At 5.45, explosions could be heard tearing up the jungle ahead of the men, the results of shells fired by the 25-pounders of the 2/5th Field Regiment, which was situated further back near No. 3 Strip. At the same time, a swoop by the Kittyhawks came in, employing a tactic that would do so much to cement the battlefield cooperation between the men in the air and those on the ground.
Infantry, advancing towards the enemy in the featureless jungle, would aim a flare pistol in the direction of the Japanese lines and fire it above the tree canopy. Subsequent flares of a different colour would denote the distance – in hundreds of yards – to the target. The pilots would then strafe along that line, being careful not to stray across it, lest their own men be put in danger. Over the course of the next week, this would adapt and evolve into the most perfect system the conditions allowed, and help meld the army and the air force into virtually a single weapon, to which the enemy had no answer.
One private in B Company later recounted:
The airmen … were flying in gathering dusk, through the rain clouds and skimming along the top of the tall coconut trees and perhaps in danger more from the elements than the enemy. They seemed to have a complete disregard for their own lives.
Time was against them on this late afternoon, however, and the pilots of 75 and 76 Squadrons, rather than risk a tragic error in the fading light, soon broke off the attack. The same went for the artillerymen, who no longer felt confident to range their big guns with sufficient accuracy.
From their positions 800 yards away at Wagu Wagu Creek, the Japanese opened fire on the advancing Australians, targeting particularly those seen to be carrying submachine guns, a weapon the Japanese did not possess. Some men crossing Eakoeakoni Creek encountered a virtually sheer bank, which had to be climbed to get to the eastern side. Here, Private Roy Hildred and the other men of Bicks’ B Company were subject to withering Japanese attacks. ‘Sticks and leaves and bark falling like confetti,’ he remembered. Although the enemy did not have light machine guns, he said, ‘their firepower was unbelievable’.
In the fading light, confusion set in, with units becoming separated. Communication had been poor, leaving many of the men of one unit unaware of the presence of others. Lance Corporal Errol Jorgensen of the 25th Battalion recalled: ‘I didn’t know B Company 61st Battalion were there. Never had a bloody clue. That’s why we were so confused.’
Finding their small group of eight men out in the open and under sniper and grenade attack in fading light, Jorgensen led his men back the only way he could think of: by the sea. The men waded out and retreated back to their original positions at KB Mission. An order had apparently been issued for them to retreat 500 yards, but they had not received it.
Across both companies now, men were falling back, dispirited by the confusion, the bad light and the apparent Japanese command of the battlefield. The Japanese, growing in confidence – particularly now that night was coming – followed. Wisely, Captain Bicks had pulled his men back to the far bank of Motieau Creek, on the mission’s western edge, where the wider spaces and adjacent swampy areas of the mission could be covered and defended.
Lieutenant Robinson, who had led his men from 11 Platoon over this very ground earlier that day, was forced to fight a rearguard action as groups of three and four Japanese began to infiltrate the boundaries of the mission. As night came on, a series of rolling skirmishes took place, with platoons of Australians denying the enemy a firm foothold.
At 9.30 p.m., the Japanese spirits were boosted when the booming guns of one of their destroyers opened up, having re-entered the bay to resume the fight. Again, however, their shooting was largely ineffective, as they were still unable to sufficiently de-elevate their guns. All their shells were therefore wasted, exploding harmlessly in the trees beyond the mission.
The Japanese spent all night trying to force out the defenders. At one point a marine emerged onto the battle area with a flamethrower, which lit up the night with an orange burst. This, however, simply alerted every Australian soldier in the vicinity to the courageous but possibly foolish man’s location. A second burst ignited a tree, but when the flamethrower fired again, Private George Orphant, sheltering in the nearby undergrowth was ready:
[T]hey hit the tree with the flame and it went straight up in the foliage. It was quite close to me because they had crawled up close. I don’t know how many threw grenades at him but I had a couple of shots at the area before the other boys let him have it.
A cascade of rifle fire and hand grenades poured down on the lone operator, who soon lay dying, his weapon hissing uselessly by his side. The agonised groans of the enemy soldier brought a revelation to Private Eddy George:
I felt good to hear him groaning and moaning and calling for help, before expiring in front of our position. I said to myself, ‘you Nips are no super fighters after all – bullets in the right place hurt you too’ – my morale was lifted.
•
By 4 a.m., Bicks realised that his prospects of holding KB Mission for much longer were meagre. His men had not slept for two days, and increasing numbers were withdrawing wounded. A tank attack was also expected at dawn, for which Bicks had no defence. With the Japanese slowly beginning to outflank and infiltrate the Australian positions, Bicks ordered a withdrawal from Motieau Creek to the larger Gama River, a mile to the rear.
The Japanese, equally exhausted, were unable to take advantage of their gains. Besides, with the sun soon up, the relatively open spaces of the mission would be a killing ground for the strafing Kittyhawks, which they knew would soon arrive. Far better for them to remain in the safety of the jungle, they reasoned, and wait it out for another attack that evening. Giving up much of the ground they had won that day, the Japanese withdrew to a defensive line beyond Eakoeakoni Creek. The Australians, curious at the sudden quiet, sent a patrol back into the mission to reconnoitre the enemy, only to discover they had departed.
Captain Bicks and his militiamen had performed better than anyone could have hoped, particularly considering this was their first time in battle. As the men of the 61st withdrew towards Gili Gili, the AIF men they met along the track were shocked into silence at their appearance. Finally, the derogatory epithet of ‘choccos’ – meaning ‘chocolate soldiers’, who would quickly melt in the heat of battle – was being put to rest.
Private Eddy George later reflected:
I felt really pleased that on our baptism of fire we had done OK and not been moved. My morale was high, also my confidence in my ability as a soldier. I now realise that the hard training and unit discipline which we had endured as rookies, had paid off.
Three officers and fifteen men from the 61st and 25th Battalions were known to have been killed on this evening of 26 August, with a further sixteen wounded and a number missing. Bicks had not slept for 36 hours, but remained alert and responsive to every aspect of the fight. For his cool-headedness in action, he was later awarded the Military Cross.
•
Not that he could have known it, but Bicks had been assisted by another Japanese tactical mistake made earlier in the evening, when Commander Hayashi, who had planned for a major night assault to dislodge the Australians, split his forces at the last minute, ordering the bulk of his 5th Kure SNLF to leave the Government Track and advance on KB Mission through the jungle.
His reasoning was sound – to avoid the traps and ambushes set up by the tenacious Australians along the track – but the jungle proved impassable for his men, particularly at night. In the thick foliage, they became lost and separated, advancing at a snail’s pace, forcing Hayashi to postpone his major attack for another 24 hours. It can only be speculated whether Bicks was capable of holding off the Japanese if they had attacked at full strength, but for now his work was done, and as the dawn came up his company was withdrawn.
The main battle of KB Mission would take place that evening, and the Japanese commander would not repeat his mistake.
•
Two hundred and twenty m
iles to the west, at Port Moresby, General Officer Commanding New Guinea Force, and Clowes’ immediate superior, Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell, was beginning to receive increasingly agitated messages from GHQ in Brisbane. General Douglas MacArthur, apparently accustomed to a continuous stream of communications regarding the progress of any engagement under his command, was not happy at the relative silence from Milne Bay. George Vasey, Blamey’s chief of staff, and often the meat in the sandwich between the American and Australian commands, wrote as candidly as he dared to his old friend Rowell:
The lack of information from you on the operations at Milne Bay has created a very difficult situation here … only two minutes ago I have been phoned by Sutherland [Major General Richard Sutherland, MacArthur’s notoriously abrasive chief of staff] asking me what report I had, and what offensive action had been taken by Cyril. I was compelled to answer that I was unaware … You possibly do not realise that for GHQ this is their first battle and they are, therefore, like many others, nervous and dwelling on the receipt of frequent messages.
What little information GHQ in faraway Brisbane could glean from the Milne Bay front, however, did not make them the slightest bit happy. Why had Clowes allowed the Japanese to gain a foothold in the first place, instead of using every available soldier to push them back into the sea? According to Vasey, the impression being given at GHQ indicated ‘a lack of activity on the part of our troops in the area’. Clowes’ perceived lack of action led to demands he immediately throw everything he had at the Japanese.
‘Enemy landing at Milne Bay may be a prelude to landing in numbers,’ thundered Blamey to Rowell. ‘The land force must be attacked with greatest vigour and destroyed as soon as possible.’
Hour by hour during the first 36 hours of the battle, Rowell read carefully GHQ’s increasingly febrile requests, opinions and armchair readings of the situation – and ignored them. Putting his faith instead in his subordinate Clowes’ ability to read the situation on the ground, he delayed the messages, even sometimes altering their intent before passing them on. He sent Clowes short and encouraging missives, such as this, received late in the evening of 26 August: ‘Confident you have situation well in hand and will administer stern punishment.’
Rowell’s reply to GHQ was less circumspect: ‘I took a lousy view of your signal telling us to be offensive as the convoy might be a prelude to further landings. That is very true but you must move slowly in two feet of mud, however much you desire to run.’
The rift between Rowell and Blamey, already deep, became a chasm that would never be bridged, and led to the bitter disagreements which renowned soldier and author David Horner dubbed Australia’s ‘crisis of command’.
•
On the ground at Milne Bay, however, Cyril Clowes was watching the unfolding situation with his usual sagacity. Although curious as to why the Japanese had not landed – nor attempted to land – at other areas of Milne Bay, he was not yet prepared to risk the defence of his primary resource, his airfields, by committing the main weapon of his counterstroke, the 18th Brigade, to battle.
Nor was he able to glean what the Japanese ships were up to at night, when they had the run of the bay. The sounds of ships and their motorised barges could be heard across the water, shuttling back and forth from the shore, but whether they were embarking more troops, resupplying or evacuating the wounded could only be guessed at. At first light, Clowes waited to receive the dreaded report that fresh forces had been landed at other parts of the bay, but no such news came in. An attack from the north, or even one overland from Mullins Harbour in the south-west, could not be discounted, and for these reasons Clowes felt compelled to keep his main reserve intact, and able to move where needed.
Besides, it was still extremely difficult to assess what exactly was happening. The appalling state of the one main road – along which the battle was being fought – made it almost impossible to maintain regular runners or efficient communications. Cables, recounted one signals soldier, ran ‘like spaghetti everywhere in the jungle’, and were constantly being cut by the Japanese or worn down by the elements.
The weather, as usual, shrouded everything in mystery. As the official history recounts:
The rain shrouded the scene, drumming through the trees and over the grey sea, turning the roads into morasses. The tropical mists added their gloom to the scene so that the whole encounter seemed unreal and unpredictable.
Over the next 24 hours, a South Australian battalion would need to draw upon even greater resources of bravery and resilience, as the battle of KB Mission reached its terrible nocturnal crescendo.
CHAPTER 22
CHANGING ORDERS
If, at 43, Lieutenant Colonel James Gordon Dobbs, commanding officer of the 18th Brigade’s 2/10th Infantry Battalion, was somewhat more advanced in years than most of his fellow officers (‘elderly’ is how one soldier described him), it in no way impaired his fighting spirit.
From Prospect in South Australia, Dobbs had come up the hard way, having enlisted as a private in a machine-gun company during the First World War, and working as an accountant during the inter-war years. After serving in the Middle East with the 2/27th Battalion, he was chosen to command the first AIF battalion raised in South Australia for World War Two, the 2/10th, dubbed – with a touch of élan – ‘the Adelaide Rifles’. In this, Dobbs’ first battalion command, he was eager to give a good account of himself.
Despite being renowned for his strictness, Dobbs, by all accounts, was well liked by his men. On one occasion in early 1942, before the battalion had relocated to Queensland, he personally rounded up a group of privates who had gone AWOL at Sandy Creek, north of Adelaide; he was henceforth known to his men as ‘the Sheriff of Sandy Creek’. However, it was his rigour and attention to detail in bringing his men up to the highest standards of physical fitness for which he would be most appreciated by the battalion, particularly when they were to face the almost unendurably taxing conditions of Papua.
Two days into the Battle of Milne Bay, however, Dobbs’ battalion had seen frustratingly little action. Having arrived on 12 August in very cramped conditions aboard a small KPM steamer, the SS Both, Clowes situated the 2/10th along the outer edge of Gili Gili’s defensive perimeter, roughly four miles north-west of the main base, and a mile or so west of the 61st Battalion, which was dug in around the incomplete No. 3 Strip. The tasks assigned to the 2/10th were to secure the northern flank of the Gili Gili base area, to repel any attacks attempted from the northern coast through the Stirling Range, and to work on the wharf, unloading ships.
A few hours after the Japanese landed on the night of 25 August, the 2/10th was ordered to a new position half a mile to the south, towards Gili Gili, where they set up a perimeter defensive position. Later that day, the 2/10th’s C Company, under Captain Campbell, was carved off and sent over to reinforce the 61st at KB Mission, but at 6.30 that evening the remainder of the battalion was ordered further away from the fighting, to the outer western perimeter, near Gurney Field. A deeply frustrated Dobbs later remarked that being mucked about like this ‘would not have given the Battalion a fighting chance to do a sound job had it been called upon to deal with an enemy attack at dawn’.
As the sounds of the action being fought by Captain Bicks at KB Mission reverberated around the bay on the night of 26 August, Dobbs decided he’d had enough of waiting in the wings. At 4.30 a.m. he buttonholed one of his signals sergeants and made his way towards the HQ of his immediate superior, Brigadier John Field. The unexpected deputation was challenged by a sentry, but Dobbs was determined to see his boss, despite the lateness of the hour. Wanting to know what all the fuss outside was about, Field himself appeared, and ushered them in.
‘Look, sir, I want you to let me take the battalion out and have a crack at the Jap!’ implored Dobbs.
Though impressed by the man’s enthusiasm, Field declined the request, as the 2/10th was currently plugging the hole left when the 25th Battalion had been moved up to KB
Mission. Besides, only the overall commander, Major General Clowes, could authorise such a move.
In the early dawn, a disappointed Dobbs made his way back towards his men in a jolting truck that struggled through the mud. Just before 11 a.m., however, he was urgently summoned back, and this time Field was ready to receive him. Yes, Field said in quite a different tone from earlier that morning, an offensive plan was an excellent idea, and Dobbs’ 2/10th was perfectly situated to execute it.
•
Things now moved quickly, with the arrival of a series of muddied pieces of information, which prompted a series of reactive moves that would lay the foundations of this most fluid of battles.
Since their early-morning meeting, reports had been processed from those men now returning through the difficult Stirling Range on foot from their positions along the northern coast of Milne Bay, led by Major Harry Wiles. All were exhausted and some in a bad way – wounded, and riddled with malaria. Having briefed Captain Bicks, Wiles proceeded back to Gili Gili, where he repeated his estimation that there were close to 1000 Japanese, possibly more, preparing to bear down on the base at Gili Gili from the east.
More curiously, however, several large groups of the enemy had been observed travelling to the east, back towards their landing point. This remains an enduring mystery of the Milne Bay battle. It may simply have been Japanese runners returning to their supply base for rations, or others seeking shelter deeper in the jungle. However, the suggestion, although erroneous, that the Japanese might be withdrawing sent a flurry through the command at Milne Bay. To fall upon an enemy in retreat was the goal of every general, and now it seemed there was an opportunity to inflict a severe blow against the Japanese at Milne Bay – or, at the very least, finally ascertain their true numbers, which remained unknown.
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