Turning Point

by Michael Veitch

  ‘We have reached the worst possible situation,’ was the fatalistic signal sent to Rabaul by Commander Yano the previous day. ‘We will together calmly defend our position to the death. We pray for absolute victory for the Empire and long-lasting fortune in battle for you all.’

  Many of the wounded had already been evacuated. The first few nights had been orderly enough, but as the situation became more desperate, and as more and more men appeared on the beach requiring evacuation, it had degenerated into chaos. Now men with minor wounds would push others aside to secure a place, some threatening the medical officers with hand grenades. Others, pushed all the way back along the track to the beach where they had landed, and who could not bear the shame of defeat, took their own lives.

  At midday, Captain Moji had intercepted an excited signals runner carrying a piece of paper, which bore a message from Rabaul: ‘Decided to evacuate all personnel tonight. Advise evac point.’ Disbelieving, Moji ran to as many of the positions where the defeated clusters of men had gathered as he could. He told them to assemble on the beach that night, but was careful not to evoke their shame by using the word ‘evacuation’. Every man answered quickly and affirmatively, in tacit understanding of the true purpose of tonight’s exercise.

  Including the wounded, a total of around 600 men would be taken off the beach. Many more, however, were being left – both dead and alive – in the ghastly jungles of Rabi.

  Moji himself was one of the last to be taken away. As the barge made its way from the beach, its full contingent of defeated soldiers sat in silence until, eventually, the hull of the destroyer Tenryu loomed over them. A hand pulled Moji over a ladder and a rail, and he was on the deck, surrounded by others of this vanquished force. Not a word was spoken to them, nor did they utter a sound. All they were now capable of doing was to lie prostrate on the deck of the ship and allow the exhaustion they had managed to hold off for so long to finally crash over them.

  •

  In reality, the Japanese expedition to seize the airstrips and garrison at Milne Bay was doomed even before the invasion convoy set sail from Rabaul on 24 August. The Allies had performed brilliantly in keeping the existence and size of their base a secret, and the Japanese were convinced that whatever it was they were heading to attack would only be defended by a battalion or so. How confident they would have been knowing they were in fact sailing towards a stronghold defended by nearly 10,000 men can never be known.

  The fact that the Imperial Japanese Navy sent their men to Milne Bay without proper intelligence, in the form of maps and reconnaissance, speaks to their military folly. The SNLF marines were dropped miles from their intended landing beach, and had no idea where their objective, the Australian airstrip, even was. This, as much as anything, suggests that the Rabi operation was put together with guesswork. At no time did the Japanese at Milne Bay know exactly where they were, a situation amplified the further west they advanced.

  Aerial photographs were non-existent, and the Japanese command expected reconnaissance to be carried out by the marines after they had landed. Added to this madness, they were extraordinary lax in their own security. Arrogantly believing a quick victory would be theirs, the Japanese brought ashore reams of important documents indicating their intentions and displacements. The Milne Bay battle plan found on Commander Hayashi’s body at No. 3 Strip was quickly translated by the Allies. Many of the most important documents were placed in the trust of the Paymaster, Captain Moji, and he left them on the beach when he boarded the barge to the Tenryu. The notion that an Australian officer would carry into battle such sensitive documents was unthinkable.

  The vaunted Japanese marines – both the men and their officers – were, after all, not up to the job. To be fair, the SNLF were sailors rather than soldiers, trained to storm ashore and quickly seize a location of strategic importance, but not to withstand the rigours of even a short infantry campaign – and particularly not one so traumatic as Milne Bay. They carried inferior weapons, their grenades generally far less potent than those of the Australians, and lacking short-barrel submachine guns such as the Thompson, which the Allies considered essential tools of jungle warfare.

  Both AIF and militia soldiers later reported that their adversaries were surprisingly slow to react, both in an ambush situation and on the trigger. Even with their rifles, the Japanese marksmanship was poor, with many committing the classic mistake of firing high, a characteristic of under-trained troops, particularly at night. At KB Mission, many diggers felt the air above their heads continually moved by Japanese bullets, even when the shooting was at close quarters.

  The Japanese officers, too, were poor. As seen with their military enterprises all over the Pacific, the Japanese very often had no Plan B once their initial effort had been repulsed. At No. 3 Strip, for instance, the doomed attempt to storm the runway was followed by another, and still another, until the force was completely defeated. Commander Hayashi made no attempt to regroup, rethink or reconsider his options in the face of military reality. Admittedly, Yano ordered Lieutenant Fumiharu up the runway towards Stephen’s Ridge, but it was a sloppy and poorly thought out assault that was doomed to fail.

  Japanese air power played almost no role in the battle, and their troops on the ground were left wondering why their famed Zeros had vanished, allowing the dreaded Kittyhawks to roam the skies at will. The answer lies, in part, with another air force, one which has gained scant recognition in the Milne Bay story: that of the United States.

  Far from the Milne Bay area, the American pilots of the 80th and 41st Fighter Squadrons flying their Bell P-39 Airacobras waged a relentless, behind-the-scenes war against the Japanese airstrips in the leadup to the battle. Despite being vastly inferior to the Zero as a fighter, in ground attack the Airacobra was effective enough, providing it had the element of surprise. Time and again, the American pilots would take off from their base at Port Moresby’s Seven Mile Strip and tackle the hump of the Owen Stanley Range to hit the Japanese at their new base at Buna, on Papua’s north coast. Their daring was notable.

  On one occasion in late August, three pairs of Airacobras dived through the cloudy dawn sky to rake six Zeros as they were taking off to attack Milne Bay. Three were destroyed, two of them caught just as they were retracting their wheels. Two more Zeros were shot down in similar circumstances the next day.

  Lieutenant Bill Turner was so determined on 27 August to hit a Zero as it sat on the ground that he flew straight through a clump of trees. Remarkably, his aircraft kept flying, but both wings would need replacing. Twin-engine Japanese bombers and transports were also hit, the American pilots leaving the Buna airstrip a blazing wreck.

  The American bomber crews flying their Marauders of the 22nd Bomb Group also carried out raids on Buna, on one occasion being lucky enough to arrive when the defending Zeros were away from the base: they left the runway cratered and severely damaged.

  On 29 August, the Buna commander declared his airstrip untenable and withdrew his few remaining aircraft back to Rabaul. Although it was much closer than Rabaul to Milne Bay, Buna played no subsequent part in the battle. This suppression of Japanese air power by the US Army Air Forces was vital in allowing the Kittyhawks to patrol the skies over the Milne Bay battlefield unchallenged.

  The role in the victory of the RAAF itself, however, cannot be overstated. Even from before the main battle began, the Kittyhawk pilots smashed the ambitious Japanese plan to outflank the Milne Bay garrison from the north by destroying their barges on Goodenough Island. Nor were the barges in Milne Bay able to be used to outflank the Australians along the shore, as these had likewise been holed or reduced to splinters by the guns of 75 and 76 Squadrons. On each day of the battle, without exception, the Australian aircraft took off and prowled overhead, hungry for targets, wearing out their guns by shooting at anything Japanese that moved, or which might be lurking under trees. Their relentless presence wore the Japanese down and drove them to despair. As one Australian witness on the gro
und put it, after the Kittyhawks had passed over, ‘Palm fronds, bullets and dead Japanese snipers came pouring down with the rain.’

  The Australian soldiers were immensely grateful for their ‘airborne artillery’, but it must not be forgotten that, unlike the Japanese marines, they themselves fought above the level expected of them – particularly Brigadier John Field’s poorly rated 7th Brigade, militiamen whose experience of fighting before the battle was precisely nil. Although they were pushed back initially, the 61st Battalion never considered that they were defeated, and were able to recover from setbacks such as that at KB Mission. Milne Bay proved conclusively and forever that militia soldiers could fight with courage and aggression alongside the best of the AIF.

  Outstanding individual efforts from untried officers and men abounded, such as the 61st Battalion B Company’s cool-headed Captain Charles Bicks, who, despite having been promoted only recently, after being told he was too old to join the army, for two nights held off the Japanese in a bitter running battle. He was later awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Sergeant Stan Steele of the 25th Battalion demonstrated a quick-thinking ability to improvise: first stemming the Japanese with his ambush on the edge of No. 3 Strip. Steele too was decorated, with the Military Medal. Not bad for ‘choccos’ in their first battle.

  •

  The higher powers, however, did not hold so sanguine a view of the Australian fighting man at Milne Bay, nor of their leader, Major General Cyril Clowes. General Douglas MacArthur never forgave Clowes for disregarding his direction to throw everything he had against the Japanese on the first night of the invasion, and then no doubt felt he was being kept out of the loop after Clowes’ refusal to issue gleefully written hour-by-hour updates on the progress of the battle. Despite others – such as his friend, and the CO of New Guinea Force, Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell – coming to Clowes’ defence, General Thomas Blamey was likewise dismissive of Clowes, and begrudged him his victory. In a letter to Rowell (who Blamey was soon to sack) on 1 September, just as the Japanese had been routed at No. 3 Strip, the Australian general wrote:

  I would like to congratulate you on the complete success of the operations at Milne Bay. It, of course, is extremely difficult to get the picture of the whole of the happenings, but it appeared to us here [at GHQ] as though by not acting with great speed Clowes was liable to have missed the opportunity of dealing completely with the enemy and thus laying himself open to destruction if after securing a footing, the enemy was able to reinforce their first landing party very strongly.

  Had Clowes complied, and the Japanese then landed elsewhere, the Australians could well have lost the battle. This is not to say he was blameless in every aspect of his direction of the conflict. His wearing out of the 2/10th Battalion, whom he shuffled about like chess pieces on the eve of their defence of KB Mission, was ill-thought, as was his lack of oversight concerning some of the unfortunate decisions of his subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel Dobbs, not least his refusal to carry anti-tank weapons in the face of the threat of Japanese tanks.

  But Clowes did emphatically win the Battle of Milne Bay, and with relatively low casualties. His instructions from the beginning were to protect the vital airstrips, and in this he succeeded, without once having to substantially alter his initial plan of using the 7th Brigade to defend, and the 18th Brigade to attack. Out of a force of over 9000 men, 161 were killed and 212 wounded. The Japanese figures are vaguer, but have been estimated at 750 killed from a force of 2800 men, with 1318 evacuated and the remainder left to perish over the following weeks.

  The garrison of Milne Bay was saved, and became a substantial military base for most of the remainder of the war. On 14 September, No. 3 Strip was up and running, and officially renamed as Turnbull Field, in honour of 76 Squadron’s gallant commander, who had lost his life protecting his mates on the ground from one of the Japanese tanks.

  Gurney Field also became the unmarked burial ground for more than 80 Japanese marines. After only a few days, the eastern side of the strip became putrid with the stench of decomposing bodies, exacerbated by the heat and humidity. The dangers of disease were particularly great, given that No. 3 Strip still needed substantial work by the engineers.

  Some men gave in to their curiosity and inspected the awful scene. Blackening bodies, often dismembered, lay bloating in their green uniforms in hideous clumps. Flight Lieutenant Jeff Wilkinson of 75 Squadron was inspecting the dead one day when his blood froze. Ahead of him, against a tree, was an upright Japanese soldier. Upon closer inspection, Wilkinson realised he too was dead, caught by a bullet or shrapnel blast while relieving himself against a tree. ‘Here were these people lying dead,’ remembered the young pilot, ‘but they were going to come and take our country off us.’

  Burial parties came to clear the corpses. The operation took four days to complete, and affected the men of the clean-up team profoundly. Sergeant Noel Despard-Worton, of the 61st Battalion, remembered: ‘We were all beginning to experience the strange, revolting, horrible, nauseating and sickening smell that got down into your lungs and into the sweaty wet clothes. It is very hard to describe …’

  The task became so great that one of the American bulldozers was utilised to dig a single long pit, into which the bodies were interred. The traumatised bulldozer driver regularly had to stop his work to vomit. ‘It was a most gruesome sight to see human bodies rolled into a mass grave by a bulldozer as though they were logs of timber,’ recalled one man.

  A few weeks after the battle, a small monument was erected on the eastern side of the runway above the mass grave. It was a simple wooden plank, attached to which was a white painted board that read: ‘This marks the western-most point of the Japanese advance, Aug-Sep. 42. 85 unknown marines lie buried here.’

  It remained a modest monument to a great achievement, summed up in the words of Brigadier John Field:

  Small in comparison to some of the sustained and desperate fighting which took place in the Pacific … yet it was the first Australian victory against the Japanese invader, and brought to a halt the long series of territorial gains which the enemy had seemed to achieve with relative ease. Henceforth the tide was destined to turn.

  None of this, however, washed with General MacArthur. On 6 September, even after the Japanese had evacuated the remnants of their shattered force, MacArthur wrote to his superior, General George Marshall, in Washington:

  The Australians have proven themselves unable to match the enemy in jungle fighting. Aggressive leadership is lacking. The enemy’s defeat at Milne Bay must not be accepted as a measure of relative fighting capacity of the troops involved.

  MacArthur was never convinced of the Australians’ fighting ability, becoming renowned thereafter for issuing press releases describing their setbacks and defeats as Australian, but their victories as Allied.

  Cyril Clowes was never appointed to another field command. Soon after the battle, malaria swept through the Milne Bay garrison in an epidemic even more virulent than that which had pervaded since the Allied arrival. Clowes, who was later partially blamed for the prevalence of the disease, was himself invalided out. He spent the rest of the war in virtual obscurity, now without friends in high places, posted in 1943 to run the purely administrative Victoria Line of Communication Area.

  He never complained. Clowes placed himself on the army retired list in 1949, his chest bare of decorations save for one – awarded him by at least one grateful government, that of Greece. For his efforts defending their country in 1941, he was awarded the Greek Military Cross.

  •

  As the last Japanese marines were loaded onto the barges, a bugle rang out to signal their impending departure. Scattered through the jungle, singly or in groups, wounded or simply lost, many Japanese soldiers heard it and made a final, desperate dash to the water. An unknown number – but somewhere in the hundreds – heard it in despair, realising they were now stranded.

  Over the next days and weeks, they would be sought out and deal
t with by the victorious Australians. Some would die in brief skirmishes or hopeless suicidal charges, many would kill themselves quietly, and a handful would be taken prisoner. Others would simply be swallowed up in the vast tropical jungle, attempting a hopeless overland march back to their people, succumbing eventually to starvation or disease.

  Others still would fall into the hands of the Papuan people. One account describes a group of disarmed Japanese who were followed at a set distance for weeks by groups of villagers who simply stared and said nothing, hurling stones and other objects, refusing to allow the Japanese a moment’s rest, day or night. Eventually, in despair and exhaustion, they hung themselves from branches of trees.

  Theirs was, in fact, a merciful end, as the Papuan people had no reason whatsoever to show the Japanese invaders the slight est shred of mercy.

  CHAPTER 32

  THE WEBB REPORT

  In the halls of the High Court of Australia, in Canberra, the gilt-framed portrait of Sir William Flood Webb looks down on the busy comings and goings of the most venerable legal institution in the Australian Commonwealth, on whose hallowed full bench he for many years occupied a seat. Not that there was anything in William Webb’s upbringing to suggest he would attain so lofty a position. Born in Brisbane to an English shopkeeper and a young Irishwoman whose other three sons had died in infancy, William was only four when his mother passed away herself. Thereafter he was brought up on a small Queensland sheep property near Warwick, where the nuns at his convent school (Webb remained a devout Catholic all his life) noted his searing intelligence. After a scholarship education, he rose quickly up the legal ranks, and by 1940, aged 53, Judge William Webb had become the eighth Chief Justice of Queensland.