The Spirit of the Digger

by Patrick Lindsay

  The two brothers in the 14th Battery who, realising that being together on the same gun increased their chances of both being killed, split up on two guns: a bomb dropped between the guns and singled out one man from each gun. The two brothers were killed, each the only one in the crew. ‘Fate’ say the boys.

  During the fighting the Diggers developed a respect for their German foes because of their attitude to things like the building the Diggers knew as the Blockhouse, a prewar gangers’ hut near the railway line. The Germans had used it as a field hospital and, when the Australian 2/32nd Battalion captured the area, they used it as their Regimental Aid Post. There the 2/32nd’s medical officer, Captain Bill Campbell, worked tirelessly with three captured German medical officers and nine orderlies, tending to the wounded from both sides. The German artillery honoured the Red Cross marked on the building and, aside from a few stray shells, it was left untouched in the middle of the maelstrom that continued around it.

  In the heat of the raging battle, Tom Roberts was caught in a dive-bombing attack by the screaming German Stuka bombers, and in his diary he gives a vivid description of the terrors of those deadly minutes:

  Some fellows say they lie there and pray. I never do, although this is by far the closest thing I’ve struck so far. I find myself with racing thoughts: ‘What is the best thing to do?’ … ‘I’m all right so far.’ I keep thinking this: ‘I’m all right so far’.

  I lie there and I’m astonished that I’m still unhurt. Great rushes of air pass above me, pieces of iron and steel sing in every possible key as they spin and pass over me. The sound of the explosions is not a short report but more like a long rroarrr … I am conscious of every part of my body: I feel my heart throbbing against the earth; I let my mind rush over my arms, my legs, my back and every part of me and think that the next second they may be burning or smashed to pulp.

  I feel I want to do something. I think ‘What can I do?’ and make myself lie still, if wriggling against the side of the trench and pushing my head into the corner is keeping still. ‘There is nothing you CAN do: you’ve got to take what’s coming,’ I tell myself…

  A momentary pause and I think ‘It’s over’ when CRASH, CRASH, Crash, Crash, each one closer than the other, makes me think this time I CAN’T be missed. This swine adds the rattle of his machine guns to the fury …

  It seems to have been on for hours yet afterwards I know it must have happened in a few seconds. At last … quiet. I listen, for perhaps five seconds, for the sound of engines. I think I must have had my eyes shut, for I didn’t get any sand in them.

  Tom Roberts’ mates weren’t so lucky. They were caught in the open when the Stuka bombers struck. Bill Jury managed to dive into a slit trench. But, in one of those deadly random accidents of war, a bomb perforated a nearby truck’s petrol tank. The flaming fuel spewed over Bill Jury’s trench:

  Bill’s face is black, the skin blistered and the lips cracked. In places, his hair is completely burned off to the scalp, in others it is untouched. ‘Oh Robbie,’ he said as he saw me: ‘Shoot me Robbie, shoot me.’

  I half crawled over to him, ‘Hold here boy,’ I said, ‘Let’s have a look-see’. ‘Shoot me Robbie, give me your gun … the pain’s awful … and I know I won’t get over it. Do the right thing … shoot me’.

  Soldiers in all wars have faced this horrifying dilemma: mates with terrible injuries begging to be put out of their misery. Many know that help is either too far away or simply not available and are racked with guilt at their inability to save their mate. Some are haunted by the experience for the rest of their lives. Like Tom Roberts, most cling to the hope of saving their mates and draw on superhuman strength to get them help. Tom managed to get Bill Jury to the nearest aid post, where the doctor immediately gave him morphine and sent him back to an advanced dressing station, leaving Tom with his thoughts:

  I feel very, very tired. It’s difficult not to get upset when you see a pal covered in burns and in agony – looking to you for assistance, absolute trust in you, doing everything you tell him – and you can do nothing except keep his fighting spirit up. Strong, vigorous ruthless Bill.

  Bill Jury died just 24 hours later. His only brother had been killed a month earlier.

  The Diggers of the 9th Division at El Alamein won praise from friend and foe. The enemy paid them a compliment by massing most of the famous Rommel Panzer Corps along their front because they considered them so dangerous. The British Commander of 30 Corps wrote to the Australian commander, General Sir Leslie Morshead: ‘… this breakout was only made possible by the Homeric fighting over your divisional sector.’

  The British commander in chief, General Montgomery, said:

  I want to congratulate you on the magnificent work your division has done on the right of the line. Your men are absolutely splendid and the part they have played in this battle is beyond all praise.

  Montgomery would repeat this fulsome praise on the 25th anniversary of the battle, when he said:

  When all did so well it would hardly seem right to single out any for special praise. But I must say this – we could not have won the battle in 12 days without that magnificent 9th Australian Division.

  The 9th paid a heavy price for its role in the El Alamein triumph. During the full El Alamein campaign it lost 1225 men killed or died of wounds, 3638 wounded and 946 captured. Some individual units, in the thick of the fighting, were devastated. From a complement of more than 650 men at the start of the offensive on 23 October, it had been reduced to just 41 men a week later.

  The 9th Division’s successes were underpinned by the quality of leadership, at all levels, shown by its members. One study of the Division, Bravery Above Blunder, by John Coates, points to more than 50 occasions where privates commanded platoons and another 20 where NCOs led companies in action. This remarkable depth enabled many of the Division’s individual units to recover from massive losses and to rebuild with a core of experienced veterans passing on their spirit to the new recruits. Most of the Division’s battalions had enough reinforcements pass through them during the war to make up four separate battalions.

  Perhaps surprisingly, given the typical Digger’s penchant for letting off steam when out of the line, the men of the 9th Division actually won praise when they arrived in Palestine for leave following the victory at El Alamein. Even more surprisingly, it was the British commander of the Cairo area who noted, as reported in Barton Maugham’s official history for the Division, that ‘during recent leave, 9th Australian Division troops were the best behaved in Cairo’.

  The 9th Division’s superb performance was given a final accolade by Britain’s General Alexander, the commander of the Middle East Command, at a special parade of the entire Division at Gaza Airport, where he concluded by saying:

  Wherever you may be my thoughts will always go with you and I shall follow your fortunes with interest and your successes with admiration. There is one thought I shall cherish above all others – under my command fought the 9th Australian Division.

  After El Alamein, the Division returned home for leave and retraining for the climactic jungle campaigns ahead of it in New Guinea and Borneo.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Spirit of the POW

  Some of the finest examples of the spirit of the Digger have come from men far away from the clamour of battle. They’ve come from those placed in the position most dreaded by all soldiers – that of prisoners of war. Falling into your enemy’s hands is one of the many hazards of combat. Depending on the time, the place and the enemy it can be a deliverance from danger or a trip to hell on earth.

  Some Diggers were unlucky enough to fall into enemy hands in the first battles we fought in World War II. During the delaying actions against the might of Rommel’s Afrika Korps at Er Regima outside Benghazi, Corporal Vic Murray’s section from the 2/13th Battalion was overrun by a large force of Germans. After a brief, furious firefight, Vic was badly wounded in the knee as he went to the aid of one of his men shot in
the head. As he tried to drag his mate to safety, he turned to find a German officer’s pistol against his temple and heard the classic words echoed in a score of war movies: ‘For you, the war is over!’

  But for men like Vic Murray it was just the beginning of a harrowing experience of years in captivity, which would push their courage, their mateship, their faith and their health to the extremities of their endurance. Many ex-POWs suffered a lifetime of health problems; many had their lives shortened by the physical or psychological damage done to them during their captivity. They could never be adequately compensated for their sacrifices: their lost years, their impaired health, the mental and physical cruelty they endured, the lack of recognition.

  Much of our understanding of the German and Italian POW camps in which our Diggers were incarcerated comes from movies and, God forbid, old US television series like Hogan’s Heroes. These images were rarely countered by the facts, because most ex-POWs were reluctant to speak about their experiences except with those who shared them. Few movies have successfully captured the constant stresses that played havoc with the minds and bodies of the POWs, caused by the cumulative effect of the deprivation of freedom, the feelings of powerlessness and abandonment, boredom, poor nutrition, and random and orchestrated terror tactics. Certainly, some camps were relatively civilised and the POWs were treated with various levels of respect and humanity. Some were allowed limited fraternisation with local communities and received food to sustain them. But the vast majority of camps and their regimes subjected the POWs to a grinding, dehumanising process, ranging from isolation to overwork, even torture, and leading to permanent impairment of their health.

  The one thing that showed superhuman resilience was the spirit of the POWs. As a body of men they upheld the highest traditions of the Digger – and in many instances set new standards of courage, initiative, endurance and resilience – while maintaining overall discipline and their individual dignity and humanity in the face of the most trying conditions.

  In most camps the ingenuity of the POWs rose to new heights. Sergeant Angley Ogilvie of the 2/15th Battalion, a POW in Italy, was credited with making cricket balls and baseballs from a magical combination of rubber from worn-out gym shoes, tin foil from cigarette packets and lengths of wool unravelled from socks. These materials formed the core of the balls and twine from Red Cross packets was plaited to form the outer cups, which were then stitched together. They provided hours of vital entertainment and morale-boosting diversion. Others used their imagination and skills to create a wonderful range of essentials, from methods of enhancing food and transforming clothing, to building ovens and surprisingly sophisticated cooking utensils out of tin boxes and other scraps. Many POWs passed the long hours with games like cards, chess and all manner of outdoor sports through to the ever-present two-up. In fact, in one camp the Diggers made sure that, after their regular whitewashing of the chapel, they always had sufficient paint left to mark out the stones that formed the two-up ring.

  And the Australians and New Zealanders generally managed to commemorate Anzac Day, whatever the circumstances. At Campo Concentramento No. 57 in Italy, the guards were persuaded to allow the Anzacs to celebrate what they were told was a religious day on 25 April 1943. They were astonished when the normally crumpled Aussies and Kiwis appeared on parade, as the 2/15th Battalion history relates:

  … as smartly dressed as possible, shaven and boots cleaned. The senior RSM fell in the parade, the orchestra converted to a band for the occasion and the parade marched past the NZ Padre (who held the rank of Major) with great precision. A full salute, completion of the march past and the parade was then dismissed. Next day the men appeared just as lackadaisical as ever in front of the puzzled Italian commander.

  As bad as the privations were for our POWs in Italy and Germany – and some were treated appallingly – they paled in comparison with the inhuman privations and brutality meted out to those unfortunate enough to be captured by the Japanese. Much of this can be attributed to the attitude of the Japanese towards POWs, explained by British Colonel Laurens van der Post in his foreword to The War Diaries of Weary Dunlop:

  For them, surrender was the final depravity which deprived the human being of the right to live with honour, and a life without honour with oneself and one’s society, I knew from my own pre-war experience in Japan, was utterly impossible.

  So one started life as a Japanese prisoner-of-war with this complex poison of guilt, shame and dishonour already subtly at work in one’s system and one’s state of mind unusually vulnerable to the helplessness and apparent hopelessness of one’s physical situation.

  When Singapore fell on 15 February 1942, the Japanese captured 130,000 British and Allied troops, including around 15,000 survivors of the Australian 8th Division, which had fought a brave but ill-fated rearguard action against the invaders. Lance Corporal Frank Jackson of the 2/10th Australian Field Company was one of those who took part in the defence against the final Japanese assault on Singapore. He recorded his thoughts in a privately published memoir:

  At this time I witnessed the very great bravery of my section officer Lieutenant Charlie Heathcote. He supervised the loading of our wounded on to several of our remaining trucks. In a defiant and most fearless manner he stood there, a fine target, with his revolver in his right hand and a parang in his other hand directing the loading and ordering the drivers to get the hell out of it.

  At the same time he cursed the Japanese with every adjective in the book. As soon as the last truck was loaded and rolling, Charlie was executed quite deliberately by some cold blooded yellow bastard who was obviously waiting for such an opportunity. This is how a brave soldier gave his life for his mates.

  Frank Jackson recalled vividly the feelings of the Diggers after the surrender:

  We were all completely exhausted, acutely depressed, very emotional and to some degree ashamed of our performance. Few spoke, some wept, but beneath it all we wondered what our relatives at home in Australia would think of us. We had let them down and in such a short campaign.

  Singapore was devastated. Wrecked buildings, vehicles and bloated bodies were strewn everywhere. The Japanese, from memory, did not molest us except to keep us moving. The civilian population, particularly the Chinese, were very kind to us. At great personal risk they gave us cool water and fresh fruit. In some instances, I was given words of hope and encouragement; why I never knew, particularly after our failure. Japanese flags were displayed at every vantage point and indeed on just about every house.

  Another Digger swept up in the Japanese net was Sergeant Stan Arneil, a member of the 2/30th Battalion. Stan stole a diary and some pens, pencils, ink and rubbers during his early days as a POW working on the Singapore docks. He recorded his harrowing experiences, under constant threat of death if he were discovered:

  We arrived at Selarang Barracks, Changi after dark. We were utterly exhausted and slept on the ground where we were halted within the perimeter. It had been for most of us the bitterest day of our lives; we had no idea of what lay ahead and gained strength from each other as we talked quietly together. There was no laughter, no singing, just a deadly question mark as to what the future held for us.

  Stan Arneil eventually published his diary in 1980 as One Man’s War. It’s a compelling chronicle of the terror and soul-destroying deprivation he and his mates suffered from February 1942 until the survivors were finally released and returned home in October 1945. Stan emerged from the ordeal a magnificent man: full of courage, kindness and compassion. As the years of captivity crept by, Stan made room for first two, then three, and finally, four years of entries under the same dates. His record paints a chilling picture of the slow disintegration of the POWs’ health, but it also emerges as a wonderful testament to the protective and healing powers of mateship. Stan and his fellow Diggers put their faith in each other. They forged an unbreakable bond, and those who survived emerged as blood brothers – mateships that endured for the rest of their lives. Ind
eed, many, like Stan, believed their harrowing experiences made them better men. They learned selflessness and compassion and love and, while they never forgot the mindless cruelty of their captors, few wasted precious energy on grudges.

  But after the surrender of Singapore, as they waited stunned and uncomprehending with their fellow Diggers in Changi, men like Frank Jackson and Stan Arneil could not have imagined in their worst nightmares the fate that awaited them. Their early months as prisoners in the Changi area were bad enough. Changi was a small village on the coast of Singapore island, where the Diggers had camped when they first arrived in Singapore late in 1941. After the surrender it was where the main body of POWs was housed. There at least they had solid buildings, water, electricity and they could barter and scrounge to get food from the local people. As Stan Arneil wrote:

  The portrayal of the ‘dreaded Changi’ camp brings a smile to the faces of many former prisoners of war who longed for Changi as almost a heaven on earth compared to some of the dreadful places to which they were taken. It was possible to remain at Changi and rarely see a guard; the camp was administered by Brigadier ‘Black Jack’ Galleghan almost as it would have been at any Australian Army camp.