Larrikins in Khaki

by Tim Bowden

By now, it was nearly February 1944. I was worried because I knew it was about time for Elaine to go to hospital to have our first baby and I had not heard anything. Finally, to my relief and great joy, I received a telegram about a week after the event saying they were both well. So I was now a daddy with a grin a yard wide and a relaxed feeling knowing all was well on the home front.

  Dawson was returned to the unit depot at Bisiatabu, feeling fit and well, and then back to the parade ground and weapon training, turning young men into combat soldiers.

  Before long, he was given more movement orders and prepared to go with his troops into battle areas. They flew out of Port Moresby in a DC3 with an open doorway on the side, ready for a quick exit. All their weapons had been cleaned and checked and ammunition issued. Dawson was given an Owen gun, by now his favourite weapon. On board were a group of reinforcements soldiers, both Papuan and New Guinean.

  The PIB had become very proficient in the art of moving quietly through the jungle. They carried maximum ammunition and minimum rations. Their patrols varied in size, sometimes being a couple of platoons or more and sometimes as small as a section—about eight or ten men. Occasionally they were caught in a Japanese ambush and had to get out in a hurry with their wounded. Although a number of patrols proved uneventful, at all times the fear of death was their constant companion.

  Memories of all these patrol activities blurred over time. On one small patrol the objective was to follow a track, check if it was being used by the enemy, note any enemy installations and return before dark. The Australians had been moving along the track for about three hours without incident when the forward scout signalled enemy movement. They automatically moved off the track to the left, into ambush mode. Soon a Japanese scout appeared, followed at a short distance by about four or five soldiers. They drew level and the Australians fired, and after a minute or so moved in to check. Three Japanese were dead. One of the men thought he saw a couple of them run into the jungle on the other side of the track so Dawson said to his corporal, ‘Okay, move the men in line for about 20 yards, check for any wounded and return. I will watch the track.’ It was a bad mistake.

  I had changed the magazine and re-cocked the Owen and was looking back and forth along the track—when suddenly a Japanese soldier burst out of the scrub. He had remained hidden just a few yards away from us all the time. He was charging straight at me, bayonet fixed. I had no time to dodge and as I reacted, his face full of hate, seemed only inches away. I swung the Owen and pressed the trigger. He started to fall. As he fell, his bayonet grazed my thigh, putting a small cut in my trousers and skin but it was deflected by the scabbard of my jungle knife. The patrol heard the shot and ran back.

  During those few seconds, Dawson recalled that his body had doubled its sweat output. The practice was to look through dead enemies’ pockets in case they carried maps or other vital information. ‘I was never one to collect souvenirs during this task, but I decided to take that bayonet from the Japanese rifle and stuck it in my belt. I’d already had my share of near misses with bullets, bombs, grenades and mortars but somehow this seemed more personal.’

  Dawson’s PIB group moved with the Australian infantry units, sometimes being attached to different brigades or divisions, usually on foot. ‘It was all boots again—boots, boots moving up and down—pursuing and killing Japanese and trying to avoid being killed. The Japanese camps generally had a peculiar stink, their attitude to hygiene under the circumstances left a lot to be desired.’

  During July, the company was ordered to return to Bisiatabu for a rest. Then, in August, Dawson came down with another dose of fever and landed in Finschafen Hospital. Early in September 1944 he was granted home leave. He thought this splendid news—28 days off plus travelling time. On 11 September 1944 he boarded a Sunderland flying boat to Port Moresby and landed at Townsville before taking various troop trains to Melbourne.

  Then I experienced a magical moment—the reunion with my sweet Elaine and my first meeting with our darling new daughter Leigh. Leigh seemed quite dubious about me at first, probably little wonder as I suppose my complexion was a combination of suntan and jaundice—yellow due to the Atabrine tablets, a substitute for quinine, which at the time was scarce.

  How wonderful it was to be in the peace and tranquility of Melbourne. The war seemed far away.

  But Joe Dawson’s combat experience in the Pacific Islands was not yet over.

  Chapter 17

  THE BATTLE FOR NEW GUINEA

  After the Japanese initial effort to capture Port Moresby was thwarted by the Australians, first on the Kododa Track, and second when they were ousted from the important strategic port and airstrips at Milne Bay by 22 January 1943, by 29 January the Japanese turned their attention from Papua to the north coast of New Guinea. Forces of the Empire of Japan sailed from Rabaul, crossed the Solomon Sea, and successfully reached the coastal town of Lae at the head of the Markham River in the Huon Gulf. The strategic jewels in the crown, for both the Japanese and the Allies, were the inland goldmining towns of Wau and Bulolo. But they were situated in a high mountain valley, a five-day march from the coast for fit men through horrendous steep and tangled terrain, climbing up to 1300 metres from the valley floor, which was surrounded by peaks up to 2500 metres.

  It was not gold that was the objective of both sides, but the strategic airfield at Wau that held the key to the control of the Lae–Salamaua coast. But as Captain Henry ‘Jo’ Gullet of the 2/6th Battalion later wrote, the airstrip was a nail-biting experience to land and take off from:

  The little airstrip was situated on a fairly steep slope, just long enough for a DC3 Dakota to land uphill, aided by the gradient. Taking off, they raced down the hill, hurtled over the edge and hoped for the best. Going out, they could only carry very light loads, which posed a considerable problem when we had to evacuate our sick and wounded. (Henry ‘Jo’ Gullet, Not as a Duty Only, p. 97)

  The mountain at the end of the runway prevented a second chance at landing. Pilots had to navigate their DC3 aircraft under clouds and through dangerous passes, ‘dodging a peak here and cloud there’, and landing up the slope at high speeds, swinging the aircraft around at the last minute sideways to the strip for unloading. This required good visibility, but the Owen Stanley Range was beset with frequent storms, unpredictable vertical updrafts and mists that rose up from the jungle floor.

  The Japanese 102nd Infantry Regiment under the command of Major General Toru Okabe was ordered to occupy Lae and Salamaua and capture the airfields at Wau and Bulolo. The Australians did not know which way the Japanese would approach Wau. The most used route from the coast was known as the Bulldog Track, a tough trek even in fine weather.

  By mid-January the Australians began to reinforce Wau, but this was a slow process. A DC3 Dakota could carry 27 passengers of 4500 kilos of weight. Moving an infantry battalion required 50 plane loads; a brigade 361 flights. Poor flying weather hampered the flights from Port Moresby, aircraft often having to return because of continuing bad weather, and there had been three crashes.

  What was known as the Okabe Detachment did not use the Bulldog Track, but surprised the Australians by cutting their way through the jungle parallel to a little used route called the Black Cat Track, avoiding detection by Allied aircraft.

  Standing in the way of Okabe’s advance was A Company of the 2/6th Infantry Battalion commanded by Captain William ‘Bill’ Sherlock. Okabe was running out of food for his troops and, hoping for a quick victory, ordered an all-out attack on Sherlock’s position guarding Wau. On 28 January and outnumbered by human waves of Japanese, A Company was attacked but the enemy efforts to overrun their positions were defeated by a bayonet charge, led by Sherlock himself. The captain was then forced from his positions to occupy a nearby spur, from which he continued to repel frontal attacks with mortar and machine-gun fire. By 6 pm, he was almost out of ammunition and raked by Japanese machine guns, but Sherlock held his position through the night and was killed the next day t
rying to break through Japanese lines. (For his actions Bill Sherlock was posthumously Mentioned in Dispatches.)

  The following day 57 planeloads arrived bringing most of the 2/7th Infantry Battalion, while the Japanese positions were being attacked by Beaufighters from the RAAF’s No. 30 Squadron. On 31 January and 1 February, a total of 124 landings were made on the uphill Wau strip, adding 3000 men to the Allied defence. Outnumbered and outgunned, Okabe had to retreat to the coast with what was left of his 102nd Infantry Regiment. Wau was now secure.

  The Australians, with assistance from US forces, began a series of actions in late January to recapture the coastal towns of Lae and Salamaua, which had become major Japanese bases. Over the next few months the Australian Third Division advanced north-east towards Salamaua. After an amphibious landing at Nassau Bay, the Australians were reinforced by a US regimental combat team which then advanced up the coast.

  As the Allies kept up the pressure on the Japanese around Salamaua, in early September they launched an airborne assault on Nadzab, up the Markham River, and a seaborne landing near Lae at the river’s mouth, subsequently taking the town with simultaneous drives from the east and north-west. As the situation around Lae grew more desperate, the Japanese garrison withdrew from Salamaua and it was captured on 11 September 1943. Lae fell shortly afterwards on 16 September, when troops from the Seventh Division entered it ahead of the Ninth Division, and the remaining Japanese force escaped to the north.

  Less than a week later the Huon Peninsula campaign was opened as the Australians undertook another amphibious landing further east, aimed at capturing Finschhafen—which was achieved. This was a vital development which allowed the construction of an air base and naval facilities to assist Allied forces to conduct operations against Japanese bases, not only in New Guinea but New Britain, too.

  In mid-October the Japanese launched a counterattack against the Australian beachhead around Scarlet Beach, about 10 kilometres north of Finschhafen. It lasted a week, and the Japanese forced a small contraction of the Australian lines and a splitting of their force before it was defeated. After this the Australians regained the initiative and began to pursue the Japanese, who withdrew inland towards the high ground around Sattelberg. Heavy fighting took place there, and a second Japanese counterattack failed. Sattelberg was secured in late November 1943 and the Australians began an advance to the north to secure a line between Wareo and Gusika, which was completed by early December. This was followed by an advance by Australian forces along the coast from Lakona to Fortification Point after overcoming strong Japanese forces fighting delaying actions.

  The final stage of the Huon campaign saw the Japanese resistance finally break. A quick advance by the Australians along the northern coast of the peninsula was next, and in January 1944 they captured Sio. Mopping up operations there took until March, and then Madang was captured in April. A lull followed in northern New Guinea until July, when US forces clashed with the Japanese around the Drinuimor River. Further fighting followed in November 1944 when the Australians opened a fresh campaign in Aitape–Wewak.

  Roy Sibson was born in Bowen, Queensland, on 5 August 1920. His parents were subsistence farmers, and Roy had a knockabout childhood and minimal schooling. He left school to work on the land at fourteen. At fifteen he boosted his age to sixteen, to enlist part-time in the Australian Militia, and was called up when war broke out in 1939. Based near Townsville, he was not paid for the first two years of his service until he turned eighteen.

  In mid 1942 Sibson was seconded from the army to cut cane in North Queensland because of wartime labour shortages. One bonus was that it enabled him to get married at Home Hill, though he did not see his wife again—and baby daughter for the first time—until his discharge in 1945.

  Back in the army in October 1943, he was based in a big staging camp, but his unit, the 31st Infantry Battalion, was at Jacky Jacky at the tip of Cape York Peninsula at that time. Roy was bored with drill and route marching when, on parade one day, an officer asked if there were any blacksmiths in the ranks. On impulse Roy pushed the bloke beside him out and followed him. ‘Cripes, I know nothing about blacksmithing,’ the bloke said.

  ‘That makes two of us,’ Roy replied, ‘but we’ll get a trip to Brisbane out of this dump.’

  The officer explained that they would be going to the Brisbane Technical College for sixteen weeks. ‘When we got there they said we had to do some tests. That was when my cog started to turn. I had never seen a forge lit in my life, let alone any blacksmithing. Anyway luck was with us,’ Roy later recalled.

  The two teachers we had there did their time on the Clyde in Scotland. They were 70 years old and they sure knew their job. They were brought back from retirement when the war started, to teach at the college. The first day I went to the teacher and had to tell him the truth that I knew nothing about blacksmithing. I told him that if he would teach me I would learn, as it would be handy for me and my farming job after the war. I told him I was bored stiff where I came from and had to get out of the joint. He was an old soldier and knew what I was talking about.

  The teacher obligingly gave Roy extra tutoring and during smoko breaks he would take him into his office and teach him about tempering different kinds of steel and other metals.

  In the first five days Roy made a seven-link chain with a hook and eye, fire-welding the links together, and at the end of sixteen weeks there were only five out of the 32 who got a second-class pass and he was one of them. ‘I was lucky again as I was posted to a unit which had another blacksmith there, and if I got a job and I had trouble doing it, he would show me.’

  So that is how Roy Sibson went to war in New Guinea as a craftsman in the 2/127th Brigade Workshop AEME, and not as an infantryman. However, he might well have been a soldier for the amount of action he survived and helped fight over the next two or so years.

  Sibson’s first move was to Charters Towers, then Townsville, on the way to New Guinea. At the wharf in Townsville a freighter called the Gorgon was waiting for them, ready to carry 800 troops. Gorgon had been a cattle transporter and their stalls were still in place, and it was where the troops had to sleep. As the boat pulled out from Townsville, every soldier looked back at Australia. ‘I know I was wondering if I would ever see Australia and my wife and baby again. You could hear a pin drop on the deck because everybody was so quiet. We kept looking back until the boat was well past Magnetic Island and out to sea.’

  They joined up with five more transport ships and two corvettes to escort them to New Guinea. The first port of call was Milne Bay—a natural harbour with water so deep that two big cruisers were in there, Australia and Shropshire. Sibson also saw a 10,000-ton ship so close to shore that she was tied up to the coconut trees.

  Next day they set sail in convoy, as the battle for Lae was on. ‘It was quite a sight to see for us bush lads—six ships in convoy in line, with the corvettes out wide to protect us from submarines. The ocean swells were so high in the open sea that the corvettes would disappear from sight in the troughs.’

  Passing through the Pacific, the passage through the coral reefs was marked by buoys with bells on. Every ship had a dull red light at its stern, so the ones behind could follow. Day was breaking as they arrived off the coast of New Guinea and the rising sun illuminated the tops of the mountains.

  The Gorgon passed a Liberty ship that would be sunk by a Japanese submarine that night. Liberty ships were cargo carriers, described as a big hull with an engine. They were 10,000 tons capacity and the Americans churned them out with prefabricated sections, making one every seven days!

  Sibson’s convoy reached Buna and an Allied aircraft came out to warn them that a Japanese submarine was in their vicinity. ‘It wobbled its wings as a warning and all the foghorns started to sound as the convoy turned around as one and went hell for leather to get behind the submarine net at Buna.’

  Next morning the Gorgon broke from the convoy as, with her top speed, she could notionally outrun
a submarine. She went flat out for Lae with her 800 reinforcements on board needed to help in the battle.

  The troops were ferried ashore in amphibious DUKWs. Getting into them was not easy.

  We went over the side of the ship on rope nets and some went down the gangplank. The swell was about twelve feet and as the DUKWs came up you had to judge the right time to let go the net and drop into them. The DUKWs ran the troops right up into the jungle which was all mud to get us out of sight of the Japanese fighters and bombers. We slept in the mud that night and many more to follow.

  Most of the soldiers were from cities, and Sibson said it was funny seeing them looking for dry ground when there was none. ‘I cut big armfuls of ginger plants, like lilies, and made a corduroy bed out of them. At least it kept me out of the mud. There were about 1000 different kinds of insects at Lae, and 999 crawled over us that night. The Jap bombers came looking for us, but their bombs fell short and they missed their targets.’

  For Sibson and most of his mates, this was their first taste of real war. ‘Every gun and the place opened up on the Japs from revolvers to 3.7 ack-ack guns. There were blokes running like hell for the slit trenches. One bloke dropped his hurricane lamp and it did not go out, so his mate who was following him gave it a drop-kick to put it out. It would have done a footballer proud.’

  The engineers’ first job was to cut tracks into the jungle and lay timber on the ground as corduroy so that lorries would not bog. Then they would back up and spread gravel over it and make a road. That way, they could drive in and stack ammunition in the jungle out of sight of the enemy planes. Meanwhile, Sibson said, a camp was established and the soldiers settled in.

  When I was in Sydney I tried to see a picture call ‘Random Harvest’, but I couldn’t get anywhere near it. After about six weeks in Lae when things settled down a bit, the army put a screen up between two trees and showed ‘Random Harvest’. We were sitting on logs for seats in the rain and some Japs in the jungle looking at it also. Apparently they had been cut off from their main mob. Our cook was putting on a billy of tea, and a Jap across the river shot it out of his hand!