by Tim Bowden
A line of native carriers came past as he dug up the Jap. The smell was fearful and the natives protested. ‘Phew master, phew.’ This creature managed to extract the now decomposing Jap’s teeth. Both these teeth-collecting ghouls were out of luck because the so-called gold fillings were later found to be worthless.
The machine-gunners started patrolling as an infantry platoon along the Old German Road. This road was made of logs—corduroy—and ran from Aitape to Wewak. One morning Holt’s section was patrolling and saw imprints of two-toed Japanese boots in the mud by the side of the road. The tracks had not filled with water, which meant they were fresh. The patrol left the road to follow a jungle track, and shortly afterwards a Japanese threw a grenade at their leading scout and vanished.
We were told to move in extended order, and going past a clump of trees, I saw a Japanese in khaki banging a grenade against a tree trying to arm it. He was shot dead immediately. He had previously fought against the Australians and he had a watch inscribed with the Victorian soldier’s name, number and battalion. Round his neck in a chamois leather pouch, he had something wrapped in layers of tissue paper. The way it was protected I thought it may have been a crown jewel, or at least a pearl beyond price. To my disgust, it turned out to be a cherry stone he’d probably brought from Japan as a good luck charm.
Holt went down with malaria and went to hospital. He had already had two strains of malaria that were resistant to the drugs available, and this time he was really ill. He recalled talking to himself and floating in and out of consciousness. Recovering eventually, he was still weak and ill when he was discharged from the hospital. ‘Then we were paraded before a doctor, who asked if we thought we were fit enough to return to our battalions. I always found them to be sympathetic, but if the doctor said we were fit most infantrymen would not argue the point, as pride would not let it be thought we were malingering, or “swinging the lead”.’
As the campaign went on, his admiration for the conscripted overworked natives on the essential carrier lines increased. ‘They did not appear to ask for anything, barring some betel nut and sticks of rough twist tobacco. The weed looked like sticks of liquorice and they smoked it, wrapped in newspaper. One draw of this was enough to lift a white man’s head off!’
The carriers’ noses were pierced, and the holes in their earlobes were used to carry small personal items such as tobacco. They fetched and carried for the soldiers, sometimes up to the front lines. The stretcher parties carried out wounded troops ‘and in general looked after them like mother hens’. Most of the men had been forcibly conscripted from their villages to help in a war they knew nothing about. They suffered real hardships, wounds and sometimes death—and for this they were supplied with food and a miserable pittance. ‘It’s incredible but under a so-called socialist government, these unsung heroes were paid 10 shillings in Papua and 5 shillings in the Mandated Territory per month.’
Bob Holt came back from hospital and was outside Wewak, waiting to be repatriated to Australia as a ‘low number man’ (those who had been first to enlist), when word came through that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese had capitulated.
The official finish of the war meant very little to the men of the battalion, as the fighting in the mountains behind Wewak went on as the abandoned Japanese soldiers had no knowledge it was all over. Holt waited with some of his comrades on the beach at Wewak, preparing to board the Australian ship Katoomba which had just pulled in.
‘I was heartily sick of the war and so was everyone else.’
Chapter 19
SAVAGERY IN BOUGAINVILLE
Bougainville is a big island. Some 200 kilometres long by 65 kilometres wide, it lies about 300 kilometres south of New Britain. A spine of rugged mountain ranges runs down its full length, rising to 2400 metres with two active volcanoes, while wide swampy flatlands border the western and southern coasts. From the air, the lowlands clothed in dense tropical jungle resemble a vast green sea, cut every few miles by swift rivers and creeks which flood regularly in the 100-inch annual rainfall.
In 1942 the Japanese, and their thrust south to Guadalcanal and New Zealand, had occupied Bougainville with more than 70,000 troops. A year later American forces had counterattacked and landed at Torokina, halfway up the west coast. They were seeking airstrips for their push north, and contented themselves with a 7-mile perimeter around Torokina, built their bomber and fighter strips, and sat tight. The Japanese 17th Army counterattacked once, lost nearly 3000 casualties, and retired. Both sides held their peace and, over the ensuing months, watched and waited.
Five Australian infantry brigades, more than one and a half divisions, took over from the US forces in November 1944. The Americans were departing for the Leyte landing in the Philippines and appeared very confident. Enemy strength was down to less than 20,000, they said, most were starving, ill-equipped and dispirited. The old New Guinea hands among the incoming Australian forces were not impressed. They had seen starving Japanese charge in waves around Salamaua—every last one had to be dug out and killed. Starving Japanese were still dangerous.
The US intelligence estimates were highly inaccurate. There were almost 40,000 of the Japanese 17th Army left on Bougainville, they were adequately equipped, and living well off an organised system of local crops and gardens.
Over half the battalion strength was made up of young reinforcements. Most had just turned nineteen and had completed the jungle training course at Canungra in Queensland, and then posted to veteran battalions just returned from New Guinea campaigns. They were well trained, well equipped, and slightly put out at being sent to what were largely Australian Militia units instead of the more glamorous formations of the AIF, such as the Sixth, Seventh or Ninth Divisions.
But as Lance Corporal Peter ‘Slim’ Medcalf wrote in War in the Shadows, ‘The difference between militiamen and AIF lasted about two seconds after the first shots were fired in anger. The offensive opened in December 1944 and carried on until August 1945. Some 25,000 Australians opposed 40,000 Japanese, who matched us in artillery and suffered only the lack of airpower. It looked like a long campaign.’
Medcalf recalled: ‘I don’t think I ever met a hero. It is a word that has been vastly misused and to the men doing the actual fighting, was somewhat suspect … you just did your job. As my mate “Grovely” Joe used to say, “We’re not real soldiers, we’re just civilians having a hard trot.”’
These young Australians certainly were ‘real soldiers’. Most under 21, they did not think that the world owed them a living. They were cynical, ‘but somewhat idealistic, bawdy, irreverent and highly critical of authority, but motivated by an unspoken patriotism and a deep conviction that you did not let your mates down’.
So in Medcalf ’s account, they are all here—cooks, corporals, padres and point scouts, sergeants and stretcher bearers and the men of the infantry. ‘They were the cheerful, blasphemous, downtrodden, irrepressible foot-sloggers.’ He described as accurately as possible the life of a combat infantryman in those days. ‘Jungle warfare was not normally a war of vast numbers and major engagements. It was largely a silent and deadly game of stalking and bushcraft and a matter of survival under what were at times extremely adverse conditions. By 1944 the combat units of the Australian army had become particularly adept at this form of war.’
Loaded ‘like Christmas trees’ they moved inland to the Tavera River, 15 Platoon leading. Slim Medcalf was glad he was not a Bren gunner—with ammunition, food, gun, magazines, pack and equipment, they carried nearly a hundredweight. They trudged out onto the track in single file. ‘Predictably, somebody said, “You’ll be sorry!”’
The track ended abruptly at the edge of the swamp. The lead scout looked back questioningly and was waved on. Carefully he stepped into the ooze, knee-deep, thigh-deep, then waist-deep. He paused to rearrange his bandolier of .303 ammunition around his neck and out of the water and inched forward. One by one the company followed.
The black slime crept coldly to our waists—we struggled forward, feeling for solid footing under the surface, tree roots, tussocks, sunken debris to support us. We grasped at tangled vines and tree limbs. Unseen swamp life wriggled and slid below the surface—I thought of leeches and shivered. Rain started to fall, soft, gentle drops forming myriads of spreading rings on the dark water.
A splash—struggling, and a man sank out of his depth, his full pack giving a momentary support. Eyes staring in fright, he clutched at an extended rifle barrel and was slowly hauled up until he could grasp a low tree limb. Rain intensified, soon forming a drift of fine spray over the surface, roaring through the undergrowth, heavy drops dancing in a fine halo around our heads and shoulders.
Each man had to feel for a solid footing, grasp a vine, haul, slip and grab again, in chest-deep black slime, getting deeper as they moved forward. It seemed their haversacks were loaded with lead. Their guns were held high, belts heavy with grenades and magazines dragging down around each of their necks. Sweat was mixed with rain, as their lungs struggled for oxygen, breathing in dank moisture-laden air. The patrol slipped, floundered, and some occasionally lunged up to grab a low-hanging tree branch for support. Two hours passed, with no place to stop, boots sinking in the clinging mud beneath the surface. Every half hour the Bren gun was passed from one man to another to share the extra 30-pound load.
The Scout from 15 Platoon inched past us, and clung, panting to a log by [Leader] Perce’s side. He gestured forward with his rifle and called, keep moving—only a few hundred yards more. Bear inland a bit! We struggled on. Slowly the swamp shallowed, trees grew thicker deepening the gloom. We stopped in knee deep water and word was passed back, ‘Smoko’. We stood, heads down, shaking from strain, tobacco tins and matches, tucked under berets to keep dry, were slowly produced. I rolled a cigarette with wrinkled trembling fingers, and a fat raindrop dissolved it into a sodden mess. Grovely Joe passed me one from his tin, and somehow managed to light a match. Slowly, carefully, it was nurtured down the line—we sucked in the smoke greedily and relaxed, ignoring the mosquitoes.
By mid-afternoon their way was barred by a sluggishly flowing creek. The swamp shallowed slightly on the near bank, with dark water flowing towards the coast. Dense jungle towered on the far side and a 9-metre fallen tree bridged the stream. A gap in the thick growth on the other side suggested a track leading south. The lead platoon fanned out to cover the crossing and two scouts teetered across the log to disappear into the jungle. The troops waited, as insects and mosquitoes rose in clouds about them. Slim Medcalf thought that at least it looked like dry land over the river. The leading scout waved, and the three platoons filed carefully over the log. They were still in heavy dense jungle, but at least on dry ground out of the swamp as they halted and heaved off their packs.
This was to be their home and the company perimeter for many weeks—the base for constant patrols, ambushes and skirmishes for possession of a thin ribbon of muddy track weaving between and into vast swamps and marshes, and criss-crossed by innumerable creeks and streams.
The fight hammered and echoed ahead of them all morning. B Company were forcing the bottleneck. Heavy mortars and 25-pounders added to the din, the sounds rumbling and exploding through the dripping, tangled waste of swamp.
Gradually the noise diminished to a final thin crackle of fire, then silence. ‘Saddle up,’ ordered their leader Perce. They were to relieve B company when they cleared the bottleneck, and push on to the Tavera River.
The sections moved out one by one, heavily loaded. No one looked back at the perimeter by the log crossing, their home for weeks. Medcalf thought, ‘We ought to fill in all the holes we dug, apologise to the boongs and go home.’ They left nothing that would be missed.
B Company had fought a hard fight—their dead lay wrapped in groundsheets under banana frond shelters, and their wounded passed them, swaying heavily on stretchers on the way to the beach.
‘Mary’ McGee was led past the incoming patrol, field dressings swathing his eyes. ‘His mate held an arm around his shoulders and kept saying, “She’ll be right mate”, as he tenderly guided McGee down the track.’
Some wanted to help, but McGee’s mate Johnny McGann looked at the well-meaning helpers almost defiantly. ‘He’s all right, I’ll look after him.’ He led McGee slowly past the others, his own and McGee’s rifles slung over his shoulder. ‘He didn’t want our help—he was looking after his mate. One of the walking wounded, arm in a sling, bent to get a light. “He was blinded by grenade fragments. Poor old Mary McGee.”’
Slim Medcalf recalled that McGee and Johnny McGann used to put on a singing duet in the mess hut.
B Company was glad to be relieved, and Medcalf ’s mob quickly took over the shallow holes they had scratched in the dank earth. Behind this the bottleneck was a waste of smashed and splintered trees and odd bits of abandoned Japanese equipment.
‘Nugget’ lay propped against his pack, waiting for the order to retire. His hands shook with delayed shock. ‘The Jap snipers were tied up in the trees firing down at us. The 25-pounders finally shifted them,’ Medcalf wrote. ‘Nugget gave a weak grin. “I tell you, Slim, this was no place for me mother’s little boy!”’
As they took over from B Company and dug in, the rain started again, slowly increasing to a driving downpour. Night came and the rain kept on, hour after hour. Pickets were blind and deaf in the deluge, safety holes were quickly filled. They squatted through the long night without sleep, under groundsheets, and felt the water rise slowly ankle-deep through the perimeter. ‘The Japanese could have walked through our positions if they had returned.’
Dawn brought fitful light, and a waste of water, trees and bushes standing in a black sea. All signs of dry land had disappeared. The rain eased to a fine drizzle, and on all sides creeks rushed through the underbrush. Listening posts were thrown out as they tried to make their perimeter livable. ‘The rain stopped and the sun finally shone, bright golden shafts breaking through gaps in the dense canopy overhead, reflecting rainbows in the stream already rising from the surface of the water.’
A patrol splashed up the track, and returned by mid-afternoon—no contact.
The weather stayed fine. Slowly they improved their new home in the bottleneck, and patrols daily confirmed that the enemy had pulled back towards the dry country to the south. The water receded, the cooks provided hot meals of a sort, and mail caught up with them. It grew hotter, and they gradually became aware of a peculiar smell about the place. After a few days this sickening stench pervaded the whole clearing.
Early one morning filing out on patrol towards the river, we found the answer. The company had obligingly left a dead Japanese just outside the perimeter. As the water drained away and the hot sun went to work he was making his presence felt. Finally the stench became too much to bear. We had to face the unpleasant task of burying the swollen, rotting remains. The job was made bearable by jokes and comments from several humorists in the burial party as we sweated with shovels alongside the offending corpse. Eventually this loathsome work was done and the detail walked back to the perimeter heaving sighs of relief.
But the smell persisted. It became stronger. It was in their water, food, clothes, in every breath they took. Only on patrol could they escape it. Medcalf eventually discovered the source:
One morning I sat on my bunk, and looked at the ground between my boots. A large white maggot wriggled out of the dry ground—and another, and another. We had pitched our shelters on top of the shallow graves the Japanese had dug for their own dead during the battle the week before.
As Sad Sack observed, ‘You got to admit Slim, the place has atmosphere!’
Thick clouds gathered and short, sharp storms swept the swamps. The rain gradually set in. The water level in the surrounding marshes rose and slowly invaded their camp. They patched their tattered shelters with large banana fronds and jacked their bush bunks higher out of the mud. Food was short again, and s
everal men were sent back suffering from skin diseases and unknown fevers. A patrol tried to find a shortcut to the coast, and became lost for two days in the swampy wastes of the Tavera estuary.
An urgent radio message was received—‘Japanese reported at Sisiruai’, a village about 6 miles inland. The platoon leader decided they should find the place and clean it out.
Early morning, the scouts led the platoon through the wire. Ten yards into the heavy growth the water was knee-deep. Slowly the line moved ahead. ‘We sank to our waists in clammy brown slush as the ground fell away. Bert backed up suddenly and prodded a lump of floating bark with his rifle. A foot-long centipede, bright orange in the dim light, rode on the debris, its wide head waving gently as it bobbed by.’
The Australians were heavily loaded with spare ammunition and the weight around their necks dragged them off balance as the patrol tripped and stumbled on tangled snags below the surface.
I clambered over a half-submerged log and a grenade slipped from my belt to be lost in the mire. An hour passed and we halted for a smoke. Sad Sack floundered up and took the Bren gun from Bomber and word filtered back, a big creek, too deep to cross was ahead. The lead section turned inland to see if the creek narrowed or grew shallow. It showed as a 20-yard gap in the undergrowth with the water moving sluggishly coastwards.
After several hours they found a tall tree fallen across the stream. The patrol inched over, straddling the slippery trunk until they could swing down into the shallows on the far bank. The men lent against tree trunks up to their knees in the black mire and munched dry biscuits and bully beef from the tin. ‘Joey from 6 Section was shivering and running a temperature—he could not eat, but would not let us carry his pack.’ They swigged chlorinated water from their bottles and moved on.