Turning Point

by Michael Veitch

  Clowes had then exacerbated GHQ’s petulant frustration by denying their demands, issued several times daily, for blow-by-blow descriptions of his progress. In this, Vasey conceded his own annoyance: ‘I am more convinced than ever that our reports need to be written in Americanese. They don’t understand our restrained English …’

  Rather than waste time explaining to the higher powers in faraway Brisbane the impossibility of quickly moving large numbers of men across country that was little better than a quagmire, to attack an enemy whose strength and ultimate aims were still unclear, Clowes chose simply to get on with the job of soldiering.

  On the morning of 1 September, he could at last report that a large Japanese attack had been repelled at No. 3 Strip, and they appeared to be in retreat. So on edge had HQ been throughout the campaign that the news was received with euphoria, which led an unimpressed Vasey to comment: ‘[O]ne would have thought they had just won the Battle of Waterloo.’ Nonetheless, despite what they regarded as his opaque tactics and sullen refusal to communicate them, the powers that be at the pinnacle of Australia’s war effort finally had reason to be pleased with Cyril Clowes. Whether it would redeem him in their eyes in the long run, however, remained to be seen.

  In any case, the successful defence of the airfield meant Clowes could now launch his long-awaited counterpunch. In preparation, he had ordered one of his unused AIF units to prepare for battle, the 2/12th Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Arnold. The youngest of a large farming family and a professional soldier, Arnold hailed from a strong military background – both his father and brother had fought at Gallipoli – and was renowned among his men for being a strict but fair disciplinarian.

  The 2/12th had been raised in 1939 in Tasmania from farming communities in and around Brighton, on the Derwent River a little north of Hobart. Coincidentally, the 7th Brigade’s CO, John Field had been the unit’s first commander. There not being enough Tasmanians to fill the ranks of the 2/12th, however, it had been topped up with Queenslanders from the Brisbane area, making it one of the most geographically diverse units in the Second Australian Imperial Force. Arnold had served with his men in the Middle East and Tobruk with distinction, but their real test would come here, in the tropics of New Guinea.

  For a week now, the 2/12th could only listen to the sounds of battle from a distance, but now, as the fight for No. 3 Strip began, they were ordered from their camp to the appalling Government Track, where they would begin their long war with the Japanese. Road transport had initially been arranged, but the track had now become virtually impassable to all but foot traffic. Sometimes pushing through the knee-high porridge-like mud, and having to carry all their equipment, the men groped their way several miles from their bivouacs around Gurney Field towards No. 3 Strip, ready to take over from the exhausted men who had stopped the Japanese along the runway.

  By 6.30 a.m. they had arrived, but they were ordered not to attempt a crossing of the strip before 8 a.m. As the men peered through the early light, they wondered what awaited them on the other side of the runway. Soon they would be the first men of Milne Force to pursue the Japanese back along the Government Track, all the way to where they had landed, in the dead of night, six days earlier.

  •

  Pouring east, the battered Japanese could barely comprehend what had occurred during the night. The 3rd Kure staggered back along the right-hand side of the track, while what was left of the 5th Kure took the left. Some had terrible wounds, others carried comrades on their backs, while yet others could do little more than crawl through the mud.

  For each man, the sensation of defeat and retreat was new and bitter. No provision had been made for the inconceivable prospect of a withdrawal, so the marines had been given no position to which they could fall back. In any case, the officers of both regiments had been all but wiped out, with the 5th Kure virtually ceasing to function as an effective unit.

  Men hurried along as best they could, one eye towards the sky in anticipation of another air attack. Their great fear now was that a quick advance by the Australians through the jungle might cut off their escape route. For the Japanese soldier, retreat was shameful enough, but the prospect of capture was unthinkable.

  •

  At 9 a.m., the 2/12th Battalion’s D Company, commanded by Captain Geoff Swan of Richmond, Tasmania, spread out in a line along the eastern side of the runway of No. 3 Strip and, rifles in hand, began walking. Their ambitious objective: to harass the Japanese retreat and push them back all the way to KB Mission by 4 p.m. that afternoon. Shortly before their departure, Swan had encountered 61st Battalion’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Meldrum, who had warned of the rearguard the Japanese were bound to have left, and to expect heavy casualties.

  Treading cautiously, D Company reached the other side, where the scale of the previous night’s horror revealed itself. The men stared at the scene from hell before them. A giant brush cutter appeared to have vented its anger on the jungle, which was now a shredded mess of bare branches and shattered trunks. Japanese bodies lay everywhere. Another soldier who would cross the strip that day, Lieutenant David Radford of the 9th Battalion, recalled:

  [T]here was only one thing you can call it, a butcher shop. It was just littered with bodies and parts of bodies of these Jap marines. Because, you see, small arms fire at fifty yards range doesn’t just kill you, it cuts you to bits … it was just a charnel house. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.

  Corporal Errol Jorgensen of the 25th Battalion likewise journeyed across with some of the Americans, who were so sickened that they turned around and went back. ‘There were legs up trees, arms, heads, everything,’ he recalled. ‘It was repulsive, really.’

  Private Jim Hilton described a tangle of Japanese bodies around a machine-gun post:

  [A]t least twenty blokes were killed in a row behind [it]. One bloke must have strapped on and then he’d get killed, and then another bloke [would] take over and he’d get killed. There were even blokes, all with legs crossed over each other …

  It soon became apparent that not all Japanese were dead or had surrendered. Although it was quiet on the edge of the runway, as soon as the Australians pushed back to the clearing which had been the Japanese assembly point for the night’s attack, sniper fire began to ring out, no doubt from those marines who had decided to embed themselves in the trees and fight it out to the bitter end. In this, the Australians were happy to oblige, and a message was sent back to request that the Kittyhawk pilots be guided by the coloured flares and strafe the crowns of the trees. Several Japanese fell out and dangled in midair, restrained by ropes tied around their waists or ankles, twisting macabrely like hideous ragdolls.

  Still the sniping continued. A favoured tactic was to fire on the Australians – particularly the officers – after they had passed by, as a warning that the Japanese were not yet beaten. To disguise their rank, officers discarded their service revolvers and carried rifles along with their men. Badges of rank were removed, and saluting – rare in the field in any case – was now avoided completely.

  Nor were the men safe on the ground among the myriad enemy corpses – some of which, it transpired, were far from dead. The tactic, which would continue to haunt the Allies wherever they fought the Japanese in the Pacific, involved men lying ‘doggo’ among their own dead, concealing a hand grenade or rifle, then flinging it or firing into the enemy when their backs were turned.

  One of the first casualties of this alarming trick was D Company’s Captain Swan, who was said to have responded to the cry of a wounded Japanese soldier, and approached him to give aid. As he drew near, the man sprang up, and although he was quickly shot down by Swan’s men, he managed to let go a hidden grenade, shrapnel from which caught Swan in the neck, severing an artery. Only the quick action of Private Joe Eager, who kept pressure on the officer’s wound with finger and thumb, stemmed the bleeding and saved the officer’s life.

  More men would bear witness t
o the same tactic. As the Australians proceeded along the track, dubbed this day the ‘Avenue of Death’, a 2/12th platoon commander was passing a group of about twenty ‘dead’ Japanese when one was seen to move and was quickly shot. Suddenly the remainder sprang to life. One began firing a light machine gun and a firefight quickly ensued, but the Australians had the advantage and wiped them out on the spot, the Japanese quickly resuming their former poses, only now in reality. It was unofficially decreed that no enemy would be considered dead unless he had been ‘killed’ several times over by passing Australians, usually by means of the bayonet.

  It was a grim turning point in the way the two sides fought out the remainder of the war. These and other Japanese tactics appeared to the Allied forces as abhorrent, beneath any rules of war, and played into the contemporary idea that the Asian races were inferior in general.

  Sergeant Arthur Traill, who had witnessed Captain Swan’s attack, later said:

  From then on the only good Jap was a dead one … our policy was to watch any apparent dead, shoot at the slightest sign of life and stab with bayonet even the ones who appeared to be rotten. It was all-out from then on, neither side showing any quarter and no prisoners were taken.

  Even clearly dead and dangling Japanese snipers would be fired upon as the Australians passed underneath; one was later cut down and found to be riddled with hundreds of bullets. Men would also walk backwards after passing groups of enemy dead, to make sure they were not taken by surprise.

  •

  As the morning of 1 September progressed, the 2/12th moved along the Government Track. One company would move forward while another remained to mop up, then they’d alternate. This yielded a huge store of Japanese equipment, including two antitank guns, machine guns of various calibres, pistols and rifles. Of even more importance, vital intelligence documents were also recovered. On Commander Hayashi’s body was found a complete set of plans for the Japanese attack on Milne Bay.

  Progress, however, was slow. In a reversal of the situation of several days earlier, it was now pockets of Japanese who lay in wait to ambush the advancing Australians. At right angles to the track, narrow corridors in the thick scrub and jungle had been cut, in which groups of marines would hide, emerging to fire upon the Australians as they passed. Each cutting therefore had to be reconnoitred and neutralised, slowing the Australian advance to a crawl. Through the tireless work of the signallers, who rolled out and connected literally miles of telephone cable, contact with the rear was maintained.

  It was now that the last of Brigadier Field’s militia units were brought up, the 9th Infantry Battalion, who were ordered to send two companies along the track, divide into platoons and secure various points from No. 3 Strip to KB Mission. The men of A Company were to camp closest to the airstrip, at Kilarbo, while C Company pushed on towards the mission itself.

  Late in the day on 1 September, Arnold had decided to split his 2/12th Battalion into two: Companies A and D would continue on to retake KB Mission, while Companies B and C would dig in for the night along Gama River, a mile or so to their rear, to protect against a Japanese counterattack from the jungle. As the sun began to go down on this monumental day, the scene was set for the last major battle of the Milne Bay campaign.

  Forming a 100-yard box around the natural boundary of the Government Track, the short but steep bank of the Gama River and the shingle beach into which it flowed, the men of the 2/12th’s B and C Companies were relaxed enough to risk a dip in the Gama before preparing their defences for the night. After their slog up to No. 3 Strip the previous night, they hoped it would be a quiet one. Everyone desperately needed some sleep.

  While preparing their main defensive line along the west side of the track, the expected direction of a Japanese attack, a platoon from the 9th Battalion’s C Company passed by, heading to their designated camp further east; they were led by Captain Colin Kirk, a 27-year-old bank clerk from Toowoomba. The two units greeted each other, and the militiamen disappeared down the track into the fading light.

  Meanwhile, the men of the 2/12th busied themselves constructing shelters and gun positions for the night with whatever they could find around them. Across the mountain side of the track, four listening posts had been dug, shallow pits manned by two men, and spaced twenty or so yards apart, to give early warning of a Japanese incursion from the jungle.

  Up a coconut tree on the defence perimeter, Private Merv McGilvery hacked with his bayonet at some palm fronds he planned to use as bedding. From below, a loud whistle caught his attention. His mate Private Vince ‘Pug’ Geason, a burly Tasmanian, crouching in one of the listening posts on the far side of the track, was pointing hard towards the west. Looking ahead, McGilvery watched a group of figures making their way towards him along the track.

  ‘Natives?’ called Vince.

  McGilvery, with the advantage of height, did not have to look twice. ‘Natives be damned,’ he replied, ‘they’re Japs!’

  Descending the tree as quickly as he could, McGilvery sounded the warning to his unit. In a show of remarkable discipline, the 2/12th assumed their firing positions, brought their weapons to bear and prepared to meet the oncoming Japanese in total silence, luring them into the trap.

  The approaching Japanese formation was from Lieutenant Fumiharu’s 5th Yokosuka detachment, and the previous night had been beaten back as they attempted to storm Stephen’s Ridge at the mountain range end of No. 3 Strip. Instead of rejoining their doomed comrades at the junction of the track and the runway, they had dispersed into the jungle, where they had rested during the day. Now they were attempting to reach their rear areas around Wahahuba to the east. They had no forward scout to warn them of the Australians lying in wait, and, incredibly, nor were they making any attempt to conceal themselves, chatting away loudly and, as some of the Australians recalled, even laughing.

  With the men of the 2/12th crouched in their positions, waiting to spring the ambush, soon there would be very little for them to laugh about.

  If this situation was not extraordinary enough, from the opposite direction more approaching voices could be heard – but they were of a quite different tone. Not knowing what to make of this, the soldiers waiting to spring the ambush could do little more than shrug their shoulders and concentrate on the job in front of them.

  The second group of voices belonged to the men who had passed by an hour or so previously, 15 Platoon of the 9th Battalion’s C Company. Captain Kirk had been ordered to camp near Rabi, but had overshot the mark; when his men were some way past Gama River, he’d realised his mistake and turned around to come back. It was just as Kirk’s men prepared to pass the 2/12th’s position for a second time that the shooting broke out.

  The Japanese were caught by surprise, their first line being mowed down by the Australian gunfire from point-blank range. This forced them back into the jungle, right onto the four listening posts, where hand-to-hand fighting erupted. Several Japanese landed directly on top of Private ‘Pug’ Gleason’s position. The next morning, the man who had first spotted the approaching enemy was found dead, with a large number of Japanese bodies around him. His companion, Private Henry Franklin, was badly wounded but managed to crawl out of his position towards the track; despite his cries for help, he died before his mates could reach him.

  The surprised men of C Company, having stumbled into the battle, wisely sought the safety of the 2/12th’s perimeter, inside which they were ordered to repel any Japanese incursions, but only with the use of their bayonets, as the risk of hitting their own men was too great in this night-time melee.

  The Japanese made several ferocious attempts to breach the 2/12th defensive perimeter, at one stage even using the sticky bombs they had captured from the abandoned ammunition lorry a week earlier. Now, however, they seemed to work far better than they had in the hands of the Australians at KB Mission. The irony was not lost on the 2/12th defenders at Gama River.

  Finally, a group of Japanese decided to attempt an outflanking
manoeuvre by wading into the sea and working their way around – but they were spotted and a series of carefully lobbed hand grenades put an end to their efforts.

  By 1 a.m. it was all over, and once again the Japanese limped back into the jungle. In the morning light, round the 2/12th perimeter, the Australians counted nearly 100 enemy dead, including the unit’s commander, Lieutenant Fumiharu. Not a single one had succeeded in breaching the Australian defensive line.

  More horror was to await the Japanese that night, as the 2/12th’s remaining companies, A and D, successfully retook KB Mission, primarily with a determined bayonet charge that resulted in a further 60 dead. Another skirmish at Motieau Creek brought the total for this single night to somewhere around 200 Japanese fatalities. The Australians, by comparison, lost barely a handful of men.

  •

  As the sun came up on the second day of September, it became obvious that the Japanese at Milne Bay were finished. There would be more skirmishes over the ensuing days, some flashes of fierce resistance, and even some acts of astonishing bravery, but the fight at Gama River marked the last major confrontation between the Australian defenders and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Special Naval Landing Force marines, who had believed victory would be theirs in a matter of days, if not hours.

  It was, instead, the first defeat of Japanese land forces in the entire Second World War.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE END FOR THE JAPANESE

  On the evening of Sunday, 6 September, the remnants of Japan’s Milne Bay invasion force waited anxiously in the dark behind a small beach six miles east of Rabi, every man’s ears straining for the sound of the barges which would emerge out of the pitchblack sea and take them away from this nightmarish place at the end of the world. The marines were exhausted and hungry, and many were wounded or had feet which had swelled so much that their boots would have to be cut off them. Some were virtually naked, their uniforms lost, shredded or caked with blood. Nonetheless, they were grateful, as until midday of this day, none of them had expected to leave Milne Bay at all.