Larrikins in Khaki

by Tim Bowden

  Cholera was a fearful and frightful scourge, and 40 per cent of Australian POWs who caught it died. The medical officers worked miracles to save the other 60 per cent. F Force, high on the Three Pagodas Pass, lost 600 men from cholera alone. Cholera is dramatic in its onset. There are intense cramps, the voice fades and fluid flows from every orifice. The eyes sink and the cheeks fall in, as the dehydrated body ‘shrivels up like a walnut’, remembered Stan Arneil.

  Stan Arneil knew within five minutes whether a prisoner had cholera. ‘We would place a bamboo identification disc around their wrists with his regimental number and name on it, because in four hours it was not possible to recognise a man who had contracted cholera.’

  One of the symptoms of cholera is a white stool. Ray Parkin remembered sitting out on the line, having a bit of rice up on the top side, ‘when this fellow came along and he squatted down just on the other side of the railway line to me’. Parkin explained, ‘There was no false modesty out there, it was quite natural, in fact we were all very clinical. This fellow, an Englishman, looked down and saw a milk-white motion, and he saw that I saw it. He just gave me a look and it went right through me—it was the look of a condemned man. He knew he had it. He was dead the next morning.’

  Faced with the unrelenting awfulness of their situation, some prisoners—not many—just gave up, handed their meagre bowls of rice to others, turned their faces to the wall and died, usually within 24 hours, deaf to the pleadings of their mates. The survivors were the ones who never gave up, never doubted for a moment that they would win through and get home to their loved ones and families. But diseases like cholera were unforgiving to even the most optimistic and tenacious prisoners of war.

  Although one out of three Australians sent to the Thai–Burma Railway died, it is remarkable that so many survived. Indeed, Australians survived better than any other nationalities working on the line: British, Dutch, Americans and of course the hapless Asians who, without any organisation, had no chance at all. The British, who were the second biggest group, were undernourished young men recently recruited from the slums of cities like Liverpool and Glasgow, and who had only six weeks military training before being shipped off to safeguard the British Empire. Then there was the unbridgeable gulf between the officers and the men, unlike the Australians, who were not so imbued with the rigid class distinction of the English.

  The Australians of the 2nd AIF had many bush boys in their ranks who could rig up temporary shelters in the jungle, get a fire going in the rain, and improvise all kinds of essential equipment. Two such men actually started a business in Thailand, somehow manufacturing billy cans out of used food tins which were then used for boiling water and cooking any food that could be scrounged.

  Sometimes a scraggy yak—brought in as food for the Japanese—would wander into the jungle and fall into the hands of a skilled butcher like the redoubtable ‘Ringer’ Edwards, who would slit its throat, expertly cut up the meat and have the carcass buried in a matter of minutes, while the Korean guards ran around shouting impotently, having smelled the aroma of cooking meat drifting over the camp from individual Australian fires.

  The fierce determination to get through any situation thrown at them by the Japanese was an essential element of survival. Equally important was good old-fashioned mateship. Men would group together in lots of three to five, and support each other. If one POW could not eat his rice because of a bout of malaria, the others in his group would share it—making sure that the favour was returned when one of them was in a similar plight.

  Another key factor in survival was a shared sense of humour. Australians seemed to be able to take the mickey out of the Japanese and Korean guards—a high risk activity, of course, under the most extreme conditions, but a great boost to morale. Clarry McCulloch wrote of an incident which momentarily cheered the prisoners:

  The Japanese commander at Tarso camp had a real obsession with parades and we seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time standing on the parade ground each morning being counted, again and again and again. On one side of the parade ground a wooden stage had been constructed and each morning the Japanese officer would mount the steps, resplendent in his best uniform with knee-high leather boots shone to perfection, ready to accept our obeisances after being assured that the count was correct.

  Now this officer was the owner of a pet monkey which was the bane of our existence. It would often go through our huts while we were at work and purloin anything which it fancied, mostly hands of bananas or packets of palm sugar which some unlucky prisoner had hung up in the hut over his bed. One morning during the parade this monkey, after going through the huts, was making its way home and, while taking a shortcut across one of the open latrines, had the misfortune to slip off one of the logs and become covered in excrement.

  Unknown to the commander the monkey had managed to climb out and raced round behind the rostrum, jumped up on the stage and sprang onto his master’s shoulder, where it sat, dripping crap all over his spotless uniform.

  It was one of those moments when time seemed to stand still while we waited for the explosion. Hurling the animal to the ground he took the salute before storming off to his quarters. Naturally the prisoners thought this was Christmas and New Year rolled into one and were not really upset when we heard that the monkey had been formally executed. At least our few small luxuries were now safer again.

  Even in the depths of the ‘speedo’ wet season cholera epidemic, morale could be raised by misfortune, as Don Moore observed:

  Toilet hygiene was the single most effective way to prevent cholera. Our doctor, Captain Millard, pulled no punches. ‘If you don’t make it to the latrine, you will infect some of your mates and they will surely die as a result of your carelessness and stupidity. If you get caught short on your mission, you are the same as a murderer!’

  Following instructions we dug a new, very deep trench and placed four strong timber planks across it. We then cleared a pathway through the jungle scrub so that the latrine could be quickly reached by those in urgent need.

  In the never-ending rain the trench quickly half-filled with water and to add to our lot, the area rapidly became muddy and the wooden planks precariously slippery. It was always a race against time, and Roly Hull in his ardour to complete his dash to the new latrine like the good doctor said, had just reached it, when he slipped, overbalanced and fell into its murky depths. His cries of distress quickly brought his mates to the scene.

  ‘What the hell are you doing down there Roly?’

  ‘What the bloody hell do you think I’m doing? Learning to swim?’

  ‘Weary’ Dunlop (his nickname was derived from a pun on Dunlop Tyres) was a big man, and a former university boxing Blue, who was fearless in defending his patients against the Japanese guards’ lunatic obsession of getting the required number of workers to work on the cutting at Hellfire Pass no matter how sick they were. Colin Finkemeyer remembered one particular red-letter day:

  The Japanese guards would only go so far with him, and they very often did. He had an uncanny knack of making the Japs feel inferior. This incensed them and they lashed out at him whenever they got a chance.

  On one occasion at Hintok Camp, Weary had one of his usual tussles with the guards over men unfit for work. He told three of the very sick boys to sit down on a log and wait there while the work party for the day was being determined. The guard tallied up the men now available for the day’s work. ‘More men work, too many men byoki [sick],’ he barked.

  ‘Only these men work,’ Weary said calmly.

  ‘More men. Men not byoki,’ the guard shrieked back at him pointing to the three sick boys Weary had singled out.

  ‘Only these men work,’ Weary said, quite unruffled.

  ‘All men jungle go.’

  ‘Only these men jungle go.’

  Enraged the guard made an impulsive swipe at Weary’s chin, only to miss by inches as Weary instinctively straightened up. Fuming the guard grabbed a box from th
e guardhouse, thumped it down in front of Weary, jumped up on it, and threw another punch. Weary neatly rolled his head to one side and the punch went harmlessly by.

  The grin never left Weary’s face as his beady eyes stared steadfastly at the Jap who threw another punch. Disdainfully, Weary dodged again. Maddened, the Jap flung punches at Weary’s chin, never once connecting. Blind with rage, he overbalanced and tumbled off his box. It was all too much for him. He quit. Weary sent the three sick boys back to their bunks.

  It had been a total humiliation of the guard, and Colin said that was one day the prisoners marched to work with something of a spring in their step.

  Food, and the fair sharing of it, remained a preoccupation with the constantly starving POWs. The cooks became skilled at making sure each man got a standard measure. But on occasions, there was some rice left over, and the ‘leggie’ system was started—based on the Malay word lagi, again. Each man was given a number, and in turn would line up in the ‘leggie’ queue if there was more rice to be dished out. According to Bob Grant, the ‘leggie’ was like winning a prize:

  We got to the point where it was generally accepted that getting your ration was your business and jolly good luck to you. Once having received your rice, it was yours and you trusted no one with it, not even your best friend.

  It was Alby Broderick’s lucky night, his leggie number came up and he received a generous portion of extra rice. He was ecstatic and was boasting about his good fortune when suddenly he had one of his unfortunate calls of nature. The risk of contaminating his rice by taking it with him was as great as the risk of leaving it with his ‘trusted’ mates.

  Wearing only his G string, Alby pulled out his doodle, dipped it in his dixie of precious rice and stirred it around a couple of times. ‘Look after this for me Bob. I’ll be back in half a shake.’ Alby could now concentrate on first things first, knowing that his dixie of bonus rice was in safe hands until he got back.

  Dave Buxton, from the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment, was working on the railway on the Burma side of the border at the 150 Kilo Camp:

  Conditions had become pretty rugged. Rations were close to starvation point, diseases—dysentery, dengue, malaria and ulcers—were rampant, the monsoon rains hit us and we were driven hard by the Japs. There was little to laugh about as 200 of us, without boots and clad only in our G-strings, were floundering in the thick mud struggling to build a trestle bridge. On this day the rain was pouring down.

  The Jap guards supervising the work were snug and dry inside the atap shelter we built specially for them. And so we slogged away in the pouring rain, hauling the slippery logs into position on the bridge and setting them in place. At least we were spared the sloppy, muddy job of dragging the logs to the bridge, a job that the Japs were only too happy to assign to one of the local Thai drivers and his great lolloping elephant.

  In the course of hauling the logs to the bridge, the elephant stopped in front of the Japs’ shelter and unfurled its enormous organ to have a piss. Being an elephant, its piss went on and on and on, never seeming to end, much to the hilarity of our Jap guards sheltering in their shack. With bursts of laughter they threw pebbles and twigs at its massive donger.

  Having finished its mammoth piss, the elephant plodded on and delivered its log to the bridge. On its way back to pick up another, dragging the empty chains behind it, the elephant stopped beside the Japs’ shelter. Not in the least bit of a hurry, it stirred its trunk slowly around in the slush and elephant piss and filled it with the repulsive slops. Then slowly and indomitably turned towards the Jap guards in their shelter and, with full force, sprayed the choice mixture all over them.

  Completely ignoring the howls of indignation from the enraged Japs, the elephant trudged dauntlessly on its way.

  I’ll swear it was chuckling. We certainly were.

  Incredible as it may seem, even in the appalling conditions of the 150 Kilo Camp, amateur theatricals were turned on for the mixed group of Australian and British POWs. Buxton recalled:

  One night the boys decided to have a bit of a concert and John Higgins our youthful medical officer put on an act for us. He dressed in a tutu made from a piece of grubby old mosquito net, in the guise of Shirley Temple, a popular child prodigy of our time. Imitating Shirley Temple’s childish voice, he gave us a great rendition of her popular theme song but this time with an apt twist—‘Animal knackers in my soup’.

  We also had a very funny little Cockney sergeant, who together with Bob Skilton, father of Bobby Skilton the triple Brownlow medal-list of the South Melbourne football team, put on this sketch for us.

  Dick Turpin and his gang of highwaymen bailed up a stagecoach. Dick called out, ‘Right gang let’s go. Rob the women and rape the men.’

  One of his gang piped up, ‘You mean, rob the men and rape the women, don’t you Dick?’

  A pansy stuck his head out of the coach window and called out, ‘Who’s robbing this coach, you or Mr Turpin?’

  Two hundred Australians leapt to their feet and shouted, ‘That wasn’t Dick Turpin ya Pommie mug, that was Ned Kelly.’

  Uproar!

  Chapter 14

  SERVICE AT HOME

  When the Japanese unleashed their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, the United States of America was catapulted into the war in the Pacific, with tremendous consequences for Australia. The Australian government had been concerned well before that devastating raid that Japan would eventually enter the fray in World War II, and that in such an event it was unlikely our traditional protector, the British, would be able to help their loyal dominion very much—if at all.

  As it happened, things would never be the same again for Australia in the Pacific, and from that moment on, we have looked to the United States as our principal military protector. But early in 1941, the United States had little interest in Australia as a potential ally and, in the event of a war with Japan, their preferred strategy was that the US Navy would make a westward drive from Hawaii across the central Pacific, towards Japan, well to the north of the Equator.

  After Pearl Harbor those ambitions changed dramatically. On 22 February, General Dwight Eisenhower, who had returned from the Middle East to Washington to help plan the strategy towards Japan, commented: ‘Circumstances are going to pull us too strongly to the Australian area.’

  A month later, General Douglas MacArthur, who had been flown out of the Philippines to Darwin on the orders of US President Roosevelt, had set up his headquarters in Melbourne, arriving on 21 March. Four days before, Prime Minister John Curtin had told his Cabinet that Roosevelt had informed him that MacArthur had arrived in Australia and assumed command of all American troops there. Roosevelt added that if Australia wished, ‘It would be highly acceptable to him and to the American people for the Australian Government to nominate MacArthur as Supreme Commander for all Allies in the South-West Pacific Area [SWPA].’ Curtin consulted his Advisory War Council, which not surprisingly agreed with enthusiasm, and the appointment was made.

  Strategically, the partnership was most advantageous to Australia, and in military terms the cooperation between the Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur and the Australian armed forces was sensibly handled, culminating, of course, in the eventual defeat of Japanese forces that had invaded Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.

  Socially, there was the impact of one million American service personnel (including 100,000 African-Americans), who began arriving in Australia in December 1941. During the next four years, the effects were even more complex as the Americans became an influential presence in Australian life, opening our major cities to a new culture and making a substantial contribution to the local economy.

  Australian servicemen were at a considerable financial disadvantage. The slogan coined at the time was ‘Over-paid, over-sexed and over here’. The Americans were better paid and had access to more exotic consumer items in their military PX (Post Exchange), which also doubled as duty-free stores. The Americans wer
e polite and courteous to Australian girls, had more glamorous uniforms, and had the chocolates, ice cream, hams, turkeys, silk stockings, alcohol (which Australian military canteens were not permitted to sell)—and the dollars. All this led to the GIs’ considerable success in the pursuit of Australian women. In mid 1942, a reporter walking in Brisbane’s Queen Street counted 152 local women in the company of 112 uniformed Americans, while only 31 women accompanied 60 Australian soldiers. Some 12,000 Australian women married US soldiers during the next four years!

  Naturally, the Sixth, Seventh and Ninth Division AIF soldiers, returning from the Middle East to Australia from early 1942, were aware of what had been going on at home.

  Gunner Ivan ‘Ivo’ Blazely’s troopship, the converted Dutch luxury liner New Amsterdam, berthed at Fremantle early in 1942, returning from the Middle East.

  A couple of young US Marines happened to stroll along the wharf beside the ship. Fremantle at that time was among other things an American submarine base. They were silly enough to ask, ‘Where are you guys from?’

  If anyone told them, it was drowned in catcalls, jeers and threats of, ‘What we’ll do to you Yank bastards when we get ashore.’ They kept on going. Yanks weren’t exactly the flavour of the month among the AIF. Some of the boys had got ‘Dear John letters’ in the short time the Yanks had been in Australia, although a lot of us took the view that they hadn’t taken our sheilas, they’d only sorted them out.

  The Australian authorities had not helped matters by always seeming to supply the US troops with better food and housing in camps closer to town than the general rule for the Australian troops, and in some small towns in North Queenland, like Gordonvale and Tully, right in the main street. On leave in Melbourne two weeks later, Ivo was still unforgiving about the Yanks.