At Brigadier Field’s HQ, a hasty plan was drawn up: three companies from Dobbs’ battalion – A, C and D – would move to the village of Rabi, then climb into the Stirling Range, head north-east roughly 5 miles to a local track junction, swing south towards the bay, and then stream out of the bush to hit the enemy at KB Mission. At the same time, Captain Geoff Miethke’s B Company would move directly to KB to meet the Japanese head-on.
Dobbs was delighted. This was just the sort of fast and fluid fighting he had been itching to let his men have a crack at. Returning to his own HQ, he shuffled the makeup of his four companies, stripping platoons from one to make up numbers in another. He described his force as ‘a large scale fighting patrol … if time and space meant anything, we must move lightly weighted … after having wandered up hill and down dale through jungle looking for Japs’.
Favouring mobility over firepower, Dobbs ordered his companies to carry little more than light machine guns, hand grenades and rifles. C Company’s Captain John Brocksopp was ordered to leave behind all his powerful Bren guns, and others were limited to one per platoon, although extra Thompson submachine guns were found and distributed. Only one emergency ration pack was permitted per man, and even such basics as signal cable and entrenching shovels were discarded. Dobbs did, however, allow the battalion a single 3-inch and a few 2-inch mortars.
It was at this point that Dobbs made one of the most controversial decisions of the battle, one which undoubtedly cost lives, and could have affected the outcome of the entire campaign.
Although the exact status and location of the two Japanese Ha-Go tanks unloaded at Milne Bay were unknown, Dobbs became convinced that they had become bogged or been knocked out, and ordered his companies to discard their primary anti-tank weapon, the Boys anti-tank rifle. (One tank had fallen from the bridge over Eakoeakoni Creek, but it had already been recovered by the Japanese.)
Developed in England in the late 1930s, the Boys rifle had been the primary infantry anti-tank weapon during the early years of the Second World War. Just over five feet long and weighing 35 pounds unloaded, it was heavy and cumbersome, and was notoriously difficult to fire, having a tremendous recoil that could break the shoulder of an untrained user. It fired large 10-inch-long bullets, which, at close range, could penetrate the thin armour of light tanks. For understandable reasons, the weapon was nicknamed ‘the elephant gun’.
Private John Duncan of the 61st Battalion remembered of the Boys:
I only ever fired two shots, you have got to pull the butt in and it’s got a great big rubber sponge and you pull it in and fire it and boom, they go off with a big cloud of dust and you go back about two feet, it pushes you along the ground.
Cumbersome as the Boys rifle may have been for a mobile infantry force, it was no more so than the mortars they were taking already, and was the best weapon for stopping a Japanese infantry tank. But, if their commander was correct, the 2/10th would not need them. If they did encounter a tank, they could deal with it using another ordnance Dobbs had conversely allowed his men to carry, the infamous ‘sticky bomb’, one of the most ridiculous weapons of the entire war.
Even though the British Army wanted nothing to do with the ‘No. 74 anti-tank hand grenade’, a zealous Winston Churchill rushed this large and over-engineered hand grenade into production, oblivious to the protests of his generals. The grenade’s operation was anything but straightforward. Upon removal of a pin, two spring-loaded metal hemispheres were released, exposing a canvas core covered in a sticky coating. The grenade was then hurled against a metal surface – such as a tank – to which it would supposedly adhere, and after a five-second delay the nitroglycerine charge would explode. Such was the theory; in practice, the sticky bomb proved complicated to use and prone to accidental breakage.
The worst aspect of the sticky bomb, however, was that it refused to stick. During its trials on Boscombe Down, even a slight film of mud or dust on a tank’s armour plate would cause it to slide off, a fatal flaw which would only be amplified in the tropics, where the humidity also corroded the mechanism, reduced the effectiveness of the glue, and even allowed the growth of mould inside the bomb. Yet, this was the weapon Lieutenant Colonel Dobbs ordered his men to take into battle against the Japanese at KB Mission.
Several officers made their objections known, including the battalion adjutant, Captain Theo Schmedje:
At first we were to go inland and come down from the hills to attack, then we were to go along the coast. Dobbs was ordered to discard this and discard that – ‘we’ll go out lightly armed,’ he said. I would like to have known precisely what his orders were. I was very critical about going ahead without anti-tank rifles. I said, ‘Sir, two or three anti-tank rifles wouldn’t hurt – I’ll carry one myself if necessary.’ But he said, ‘No anti-tank rifles!’
At midday on 27 August, the 2/10th left its base area around Gili Gili to proceed the few miles to the tiny village of Rabi, when an incident occurred which could well have been considered an omen of the upcoming battle. Travelling ahead of the main body of the battalion in a Bren gun carrier – a small tracked vehicle resembling an open and turretless tank – adjutant Captain Theo Schmedje was stopped on a bend of the Government Track by a sentry, who informed him that ‘somewhere ahead’ was an anti-tank mine which had been laid down by Australian sappers a few days earlier.
Schmedje looked at him with incredulity. ‘Where exactly is this mine?’
The sentry indicated a general area over his shoulder. ‘Ah, I don’t know, sir,’ he said sheepishly. ‘It’s … somewhere around here, and I’ve got to warn people.’
Scarcely believing what he was hearing, Schmedje informed him that a lot of men would soon be passing, demanded the man not leave his post, and strongly suggested he find an engineering officer to remove it. Not having time to sort it out himself, Schmedje continued on his way, avoiding any areas of the road that appeared to have been recently disturbed.
A short time later, however, another Bren gun carrier was dramatically less fortunate. For reasons that were never explained, no sentry was on hand to warn the 2/10th medical officer, Captain Ronald Lyne, and his staff of eight orderlies as they passed by that same spot. Moments later, a tremendous explosion was heard by the men following several hundred yards behind. The carrier had hit the mine, which ruptured its petrol tank and created a terrible inferno.
The first men to catch up were confronted by a horrific scene. The explosion had killed several orderlies outright, and burning petrol was everywhere, including over the men themselves, inflicting horrific burns. The explosion had been so great that the carrier’s eight-cylinder engine had been blown clean out of the vehicle: it was found some way up the track.
All nine men on board the Bren carrier, including Captain Lyne, either died instantly or over the next few days. The loss of life was of course tragic, but the incident would have an even larger impact on the battalion, which would now be going into battle without properly trained medical assistance.
•
As the three 2/10th Battalion companies earmarked for the coming battle – A, C and D – formed up a little to the west of Rabi to begin their ambitious push up into the jungle, a runner managed to catch up with Lieutenant Colonel Dobbs and summon him to a field telephone. On the other end of the line was a flustered Brigadier Field. Dobbs was immediately ordered to abandon his proposed trek through the hills, turn around, head straight to KB Mission and dig in.
Before a disbelieving Dobbs could protest, Field cut him off. ‘Circumstances have changed,’ he said. Another of this day’s chaotic events had unfolded.
As one of the last stragglers to arrive back at the base area from the 61st Battalion’s D Company, Captain Leigh Davidson had undergone a gruelling 48 hours. Having leaped off the Dadosee under enemy fire in the dark, he had led his men through the tortuous hills, evading the Japanese, despite being desperately ill with malaria. Eventually his sergeant had been forced to intervene: Davidson appeared t
o be leading the exhausted men high into the Stirling Range. Admitting he had no idea where he was going, Davidson sensibly allowed his sergeant to lead his men back to Gili Gili.
Despite his condition, Davidson was asked to report on what he had observed – and particularly his estimation of the numbers of the enemy. To the astonishment of the 61st Battalion’s intelligence officer, Davidson said he believed around 5000 Japanese had already come ashore. Although this was a wild exaggeration, it was immediately communicated to Brigadier Field, and accepted as accurate.
Field now ordered Dobbs to forget about traipsing over the mountains and head straight to KB Mission, where he was to dig in and defend. The question ‘Dig in with what?’ might well have arisen in Dobbs’ mind, as he’d previously ordered his men to discard their shovels in favour of mobility. A later 2/10th Battalion report stated that ‘at no time during the initial instruction given to the Battalion, had there been any suggestion that it would, or even may, have to fight a defensive action’.
Having prepared themselves to fight a fast-flowing battle in which speed and surprise were to be of the essence, Dobbs’ 2/10th men would instead have to position themselves in front of the enemy and wait for him to attack. There was no plan; everything would have to be improvised, and they would have to fight a battle in a manner none of them had trained for.
From mid-afternoon on Thursday, 27 August, the men of Dobbs’ 2/10th Battalion began to arrive at Gama River, where Captain Bicks’ 61st Battalion men were now situated, a mile or so west of KB Mission. Bicks was deeply perturbed to learn of Dobbs’ intentions to defend the mission itself, as the terrain offered no natural defences and could be observed easily by the Japanese ships making their nightly forays into the bay. The mission’s firm ground posed a double concern: on the one hand, it was one of the few places in the area where tanks could operate effectively, and on the other, it was extremely difficult for any defenders to dig into and hold. All this Bicks had found out the hard way the previous night, when he’d been forced to withdraw.
Dobbs listened, thanked Captain Bicks for his advice and proceeded towards KB Mission, doubtful that his men would encounter any tanks in the first place. After the battle, Dobbs stated that he ‘would never have scrapped his instructions on the word or opinion of any Captain’.
At the tiny village of Kilarbo, Dobbs had arranged to connect with Captain Geoff Miethke’s B Company, who would guide him along the last section of the track and into KB Mission. To Dobbs’ protest, Clowes had the previous day ordered that Miethke’s company be temporarily placed under 61st Battalion command in order to bolster Bicks’ position at Gama River. In the previous 24 hours Miethke had come to know the area a little. But when Dobbs rendezvoused with Miethke, he was less than impressed to find him half-naked and bathing in a river.
As they pressed on to KB, Miethke paused by a deep and relatively dry creek bed, and suggested that it would offer an excellent defensive position, as it provided both protective cover and a clear field of fire onto the mission. Dobbs, already feeling tested, simply snapped: ‘My orders are to occupy KB Mission, and I will carry out my orders.’
Late in the afternoon, the men of the 2/10th made their way towards the western edge of KB Mission. Occasionally, necks would crane as another Kittyhawk zoomed overhead, sometimes seeming to barely clear the tops of the trees. Then, as the aircraft banked into position, the now-familiar thudding of machine-gun fire was heard tearing through the enemy lines somewhere up ahead. It was a comforting sound, and one which evoked the eternal gratitude of the men on the ground, who understood they were well supported by the fellows in the air.
At around 5 p.m., however, the men stopped in their tracks as another, ominous sound was heard: a crash, the splitting of trees, and then abrupt silence. All knew immediately what it signified: one of the Kittyhawks had hit the jungle.
CHAPTER 23
THE RAAF’S WORST LOSS
It had been another busy day for the men of 75 and 76 Squadrons at Gurney Field. As usual, at first light they had taken to the air, patrolling the bay to determine what the Japanese had been up to during the night. Swooping low along the shoreline, they looked out for signs of new landings and troop movements. Some pilots peeled off to make a similar inspection of the southern shore – one of Clowes’ fears being that a landing would be attempted there – but nothing was discovered.
Heading back to Gurney just before 8 a.m., the pilots discovered that the action was happening right over their airstrip. The sky was suddenly full of planes – they’d run slap-bang into the middle of a Japanese raid.
The Japanese air campaign in support of their forces at Milne Bay, severely hampered by the weather as well as by attacks carried out by US airmen on Rabaul and Buna, nevertheless managed to launch a number of attacks, including one the morning of 27 August. From the start, however, it had not gone well for the Japanese.
A force of eight D3A dive bombers, known to the Allies as ‘Val’, and seven escorting Zeros had been told to attack Allied positions at ‘Rabi’, but once again the weather intervened and scattered the force. Only half the bombers arrived over the airfield, and their protective cover of Zeros was nowhere to be seen.
To make matters worse, the Japanese command at Rabaul – who were not in contact with their ground forces – had informed their pilots that the airstrip would by now be safely in Japanese hands. Some reports suggest that the aircraft had knowingly taken off from their bases at Buna and Rabaul with insufficient fuel for a return trip; some witnesses claimed to have seen Japanese aircraft preparing to land, before streams of gunfire prompted them to reconsider. Instead of landing on the Australian airstrip, they would have to attack it.
Not knowing whether Japanese soldiers were in the area, the Vals made several confused circuits, trying to identify targets, a judgement they based largely upon whether or not they were being shot at. Eventually they gave up and proceeded to KB Mission, where they dropped their bombs haphazardly to little effect.
A second group of Japanese bombers then arrived, flying up the bay and running straight into the Kittyhawks as they returned from their morning patrol. With no escort to be seen, the bombers immediately jettisoned their ordnance and flew close together like frightened deer stalked by a lion. One managed to slip into the clouds and escape, while the others relied on the fire of their rear gunners for protection.
It worked for a time, but eventually the Kittyhawks gained the upper hand, using side deflection shooting – which sent one Val straight into the water and the other two out to sea. Of those, one ditched into the bay near East Cape, where its rear gunner was captured – one of few prisoners taken during the campaign.
•
Meanwhile, the Kittyhawks headed back to land, just in time for the Zeros to arrive and carry out a series of largely ineffectual strafing attacks on Gurney Field. Amazingly, none of the Australian aircraft were hit, the only casualty being, once again, Captain Eaton’s already wrecked and stripped Liberator, which was – somewhat uselessly – strafed for a second time.
The leader of 76 Squadron, Peter Turnbull, found himself under attack as soon as he landed from the morning’s patrol, and raced to a gun pit where he pulled rank and took over the gun itself. Whether he hit anything is unknown, but his chances would have been considerably better than those of Flying Officer John Olivier, who stood up in his slit trench and started blazing away with his .38 service revolver. For his foolishness, Olivier received a bullet through his shoulder, which needed to be patched up by the squadron doctor, leaving 76 Squadron needlessly short of a precious pilot.
Still aloft, Sergeant Roy Riddell, a 75 Squadron veteran of Europe, was twisting his aircraft in an attempt to gain advantage over a Japanese pilot when, close by, he noticed his friend Flight Sergeant Stewart Munro in trouble. Caught with a Zero on his tale, Munro’s Kittyhawk was streaming smoke as he attempted to outrun his enemy by flying north, towards the hills. It was to no avail and Munro crashed, killing the quie
t 21-year-old dairy farmer from Grafton instantly.
Witnessing his friend’s death put a bitter taste in Roy Riddell’s mouth. The two men knew each other from home, as Munro’s parents owned a property close to Riddell’s in Queensland. ‘We’d both flown together in England, even both been hit over there,’ he recalled decades later in an interview with the author. ‘He was my friend and I felt pretty strongly about it.’
Noting the markings on the Japanese aircraft, Riddell rejoined the fray of whirling aircraft and, a short time later, found himself in a head-on encounter with the very aircraft which had claimed the life of his friend.
At 700 feet over the base, like enraged bulls, the two aircraft locked into a head-on charge. At that moment, Riddell cared little for his own safety. He simply wanted that Japanese pilot dead. A burst from the Japanese aircraft sprayed Riddell’s Kittyhawk, but he knew he had the advantage in firepower. He pressed the gun button on his control column and left it there for a burst that lasted many seconds.
As the two aircraft closed towards each other at 600 miles per hour, spectators on the ground were convinced they would collide. Perhaps the Japanese pilot sensed the Australian’s resolve, because at the last second he pulled away. Riddell, seizing the advantage, likewise pulled his nose up slightly, his stream of bullets tearing off most of the Zero’s starboard wing. Flipping over on its back, the broken aircraft crashed straight into the bay. Roy felt nothing, except the grim sense of a job done.
The formidable barrage of anti-aircraft fire from the ground was also taking its toll on the weakly protected Zeros, which lacked armour plating, self-sealing fuel tanks and bullet-proof windshields. Two more Japanese pilots left the combat area for the protection of the bay, fatally damaged, both of them experienced members of the elite Tainan Kokutai. Petty Officer Enji Kakimoto’s aircraft had ruptured oil lines, while his leader, Lieutenant Joji Yamashita, was trailing a white plume of petrol from his main tank. Signalling ‘I am done for’, Yamashita headed to attack a formation of US B-26 Marauder bombers, which had appeared over Milne Bay just at that moment. He was reported to have landed a few hits on the American aircraft before breaking away and diving headlong into the sea.
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