by Tim Bowden
Coming over the mountains Sibson saw some of the straightest, biggest and most beautiful blue gum trees he had ever seen—50 or 60 feet to the first limb, and they were just as big at the top as they were at the bottom. The problem was that if one was growing near the ridge of a mountain, the slope was so steep that struggling men could only put their arms partly around the trunk to get past the huge gums. ‘Many soldiers lost their footing—even the chaplain who swore vehemently—slipping a chain back down the mountain before they could grab anything to crawl back up.’
They came to a stream running so fast that the waves were 3 feet high. Unable to cross, they had to find a fallen tree. Crossing only one at a time, men were positioned in case of an ambush. If a man fell off the log that would be the end of him, as he would be smashed to pieces on the rocks.
At the end of the third day Sibson realised that things were getting very serious. By now their captain was delirious and was helped along by two soldiers. The others were starting to weaken, going down lying in the mud, crying and pleading with their mates to leave them. Twenty-two men had given up the will to live. ‘It was the first time that I’d seen grown men cry.’ The sick men were grouped together in a rough bough shed built for them, with seven fitter men to protect them so they could get some rest. What meagre food that could be spared was left with them. The reality was they would have to get out the best way they could. ‘I don’t know if they all got out or not, because when I got home I had 40 days leave, and we all got split up.’
Sibson stayed No. 2 Scout for the rest of that trip and his job was to get out in front to check for any Japanese. He had to keep the No. 1 Scout in sight and keep his eyes open for the enemy, so he could warn the mob behind in plenty of time.
At the end of the fifth day they reached the coast just south of Tol Plantation. ‘I had worn out my boots so you can imagine what miserable condition our clothes were in. I don’t think we were too far behind what the prisoners of war in Singapore looked like.’
There was a Salvation Army officer on the barge with hot coffee and biscuits and clean pairs of socks. They could hear Australian troops still fighting to take Tol Plantation near Rabaul. Sibson found out they put 1600 rounds of 25-pounder shells into the plantation.
That night they had to stand to in case the Australians at Tol Plantation needed support. They would have been little value, because they were so spent they could barely even help themselves. But Tol Plantation was secured during the night, and Sibson and his companions embarked on barges early the next morning and arrived at Jacquinot Bay at 8 pm. For rations each man was issued with a tin of bully beef and one packet of hard biscuits between two. There was one litre of water per man to last all day. There was no shade on the steel barges and it was terribly hot. ‘The only shade you got was if your mate beside you stood up,’ Sibson said.
We were camped down alongside the 2/2nd Commandos who had a still going to make their own homebrew. Some of our fellas got stuck into it with them, and what a mess they made of themselves. There were sick blokes everywhere, and those who had false teeth spewed them out and lost them. During that episode, a new reinforcement arrived and he did everything right—got under his mosquito net and tucked himself in. One of our fellers on the homebrew got the horrors, dived on top of the net and was choking him. Those of us who didn’t drink wrestled the beserk bloke away and saved him. Later when the drunks started to feel better, they went around trying to find their false teeth. When they found a set they had to try them on and see if they fitted. It was no wonder I never drank in my entire life.
After a few days rest they boarded the same cattle boat, the Gorgon, they had sailed on to reach New Guinea. A couple of days out in the open sea on their way back to Australia, the Gorgon broke a piston and lay dead in the water. They could not break radio silence because the Japanese submarines might get on to them. So they drifted for 24 hours before Sibson and other engineers could take the broken piston out. Then they moved on slowly with only two pistons.
A shoal of dolphins met the ship half a day out of Brisbane and escorted it up the Brisbane River. The troops arrived with only the clothes they stood up in. Sibson and his mates were sent to Southport for four weeks. There, all they had to do was answer the roll call. ‘The rest of the day was ours to do what we liked, which wasn’t much as we were as poor as blackfellas’ dogs.’
Chapter 18
AN UNNECESSARY CAMPAIGN
On 22 October 1944, the Supreme Commander South-west Pacific Area General Douglas MacArthur famously waded ashore on the Philippines island of Leyte, keeping his promise of ‘I shall return’. (He actually waded ashore three times to make sure the photographers and newsreel cine-cameramen got it absolutely right for posterity.)
By then the apparent Japanese threat to mainland Australia was long over, although there were many thousands of Japanese soldiers in garrisons on various islands in an arc over 5000 kilometres stretching from Borneo to Bougainville. In New Britain, there were 93,000 Japanese forces (including civilians) and in Bougainville some 40,000 Japanese. All the Japanese troops had been cut off from their supply lines, and were mostly starving and running short of ammunition. Instances of cannibalism were widely reported. The reality was they were not going anywhere, but General MacArthur insisted that the commander in chief of the Australian forces, General Blamey—who had wanted to use no more than seven brigades to essentially mount a holding operation—should use twelve brigades. He then, for reasons never really revealed, ordered Blamey on 2 August 1944 to allocate four brigades to the New Guinea mainland, three to New Britain, four to Bougainville, and one to its outlying islands.
The result was that Australian troops were kept fighting in the jungles from Borneo to Bougainville until the end of the war. The Japanese may have been weakened and starved of food and supplies, but they were still prepared to die fanatically for their emperor, and did. For example, in the Aitape–Wewak campaign from November 1944 until the Japanese surrender in August 1945, 442 Australians were killed and 1141 wounded in battle in that theatre alone. In addition, a further 145 died from ‘other causes’ and a staggering 16,203 men were listed as ‘sickness casualties’, mostly victims of the atabrine-resistant strain of malaria that infested the area.
It was no wonder that in the course of this campaign the strategic benefits were on the basis that the fighting in the south-west Pacific was often represented as an ‘unnecessary campaign’. The Japanese, without continuing logistic support, were still a threat, but going nowhere—starving and some in such desperation as mentioned that they even resorted to cannibalism. The debate over the wisdom of using Australian troops, with the inevitable casualties that followed, to defeat these diminished Japanese soldiers still goes on.
Bob ‘Hooker’ Holt, 2/2nd Infantry Battalion, Sixth Division, veteran of fighting in the Middle East including actions in Bardia, Tobruk, Derna and Greece against the Italians and Germans, was in the thick of the fighting on New Guinea against the Japanese as well. He had briefly been in Port Morseby in the ‘Left Out of Battalion’ (LOB) group in August 1942, but returned to the Atherton Tablelands to join the rest of the Sixth Division for further training. He did not return to the Pacific Islands until he and his 2/3rd Battalion were transported from Townsville in December 1944 in an ‘unimpressive ship’, the 6000-ton Bonteko, sleeping in the hold ‘packed in like sardines’, and landed in the crowded port of Aitape, in New Guinea.
The battalion took over an established camp from the American army, who were on their way to the invasion of the Philippines. The camp was in a filthy state, with open cans, food and gear strewn about. Holt thought it looked like an Italian camp after the battles around Sidi Barani. They were ordered to clean up the lines before they all went down with dysentery and the camp eventually became habitable.
At a native camp at the back of their lines, a ‘sing sing’ was in progress and it had been going on for days. The natives were dancing and singing continuously. This could be c
oped with in daylight hours. ‘But after dark they really got into their stride and sleep was virtually impossible with the drums and chanting going full bore,’ Holt recalled.
We were welcome to visit them during the day and wandered over to have a look. There were hordes of loud-mouthed, gum chewing, cigar smoking Yankee base-troops, with their flash cameras photographing the celebrations. There weren’t any good sorts amongst the dancers, only old girls with tits on them like razor strops. However, on a second visit, just on dark, we saw the younger women coming out of the jungle to join the festivities.
The Australians were at least camped close to the beach, and apart from raiding the food dumps left behind by the Americans, swimming was the only recreation.
Orders were received on 21 January that they were to march to an airstrip to relieve the 2/8th Battalion. The march was tough, as they had to plough through liquid mud which came over their boot tops. ‘The track wound through the stinking, fetid, airless jungle and this did not help things either.’
Holt’s company crossed the Danmap River without getting their gaiters wet. They walked across to a small island, where battalion machine-gunners were digging in, and splashed their way over to the dropping ground, then dug in on the bank of the river and erected their two-man tents. During the night the heavens opened and Holt woke just in time to salvage some gear that was slipping into the swollen river as the river bank collapsed.
By the state of the river and the sounds of trees and rocks crashing and lights flashing on the island where the machine gunners were positioned, we knew they were in serious trouble, but we could do absolutely nothing about it. The lights on the island went out, but the roar of the raging waters continued unabated from the river. At first light we looked to the island but it had disappeared completely! Where there had been a trickle of water in the river the day before there was now a heaving, boiling mass of muddy water, 50 or 60 yards wide. We were isolated on the dropping ground. Several men and myself volunteered to try to swim across the river with ropes around our waists. There was no hope of this and after a number of attempts, we gave the idea away. It was just as well as it was really dangerous.
The river went down nearly as fast as it had risen and the following day it could be walked across again.
The 30 men of the machine-gun platoon were commanded by Lieutenant Tim Fearnside, who had been promoted from the ranks and transferred from the Ninth Division’s 2/13th Battalion. He, with the rest of his platoon, had been thrown into the swirling water and, remarkably, under the circumstances, were lucky to lose only seven men. One of the last men to leave the island, Corporal ‘Snowy’ Parkinson, was the first to report back to the battalion, and Holt was not surprised that although ‘naked, cold, mosquito-bitten and with a damaged foot, he was still wearing his trademark broad infectious grin’. It was quite amazing that 23 men survived and although quite a few were seriously injured, most reported back to the battalion after a short spell in hospital.
Shortly afterwards Holt’s company was sent off by itself as a listening post a mile or so from the remainder of the battalion. The troops cut saplings, put up canvas stretcher tops and erected two-man tents. They sited and dug their foxholes and laid booby traps. The first night in the new position several of these went off. One Japanese came along the track and hit a trip wire. As he heard the pin of the grenade fly out, he rushed right through the camp screaming. He hit another trip wire going out of camp and screamed some more as he galloped off down the track.
Following a week of patrols coming and going from the company’s position, the Japanese was sighted from time to time.
He became a kind of mascot but became too cheeky—or careless—and someone shot him eventually. Camped on his own in a hollow tree, just off the track, he was a straggler. He had no food, apart from a haversack for fungus he had pulled off the side of trees.
Then a Japanese scout appeared on the other side of the creek and inspected our positions. He was so nonchalant that our sentry, ‘Weary’ Wilmot, just stared at him dumbfounded. We all reckon he thumbed his nose at Weary before he took off back into the jungle. The following day I was on sentry duty when a mortar bomb went off close by. There was some rifle and machine gun fire and a lot of shouting. I came back into my hole in an awful hurry, but no attack developed. After a while we went out on a patrol and found a couple of rifles, and a cap abandoned near a mortar. It seemed the Japanese intended to launch a two-pronged attack on our position, but came unstuck. By mistake, they started firing on each other and decided to call it a day and return to their own lines. They were supposedly crack troops from General Nagi’s Raiding Force.
Patrols were sent out regularly. On one of these Holt came across half a dozen American skeletons on stretchers by the side of the track. ‘They had been wounded and left behind by their comrades to the tender mercies of the Japanese. Each had been bayoneted dozens of times, as the stretchers looked like sieves they had so many punctures.’
On 31 January a fighting patrol of two platoons, under Lieutenant Gil Cory, came through on their way to Long Ridge, where the Japanese were known to be entrenched. Holt was in one of the platoons: ‘On the track up the ridge the next day Johnny Perry was the forward scout. He made a name for himself when he sneaked up on a Nippon sentry and lopped his head off with a machete.’
It was a very rugged action on Long Ridge and the patrol had to retire eventually after killing 33 Japanese for the loss of two dead and seven wounded. They came back through the company’s position, bringing their wounded with them. Lieutenants Gil Cory and Bill Weir were awarded Military Crosses and Sergeant Bede Gourley the Distinguished Conduct Medal for their parts in the action.
A few days later Long Ridge was attacked with battalion strength. On their way up the track, through the heavy jungle of the mountainside, Holt saw the remains of the Japanese soldier that Johnny Perry had decapitated, ‘now well and truly on the nose’.
The Long Ridge attack turned out to be an anticlimax, because the Japanese had abandoned their positions and had left their dead unburied. The Australian dead had been mutilated. Their pants were around their ankles and great lumps of meat had been carved from their thighs.
The Australians had to sleep alongside the Japanese fortifications that night, with the stench of dead bodies about them. Next morning Holt saw two arms with clean knife cuts at the elbows and wrists and no flesh on the bones of the arms. ‘This was the first case of actual cannibalism that I saw personally, but it was far from the last, as the practice was widespread right through the campaign. I saw cases later where our dead had to be left behind. The tins of bully beef on their packs had been spiked and left to go rotten and still the Japanese cut lumps out of the thighs of the dead.’
When the battalion went into action towards the end of March, over the mountains from Dagua, Bob Holt went in with the machine-gunners. Before making the climb over the range, they saw jeeps that had been converted into ambulances by putting canvas stretchers on a frame above the chassis, bumping and sliding along the wide muddy track loaded with wounded from the 2/3rd Battalion, who could be heard in action on the mountain.
‘We had pulled up for a meal at some huts by the side of the track and I noticed bundles of gear under canvas and blankets. Always on the lookout for something extra to eat, I went over to inspect and found it to be Australian dead laid out in rows.’ Holt thought at the time that left to themselves the Japanese would have died in their thousands from disease and starvation and yet here were good men from the oldest division in the AIF being maimed and killed for no good reason.
They marched over the mountains, the forward companies killing a number of Japanese on the way. At the river on the other side of the range, the machine-gun platoon dug in while the battalion moved about a mile to their left. Each morning a patrol had to be sent to the battalion and another up the mountain, to make sure the track was clear for the native carriers with supplies.
I had always imagined the wild N
ew Guinea natives to be savages and it was surprising to find them human beings, with all faults and frailties of the so-called civilised white men. The carriers were the cleanest people imaginable. Every possible opportunity they would pull up and wash themselves in the rivers and creeks. In spite of their cleanliness—and believe me they were a sight cleaner than most soldiers—they always had a strong smell about them, reminding me of crushed ants. I can only surmise this was caused by something in their diet.
Surprisingly, the natives were not at home in the jungle at night. They detested it and were terrified if they were caught out in the dark. The Australians could hear the native carrier line coming from a long way off, showing lights and chanting in unison: ‘All the boy he come, master, all the boy he come.’
Several times when Holt was in charge of a line of native carriers, one of them would ask him if they could stop and collect bananas. If there was time, he would say yes. A few of them would collect the bananas and come back and share them out among all hands, including the soldiers. Holt described them as socialists at heart.
Most of the Japanese had mouths full of gold teeth. Holt tells of one character in the battalion who made a hobby of collecting them. He had dilly bags of teeth and reckoned on making his fortune when he sold the gold in Sydney after the war.
One of the machine gunners heard of his collection and decided to start his own. He attacked the head of a dead Japanese with a rock to loosen his teeth. He made an awful mess of the corpse’s head without getting his molars. He then buried the Jap for a few days before borrowing a pair of pliers from an artilleryman.