiles. A Life of Arvīds Blūmentāls, aka Crocodile Harry by Ināra Strungs. Available on Amazon.

Ināra Strungs is an Australian Latvian and the author of 2 novels (Sunstone and Sydney via Siberia, the latter being about deportation of Latvians to Siberia). She has also written another non-fiction book, Secrets of a Waterloo Baker, which is about her parents’ Baltic sourdough bakery in Sydney.