Invasion Rabaul

by Bruce Gamble

  The battalion’s second in command, Major William W. Leggatt, was four years older than Carr and had considerably more military experience. A veteran of World War I, he had served with distinction in France, earning a Military Cross for combat valor. Born on Malekula Island in the New Hebrides in 1894, he became a lawyer following the “Great War” and built a successful practice in Mornington, Victoria.

  Several other members of the battalion had also served during World War I. Warrant Officer-11 Henry E. “Mac” McLellan, born in London in 1900, had earned a commission in the 1st AIF but did not deploy overseas. Charles R. Benson, also a warrant officer, was born the same year and did serve with the British Expeditionary Force. But neither man had anything on Lance Corporal Bernard E. L. Cox, who was born in London in 1897 and fought in France with the 2nd Pioneers. In all, three warrant officers and thirteen enlisted men had served during World War I, and many others in the battalion had close relatives who were part of that unforgettable conflict. All across Australia, people spoke with solemn reverence of strange-sounding places like Gallipoli, the Somme, and Ypres.

  EXCEPT FOR THEIR SLOUCH HATS, THE SOLDIERS OF THE AIF WORE BRITISH- style uniforms; they also carried British weapons and followed British Army manuals. But to say that the AIF was modeled after the British Army would be to grossly understate the relationship. “We were British,” explained historian Ted Harris. “We followed them slavishly. We called England ‘The Mother Country.’ People talked of ‘going home,’ meaning the UK, even though they had been born in Australia. The British supplied many of our senior training officers, we purchased our arms from them, we sang their songs, we watched their movies, we ate their style of food, and we looked to them for fashion.”

  Statistics support Harris’ statement. One out of every ten soldiers in the 2/22nd was a native of Great Britain, with more than sixty from London alone. And yet, for all their British heritage, the Australian soldiers reveled in their own special qualities. If the most visible difference was their slouch hat, the most intrinsic was their cheerful nickname for themselves: “Diggers.” It had originated sometime during World War I, but historians still can’t agree whether it sprang from the trench warfare that defined much of that conflict, or was born of the fact that many troops were former prospectors and farmers. What mattered most was that Aussie soldiers everywhere were proud to be known as Diggers. They cherished mateship as much as courage, if not more, which made them unique among the world’s armies.

  At Trawool, the men of the 2/22nd spent much of their day “square-bashing,” their jargon for marching in formation around the muddy parade ground in the center of the encampment. Infantrymen first, they were taught how to handle, shoot, and care for their .303-caliber Lee-Enfield rifles. With each passing day, soldiering became more natural. In addition to marching and weapons drills, they had regular physical training, including long hikes to build stamina. When not involved in company-strength drills, individuals trained at specialties such as marksmanship, communications, or intelligence gathering. Sergeant Gullidge and the other bandsmen did double duty, performing martial and ceremonial music as well as learning first-aid techniques.

  Gullidge requested additional training time to spend with the band, which by late August had grown beyond its original nucleus of “Salvos.” Battalion-wide, new recruits arrived periodically and original members departed—usually because of training injuries or other fitness concerns—and the band was no exception. Only a few musicians had departed, but ten more arrived as replacements. Two of the new bandsmen were non-Salvationists, including Private James R. Thurst II, who had been born in the United States and was technically an American citizen.

  The journey that brought him to Trawool was a convoluted one. Thurst’s father, the elder James, was born in England and raised in a Catholic home for boys until the tender age of nine, when he emigrated to America with his brother Bill. When they got a bit older, the two began working their way across the country, eventually reaching the Pacific Northwest. James took on jobs that were increasingly hazardous, working on trains as a railroader, riding logjams as a lumberjack, and later sailing around the world aboard square-rigged ships. He settled down long enough to marry Florence Burroughs, a schoolteacher from Wisconsin, and she gave birth to three children: Kathleen, James II, and Mildred, all born in Washington.

  Soon after “Millie” was born, James and Bill Thurst headed for Australia to seek new fortunes. James promised to send for his family as soon as he was settled, and in due time Florence received steamship tickets to Sydney. She felt obligated to use them, but later admitted that if James had simply sent her money instead of tickets, she would not have gone. As it was, she and the children boarded the MV Tahiti and sailed to Australia in 1914.

  The Thursts raised their family on a farm near Skenes Creek, four miles from Apollo Bay on the south coast of Victoria. Music was their main entertainment. James had a fine singing voice, Florence played the violin, and young Jim inherited musical talent from both of them. “He could pick up an instrument,” said his younger brother Bruce, born on the farm in 1916, “and within half an hour he could get a tune out of it. He could play anything at all.”

  But when Jim was nine, tragedy struck. His father, invited to perform in a concert at Apollo Bay, was driving Florence and little Bruce to town in the family gig when they saw a man struggling to lift a trunk onto the back of a horse. The man was inebriated, so James got down from the gig to help. First he boosted the drunk into the saddle, then bent down to pick up the trunk. The horse kicked out, hitting James squarely in the forehead. He died from a massive concussion without ever regaining consciousness.

  Unable to keep the farm, Florence moved the family to Colac, an inland town along the Princes Highway. She took odd jobs as a cleaning woman, but her family was constantly on the threshold of poverty. Jim earned money as a gardener, and developed into a quiet, methodical man. As an adult he remained near his mother, dedicating his free time to music and the Methodist church. “James played the cornet,” recalled Bruce. “He was the number one cornet player in the Colac Brass Band; he was a scoutmaster; he was an elder in the church; he was everything that he was supposed to be, everything I wasn’t.”

  Florence and Jim had moved back to Skenes Creek by the time the war began. Although none of the American-born Thursts had ever changed their citizenship, James felt a strong obligation toward his adopted country and enlisted in the 2nd AIF on his twenty-eighth birthday. Private Thurst was assigned to the 2/22nd and arrived in late August at Trawool, where Gullidge accepted him as a cornet player. Thurst proved to be unique: the only Methodist in the band and the only Yank in the entire battalion.

  AFTER LESS THAN TWO MONTHS IN THE CROWDED TENT CITY, ORDERS CAME for the 2/22nd to relocate to a new training base farther north, near the border of New South Wales. The news frustrated the battalion’s tennis players, who had just put the finishing touches on a brand-new court. They would have to leave it to the next batch of trainees.

  The battalion’s sister unit from Victoria, the 2/21st, was ordered to move from Trawool at the same time. The whole evolution was carefully planned as a march, which would spare the army the expense of transporting some two thousand men over a distance of 150 miles. The army would also benefit from the publicity generated by showing off the troops along the route.

  After breaking camp, the 2/22nd began the long march on September 24. At the town of Seymour the battalion swung onto the Melbourne-Sydney highway, and for the next ten days they marched through small towns with lyrical names like Euroa, Benalla, Glenrovan, and Wangaratta. At each town, the bandsmen offloaded their instruments from a truck and formed at the head of the line, then led a brassy parade down the main street. At night the battalion bivouacked in fairgrounds and pastures. The final bivouac came on a chilly, crystal-clear night outside the small town of Tarrawingee. Giant bonfires were lighted and the men spent several memorable hours singing their favorite songs under a brilliant canopy of
stars.

  The tenth day’s march brought the battalion to Bonegilla, a hamlet on the western shores of Lake Hume in the foothills of the Australian Alps. Training resumed immediately in the newly constructed camp of corrugated huts. The troops skirmished, performed maneuvers, and sharpened their fighting skills six days a week, the weather turning increasingly hot as the Australian summer approached. Weeks blended into months, and the soldiers endured “an endless round of drills, weapons training, parades and inspections.”

  To prevent complacency, harsh punishments were meted out for infractions or substandard performance. Restriction to barracks was a common penalty, an example being three days’ confinement for a dirty rifle. Fines were also levied. Being absent without leave (AWL) could cost up to £l, and in 1940 an unmarried private in the AIF earned only £7.5 per month, the equivalent of twenty-four U.S. dollars. Fortunately, the most common punishment was heavy physical training. Clarence F. Hicks, a thirty-six-year-old corporal from Ascot Vale, Victoria, lamented his mistakes in the last verse of his poem “Defaulters.”

  I’m chasing the bugle in Bonegilla sun,

  It’s boiling and scorching while I’m on the run.

  My thoughts ever wonder, Oh why the hell

  Do poor foolish Diggers go AWL?

  During off-duty hours, soldiers could visit the “welfare huts” run by the Salvation Army and the YMCA. Books and magazines were always available, and the troops were sometimes treated to concerts and informal lectures. The simple pleasures of socializing often led to impromptu songfests. Individuals lucky enough to get a weekend pass usually hitchhiked into nearby towns. Jim Thurst occasionally visited his sister Kathleen, who lived a few miles away in Wodonga, but most men continued a little farther to Albury. A sizeable town just across the Murray River in New South Wales, it offered the usual diversions that soldiers seek when they can escape army life for a few hours.

  Arthur Gullidge received what was probably the biggest break of all from the daily grind. At the request of Major Shugg, he was given three weeks’ leave and returned home to compose new music for the Australian Army. So good were his arrangements for “Church, Ceremonial, and Other Occasions” that they remained in use throughout the army for the next thirty years. However, when Gullidge returned to Bonegilla, he found himself at odds with Captain John F. Ackeroyd, the battalion medical officer.

  A somewhat pudgy doctor, Ackeroyd wanted the bandleader to spend less time with music and more learning first aid and stretcher bearing. Frustrated with the additional duties, Gullidge requested a transfer to R Company, which he received. There, his duties allowed him spare time to write a new arrangement of Australia’s national anthem, “God Save the King” (better known to Americans as “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”). His music continued to earn recognition. A reporter from the Melbourne Sun wrote, “The Salvationists who joined the AIF in a body to form this band have won praise on every hand for their splendid music. When the 2/22nd Band plays the national anthem, everybody is pleased with the beautiful arrangement of the grand melody. I wish this music could be in the hands of every bandleader in Australia.”

  BY EARLY 1941, HAVING TRAINED FOR SIX MONTHS, THE MEN OF THE 2/22ND were becoming restless. Bored with the repetitive marches and long nights on “bivvy,” they itched to get into real combat. Many were convinced that the battalion would be sent to North Africa, and some even began to acclimatize themselves prematurely, referring to streambeds as “wadies” and using other lingo appropriate to desert warfare. Otherwise, their routine did not change; therefore dozens of frustrated soldiers transferred into other battalions under the assumption that they would get into combat quicker. Little did they know that the winds of war were blowing the battalion in a different direction.

  Throughout the first year of World War II, it was natural for Australians to focus their attention on Europe and North Africa. Mother England had survived the Battle of Britain, but the news became increasingly grim as the 2nd AIF encountered heavy Axis opposition in the desert. Within a year of the 6th Division’s arrival in Egypt, three more Australian divisions had been committed to the battle, and before long they were bled white under a prolonged siege at Tobruk.

  The service chiefs of the Australian War Cabinet, located at Victoria Barracks, Melbourne, would have done well to watch their own backyard. For nearly a decade the small but aggressive empire of Japan had been seeking to dominate most of Asia. The Imperial Army began in 1931 with the occupation of Manchuria, and less than two years later the Japanese withdrew from the League of Nations. In addition, while denouncing the Washington Naval Treaty, the government in Tokyo ignored restrictions imposed by the League of Nations on military development and began to build a powerful navy and two independent air forces. The Japanese also fortified several bases among their mandated islands in the Pacific, the most impressive being Truk in the Carolines. Only a few hundred miles north of Australian territory, it became the Imperial Navy’s largest base outside the home islands.

  At the same time, due to the worldwide economic depression, Australia’s own military forces were woefully ill-equipped and undermanned. Recruitment into the 2nd AIF totaled fewer than 20,000 men during the closing months of 1939, and the following year only 123,000 joined, mostly during the winter months of June through August. Due to the lack of resources, the War Cabinet seemed satisfied to merely discuss the potential of Japanese aggression. For that matter, few Australian citizens believed the empire represented a credible threat. Japan was not only tiny, it lay far to the north of the Commonwealth. To reach Australia, its forces would first have to tackle the Philippines, then Malaysia, and finally the Netherlands East Indies, and no one believed the “Japs” could get past the Philippines to begin with. Douglas MacArthur, the flamboyant American military advisor in Manila, assured politicians and strategists that his American-trained troops would slaughter any invaders on the beaches. Having given himself the title of Field Marshal, he suitably impressed Americans and Australians alike with his predictions, and no one had cause to doubt him. Similarly, Sir Winston Churchill declared that Singapore was impregnable, giving the Allied governments equal confidence in the strength of British garrisons in the region. Thus, Australians widely believed that the Japanese would be foolhardy to attempt a conquest of the Pacific. Even if they tried, there would be plenty of time for Great Britain and America to intervene.

  The prevailing attitudes created a false sense of security. In October 1940, delegates from Great Britain, India, Australia, and New Zealand met at Singapore for the Far Eastern Defense Conference. Plans and resources were discussed, and Australia offered troops for the defense of Malaysia—a gesture that the British somewhat haughtily rejected. At the conclusion of the conference, the delegates reported that Singapore was significantly weaker than Churchill had boasted, particularly in terms of naval and air power. However, little was done to correct the deficiencies.

  In Melbourne, the War Cabinet also had to consider the defense of Australia’s own mandated islands. Twenty years earlier, the League of Nations had authorized civil administration of a sizeable territory captured from Germany at the beginning of World War I. Renamed the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, the region included the Papuan Peninsula of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Louisiade Archipelago, and dozens of smaller groups. In all, there were literally thousands of islands, many still uncharted. Innumerable native villages, coconut plantations, and mission stations dotted the habitable islands, resulting in an eclectic mix of Melanesians, Europeans, Asians, and expatriate Australians. Some of the biggest islands had well-established towns with bustling waterfronts, such as Port Moresby on the southern coast of New Guinea and Kavieng on New Ireland. The largest and most cosmopolitan was Rabaul on New Britain, the capital of the mandated territory for the past twenty years.

  Although the War Cabinet was responsible for defending the vast territory, it did virtually nothing to fortify the islands. The reasons were familiar throughout the Commonwealth:
economic stagnation and lack of military resources. Not until November 1940 did the War Cabinet propose that warships of the Netherlands East Indies should visit Rabaul, hoping the gesture would encourage defense help from the Dutch. At the same time, the cabinet made a commitment to install two 6-inch coastal artillery guns for the defense of Simpson Harbor, Rabaul’s superb anchorage. Months would pass, however, before the weapons were actually delivered. Finally, in early 1941, the AIF decided to send most of the 8th Division to augment the defenses at Singapore, minus the 23rd Brigade, which would garrison three islands north of the mainland: Ambon, Timor, and New Britain. The War Cabinet grandiosely referred to the islands as the “Malay Barrier,” but each small landmass was separated by hundreds of miles of ocean.

  The garrisons chosen to defend the islands received operational code names, though none sounded particularly inspiring. Sparrow Force, consisting of the 2/40th Infantry Battalion plus an antiaircraft battery and troops of the Netherlands East Indies, would be sent to Timor, east of Java. Gull Force, with the 2/21st Infantry Battalion as its nucleus, would fortify Ambon, two hundred miles farther to the north. The last but strategically most important assignment, the defense of Rabaul, went to the 2/22nd Infantry Battalion and its attached units, known collectively as Lark Force.

  ALMOST TO A MAN, THE TROOPS OF THE 2/22ND WERE DISAPPOINTED BY THE news of their tropical assignment. Private Frederick W. Kollmorgen, having recently arrived from the 10th Training Depot, was especially frustrated. An infantryman, he had grown weary of waiting to get into action, and asked for a transfer to the 2/22nd after reading in a magazine that the band needed cornet players. A Salvationist and a tenor horn player to boot, he thought the transfer seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t until after he arrived that he discovered the 2/22nd was heading to Rabaul, not the Middle East.