Double Diamonds : Australian Commandos in the Pacific War, 1941-45 [1 ed.] 9781742247823, 9781742234922

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DOUBLE DIAMONDS AUSTRALIAN COMMANDOS IN THE PACIFIC WAR

1941–45 KARL JAMES

Published in association with the Australian War Memorial

Dedicated to the memory of Lance Corporal John Ronald Talintyre (1924–2013) and all those who served in the 2/7th Commando Squadron, AIF.

DOUBLE DIAMONDS AUSTRALIAN COMMANDOS IN THE PACIFIC WAR

1941–45 KARL JAMES

A NewSouth book Published by NewSouth Publishing University of New South Wales Press Ltd University of New South Wales Sydney NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA

newsouthpublishing.com © Australian War Memorial 2016 First published 2016 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

Front cover image The 2/2nd Cavalry (Commando) Squadron’s Trooper Francis Thorpe (left), Corporal John Fowler (rear), Trooper Jack Prior (front) and Roy ‘Duck’ Watson, 7 October 1943. AWM 058781 Back cover image Ivor Hele, Commando officer [Lieutenant Sidney Read], 1943. ART22492 Dedication image Photograph of Lance Corporal John Talintyre courtesy Talintyre family. Printer 1010 Printing Group All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard. This book is printed on paper using fibre supplied from plantation or sustainably managed forests.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: James, Karl, author. Title: Double diamonds: Australian commandos in the Pacific War, 1941–45 / Karl James. ISBN: 9781742234922 (paperback) 9781742247823 (ePDF) Notes: Includes index. Subjects: Commando troops – History. World War, 1939–1945 – Pacific Area. World War, 1939–1945 – Participation, Australian. Bougainville Island (Papua New Guinea) – History – 1941–1945. Dewey Number: 940.5426 Cover and internal design Louise Cornwall

OPPOSITE TITLE PAGE

OPPOSITE

These 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment personnel won the dispatch rider’s relay race at the 7th Division’s sports meeting at Kairi on the Atherton Tablelands, Christmas Day 1944. From left: Trooper Harold Durant, Lieutenants Ronald Couche and Edward ‘Ted’ Peel, and Trooper Gerald Blewitt. Peel was also the drum major of the regimental band. 085022

Bougainvillean scouts point to map features held by ANGAU’s Lieutenant Howard ‘Daubler’ Roberts (centre) and the 2/8th Commando Squadron’s commander Major Norman Winning (right), at Morokaimoro, 7 June 1945. Roberts was an original member of No. 1 Independent Company. 093023

Contents

12 Map 15 Introduction

23 Chapter 1 They were the first 45 Chapter 2 Timor and Wau 89 Chapter 3 New Guinea 151 Chapter 4 The final campaigns

219 Abbreviations 220 Acknowledgements 222 Notes 225 Further reading 226 Index

OPPOSITE CONTENTS PAGE

Corporal F John ‘Curly’ Papworth (right) stands by an anti-aircraft gun aboard an LST (Landing Ship, Tank), watching for Japanese aircraft, 29 April 1945. A talented artist, Papworth was an original member of the 2/4th Commando Squadron, having fought earlier on Timor and in New Guinea. In the coming action Troopers Malcolm ‘Mick’ Townrow (another original) and Ernest Forbes (fourth and fifth from the left) would be wounded in the fight for Tarakan Hill. 111720

Ivor Hele, 2/10th Australian Commando Squadron: patrol sets out for jungle, 1944. ART26730

Areas of operations of the independent companies 1st, 2/2, 2/3, 2/4, 2/5, 2/6, 2/7, 2/8

Areas of operations of the commando squadrons 2/9, 2/10, 2/11, 2/12

2/11, 2/12

Labuan

Brunei

MALAYA Sa

Singapore Z Special Unit

r

a aw

2/4

Tarakan

k

BORNEO 2/3, 2/5, 2/7

Balikpapan

Ambon

Netherlands East Indies Dili 2/4 2/2 TIMOR

Koepang Darwin

Yampi Sound

Broome

Author’s note: The nomenclature for the independent companies and commando squadrons changed several times during the war. For example, No. 2 Independent Company became the 2/2nd Independent Company, then the 2/2nd Cavalry (Commando) Squadron, and finally the 2/2nd Commando Squadron. Despite the title changes it remained essentially the same unit. Where possible I have referred to units as they were titled at the time. 12

Exmouth Gulf ulf

Alice Springs

Austra

Madang

2/6 2/2 Goroka 2/7

Kaiapit

HUON PENINSULA 2/5 Heath's 2/4 ark Plantation h am Finschhafen R iv e r 2/4

2/6

M

Lae

HUON GULF

Salamaua Mubo 2/3 2/5 Nassau Bay 2/7 Wau Skindewal Manus I 1st

Aitape 2/7 2/9 Wewak 2/10

NEW GUINEA

1st

Kavieng Rabaul

NEW IRELAND 1st

SEE INSET

2/2

NEW BRITAIN

Buka

2/8

Morokaimoro

2/6 Buna Kokoda Wanigela Port Moresby 2/6 Milne Bay

BOUGAINVILLE

Solomon Islands Tulagi I

GUADALCANAL

Gulf of Carpentaria

New Hebrides Cairns Normanton

Vila

1st

Townsville

New Caledonia Nouméa

2/3

lia Brisbane

13

14

Introduction

On 24 October 1942 a 21-year-old lieutenant led a three-man patrol from the Yodda Valley to the Japanese-occupied village of Kokoda, on the southern side of the Owen Stanley Range in Papua. Writing in his diary, he recorded how he had awoken that morning to shots being fired: Stood to and went doggo in bush near camp. Jap patrol trying to locate us … firing indiscriminately to draw our fire so that they can pinpoint us. Stood to till dawn but Jap moved on. Set off on Kokoda patrol … [in darkness they reached the Kokoda plateau.] On looking over crest of ridge saw large party of Japs seating around camp fire twenty yards away … [We] retraced our footsteps … into a patch of jungle nearby. Lay doggo here sopping wet from rain and eaten alive by mosquitoes and sand flies.

The patrol tried for Kokoda again the next morning, but thick jungle and ‘useless maps’ made the going difficult. The Australians saw the approach of a Japanese patrol along a track: went into bush to avoid them … However they evidently heard us & saw us too for they did not pass. We lay doggo for what seemed ages listening for their moves … During the time heard rifle, LMG [light machine-gun] and mortar fire about us … After waiting some time slipped over ridge into creek below. Nips had evidently been playing our game and waiting for us to move too for heard them following after our move.1

A patrol from the 2/6th Independent Company crosses one of many rivers in the Buna– Gona area on Papua’s north coast, October 1942. 127501

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The subaltern was Lieutenant Frederick Winkle from the 2/6th Independent Company. A pre-war school teacher from Brisbane, Winkle is thought to be the first Australian to re-enter Kokoda after its occupation by the Japanese two months earlier, but it would be another week before Australian infantry advancing along the trail liberated Kokoda.2 Winkle’s patrol was typical of operations carried out by Australian independent companies and commando squadrons in the Pacific War. Away from the main force, they carried out reconnaissance in enemy territory and gathered information on the Japanese. The elite Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) is today perhaps one of Australia’s best-known military units. It has achieved a formidable reputation, with operational deployments to Borneo, Vietnam, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. The men of the 1st Commando Regiment and the 2nd Commando Regiment (formerly the 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment) who wear the commandos’ famous Sherwood green beret have similarly been deployed to Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Victoria Cross for Australia, Australia’s highest gallantry award, was awarded to the SASR’s Trooper Mark Donaldson in 2009 and Corporal Benjamin ‘Ben’ Roberts-Smith MG in 2010 and, posthumously, to the 16

2nd Commando Regiment’s Corporal Cameron Baird MG in 2014. Each received the award for their actions in Afghanistan. The conferring of these awards has done much to capture the public’s interest in Australia’s special forces, and to add to their mystique. Few people today, however, would be aware that the precursors to Australia’s elite special forces of today began in the Second World War as independent companies. In 1940 the British army formed commando units to raid, conduct sabotage and gather information in German-occupied Europe. A small British military mission was sent to Australia to establish similar units in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), and the first of eight Australian independent companies was raised in 1941. Wearing their unique double-diamond-shaped unit colour patches on their hatbands and shoulders, each independent company contained some 290 officers and men. In 1943 the companies were redesignated cavalry (commando) squadrons, later just commando squadrons. Four additional commando squadrons were established during 1944. Each of these independent companies was involved in myriad wartime experiences: from the tragic loss of the Montevideo Maru and the celebrated defiance on Timor in 1942 to raids and long-range patrols into Japanese territory in New Guinea and the spectacular amphibious landings on Borneo in 1945.

Made famous in part by Damien Parer’s wartime newsreel The men of Timor (1942), the almost yearlong guerrilla war fought by Sparrow Force’s No. 2 Independent Company in Timor has been widely praised. The film’s opening titles note that, as the war swept past them, the Australians ‘went on fighting’, harrying the Japanese with guerrilla warfare in ‘one of the imperishable stories of this gigantic world catastrophe’.3 The story of the bearded men of Timor, who were later joined by the 2/4th Independent Company, is arguably the most well-known episode in the history of Australian independent companies. These exploits have often been told and celebrated, but the guerrilla war on Timor was not typical. It was in the vastness of New Guinea’s jungles that the independent companies came into their own, thinly deployed on the flanks of the main force, carrying out reconnaissance, conducting raids and harassing the Japanese. By the war’s end in 1945 the AIF had commando squadrons in action in New Guinea, Bougainville and Borneo. While it is beyond the scope of this book to explore their history in detail, several other Australian units and wartime organisations also bore the name ‘commando’. In the first Australian commando-style operation of the war, on 27 December 1941 a small group of men from the

AIF’s 8th Division conducted a seaborne raid behind the advancing Japanese in North Malaya. Led by Lieutenant Ralph Sanderson, the party, codenamed ‘Rose Force’, was landed in occupied territory and moved inland to where it ambushed a small-vehicle convoy. The raiders were subsequently evacuated by sea, rescuing several British soldiers who had been trapped behind the lines. Sanderson’s men had the distinction of being the first Australian infantrymen to go into action against the Japanese. Another 48 members of the 8th Division had volunteered a few months earlier for special duty with ‘Mission 204’, a British military mission to China. They were trained in guerrilla warfare in Burma and moved to China in early 1942 to train Chinese nationalist forces. The Chinese, however, were less than enthusiastic, and the Australian soldiers were largely forgotten before eventually being recalled to Australia later that year.4 The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Beach Commando was another little-known group. Formed in January 1944 along lines similar to Royal Navy units, the RAN Beach Commandos would go ashore during amphibious landings in the first or second assault waves to organise and help defend the beachhead. In addition to general seamanship skills, navigation and boat and landing-craft handling, shore parties were also instructed in various small arms, automatic weapons and hand-to-hand 17

Colour patches (top two rows, left to right) of No. 1 and the 2/2nd–2/8th Independent Companies; colour patches (bottom row, left to right) of the 2/6th, 2/7th, and 2/9th Cavalry (Commando) Regiments. REL/05973.001; REL/13596; REL35933; REL/13597; REL28173; REL/13598; REL35875; REL28176; REL/15101.002; REL/05974.001; REL36239.003

18

combat. Lettered rather than numbered, RAN Beach Commandos A, B, C and D participated in the Australian amphibious landings on Borneo in 1945. The best-known Australian commando units from the war were the ‘M’ and ‘Z’ Special Units. These were administrative and handling units for AIF personnel serving with the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). Members of the RAN and RAAF also served in the bureau, though they did not form part of either army unit. The bureau was established in mid-1942 to control and co-ordinate the different intelligence organisations operating in the Pacific, and where possible to conduct sabotage against the enemy and aid local resistance against the Japanese in occupied territory.5 Z Special Unit administered AIF personnel serving with the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD). M Special Unit was created as a holding unit for AIF men in the bureau’s other sections.6 The bureau consisted of various sections, including what became Special Operations Australia (known initially as the Inter-Allied Services Department, it was later given the cover name of the SRD) and the coast-watchers’ organisation. Members of M Special Unit generally carried out coast-watching activities in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, while Z Special Unit administered those Australians in the SRD and operated in the Netherlands East Indies and Borneo. The SRD

consisted mainly of Australians but included Britons, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans, while also recruiting and working with the local peoples of the region. It trained thousands of local guerrilla fighters and conducted more than 80 operations across the South Pacific, particularly in the Netherlands East Indies (including Timor), Borneo and the Philippines.7 The SRD’s most famous raid was Operation Jaywick. Commanded by British officer Major Ivan Lyon, a small group of Australian and British commandos launched a raid against Japanese merchant shipping in Singapore Harbour from the wooden fishing vessel Krait in September 1943. Paddling into the harbour in canoes on the night of the 26th, the commandos placed limpet mines on the hulls of the ships, sinking or badly damaging seven Japanese vessels and some 37 000 to 39 000 tonnes of shipping. Operation Jaywick was widely celebrated as Australia’s ‘most daring and successful’ special operation of the war.8 Others, however, have questioned the raid’s significance beyond a display of extreme bravery and skill. There is no doubt that the raid was bold, but its consequences were also unquestionably dire. The Japanese occupying authorities in Singapore assumed local saboteurs had conducted the attack and targeted civilian Chinese, Malay and European internees and 19

prisoners in a series of arrests, tortures and executions. Beginning on 10 October and subsequently known as the ‘Double Tenth Massacre’, the crackdown went on for months. The Japanese kenpeitai (military police) arrested and tortured 57 innocent people, of whom 15 died as a result.9 News of the Singapore raid was suppressed from the public until after the end of the war, so it had no influence on morale on the Australian or Allied home fronts.10 A year after Jaywick, in October 1944, another raid, Operation Rimau, was launched against Singapore; this time, however, it ended in disaster for the Australian and British commandos. All 23 men who participated in the raid, including Lyon and four others from Jaywick, were either killed in action, died in Japanese captivity or were executed. Drawing on the Australian War Memorial’s rich collection, this illustrated history tells the stories of some of the men who served in the independent companies and commando squadrons. These men were a reflection of the AIF and the wider Australian community; many were children of returned men from the First World War. They included men of German ancestry, such as 20-yearold Private Paul ‘Peter’ Friemel, who was wounded in action in New Guinea, and underage teenagers like 20

Private John Talintyre, who altered his birth date in order to enlist. Some soldiers and officers performed reckless acts of bravery or displayed cool leadership under fire. At least one man, Captain Raymond ‘Doc’ Allsop, was recommended for a posthumous Victoria Cross for an act of selfless valour. For those who survived the war, returning home to peacetime civilian life in Australia had its own challenges. Many, including Lionel Veale, a corporal who served with No. 1 Independent Company and later M Special Unit, suffered from nightmares for years, interrupting sleep with what his wife described as a ‘terrible roar’.11 Some who returned from New Guinea and the islands, such as Corporal Peter Pinney and Sergeant TAG ‘Tom’ Hungerford, turned their restlessness into action and became adventurers and writers. Many others found solace and comfort in the company of old comrades. The ranks of the famed men of Timor, those soldiers who landed on Borneo or trekked for countless kilometres across New Guinea, are now few. Australia’s first commandos have nearly disappeared from living memory, but their experiences and achievements should not be forgotten.

Harold Abbott, Commando weaving, 1943.

The 2/5th Independent Company’s Private Paul ‘Peter’ Friemel in the occupational therapy department of the 115th Australian General Hospital in

Heidelberg, Melbourne. Friemel was wounded in the shoulder while fighting around Mubo, New Guinea, in early 1943. ART22318

21

22

They were the first

‘At approximately 0710 hrs on 21st January, 1942, planes were reported coming in from the North. All personnel were at or in the vicinity of their action stations. The planes were recognised as Nipponese, about 60 in number, mostly bombers, dive-bombers and some Zeros … The attack commenced at 0718 hrs by divebombing buildings and gun positions … These attacks were simultaneous. They were met by brisk fire from all guns and one enemy plane left formation badly hit and … crashed into the sea.’ Major James Edmonds-Wilson, No. 1 Independent Company, on the Japanese opening attack on Kavieng, New Ireland, 21 January 1942

Major James Edmonds-Wilson (centre) and Lieutenant George Dixon (far right) from No. 1 Independent Company, with other Australian officers in Zentsuji camp on the island of Shikoku, Japan. P04017.007

23

Members of C Platoon, No. 5 Independent Company, about to set off on a training exercise from the rest hut at Sealer’s Cove on Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, 1942. 099996

24

25

Acting Corporal Sydney Reeve was a baker from Raymond Terrace on the New South Wales north coast. He joined No. 1 Independent Company on its formation and was 22 years old when he died. P07686.001

26

Major James Edmonds-Wilson’s No. 1 Independent Company was a type of unit new to the Australian army. Formed in secrecy and highly trained, it was the first of such units raised, and among the first sent to the islands to act as an early warning against any move by the Japanese. On Kavieng, the first Japanese blow to fall was swift, and it was heavy. In the first air raid the Japanese inflicted several casualties, indiscriminately machinegunning and bombing buildings, the military hospital and the signal station. Smoke from a burning copra shed hung over the harbour.1 Two days later, in the early hours of 23 January 1942, the Japanese invaded Kavieng in a seaborne amphibious landing. Pulling back into the jungle, Edmonds-Wilson saw no other way to save his company than by trying to escape by sea. He had no way of knowing that in less than six months half of his men would be dead. The decision to raise Australian units specially trained in guerrilla warfare and clandestine operations pre-dated the war against Japan in the Pacific. Australia’s war began on 3 September 1939 with the British declaration of war on Germany. For a country overwhelmingly British by blood, whose culture, values and institutions were British, and whose country’s defence and economy were intertwined with the British Empire, it was overwhelmingly accepted that Australia would participate

in the conflict. The Second World War would become Australia’s largest-ever military commitment, with nearly a million men and women – almost one in seven Australians – enlisting in the forces. Half a million of them served overseas. The Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was an all-volunteer force that could be deployed to fight anywhere in the world. Ultimately, four AIF infantry divisions were raised. The 6th, 7th and 9th Divisions served in the Middle East and Mediterranean, while much of the 8th Division was sent to Singapore and Malaya. The former German territories of New Guinea, New Britain and Bougainville in the Solomon Islands had been mandated to Australia by the League of Nations following the First World War, and Australia’s small Militia was maintained for the defence of the mainland as well as these Australian territories, including Papua and parts of New Guinea. The RAN and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) also expanded, and their ships, squadrons and personnel served around the world, particularly in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Britain. By mid-1940 much of Western Europe was Germanoccupied and the British Commonwealth stood alone against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Norway had fallen in April and the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from France at the end of May. British Prime 27

Minister Winston Churchill now called for the creation of an organisation capable of hitting back against the Germans in Europe. On 3 June he urged the British Chiefs of Staff to set about organising forces to raid the coasts of countries ‘conquered’ by Germany. Two days later he directed the Chiefs of Staff to prepare ‘specially trained troops’ who could ‘develop a reign of terror down the enemy coast’ from France to Norway. The prime minister wanted to create a ‘ceaseless offensive’ against the German-occupied coastline that left ‘a trail of corpses behind’.2 The aim was to strike back against the Germans in their recently conquered territory. The British commandos were soon founded and it was intended that they should conduct guerrilla warfare while operating independently of other units. Also raised was the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a secret organisation formed to conduct raids on German-occupied Europe to gain information, carry out acts of sabotage and espionage and assist local resistance groups. In 1940 a British offer to send a military mission to Australia to train Australian personnel in the work of independent companies received a lukewarm response. British secrecy and Australian uncertainty about the usefulness of such units led to protracted negotiations. Little was known in Australia about independent companies or commando units and their organisation, 28

equipment or operations beyond what the Chief of the Australian General Staff, Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee, described as some form of ‘cloak and dagger gang’. After several months the offer of a mission was finally accepted, although Sturdee later admitted: ‘we had little idea where or in what circumstances such units could be used’.3 The original intention was to raise four Australian and two New Zealand independent companies. Some army officers, who considered the well-trained infantry to be as capable as the proposed commandos, and who thought that such special units represented a drain on the infantry, met this suggestion with reluctance. Others advocated that new companies would relieve the infantry of the burden of providing detachments for special tasks.4 The British military mission arrived in Australia in November 1940, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel JC Mawhood and including Captains J Michael Calvert and F Spencer Chapman, two warrant officers, a weapons training instructor and a signals and wireless telegraphy instructor. The rugged national park on Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, with its heavily timbered mountains, valleys, streams and swamps, was chosen as the secret training area for the new units. The organisation of the training school began in early 1941. The site, almost 50 kilometres from the Gippsland

The administration buildings for No. 5 Independent Company’s camp at Tidal River, Wilsons Promontory, 1942. The rugged isolation enhanced the secrecy surrounding the independent

companies. One of the first tests for new recruits was to climb Mount Oberon (seen here in the background). Those who did not reach the top were returned to their old units.

(Barry Higgins, Australian commandos at Wilsons Promontory: double diamond, Australian Commando Association, Victoria, 2015, p. 6.) 099994

29

This was the first of an 11-page document outlining the role of an independent company. While garrisoning New Caledonia as part of Robin Force in 1942, Lieutenant Colonel George Matheson’s No. 3 Independent Company used this and similar material to instruct and train American troops in guerrilla warfare. Matheson was subsequently seconded to the American forces. For his service on Guadalcanal in late 1942 he was awarded a United States Distinguished Service Cross, but was killed on Bougainville on 30 January 1944. AWM52, 25/3/3/1; RCDIG1022712--128

30

township of Foster, became known as No. 7 Infantry Training Centre. The centre’s headquarters and initial training cadres were established around the Darby River on the west coast. As the centre was also intended to train the New Zealand companies, two more camps were later established at Tidal River to accommodate the training of two independent companies simultaneously. The centre was commanded and administered by Australian officers, but the training program was initially in the hands of Captains Calvert and Chapman (affectionately known as ‘Michael and Freddie’). Calvert had served with the Royal Engineers in Norway and Chapman, a noted mountaineer and adventurer, had served with the Seaforth Highlanders. Calvert, Chapman later wrote, ‘taught them how to blow up everything from battleships to bridges’, while Chapman taught them how to move and navigate by day or night, how to live off the land, how to track and how to escape if caught by the enemy.5 The British officers remained at the centre until August, when Calvert was sent to Burma and Chapman to Malaya, where they both distinguished themselves in their respective service. In early 1941 the centre began training the first cadre of officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in a six-week course. Officers and NCOs then spent another six weeks training their men.6 Recruits came largely

from Militia units, communication units or training depots. Recruits had to volunteer for the AIF before volunteering again for special service. Aged between 20 and 35, they were required to have the highest medical classification and a high degree of fitness. Applicants also completed a comprehensive questionnaire and faced a selection board. Once accepted, recruits were trained in irregular and guerrilla warfare, demolitions, advanced field craft, map reading and signals work. The training syllabus was directed at developing individual initiative, resourcefulness and physical fitness.7 It was all ‘very hush-hush’, one of the early volunteers recalled. ‘Nobody knew anything about independent companies.’8 Commanded by a major, each company consisted of 17 officers and 256 other ranks and were organised with engineer, signals, and medical sections, with three platoons each containing three sections. When compared to an infantry battalion, independent companies were ‘over-officered’, with a higher ratio of officers to men. This allowed for each sub-unit or detachment to operate under an officer’s command even when deployed away from the main company.9 Weapons were another obvious difference between the two types of units. Independent companies were armed with rifles, sub-machine and light machine-guns, with a small number of sniper rifles and 2-inch mortars.10 Heavy 31

weapons such as the Vickers medium machine-guns and 3-inch mortars found in infantry battalions were absent from the independent companies’ war establishment. Unlike the infantry, the task of the independent company was not to engage in ‘pitched battle’, nor was it to win ground. Instead it was to exploit the enemy’s weak points by attacking their headquarters, communication centres and supply routes.11 No. 1 Independent Company began forming in May 1941 under the command of Major James EdmondsWilson. A New Zealand independent company was formed in June, followed soon afterwards by another of each nationality. Having raised and trained two companies, the New Zealand government decided against raising any others; these companies returned home and were subsequently disbanded. New Zealand did, however, raise the Southern Independent Company, consisting of European officers and NCOs with Fijian soldiers. This company became the nucleus of the 1st Commando Fiji Guerrillas, which also included Tongan soldiers. It served with American forces in the Solomon Islands, including on Guadalcanal, New Georgia and Vella Lavella in 1942–43. Meanwhile, by October 1941 three Australian independent companies had been trained along with the officers and NCOs for a fourth, but the training of further 32

companies was cancelled owing to a lack of suitable personnel and specific tasks. However, following Japan’s entry into the war on 7 December with its attack on Pearl Harbor, this decision was immediately reversed. The centre was re-opened as the Guerrilla Warfare School and four additional companies were raised during 1942. Japan had emerged as an enemy and the subsequent opening of hostilities in the Pacific changed Australia’s experience of war. Overnight it had gone from a conflict fought far away in Europe to one now fought on Australia’s doorstep, and Australia was not prepared. The RAN’s ships stationed in Australian waters were few, the RAAF’s aircraft were antiquated and the experienced soldiers of the AIF were overseas in the Middle East. Elements of the 8th Division were soon in action in Malaya in January 1942, and small forces were scattered across the islands to Australia’s north – Ambon and Timor in the Netherlands East Indies and Rabaul in New Britain, the colonial centre for Australia’s mandated territories. Their task was to help defend the airfields and maintain Australia’s air link with the rest of the world. The Japanese, attacking with speed and in multiple directions, quickly overwhelmed the British, American, Dutch and Australian forces across south-east Asia and the Pacific and on 23 January they captured Rabaul, killing or capturing the Australian defenders of Lark Force.

With the Allies seemingly on the back foot, stories about British commando raids in Norway and the exploits of Rose Force in Malaya – described simply as ‘a small body of the AIF’ – were published in the Australian press. Newspaper editorials and articles began calling for commando raids and for training in guerrilla warfare tactics. One article even likened commando tactics to the ‘hit-and-run’ methods of the bushranger Ned Kelly, with one army officer asserting: ‘He was this country’s finest guerrilla fighter. He made sudden dashes, robbed, dashed out. He used surprise at all times.’12 When much of the war news in the press was bleak on many fronts, talk of ‘commandos’ captured the public’s imagination. These men embodied defiance and an offensive spirit capable of hitting back against the enemy despite the odds. Ordinary soldiers, however, were unimpressed with the press’s glamorisation of these units. Over time, many individuals in the independent companies and commando squadrons played up to this image, wearing coloured scarves and boar’s tusk necklaces or closecombat knives, but this confidence and bearing was often received with little enthusiasm from regular infantrymen. The Australian war correspondent Ian Fitchett, for example, noted how the use of the word ‘commando’ was unpopular with the members of the AIF in the Middle East and later Malaya: ‘All claim that such jobs are

ordinary routine for the Australians.’13 Possibly in part to allay fears on the home front, in mid-February 1942 the government publicly announced that commando units were being trained in Australia to ‘help in repelling any invasion’.14 The first independent companies were already deployed among the islands. In December 1941, No. 2 Independent Company had been sent to Timor with Sparrow Force and No. 3 Independent Company was sent to New Caledonia with Robin Force. No. 4 Independent Company would move to the Northern Territory in March 1942.15 As early as mid-1941 No. 1 Independent Company had been sent to Kavieng, northern New Ireland, to protect and defend the RAAF aerodrome there. If the Japanese invaded the island the company was to resist long enough to damage the airfield, destroy any military installations and make arrangements for coast-watching, withdrawing if confronted by a superior force.16 Small detachments were scattered from the New Hebrides to the Admiralties to act as observers, with men also sent to Namatanai in central New Ireland, Vila in the New Hebrides, Tulagi on Guadalcanal, Buka Passage on Bougainville and Lorengau on Manus Island. Major Edmonds-Wilson was under no illusions: his company’s role was not to defend to the death against a Japanese invasion but to resist, 33

Acting Lance Corporal Ernest Ghiggioli of No. 1 Independent Company was a station hand from Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. He was just 23 years old when he died. P06955.002

destroy and, if necessary, withdraw to bases from which they could wage a guerrilla war against the Japanese.17 Japanese carrier-borne aircraft attacked Kavieng just before 7.20 am on 21 January 1942, bombing and strafing the aerodrome. The Australians returned fire, hitting several aircraft, but the schooner Induna Star, which was the company’s only means of re-supply and escape, was also damaged. Edmonds-Wilson started to withdraw his company overland across the island. Air attacks continued the next day and the Japanese made an amphibious landing in the early hours of 23 January. Hopelessly outnumbered, the small party of Australians who had remained behind blew up the supply dump and facilities at the aerodrome before withdrawing into the jungle. Over several days the company regrouped at Kaut Harbour, about 20 kilometres from Kavieng down on the west coast. The company’s supplies were limited, and EdmondsWilson was also concerned about his men’s health. He realised that their only chance was to escape before the Japanese discovered the Induna Star, and so, on 30 January, he evacuated his men aboard the ship with the intention of reaching New Britain. At least two of his officers disagreed with the decision to leave the island but the major had his way. They sailed that evening. When Edmonds-Wilson learnt that Rabaul had already fallen to 34

the Japanese he made for Port Moresby. On 2 February, however, the Induna Star was spotted by a Japanese aircraft which attacked it with bombs and machine-guns, destroying the lifeboat and inflicting casualties. Any further resistance was useless. All hands manned the pumps below deck and the damaged and leaking Induna Star was escorted by Japanese aircraft before being towed by a Japanese destroyer to Rabaul.18 Now prisoners of war, the members of No. 1 Independent Company joined the survivors of the 2/22nd Battalion and the other members of Lark Force at Rabaul. A few months later the Australian officers were separated from their men and NCOs and were subsequently sent to Japan, where they remained in captivity for the rest of the war. Their men, however, suffered a terrible fate. In late June the 845 Australian soldiers and more than 200 civilian internees boarded the Japanese merchant ship Montevideo Maru, destined for the prison camps of Hainan Island, China. On 1 July the vessel was torpedoed by an American submarine, the USS Sturgeon, off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines. None of the more than 1050 Australian prisoners and internees onboard the Montevideo Maru survived the sinking; among the dead were 133 soldiers of No. 1 Independent Company. The company’s sections that remained on the Vila, Tulagi and Buka islands, and at Lorengau on Manus

Island, either escaped or were evacuated. With the rest of their company virtually wiped out, these survivors and their reinforcements in Australia were transferred to the other units. No. 1 Independent Company was disbanded. The families of the dead from the Montevideo Maru did not discover their loved ones’ fates until after the end of the war. The loss of Australian lives in the sinking of the Montevideo Maru remains Australia’s worst maritime disaster.

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When the Japanese merchant ship Montevideo Maru was sunk by the submarine USS Sturgeon on 1 July 1942, more than 1,050 Australian prisoners and civilian internees died. 303640

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In all, 133 of Australia’s first ‘commandos’ died on the Montevideo Maru on 1 July 1942. These included West Australian Private John Day, who joined No. 1 Independent Company on its formation. The 26-yearold’s death was not officially confirmed to his parents, Henry and Isabella Day, until October 1945. The couple also lost their older son, Corporal Henry Day, who died in Egypt on 2 December 1942 from wounds suffered in the battle of El Alamein. (‘Deaths on service’, The West Australian, 23 October 1945.) P08570.002

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Private Harvey Petersen, a farmer from Harvey Creek, Queensland, had already served in the pre-war Militia when he enlisted in July 1940. He was originally posted to the 2/26th Battalion in Bathurst, but the following year he joined No. 1 Independent Company. For many years his family placed in memoriam notices in the newspaper on the anniversary of his death. Their words can only hint at the grief felt for the loss of their son and brother: ‘Not just to-day, but every day, in silence we remember.’ (‘Roll of honour’, Cairns Post, 1 July 1954.) P06314.001

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Born in Tenterfield, Lance Corporal Kevin Geyer worked as a clerk before enlisting in the AIF in July 1940 in Casino, New South Wales. A beloved son, brother and uncle, he was 24 years old when he died aboard the Montevideo Maru. (‘Roll of honour’, The Courier Mail, 2 July 1946.) P09511.001

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This Australian Whittingslowe Fighting Knife was issued to Lieutenant Richard ‘Dick’ Littlejohn, a reinforcement officer for No. 1 Independent Company later assigned to the 2/5th Independent Company. These knives were similar to the British Fairbairn–Sykes double-edged fighting knife, an icon of elite special forces units of the Second World War. Despite the dagger’s fame, one soldier later complained that the Fairbairn–Sykes knife could not even efficiently open a tin of bully beef. (TWF Mitchell, unpublished manuscript, p. 9, AWM: PR87/134 2.) REL/05987

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Ivor Hele, Captain WD Watson, 1944. Not all of No. 1 Independent Company was lost. Tasmanianborn W Derek ‘Watto’ Watson served in the pre-war Militia and enlisted in the AIF in mid1940. He was with the platoon sent to Vila Island in the New Hebrides, where the Australians raised and trained a small defence force of Europeans and New Hebrideans. They were withdrawn in April 1942 and Watson was transferred to the 2/6th Independent Company, commanding a platoon during the seizure of Kaiapit in September 1943. During the action he was hit on the hip by grenade shrapnel, though the metal struck his wallet and was deflected. A bullet later hit his rifle sling, tearing it away, but again he was unwounded. Watson’s aim was better. He killed five Japanese with his rifle during the assault. He later served on Bougainville as second-in-command of the 2/8th Commando Squadron. (Phillip Bradley, On Shaggy Ridge: the Australian Seventh Division in the Ramu Valley campaign: from Kaiapit to the Finisterre Ranges, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2004, p. 33.) ART25754

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An image illustrative of the fate suffered by No. 1 Independent Company. This empty chest for one of the company’s Bren light machine-guns was found in a Japanese camp at Kavieng, New Ireland, on 20 October 1945. 098449

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Timor and Wau

‘Force intact. Still fighting. Badly need boots money quinine tommy gun ammunition.’ Corporal John Sargeant, Sparrow Force, message transmitted upon finally contacting Australia, 20 April 1942

Charles Bush, Ambush at Numamogue, Timor, 1946. ART26652

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Headquarters’ signallers keep in contact with platoons in the Timorese mountains, December 1942. 013773

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The leaders of Sparrow Force and No. 2 Independent Company. From left: Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Spence (who commanded first the company and then Sparrow Force); Lieutenant Eric Smyth; Major Bernard Callinan (commanding the company); and Captain George Boyland. Spence was recalled to Australia in November 1942, and Callinan assumed command of the newly re-named Lancer Force. 013762

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In April 1942 Sparrow Force had been cut off from Australia for nearly two months, and many of its men had already been captured in neighbouring Dutch Timor. Attempts on the two previous nights to communicate with Darwin via Morse code had failed. If signaller Corporal John Sargeant could not contact Australia then the remnants of Sparrow Force – including No. 2 Independent Company – would almost certainly face eventual death or captivity as prisoners of the Japanese. Only a few months earlier, the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Prime Minister John Curtin foresaw that the forthcoming war in the Pacific would be ‘the gravest hour in our history’.1 ‘This’, he warned the men and women of Australia, would be ‘our darkest hour’. These words proved prophetic: in the coming months the Japanese occupied Australian territory, the Australian mainland was attacked repeatedly and many people feared an invasion. The year 1942 began with the fall of Rabaul in January and Singapore in February. Four days after Singapore fell Darwin was bombed for the first time. By March the Japanese were on the verge of total victory in the Philippines, and had taken most of the Netherlands East Indies, including overwhelming the small Australian forces in Ambon, Dutch Timor, and in Java. More than 22 000 Australians, including the 8th Division, became prisoners of the Japanese; some 8000 would die in

captivity. In New Guinea the Japanese occupied Lae, Salamaua and Madang. Rabaul, meanwhile, was built up into the main Japanese base in the South Pacific, directing the Japanese offensives in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. In mid-March Australian morale received a muchneeded boost when the American General Douglas MacArthur arrived, having been recalled from the Philippines. Most of the AIF had been recalled from the Middle East for service against Japan and would soon arrive home. The AIF and Australia’s other forces were assigned to MacArthur’s command. His arrival guaranteed America’s support; Australia would not face the Japanese thrust alone. Despite the reverses and losses suffered at the start of the year in the mountains of Portuguese Timor and above Salamaua in New Guinea, the men of the Australian independent companies remained defiant. In stark contrast to the tragedy that befell No. 1 Independent Company in 1942, the skilful campaign waged on Timor by No. 2 Independent Company and Sparrow Force has since been widely lauded. Built around the 8th Division’s 2/40th Battalion with No. 2 Independent Company and supporting units, Sparrow Force was sent to Timor to reinforce the small Dutch garrison there in December 1941. Several days later, after arriving in Koepang in 49

Dutch Timor and despite protests from the territory’s authorities – who optimistically thought the Japanese would observe Portugal’s neutrality – No. 2 Independent Company and some Dutch troops were sent to Dili in Portuguese Timor, the eastern half of the island. The Australian and Dutch force defending Timor was small and under-equipped. Sparrow Force received some reinforcements in January and February 1942 but these were too few and too late. Japanese aircraft had been bombing Timor since January and had destroyed most of the aircraft of the single RAAF squadron defending the island. On 19 February the remaining aircraft were withdrawn to Australia and the Japanese invaded Koepang the next day. Despite fierce resistance, the Australian and Dutch forces were overwhelmed; most of Sparrow Force, or more than 1100 men, surrendered on 23 February. Those who did not surrender made their way through the mountains to join up with No. 2 Independent Company, which withdrew into the mountains overlooking Dili as the Japanese went on to invade Portuguese Timor. Timor’s rugged terrain was ideal for guerrilla warfare but, as Private Marvyn ‘Doc’ Wheatley recalled, after the Japanese invasion the Australians were initially ‘not game to have a crack’ at the Japanese, being ‘too few’ and scattered among different villages. They had to live 50

off the Timorese, said Wheatley, and this close support – even friendship – between the Australians and Timorese was one of the defining characteristics of the campaign. The Timorese provided food, shelter, ponies to carry heavy equipment, and information. The Australians paid for what they could but once their currency was exhausted they issued promissory notes to pay their debts.2 Young Timorese boys assisted the Australians as creados, or helpers, carrying the soldiers’ non-military equipment and acting as guides. It is not too much to say that the Australian guerrillas were able to operate only because of the Timorese. After a series of small encounters, by mid-March the company’s remaining platoons had redeployed across the southern half of Portuguese Timor. Despite being hungry and wasted with malaria, and with their boots becoming mere remnants of leather, surrender was ‘never an option’.3 During April the Japanese pushed further inland and the Australians responded with more intense skirmishes, ambushing Japanese vehicles on mountain roads. On 25 April, five Australians waylaid a truck carrying soldiers near Villa Maria. The Australians claimed 12 Japanese killed, eight of whom were credited to Private Wheatley. A pre-war kangaroo shooter, the Western Australian was one of seven brothers who served in the forces. Wheatley was a fierce marksman who was

Charles Bush, Evacuation of wounded from Rai Mean, 1946. ART26222

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John Papworth, Grounding of HMAS Voyager, 1944.

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Private F John ‘Curly’ Papworth and the 2/4th Independent Company were sent to reinforce Sparrow Force onboard HMAS Voyager. During the night of 23 September the destroyer ran

aground on Timor’s south coast and the company disembarked. Voyager was attacked by Japanese aircraft the next day and despite shooting down a Japanese bomber it

was destroyed by demolition charges. Voyager’s company was subsequently evacuated to Darwin by the corvettes HMAS Kalgoorlie and Warrnambool on 25 September. ART32028

later celebrated in the press for having ‘knocked off’ 47 Japanese on Timor, with 25 certainties. His record was 12 shots for 12 Japanese dead in 15 minutes.4 Five days earlier Sparrow Force had finally made wireless contact with Darwin. The force had been out of touch with the mainland for 59 days. Resupplied from Australia by air and sea, the company continued to harass the enemy. ‘Ground of itself was not important’, wrote Major Bernard Callinan, the company’s commander. ‘The main object was to kill, and our best method of killing was by sharp harassing actions.’5 Maintaining the supply line to Timor was difficult and dangerous. In September the destroyer HMAS Voyager ran aground at Betano Bay on Timor’s south coast with the reinforcing 2/4th Independent Company. Allied aircraft and ships ran the gauntlet to maintain the vital supply link. On 1 December Japanese aircraft sank HMAS Armidale when the destroyer was carrying 200 Dutch soldiers during an operation to relieve No. 2 Independent Company. The Japanese also strengthened their garrison and used people from Dutch Timor to encourage the Portuguese Timorese to abandon their ties with the Australians, recruiting some Timorese to track down the Australians and their allies. They also conducted brutal reprisals against villagers. When war correspondent

Damien Parer arrived in November 1942 he noted privately that the Japanese had incited the Timorese to ‘revolt’, arming them with ‘rifles and automatic weapons’ with the purpose of killing ‘loyal’ Timorese and driving out the Australians who relied on Timorese assistance. He added that the Japanese had ‘set the country fighting and burning’.6 In November the situation with Sparrow Force (now ‘Lancer Force’) was becoming untenable. The independent companies were withdrawn in December 1942 and January 1943 and several hundred Dutch soldiers and Portuguese civilians were also evacuated. The actions of the Australian independent companies on Timor have been described as a model for the successful conduct of guerrilla war. The Australians inflicted many more casualties than they incurred, and their activities were believed to have contributed to a build-up of Japanese forces on the island in anticipation of a possible Allied effort to retake Timor. But did these achievements warrant the sacrifice, one principally borne by the Timorese? It was certainly in the Allies’ interests to continue resistance, but it must be remembered that the Timorese suffered terribly. Figures vary, but between 40 000 and 70 000 Timorese died during the Japanese occupation. This is a staggering figure when it is considered that the combined populations of Dutch and Portuguese Timor numbered around 900 000.7 53

While the scale of the loss and destruction suffered by the Timorese during the Japanese occupation was likely not well appreciated by many Australians, the support and bravery offered to the men of Sparrow Force was not forgotten. More than 50 years later, in 1999, much of the public sentiment in favour of Australia’s military intervention in East Timor was framed by the acknowledgment of a wartime debt to the Timorese. Speaking in federal parliament, one Australian parliamentarian commented: We owe an extreme debt of gratitude to the people of East Timor. We know how much assistance they were to us during the Second World War, and anything that this country and this parliament can do to help them must be done.8

Meanwhile, the raising and training of units at Wilsons Promontory continued with the formation of the 2/5th– 8th Independent Companies. Things moved quickly: each company moved out to an operational area as soon as it completed its training. The 2/5th Independent Company arrived in Port Moresby in April 1942 and the next month was flown to Wau in New Guinea. The 2/6th Independent Company arrived in early August; it was to have joined the 2/5th on Wau, but the fighting in Papua had become dire. New Guinea was now the only island barrier that remained between the Japanese and Australia. 54

The great island of New Guinea was divided into three: the western half of the island, Dutch New Guinea, was part of the Netherlands East Indies. The eastern half was divided into the former German territory of New Guinea in the north-east and the Australian territory of Papua in the south-east. German New Guinea had been mandated to Australia by the League of Nations after the First World War. Until December 1941 New Guinea and Papua had been military backwaters. Little had been done to prepare for their defence. In mid-1942 all eyes were on Port Moresby, Papua’s capital. The Japanese seemed unstoppable. Advancing across south-east Asia, they thrust south into the Pacific, capturing Rabaul and occupying areas of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Rather than invading the Australian mainland, as many people feared, the Japanese planned to occupy New Guinea and the South Pacific to isolate Australia from the United States and to prevent the latter from using Australia as a base from which to launch an Allied counter-attack. They intended to take Port Moresby in a seaborne amphibious landing, but their naval defeats in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway Island in May and June ruled this out. Instead, the Japanese army planned to take Port Moresby by land. The plan included occupying Port Moresby and the southern Solomons, smashing any enemy plans for a counter-offensive.

In July 1942 the Japanese landed a force around Buna, on Papua’s north coast, and quickly began pushing across what became known as the ‘Kokoda Trail’ in the formidable mountains of the Owen Stanley Range. The 2/6th Independent Company was placed in reserve for the Australian forces fighting along the Kokoda Trail. To support the overland push across the mountains the Japanese opened a second front in Papua by landing an amphibious force at Milne Bay on Papua’s east coast in late August. That force was defeated in early September and the surviving Japanese were evacuated by sea. The tide had turned against the Japanese in the Owen Stanley Range too, and they were ordered by their high command in late September to withdraw towards their beachheads at Buna, Gona and Sanananda. Australian forces pursued the Japanese along the Kokoda Trail, while American troops moved by land and sea over and around the Owen Stanley Range to Pongari, on the north coast, and linked with the Australians near Buna. On 14 October the 2/6th Independent Company was flown over the cloud-covered mountain range to Wanigela in several American twin-engine Douglas C-47 transport aircraft. The flights proved uneventful, but for Lance Corporal Barrie Dexter, who felt ‘packed in like sardines’ in the potentially overloaded aircraft, the experience was still ‘pretty terrifying’.9 From Wanigela

the company subsequently patrolled forward from Pongari towards Buna, leading the way for an American battalion. In the bitter fighting at Buna the company was heavily committed to actions fought around the airstrip named ‘New Strip’. By 8 December exhaustion, medical evacuations and battle casualties had reduced the company’s strength to just eight officers and 50 soldiers,10 and they were pulled back from Buna two days later. The bloody beachhead battles continued until January 1943, when the last of the Japanese in Papua were eliminated. A diarist of few words, Private Percy Cunnington conveyed a sense of the nightmarish conditions endured by the 2/6th Independent Company on the Buna front: I have left out the choice parts where blood and guts was everywhere and a horrible stench arising … There were buckets of blood and if anything stinks worse than a very dead pig it is a human body. Try digging a 20-day dead Jap out of a creek for burial and have him fall in pieces in your hands.11

Cunnington later participated in the seizure of Kaiapit in New Guinea in 1943, but was seriously injured in a vehicle accident in late 1944. He died from his wartime injuries in April 1950, aged 27. During the crisis months of 1942 the New Guinea theatre was secondary to Papua. At Wau the 2/5th Independent Company was part of a small force that 55

Ivor Hele, Major NI Winning, 1944. On the night of 29/30 June 1942 Captain Norman Winning led a daring raid on Salamaua. Setting out from Mubo, men from the 2/5th Independent Company and the NGVR conducted a raid on the Japanese at the small coastal settlements at Kela, Kela Point and the Salamaua airfield. Several buildings and three trucks were destroyed, as well as a bridge. An estimated 100 Japanese were killed for just three Australians wounded. Winning was a tough and popular officer. Known as the ‘Red Steer’, the Scotsman later commanded the 2/8th Commando Squadron on Bougainville. Twice Mentioned in Despatches, he was later made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. After the war Winning returned to Java to manage an estate in the Netherlands East Indies but was murdered by terrorists in December 1950. (‘Terrorists kill the “Red Steer”’, The Argus, 5 December 1950.) ART25753

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kept watch against another possible Japanese overland approach on Port Moresby. It was flown there in May, and joined about 100 men (many of whom were ill) from the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles (NGVR), a local Militia unit, to form Kanga Force under the command of Major Norman Fleay. Having enlisted in 1939, this 24-year-old veteran of the AIF’s earlier campaigns in Libya, Greece and Crete – where he was wounded – rose from private to lieutenant colonel in less than three years. Wau was the hub that connected Lae and Salamaua with the Lakekamu River and Port Moresby. The mouth of the Lakekamu River was 240 kilometres north-west of Port Moresby, while the settlement of Bulldog was a fourday journey upriver by canoe. It was a week-long hike by foot from Bulldog to Kudjeru and another two days from Kudjeru, via Kaisenik, to Wau. From Kaisenik the steep, narrow and muddy Buisaval Track ran north-east up through Guadagassi to the village of Mubo. Beyond, the track went on to Komiatum village and across ridges before eventually rolling downhill to the Francisco River and Salamaua. The Black Cat Track was a little-used alternative route from Wau that intersected the Buisaval Track near Mubo. Travelling north along the Bulolo Valley, a vehicle road connected Wau with Bulolo and continued on to Bulwa. Beyond Bulwa tracks ran to Lae; one followed the Snake River for some distance, while

the other ran to the Wampit River, meeting the Markham River and turning east to Nadzab. From here it was 40 kilometres or so to Lae by road. Major Fleay deployed his men thinly and widely. The main body of the 2/5th Independent Company was based in the Bulolo Valley, with troops heading to Mubo and forward patrols sent out from Komiatum. Soldiers were also sent well north towards the Markham Valley. Fleay believed that the best means of defending the district was to raid, harass and observe the Japanese at Lae and Salamaua. To this end, during the night of 29/30 June a successful raid led by the 2/5th Independent Company’s Captain Norman Winning was launched at Salamaua. A subsequent raid against the Japanese at Heath’s Plantation in the Markham Valley on 30 June–1 July was less successful; Major T Paul Kneen was shot and killed. The raiders were able to withdraw, but the body of the 28-year-old British-born commander of the 2/5th Independent Company was never recovered. He has no known grave. Once the Japanese landed at Buna in July, however, Kanga Force’s activities became secondary to the more urgent fighting on the Kokoda Trail and at Milne Bay. Supplies and support for Kanga Force were therefore limited, tobacco was even scarcer, and the men became increasingly affected by sickness and fatigue. As one of 57

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An aerial photograph of the Guadagasal–Mubo area looking north-east towards Salamaua, New Guinea. 101114

the company’s NCOs remembered, they lived on tinned meat, bread baked from spoiled flour and tea leaves that smelt and had mildew.12 Operations were restricted to patrolling and observing the Japanese. Attracting and retaining carriers from the villages was also difficult. As one officer from the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) noted: The natives [from Mubo] have vacated the villages and built scattered houses in the bush. They are suspicious of the army … With these people the main fear is that they will be involved in any action by our forces against the Japs, or that the Jap will destroy their villages and machine-gun them from the air if they associate too much with our forces. They are not against us, but do not want to be mixed up in our brawls.13

Observations such as this can only begin to suggest the effects that the war had on the New Guineans, and could easily apply to the Timorese and Solomon Islanders as well. Their lands were occupied by soldiers, their gardens plundered, their homes bombed, while villagers were sometimes dispossessed and the men were often pressed into service for the Australians or Japanese. Yet the Australians also noted how some New Guineans, in addition to working on the carrier lines and building

huts, accompanied Winning’s raid on Salamaua, exposing themselves to the same dangers as soldiers. Others went on long raid patrols or took great risks in passing on information about the Japanese. Having strengthened Salamaua, at the end of August the Japanese moved inland towards Mubo. Concerned that the Japanese were preparing a twofold attack against the Bulolo Valley and Mubo, and having been told that reinforcements would not be forthcoming and to ‘do the best you can’, Fleay controversially ordered a ‘burnt earth’ policy on 30 August as the Australians withdrew towards the Bulldog Track. Mubo and the Bulolo Valley were abandoned and camp buildings at Wau were set alight. Equipment, stores and ammunition that could not be carried were destroyed. Bonfires blazed during the night to the sound of explosions and demolition charges blown on bridges, roads and the Wau aerodrome. One soldier afterwards described the withdrawal: Orders were for a general withdrawal as far as possible as fast as possible. The ‘Bulldog stakes’ were on with a vengeance. We had the ‘let’s get to hell out of here’ complex, and the general impression of disorder, almost panic, was very catching.14

The abandonment of the Bulolo Valley and Wau proved brief, but Fleay has been severely criticised for abandoning the area and causing panic, and for 59

The view towards Japaneseoccupied Salamaua, 28 August 1942. 013151

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the destruction of stores, equipment and documents – including the 2/5th Independent Company’s original war diary.15 Although he acted on the best information available, the benefit of hindsight makes it clear that Fleay was overwhelmed by events and had neither the training nor the experience to best cope with the situation. In October 1942 Fleay participated in an unsuccessful raid led by Captain Winning against the Japanese at Mubo. Just over a week later Kanga Force was reinforced with the arrival by air of the 2/7th Independent Company. By the end of 1942 the war had now turned in favour of the Allies, but the Japanese in New Guinea were far from defeated.

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This rare photograph from the ‘Bulldog stakes’ was taken as Kanga Force withdrew from the Bulolo Valley. The soldiers wearing packs were passing though the village of Winima, while those on the verandah formed part of the rear-guard. 127582

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‘Winnie the war-winner’ RELAWM20434

Winnie the war-winner In the night air of a Timorese mountain hideout, a group of bearded Australians watched anxiously as Corporal John ‘Jack’ Sargeant began tapping out a signal in Morse code. Two months earlier, on 20 February 1942, the Japanese had invaded Dutch Timor, and most of the island’s Australian and Dutch defenders were overwhelmed and captured. In Portuguese Timor No. 2 Independent Company had fallen back into the mountains overlooking Dili. Some Australians and a few Dutch troops who had escaped from Dutch Timor on foot reached them in early March. Among the new arrivals was Captain George Parker, Jack Sargeant and signaller Lance Corporal John Donovan. They began working with the independent company’s Signalmen Max ‘Joe’ Loveless and Keith Richards to build a radio capable of communicating with Darwin. Loveless had been a radio technician in Hobart before the war and his knowledge marked him out as the team’s ‘No. 1 man’.16

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Shortly after work began, an exhausted Dutch sergeant arrived with a broken receiver set he had carried for more than 60 kilometres across the rugged country. Loveless used components from this set, another discarded set and a transmitter set seized in an earlier raid as the basis for his radio. Their tools were primitive and virtually everything had to be done by guesswork, even poring over a Portuguese radio manual to determine the colour codes of resistors and condensers. Coils were wound round lengths of bamboo.17 To charge the batteries for the set a generator was taken from an abandoned car. This was rigged to a series of wooden wheels and then to a master wheel with wooden handles that had to be cranked by hand. Local Timorese did the cranking. Loveless completed a transmitter in late March but it failed to work. Australian patrols, meanwhile, continued sourcing potentially useful components. A battery charger previously buried by the Australians was recovered in a

Signalman Keith Richards, Corporal John Donovan and Sergeant John ‘Jack’ Sargeant with ‘Winnie the war-winner’, November 1942. They, along with Signalman Max ‘Joe’ Loveless, built the makeshift wireless set out of spare parts and scrap while hiding in the mountains of Timor. 013764

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‘Winnie the war-winner’ RELAWM20434

daring night raid under the nose of Japanese sentries. Loveless began working on a second transmitter, twice as big as the first, built into a four-gallon kerosene tin. It was his ‘masterpiece’.18 When they tested it the signallers could hear Darwin on the receiver, but the transmitter failed. Unrelenting, Loveless decided to hook his powerful transmitter to a weak existing set that had a range of only 48 kilometres. To do this he needed more batteries, and these were recovered by patrols. Then the petrol for the battery charger began to run out; a raid was conducted into Japanese-occupied Dili to steal tins of kerosene and diesel oil, and these kept the battery charger running. Unsuccessful transmission attempts were made during the second and third weeks of April. Finally, on 19 April 1942, Darwin acknowledged.19 The signallers celebrated by smoking a tin of tobacco they had been saving for weeks, and christened their set ‘Winnie the war-winner’, after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. They tried again the following day. Parker, Loveless, Richards, and Donovan clustered around Sargeant, who tapped out his signal in Morse code. Darwin acknowledged, but demanded proof of their identity. By chance, an officer in Darwin remembered meeting a signaller who had been sent to Timor; he also remembered the name of the signaller’s wife and their

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home address. Amazingly, that signaller turned out to be Sargeant. Questions and answers in Morse went back and forth between the Northern Territory and Timor: ‘Do you know Jack Sargeant?’ ‘Yes, he’s with us.’ ‘What rank, and answer immediately?’ ‘Corporal.’ ‘Is he there? Bring him to the transmitter. What’s your wife’s name, Jack?’ ‘Kathleen.’ Once Darwin was satisfied, Sargeant signalled: ‘Force intact. Still fighting. Badly need boots money quinine tommy gun ammunition.’ This was the first news anyone in Australia had received from Sparrow Force since the Japanese had landed on Timor 59 days earlier.

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Australian ‘guerrillas’ pose for war correspondent Damien Parer. Major Bernard Callinan was unhappy with the arrival of war correspondents in November, objecting to Timor becoming a ‘fun place for journalists’. Parer, who was among them, said he wanted to see the action. Callinan replied: ‘We can’t turn it on when we want to … We might sit and watch for a week.’ Parer persuaded the Australians to instead re-enact events for the camera. (McDonald and Brune, 200 shots, p. 171.) 013826

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BELOW

OPPOSITE

An Australian and his creado, 9 December 1942. One soldier later remarked, ‘they were so good, the creados, they risked their lives all the time for us, it shamed you really’.

Some of Sparrow Force’s signals personnel, presumably posing with their creados. From left: Sergeant Ronald Sprigg; unidentified; Warrant Officer Class II John O’Brien; Sergeant William Tomasetti; and Signalman Donald Murray.

(Corporal John ‘Paddy’ Kenneally in Michele Turner, Telling: East Timor, personal testimonies 1942– 1992, UNSW Press, 1992, p. 17.) 013792

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P11123.017

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A group of Timorese construct a bamboo hut for the Australians, November 1942. 013763

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A still from Parer’s film The men of Timor shows the burning of Mindello, a ‘pro-Japanese’ Timorese village. The fire was started specifically for the film. (Neil McDonald, Kokoda front line, Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2012, p. 254.) 127991

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Following the Australians’ withdrawal, propaganda leaflets such as this (‘Your friends do not forget you’) were dropped by Allied aircraft on Timor. Such leaflets were intended to assure the Timorese people that the Australians would return to liberate the island from the Japanese. FELO leaflet PG9 75

A panorama of Port Moresby, Papua, August 1942. 034032

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Members of the 2/5th Independent Company’s C Platoon aboard the American Douglas twin-engine C-47 aircraft ‘Flaming Mamey’, flying from Port Moresby to Wau on 23 May 1942. Six aircraft moved the 250 men of the company in a single day, with each C-47 making three trips. One officer later recalled how ‘none of us will ever forget the experience of being tossed about the sky sliding sidewards, backwards and forwards inside the narrow aluminum fuselage’ as the aircraft banked and dipped over the mountains. Within a few months of moving to New Guinea roughly a third of the company was disabled with illnesses such as malaria, or were otherwise hospitalised. (Mick Sheehan narration, Black faces where black diamonds used to be, AWM: PAFU0145; Report on the 2/5th Australian Independent Company, p. 4, AWM: AWM52 25/3/5/1.) 099998

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BELOW

OPPOSITE

An aerial view of the aerodrome at Wau, New Guinea. 014368

Soldiers of the 2/5th Independent Company prepare to leave camp to carry out a raid, Mubo, 21 July 1942. 127957

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Pre-war kangaroo hunter Private Henry ‘Harry’ Lake, around Mudo on 28 August 1942. An original member of the 2/5th Independent Company, at 41 this ‘tough and wiry’ sniper was also one of the oldest men in the company. (AA Pirie, Commando double black: an historical narrative of the 2/5th Australian Independent Company, later the 2/5th Cavalry Commando Squadron, 1942–1945, 2/5th Commando Trust, Sydney, 1993, p. 128.) 013155

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By 1942 the 2/6th Independent Company’s Major Harry Harcourt DSO & Bar OBE MC was an old war horse. A highly decorated Great War veteran in the British army, he was wounded in northern Russia in 1919 and later served in India. He was also a champion lightweight boxer. In 1929 he immigrated to Tasmania. Despite being in his mid-40s, Harcourt commanded the 2/6th from its formation and led it during its first campaign in Papua. During the fighting at Buna in November he

repeatedly visited forward positions with little regard for his own safety. For his ‘courage and determination’ he was awarded the United States’ Silver Star (far right). A humble man, Harcourt once requested his postnominals not be used, asserting: ‘The men made it possible for me to win these awards.’ (Awards of Silver Stars, AWM: AWM119 US4; Arthur Bottrell, Cameos of commandos: stories of Australian commandos in New Guinea and Australia, AEE Botrell, Daw Park, South Australia, 1971, p. 17.) RELAWM32895.001-013

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LEFT

ABOVE

Illustrative of the tenuous supply line between Port Moresby and Wau, crated supplies for the 2/5th Independent Company are paddled upstream. Supplies for Kanga Force were shipped by lugger from Port Moresby some 240 kilometres north-west of the mouth of the Lakekamu River. They were then shipped by canoe some 80 kilometres upriver to Bulldog. 013003

Supplies were carried by New Guineans along the nearly 60 kilometres of broken ridges, mountain crests and slopes from Bulldog to Kudjeru. The journey could take a week by foot, and it was a further two-day hike from Kudjeru, via Kaisenik, to Wau. 127956

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BELOW

Despite the prohibition on private cameras, Lieutenant Michael ‘Mick’ Sheehan kept this Cine-Kodak 16-millimetre movie camera during his time in northern Australia, New Guinea and Borneo. His amateur film (F03422) shows the 2/5th and 2/7th Independent Companies in Mudo in 1943 and the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment on Borneo in 1945. This unique visual record of a ‘typical’ soldier’s wartime experience is even more remarkable for its inclusion of several minutes of colour footage. The son of a Great War veteran, Sheehan joined the 2/5th Independent Company in New Guinea. It was ‘a pretty dirty sort of war’, he later commented: ‘when it came to the Japanese, there was no holds barred, on either side. It was a primitive, primeval struggle.’ (Interview with Mick Sheehan, 2/5th Independent Company, 3 July 1990, AWM: S00985.) REL25233.001

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ABOVE

A still from Lieutenant Michael ‘Mick’ Sheehan’s film (F03422) showing smartly presented men of the Royal Papuan Constabulary – often referred to as ‘police boys’ – visiting Buibaining on the Black Cat Track. F03422

This still from Sheehan’s film shows some of the forward scouts at Buibaining. From left: Privates Walter Sabien and Donald Suter, and Lieutenant Sheehan. F03422

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New Guinea

‘The Nips were on the run, alright, but it was not the case of headlong flight. As always they were prepared to die and contest grimly at every clear space of track where they had a field of fire.’ Private John Tozer, 2/6th Independent Company, on the capture of Kaiapit, New Guinea, 19–20 September 1943

Australians march through the foothills of the Finisterre Ranges – whose name means ‘the ends of the earth’ – on their way to the Ramu Valley, New Guinea, 9 November 1943. 060483

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A dead Japanese soldier, one of the many killed in the fierce action at Kaiapit, September 1943. 015892

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Ivor Hele, Commando officer [Lieutenant Sidney Read], 1943. ART22492

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Twenty-one-year-old John Tozer was the son of a decorated First World War veteran, and had already served in the Middle East when he volunteered for the 2/6th Independent Company. When his company charged the villages of Kaiapit on 19 September 1943 Tozer survived a hail of Japanese bullets, but the next day he was shot in the chest by a Japanese rifleman only ten metres away. Knocked off his feet, the young Western Australian recalled feeling as if a sledgehammer had belted him. When he regained his composure he was surprised to still be alive. The bullet had struck his identity disk, forcing it into his breastbone as the projectile ricocheted across his chest, leaving a nasty if superficial burn. Another Australian lay next to him, shot through the neck and killed almost immediately.1 Tozer’s and the 2/6th Independent Company’s actions at Kaiapit were fought as part of a vast Allied offensive in New Guinea. During 1943 and early 1944 American and Australian forces conducted a major counter-attack against the Japanese. This offensive consisted of a series of amphibious, airborne and air-landed operations across New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The aim was to isolate and contain the Japanese in Rabaul. The offensive in New Guinea was the largest ever conducted by Australian forces, employing the equivalent of five divisions (from both the AIF and the Militia), a great part

of the RAAF and much of the RAN. Having defended Wau, the Australians harassed Salamaua, captured Lae and eventually cleared the Markham–Ramu Valleys and the Huon Peninsula. All seven of the active independent companies were eventually employed in New Guinea. They had served increasingly either alongside or on the flanks of the infantry, but in 1943 the role of these companies evolved from raiding and guerrilla warfare to reconnaissance patrolling. They were deployed for months on end, living in the jungle and rugged mountains in near-primitive conditions with little rest or relief. One sergeant wrote, pragmatically: ‘[The] Jap is there and if we wish to defeat him it is there that we shall have to fight him.’2 Kanga Force began 1943 with an attack on Mubo over 11–14 January. It was the force’s largest and most ambitious operation to date, employing more than 300 soldiers from the 2/5th and 2/7th Independent Companies, with 400 carriers. Their objective was to destroy as many of the Japanese as possible and, if routed, to take and hold Mubo. Assaulting from different approaches, the two attacking Australian flanks were unable to contact each other. The 2/5th Independent Company’s route was particularly difficult, and it took three and a half hours to carry the 3-inch mortar and Vickers machine-gun into position. The attackers could 93

Members of the 2/3rd Independent Company fire a Vickers medium machinegun on the Komiatum Track. Lieutenant Hubert ‘Hugh’ Egan (left) was killed a few days later on 21 July 1943. 127970

not take Mubo, but Kanga Force still considered the operation successful and reported 116 Japanese killed for only light Australian casualties. On 14 January the first units from the 17th Brigade arrived at Wau by aircraft and three days later command of Kanga Force moved to the infantry brigade’s commander. Kanga Force’s ‘guerrilla days’ were over.3 The 17th Brigade’s reinforcement occurred just in time. In late January the Japanese made a strong push to capture Wau, an attack that proved to be the final major Japanese offensive in New Guinea. In desperate fighting on 30 January the Japanese came within 400 metres of Wau’s airfield. Continually reinforced, including by the 2/3rd Independent Company, the Australians drove the Japanese back. By the end of February the Japanese had retreated to Mubo, having suffered heavy losses. Rather than launching an all-out offensive, Kanga Force’s commander saw his task as gaining control of the Mubo area with ‘offensive patrolling’ to threaten the approaches to Salamaua.4 During March and into April the Australian infantry and independent companies dominated the area, with the 2/7th helping to put pressure on Mubo, the 2/3rd patrolling from Missim in the mountains overlooking Salamaua and the 2/5th patrolling the Markham Valley to the north. The Australians inflicted many more casualties than they sustained. The 2/7th Independent Company, 94

for instance, claimed up to 360 Japanese killed between January and May 1943 for 41 Australian casualties.5 The Australians’ training, the environment and the Japanese reputation for brutality combined to harden the former’s attitudes towards the enemy. An officer from another company recalled: ‘Killing is quite an impersonal matter. It’s like scoring a goal in football, or taking a wicket in cricket. It puts you temporarily in front.’6 Combined with this aggressive patrolling were reconnaissance patrols. Major Thomas MacAdie, commanding the 2/7th Independent Company, placed a great emphasis on intelligence-gathering. In country where maps were insufficient or inadequate – as with most of New Guinea – some of the most valuable information gathered on the terrain came from reconnaissance reports, observation post reports, track reports and sketch maps. Small patrols worked best, as they could more easily move unobserved through the jungle. Groups containing two New Guineans acting as guides and carriers and two Australians to observe and take notes produced the most useful reports. One soldier would be armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun while the other carried the binoculars, maps and notebook, and was armed with a pistol and grenades. Over time, the months of relentless patrolling, unyielding physical and mental strain and constant

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Ivor Hele, Moving up onto Namling Ridge, 1944. Following his earlier service and work in the Middle East, South Australian Ivor Hele was selected in June 1943 as an official war artist with the honorary rank of captain. Travelling to New Guinea, he joined the 2/3rd Independent Company in action on Bobdubi Ridge, where a bearer was allotted to carry his material and help him through the jungle. Hele enjoyed living and working with the company and accompanied them on patrols. He also spent time with an infantry battalion and became friends with war correspondent Damien Parer. In August, however, the artist contracted a leg ulcer and was recalled to Australia. Working in his studio at Aldinga, south of Adelaide, Hele completed a series of works, including Moving up onto Namling Ridge. He used a palette of dark greens, browns, blues and purples to capture the dank gloom of the jungle, with figures merging into the mud and vegetation. ART22554

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exposure in the rugged countryside combined to erode the men’s health. Most soldiers lost weight, some up to 12 kilograms. Their food was inadequate and lacked vitamins and calories; skin infections were common. At one time the 2/7th Independent Company’s rations consisted solely of biscuits, dried apples, tea and sugar. Even when supplies were plentiful, carrying enough rations for men on long-range patrols was difficult. Diarrhoea was prevalent, partly owing to the poor diet, the limited material available to construct fly-proof latrines and the scarcity of picks and shovels. As well, soldiers occupying temporary positions were reluctant to dig deep-trench latrines. The company lost more men to sickness than to combat casualties: 76 soldiers were evacuated to Port Moresby suffering from various bone and joint injuries, skin disease, malaria and other illnesses and ailments. Two men were also evacuated with ‘neurosis’. By comparison, the unit suffered 51 men killed, wounded and missing. After six months in the front lines the 2/7th was relieved in mid-April and returned to Port Moresby. By this time the men’s stamina had weakened and even the ‘most cool and brave began to show signs of nervous strain’. Roughly 40 per cent were suffering from beriberi (a condition caused by vitamin deficiency) and ‘practically all showed signs of nervous and physical

strain’.7 The 2/5th Independent Company was relieved soon afterwards and shortly returned to Australia after almost 12 months of continuous action. By this time Major General Stanley Savige’s 3rd Division’s headquarters had taken over from Kanga Force. Savige would eventually command two infantry brigades, as well as an American regiment landed by sea at Nassau Bay. For a time during 1943 the slow, grinding war made the mountains around Salamaua – once a backwater – the most important theatre in New Guinea. Salamaua was not, however, the immediate objective of the Australians. Now that they had defended Wau, the intention of the Salamaua campaign was to divert Japanese attention away from Lae, their principal base in New Guinea. Senior Allied commanders planned to take Lae in a giant pincer movement, with one Australian force moving south-east on foot from Nadzab in the Markham Valley and another landing east of Lae in a large amphibious operation. Salamaua was to be a ‘magnet’, drawing in Japanese reinforcements from Lae.8 Unbeknown to the Australian soldiers doing the fighting on the ground, however, the high command did not want Salamaua to be taken until the Allied operations against Lae had begun. The 2/3rd Independent Company was revelling in its more overtly aggressive role. Patrolling from Missim and then Bobdubi Ridge, the company harassed Japanese 97

Ivor Hele, Battlefield burial of three NCOs, 1944.

Three Australians were killed taking Timbered Knoll: Lance Sergeant Andrew ‘Bonny’ Muir and Corporals Donald ‘Buck’ Buckingham and Percival ‘Hooksie’ Hooks. They were buried that evening in the rain before dusk fell. Hele sketched

communications by raiding carrier lines and ambushing enemy reinforcements. In the words of the fearsome Major George Warfe, his company prowled the jungle ‘like hungry tigers’. Warfe, Savige later commented, ‘was itchy for a stoush’.9 In addition to the familiar pattern of patrolling, setting ambushes and gathering intelligence, the 2/3rd made a number of direct assaults on Japanese positions. Its most notable action occurred in May, when a strengthened platoon captured Ambush Knoll, a feature that controlled Bobdubi Ridge and threatened the Japanese supply lines to Mubo and Salamaua. The Japanese counter-attacked fiercely, but for three days and four nights the 52 Australians on the knoll held on. In May, sitting on the floor of an old hut being used as a headquarters, one of Warfe’s officers, Captain Robert ‘Bob’ Hancock, wrote home outlining how ‘terribly busy’ he was, getting ‘“fairly amongst” the Japs’ and ‘having the time of his life’: Of course after a while the troops get very weary … In this particular operation there is a lot of nerve strain. For an ambush troops may have to wait for days and nights sitting by a track absolutely still and silent, only pulling back a few hundred yards every now and again to eat and have a careful smoke and little whispered conversation. It gets on the nerves after a while! Of course the Jap’s nerves must be getting a little shaky too!10 98

the bodies of the men lying on the ground as their graves were dug. He called it ‘My most moving event in New Guinea’: ‘I started drawing and it started to drizzle with rain and a couple of the other blokes, digging in madly, stopped and propped up

a couple of sticks and put a sheet over the top of me.’ (Lola Wilkins with Tina Mattei, Ivor Hele: the heroic figure, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1997, p. 35.) ART22560

The stress of combat and the anticipation of action were ever-present, and this strain manifested itself differently in each man. The 2/5th Independent Company’s Lieutenant Sheehan thought patrolling was the worst; moving forward into the unknown and unseen, waiting for someone to open fire. The emotion he remembered most was fear: Your stomach seems to be up in your chest, and your legs are trembling, and you’re short of breath. Other times you appear to be quite elated … and do stupid things.11

When the intensity of the front line relaxed the men were often left alone, with little else but their own thoughts. One officer wrote to a friend in March 1943: I am suffering from reaction today, even tho’ it is over three weeks since I have fired a shot in anger. The oppressive heat, our present inaction and restless nights, gives one too much time to think – of home, of those we know so well and liked so much who copped it.12

In addition to the mental and emotional burden, the environment also eroded the men’s strength. Britishborn Private John ‘Jack’ Arden spent 215 days living in the jungle without shelter or relief. Thin, hungry and always wet, he remembered living a Spartan existence. Virtually all he carried was his ground sheet, a woollen

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pullover and half a towel. He had dumped his ‘tin hat’, extra clothes, soap and toothpaste in favour of carrying extra rations, ammunition and grenades. There was little sleep or rest to be had at night, which was usually wet and cold, and Arden and a mate slept between two ground sheets in a hole in the ground. They slept fully clothed with their boots on, and lay alongside their weapons (Arden’s included a German pistol, which he used to kill a Japanese officer and take his sword). Arden was eventually evacuated with a leg ulcer, and in later life would suffer from skin problems and other ailments as a result of his service.13 By late August 1943 the Australian infantry brigades were in control of Bobdubi Ridge, and had cracked the Japanese defences on Komiatum Ridge. The 5th Division’s headquarters relieved Savige’s headquarters in the third week of August, and on 4 September the 9th Division made an amphibious landing some 20 kilometres east of Lae. The next day American paratroopers and Australian artillerymen made a parachute drop into Nadzab. The 7th Division then flew to Nadzab and the Markham Valley and moved on Lae from the west. The Japanese high command realised that holding Lae and Salamaua would be impossible and its forces began withdrawing across the Huon Peninsula. Salamaua fell on 11 September and Australian troops 100

entered Lae on 16 September. The area subsequently became a major Allied base and staging area. When Salamaua fell to the Australians the 2/3rd Independent Company’s ‘score’ was more than 900 Japanese killed against 58 Australians killed and 119 wounded. More than 220 men had been medically evacuated, and a meagre flow of reinforcements had kept the company operating. From the original group that had flown into Wau eight months earlier only 34 men remained.14 The 2/3rd Independent Company returned to Australia in October 1943. Across the Huon Gulf, the 2/4th Independent Company was now fighting its second campaign. It had arrived at Milne Bay in early August, coming under the command of the 9th Division’s 26th Brigade, and it served with this division for the rest of the war. In the first Australian amphibious landing since Gallipoli, two brigades from the 9th Division came ashore east of Lae on 4 September. The 2/4th Independent Company was to come ashore in the second wave, but this convoy of six Landing Ships, Tank (LSTs), was attacked at sea by Japanese dive and torpedo bombers. The Japanese scored direct hits on two vessels, and one of these ships, LST-471, suffered 43 soldiers and sailors killed, with another 30 wounded. The 2/4th Independent Company sustained the greatest proportion of these casualties,

with 34 killed or missing and seven wounded. Private James ‘Jim’ Rae was below deck when he felt and heard the blast and ‘monstrous’ detonations, fearing he was going to die. Years later he recalled the devastating scene, littered with broken bodies and torn limbs: ‘It was my first introduction to the horror of war. I wept without shame … part of me has always remained there, with the men who were lost in those few terrible moments.’15 The attack was a calamitous loss for a small unit, but the men carried on and later moved with the 9th Division to Finschhafen to help clear the Huon Peninsula. While the 9th Division advanced along the coast, to the north-west the 7th Division was preparing to move further inland through the Markham Valley and into the Ramu Valley. The 2/6th Independent Company had returned to Papua in August, and in mid-September was flown to a landing ground near the Leron River in New Guinea to support the 7th Division. The company moved off on foot to Sangan. On 19 September, with little prior reconnaissance or patrolling, the 2/6th made a daring attack on the cluster of villages that made up Kaiapit. The company swept through the first village in ten minutes, clearing pits and huts to overwhelm the Japanese defenders: the company’s commander reported that they ‘went in hard and the enemy panicked’.16 Having secured the first village, the 2/6th dug in and that night

repelled several Japanese thrusts. The next morning the Australians captured the remaining villages and the airfield. One soldier recalled that the Japanese ‘were on the run, alright, but it was not the case of headlong flight. As always they were prepared to die and contest grimly at every clear space of track where they had a field of fire.’17 Kaiapit’s seizure opened up the Markham Valley for the Australian advance to the lower reaches of the Ramu Valley. It was one of the most significant actions conducted by independent companies in the war. Meanwhile, a major reorganisation and restructure of independent companies had taken place in Australia. Following the completion of the 2/8th Independent Company’s training at Wilsons Promontory in September 1942, the decision was made not to raise further units but to use the Guerrilla Warfare School for the Independent Company Reinforcement Depot, which was responsible for training and maintaining reinforcements for the existing seven companies. In December Wilsons Promontory was abandoned altogether as a training ground owing to the bleak winter weather and its remoteness from operational areas. The depot moved to Canungra in south-east Queensland, where it became the 1st Australian Commando Training Battalion. During a period of further reorganisation in April 1943 the independent companies came under the headquarters 101

of the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment. Formerly the 2/7th Divisional Cavalry Regiment, the unit, which had earlier served in the Middle East, suffered heavily in the bloody fighting at Sanananda. The regiment lost its tanks and armoured cars and was renamed as the administrative headquarters for the independent companies. It directed training, selected new personnel, and liaised with the training battalion at Canungra. By this time, too, the war establishment for the companies had become 19 officers and 282 other ranks.18 The greatest change occurred later in October, when the independent companies were re-designated ‘cavalry (commando) squadrons’. Privates became troopers and platoons became troops. It was a change bitterly resented by officers and men alike, who felt that two years’ worth of traditions and reputations earnt as independent companies had been erased. Despite the popular use of the word ‘commando’ in the press and elsewhere, the term was not used by the men of the independent companies themselves. Many felt the word ‘commando’ did not reflect the nature or character of the independent companies. William ‘Bill’ Grant, who served as William Macarthur with the 2/5th Independent Company, explained that while British commandos earnt a reputation as an elite force with seaborne raids against the Germans, the independent companies were ‘pretty 102

good jungle fighters’, but to call themselves ‘commandos’ would be ‘trading under false pretences’. The men, he said, ‘resented bitterly this new name which had been hung onto us’.19 Yet, as noted by the official historian David Dexter – himself a seasoned 2/2nd Independent Company officer – there was little they could have done about it. This resentment was perhaps best noted by the 2/6th Independent Company, whose members angrily noted that in Australia: a ‘commando’ has come to mean a blatant, dirty, unshaven, loud-mouthed fellow covered with knives and knuckle-dusters. The fact that the men in this unit bitterly resent the commando part of their unit name speaks highly for their esprit de corps. It is obvious, however, from the attitude of many of the reinforcements received that the blatant glamour of the name is being used to attract personnel into volunteering for these units. Personnel acquired in this manner are always undesirable.20

In January 1944 the 2/6th and 2/9th Divisional Cavalry Regiments, also veterans of the Middle East, were remodelled into cavalry (commando) regiments, and four new squadrons (the 2/9th, 2/10th, 2/11th and 2/12th) were raised. The word ‘cavalry’ was dropped from the squadron titles. Eventually, the 2/7th, 2/9th and the 2/10th Commando Squadrons were brigaded in the 2/6th

‘Confident, aggressive and convincing’ was how one officer described Major David Dexter. By this time a captain, Dexter had just returned from an eightday patrol in the Faita area of the Ramu Valley on 7 January 1944, a day before his 28th birthday. One of five sons of the Great War veteran Chaplain Walter Dexter, David Dexter was an original officer of the 2/2nd Independent Company and had served on Timor in 1942. He had been wounded in action in New Guinea in September 1943 when his patrol ambushed a large group of Japanese deep in enemy-controlled jungle. After the ambush one Australian was listed as missing, but 45 Japanese were killed. In 1945 Dexter was the second-in-command of the 2/2nd Commando Squadron on New Britain before assuming command of the 2/4th Commando Squadron on Tarakan.

Twice Mentioned in Despatches, after the war Dexter became a diplomat in the newly established Department of External Affairs. He was also appointed to write a volume of the Australian official history, titled The New Guinea Offensive (1961). He later became the Australian National University’s Registrar (Property and Plans), and was heavily involved in the development of the campus from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. (Confidential report, LHQ tactical school, David St Alban Dexter service record, National Archives of Australia: B883, VX38890. 2/2nd Independent Company war diary, 29 September 1943, AWM: AWM52 25/3/2/11.) 063287

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Cavalry (Commando) Regiment; the 2/3rd, 2/5th and 2/6th Commando Squadrons remained with the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment; while the 2/4th, 2/11th and 2/12th Commando Squadrons went to the 2/9th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment. By early 1944 most of the AIF units in New Guinea had returned to Australia for rest, refitting and reinforcement on the Atherton Tablelands. Among these were the 2/4th Commando Squadron, coming off its Huon Peninsula campaign, and the 2/7th Commando Squadron, which had, along with the 2/2nd Commando Squadron, formed part of Bena Force as it protected the Bena Bena–Mount Hagen plateau south of the Ramu Valley. These squadrons had subsequently carried out extensive patrols through the Ramu Valley and into the Finisterre Ranges before the 2/7th had been relieved by the 2/6th Commando Squadron, which returned to Australia in April. By mid-1944 only the 2/2nd and the 2/8th Commando Squadrons remained in New Guinea. By the conclusion of the New Guinea offensive the independent companies were being called upon to perform long-range reconnaissance patrols, flank patrolling and maintenance of isolated observation posts. Some senior commanders had learnt through experience how best to employ the independent companies, although these lessons were not applied consistently. Major 104

General George Vasey, for instance, later admitted he had been ‘quite wrong’ in sending the 2/6th Independent Company to take Kaiapit so far out and unsupported.21 Yet, as an astute 2/5th Independent Company sergeant noted, possibly owing to the ‘over-glamorised commando reputation’, the companies were often asked either to do the ‘impossible’ or to fulfil infantry roles in which much of their specialised training was wasted.22 This sergeant’s remarks would still be applicable in 1945, when all 11 commando squadrons saw active service in New Guinea, Bougainville and Borneo.

A panoramic sketch of the Ramu Valley from Captain David Dexter’s patrol diary dated 25–26 July 1943. Sketches were necessary parts of the reconnaissance work carried out by commando squadrons. PR00249, 1

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A group portrait of the 2/7th Independent Company’s A Company, No. 3 Section, somewhere in the Wau area of New Guinea, c. July 1942. P03868.001

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Geoffrey Mainwaring, Cavalry commando with Owen gun (Bruce ‘Slugger’ L’Estrange) [detail], 1944. ART24381

Sergeant Bruce L’Estrange MM Sergeant Bruce ‘Slugger’ L’Estrange was awarded a Military Medal while serving in the 2/7th Independent Company in New Guinea. Born in Condobolin in centralwest New South Wales, L’Estrange joined the Militia in October 1940 when he was 18 years old. In July 1942 he volunteered for the AIF as the 2/7th Independent Company was being formed at Foster. His rationale for joining was simple: he was ‘big and powerful’, and ‘wanted to go into the commandos and fight’. He and his older brother Lance Corporal Ronald L’Estrange served in the company together. On 16 January 1943 Bruce L’Estrange’s platoon was engaged in heavy fighting on the Mubo Track. The platoon commander was hit and L’Estrange ran forward: he lifted his wounded captain and, under fire, carried him more than 500 metres down the main track to receive medical attention. Although his platoon commander later died, L’Estrange’s ‘personal courage and determination’ were thought worthy of recognition.

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During the Aitape–Wewak campaign in New Guinea, the 2/7th Commando Squadron’s commander chose L’Estrange as a portrait subject for official war artist Geoffrey Mainwaring. The sergeant was painted showing, as L’Estrange put it, ‘the way I live and fight with me ammo, my guns and everything’.23 Mainwaring maintained that L’Estrange had ‘dressed exactly as I painted him, red neckerchief and all’. Yet the portrait was criticised by several high-ranking army officers because the subject was not dressed according to regulations. Such disregard was taken as evidence that the subject must have been irresponsible; a poor soldier. Mainwaring rejected this assertion: ‘Slugger’ was one of the heroes of the squadron; he was respected by his men and inspired their confidence.24 When the war ended L’Estrange went to Japan with the occupation forces, and was one of the decorated veterans of the Australian contingent who participated in the victory parade in London in June 1946.

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Geoffrey Mainwaring, Cavalry commando with Owen gun (Bruce ‘Slugger’ L’Estrange), 1944. ART24381

Like so many others, L’Estrange struggled with the return to civilian life. On the voyage to Australia from New Guinea in late 1943 he and his mates felt like ‘lost sheep … No-one cared much about us.’ Riddled with malaria and other tropical diseases, they spent their leave in a ‘little pub’ and drank all day; L’Estrange recalled feeling that he just ‘couldn’t settle down’. His experiences after the war were much the same. ‘You soon get over things physically, but you can’t get over things mentally’, he said. L’Estrange returned to Condobolin and in July 1948 married Beryl Barratt, with his older brother as best man. Bruce and Beryl went on to have four children. Reflecting on the war some 60 years later, he judged that it was a ‘good woman’ believing in him that helped the most, and that she did more than a doctor could have done.25

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Sergeant Bruce L’Estrange’s Colt Model 1911 pistol and holster. The son of a Great War veteran, Bruce L’Estrange obtained this automatic pistol while training. The words ‘Ypres’ and ‘Mubo’ are carved on the pistol’s wooden grips. L’Estrange made the shoulder holster from leather found in an abandoned mine in New Guinea. REL27837.001; REL27837.0012

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Private Leonard Mahon, armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun, immediately prior to the assault on Timbered Knoll. P00928.005

Timbered Knoll, 29 July 1943 At 4 pm on 29 July 1943 Lietuenant John Lewin’s A Platoon from the 2/3rd Independent Company attacked the Japanese-fortified feature of ‘Timbered Knoll’ on the slopes of Bobdubi Ridge. With supporting fire from the company’s mortars, machine-guns and artillery, two sections attacked the knoll from the north and south but became pinned down under heavy fire from Japanese pillboxes and weapon pits. Lewin, however, led Lieutenant Sidney Read’s section along another track down the east side of the knoll before moving up a steep razorback ridge to attack the Japanese. This flank attack broke through to capture the knoll. The company’s assault on Timbered Knoll was typical of any number of small clashes and minor actions fought in the mountains of New Guinea. What makes this particular action unique is that Damien Parer captured moments of the fighting on camera and featured it in his film Assault on Salamaua (1943). Parer’s rare combat footage of the fighting for Timbered Knoll conveys some

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of the tension, confusion and tactics of jungle warfare. The war cameraman also wrote his own notes on ‘the show’ – as he called it: The shots show the show going in. Start firing. It shows Pt Robbins (Robbie) about thirty seconds after he had copped an MG burst about five yards above where we were. He got one in the shoulder and one in the back. An ex ME man [Middle East veteran] – he’s tough. There are a couple of shots of the RAP man starting to dress his wound … Our boys are shown creeping along. Then men bowl grenades underarm into weapon pits a few feet away. Unfortunately we were so close that everyone had to duck when they went off in case the grenades rolled down the slope.26

During the action Lewin’s platoon was surprised to receive cups of tea and buns freshly baked by the unit’s cooks. In between filming Parer would hand around the refreshments and helped carry up ammunition.27

By 5.45 pm the Australians were entrenched on Timbered Knoll and were looking towards Japanese positions nearer Orodubi. The Japanese had been well dug in, with deep trenches, earth and timber pillboxes and underground communications. In close-quarters fighting against prepared defensive positions such as these the company had learnt through experience that the ‘first and vital object’ was to gain and occupy weapon pits within the Japanese main perimeter. After about an hour’s fighting Lewin’s push on the flank of the main Japanese

defences captured several weapon pits in the rear of the enemy’s position. It took another 30 minutes to clear the knoll, during which hand grenades were responsible for ‘most of [the] success’.28 Three Australians were killed and three were wounded. Fifteen Japanese bodies were found on Timbered Knoll along with two machine-guns, two mortars, rifles and documents. Three more Japanese were killed the next day after being found hiding in the entrenchments.

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Corporal Robert ‘Roly’ Good (centre), with the assistance of Private Reginald ‘Reg’ Wood and Sergeant Kenneth ‘Ken’ Maclean, prepares to dress the wounds of Private Herbert ‘Robbie’ Robbins, who was later evacuated on an improvised timber stretcher. Maclean had been a reinforcement for No. 1 Independent Company. 127978

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OPPOSITE

A small party moves forward to outflank the Japanese position on Timbered Knoll, 1943. 127982

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Private Walter ‘Wal’ Dawson (right) warns: ‘That way’s suicide; we’ll have to go round.’ Dawson went on to assault Japanese pillboxes and weapon pits with grenades and his ‘Tommy gun’, inflicting such heavy casualties that the Japanese began to withdraw. Dawson was awarded the Military Medal for his actions during the assault. (McDonald, Kokoda front line, p. 299. The soldier on the right has alternatively been identified as Private Cyril ‘Squib’ Robb, who was later killed in action on 17 August 1943. Darren Robins, Proud to be third: personal recollections, photographs and biographical roll of the 2/3rd Australian Independent Company Commando Squadron in World War Two, self-published, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 2007, p. 357.) 127980

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A Japanese soldier killed where he fought, Timbered Knoll, 1943. 127984

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From left: Major George Warfe, commanding the 2/3rd Independent Company, with Lieutenants Edward Barry (killed 17 August 1943), John Lewin and Sidney ‘Syd’ Read on the summit of Timbered Knoll. Flamboyant and charismatic, Warfe was a skilled and aggressive commander. Damien Parer privately noted rumours of the major’s ruthlessness, including Warfe’s supposed habit of killing wounded Japanese with a navy bayonet. (McDonald, Kokoda front line, p. 290.) 127989

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Ivor Hele, Signaller Peter Pinney, 1943. Hele sketched this portrait of the 2/3rd Independent Company’s Signalman Peter Pinney in July 1943. Pinney was selected as a subject in recognition of his reconnaissance work in the Bobdubi Ridge area. He had served in the artillery in the Middle East before volunteering for the independent companies, and later served on Bougainville with the 2/8th Commando Squadron, where as a corporal he was awarded a Military Medal. After the war he travelled the world and spent 15 years writing and working in various jobs. He was once shipwrecked after losing his schooner – along with his war service medals – in a gale. He became a wellknown travel author, and of his published works the novels The barbarians (1988), The glass cannon (1990) and The Devil’s garden (1992) were based on his wartime diaries. (Drawing done in New Guinea by Captain Ivor Hele, AWM: AWM315 205/002/006 02) ART26053

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In October 1943 the independent companies were renamed ‘cavalry (commando) squadrons’. This decision was extremely unpopular, particularly among longserving members such as Lance Sergeant John Cory, the owner of this pennant, who served with the 2/4th Independent Company’s signals section in Timor, New Guinea and Tarakan. REL36224

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A ‘brilliant action’ With the liberation of Lae in mid-September 1943 the Allies’ objective was the recapture of the Huon Peninsula. The 9th Division was to advance east along the coast to recapture Finschhafen and Sio, while the 7th Division would move inland from Nadzab and up the Markham and Ramu Valleys. The 7th Division’s first task was to capture the airfields near Kaiapit at the mouth of the Markham River and Dumpu in the Ramu Valley. Speed was essential. On 17 September 1943 the 2/6th Independent Company flew from Port Moresby to a hurriedly improvised airfield west of the Leron River, where it linked up with a supporting company from the Papua Infantry Battalion (PIB). The 2/6th moved off to nearby Sangan the next day, while company commander Captain Gordon King remained behind to meet Major General George Vasey, commanding the 7th Division. Vasey ordered King ‘to go to Kaiapit quickly’ and ‘clean up [the] Japs’.29 On the morning of 19 September the 2/6th, along with a section from the PIB, moved towards Kaiapit.

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Located on an open plain, Kaiapit was made up of three villages. A Japanese airstrip was under construction nearby, and high on a plateau above the northern edge of the village sat an old mission. The plateau had a commanding view of the valley, and was dubbed ‘Mission Hill’. Ensuring the element of surprise, the company rushed the first village with little prior reconnaissance. Despite coming under machine-gun fire, the assaulting soldiers swept through using grenades and bayonets to clear Japanese positions; those Japanese who were not killed, fled. The company formed a perimeter and, during the night, fought off several efforts by the Japanese to penetrate the village. At 6.05 am on 20 September the Japanese attacked with machine-guns and mortar fire. A company report later commented that the Japanese had attacked with a ‘hell of a lot of firing’ but ‘very little offensive spirit’. The Japanese were repelled and an Australian platoon commanded

by Captain W Derek Watson launched its own counterattack that seemed to surprise the Japanese, who were not prepared for such an onslaught. Watson’s platoon inflicted many casualties and captured village No. 3. The Australians also captured village No. 2, with a platoon pushing on towards Mission Hill. One of the platoon’s sections took the mission, and thereafter watched the ensuing action, ‘barracking like football spectators in a big game’. By 9 am the company observed that the Japanese were ‘thoroughly demoralised’ and were seen dumping their gear ‘and trying to crawl away’. An hour later the only Japanese left in Kaiapit were dead or dying. Careful planning by the company’s officers and NCOs, the execution of the attack, the element of surprise and the soldiers’ determination and confidence won the battle. It was an impressive victory, with 214 Japanese bodies counted and at least another 50 thought to lie in the surrounding kunai grass. Fourteen Australians were killed or died of wounds during the operation and 23

were wounded, including Captain King, who suffered a leg wound.30 The company captured 19 Japanese machineguns, 150 rifles and 12 swords, as well as ‘knee mortars’, wireless sets and other equipment. Bloodstained packs and equipment lay abandoned everywhere. King modestly described Kaiapit as ‘a most satisfactory’ action. Heavy casualties had been inflicted on the enemy, documents were captured and attempts by the Japanese to reinforce the area had been completely defeated. King believed that their success maintained the men’s morale despite the ‘terrific nerve strain’ of the fighting on 19–20 September and the ‘sleepless nights’ spent in perimeter defence.31 More widely, the capture and completion of Kaiapit’s airfield opened up the Markham Valley for Australian operations much earlier than if the infantry had advanced on foot from Nadzab. Vasey was asked by one senior commander to congratulate the 2/6th Independent Company on its ‘brilliant action’.32

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The victors: men of the 2/6th Independent Company display Japanese flags captured at Kaiapit, 22 September 1943. 057510

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This hand-drawn map shows the 2/6th Independent Company’s attack and occupation of the first of three villages at Kaiapit on 19 September 1943. The next day the unit’s three platoons fought through the two remaining villages and up to Mission Hill. .

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Kaiapit village soon after its capture, 22 September 1943. 057508

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BELOW

These dice belonged to Private Herbert ‘Bert’ Harris. In 1942 he had served with the 2/7th Independent Company with Kanga Force as a sergeant. At the start of September 1943 he was transferred to the 2/6th Independent Company and, at his own request, he reverted to the rank of private. Following the company’s capture of Kaiapit, he went to attend a wounded Japanese soldier. As Harris approached, the enemy soldier detonated a grenade, killing himself and mortally wounding Harris. The 30-yearold father died two days later on 21 September. REL/05208.001

OPPOSITE

Corporal John ‘Butch’ Wilson (right) with carriers and a wounded Japanese prisoner, 22 September 1943. Enlisting aged 22 in 1939, Wilson was Mentioned in Despatches in 1941 while serving with the 2/33rd Battalion in the Middle East. Transferring to the 2/6th Independent Company, Wilson rescued two wounded men under heavy fire during the fighting at Kaiapit on 19 September. The next day his lieutenant was killed leading the section against a machine-gun post on Mission Hill; Wilson took over the section and, with bayonets and grenades, captured the machine-gun and killed 12 Japanese. Wilson was wounded in the hand and was awarded the Military Medal. He was Mentioned in Despatches again in 1944. Adelaide’s Advertiser described him as having ‘one of the most outstanding’ records of any South Australian soldier in the war. (‘Again Mentioned in Despatches’, The Advertiser, 1 May 1944.) 057505

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Unlike most of its kind, this map indicates the burial places of both Australians and Japanese. More than 200 Japanese soldiers were killed in the fighting at Kaiapit, and were mostly buried where they fell. Thirteen Australians were temporarily buried nearby in a small battlefield cemetery (marked ‘Cemetery’). (2/6th Independent Company war diary, September 1943, AWM.) AWM52, 25/3/6/9; RCDIG1023174--68

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Within hours of securing the area, Australian troops and supplies were flown in to Kaiapit, allowing for the further advance into the Markham Valley. 057499

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Private William Whelton cleans his Australian-designed-andmanufactured Owen submachine gun, 27 September 1943. Born in County Cork, Ireland, he had enlisted as ‘Jack Crowley’ before changing his name. Whelton was wounded two months after this photograph was taken, on 26 November, when an Allied aircraft mistakenly attacked the 2/6th Independent Company’s position. 057655 138

From left: The 2/2nd Cavalry (Commando) Squadron’s Trooper Francis Thorpe, Corporal John ‘Jack’ or ‘Chook’ Fowler (rear), and Troopers Jack Prior (front) and Roy ‘Duck’ Watson, 7 October 1943. These men had just returned to Dumpu after a 12-day patrol in the Ramu Valley. 058781

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Lieutenant Edward Byrne from the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Squadron at Bumbum in the Ramu Valley, 20 October 1943. Aged 23, he had fought with the company since Wau. He was Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the Military Cross for his ‘skill and coolness’ in patrolling, his ‘great offensive spirit in the face of heavy casulites’ and for trying to resuce wounded men. Promoted to captain, Byrne was wounded in action during his second campaign in New Guinea on 12 January 1945. 058079

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From left: Corporal Ronald Kellett, Private William Downs and Corporal Edward Leonard from the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Squadron at Bumbum in the Ramu Valley, 20 October 1943. 058081

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‘Out on the prowl for Japs, well forward in the Finisterres, go members of a patrol led by Reg Hutchens, of Croydon (NSW)’ (original caption published in The Mail, 1944). Along with the 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Squadron’s Trooper Roy ‘Reg’ Hutchens (right) were Troopers William ‘Bill’ Jeffery (centre) and Percy ‘Perc’ Boswell. (Photo caption, The Mail, 18 March 1944.) 016671

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Trooper William ‘Bill’ Jeffery captured this Shin-gunto sword and scabbard in combat, killing the Japanese officer to whom it had belonged. REL37385

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Trooper William ‘Bill’ Jeffery carried this Pattern 1907 bayonet, scabbard and frog in New Guinea. During the campaign the 19-year-old Melburnian used this weapon to kill a Japanese officer. REL37383

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After eight months in New Guinea, members of the 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Squadron board an American C-47 aircraft at Dumpu in the Ramu Valley, bound for Australia, 21 March 1944. 071302

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The final campaigns

‘Rain has poured down day and night for a week … sloshing, splashing – hissing through the palms and spraying off high branches … rushing under the huts and swirling across gunpits and flooding the latrines. The air is vaporous with fine mist and everything is damp.’ Corporal Peter Pinney, 2/8th Commando Squadron, Southern Bougainville, July 1945

At Babiang, New Guinea, Trooper Kenneth Lamont of the 2/10th Commando Squadron makes wireless contact with a troop operating in Luain Plantation, some 17 kilometres away, 7 November 1944. 083075

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Sailing for Borneo: the view from the bridge of LST-457, part of the invasion convoy for Balikpapan in late June 1945. 018804

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Trooper William Byrne, 2/8th Commando Squadron, stops for a drink while crossing the Hongorai River, in southern Bougainville, 31 May 1945. (The soldier in this photograph is usually identified as ‘RG Carman’ but the original caption gives the soldier’s service number as William Byrne’s: SX18513. Caption for 092985, AWM: AWM367 1/192.) 092985

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Peter Pinney was used to heat and humidity. He had spent months in the jungles of New Guinea before reaching the mountains of southern Bougainville. He was resigned to being perennially wet from perspiration, river crossings and rain, and he was accustomed to the smell of mould and decaying vegetation. From thatched huts in a hideout near Morokaimoro, in mid-1945 Pinney and troopers from the 2/8th Commando Squadron patrolled through monsoonal rains and trudged along muddy tracks accompanied by Papuan soldiers. Itchy, bored and ‘browned off’, their wet jungle green trousers chafed their thighs raw. Pinney and the others ate damp food and slept cold on a bed of mulch, drenched and shivering in the rain, and all the while they hunted for any sign of the Japanese.1 Such was the nature of the patrolling war on Bougainville and New Guinea during the final year of the conflict. With Australian soldiers set to be deployed to the islands, in 1944 General MacArthur’s ‘island hopping’ strategy took American forces from New Guinea to the island of Morotai in the Netherlands East Indies and, by the end of the year, to the Philippines. The United States Navy with the Marine Corps were fighting across the central Pacific towards Japan, and in 1945 captured Iwo Jima and Okinawa in bloody, horrific fighting. Planning was well under way for an Allied invasion of the

Japanese Home Islands, but during 1944–45 Australian forces fought slow, gruelling campaigns on New Guinea, Bougainville and Borneo. To assist with the American advance on the Philippines, towards the end of 1944 Australian forces began returning to the islands to relieve the large American garrisons on New Guinea, Bougainville and New Britain. On Bougainville and in New Guinea it was mistakenly thought that the fresh Australians outnumbered the enemy, and aggressive campaigns were conducted to destroy the Japanese. On New Britain, where the Japanese in Rabaul were known to outnumber the Australian force, the latter instead concentrated on containing the Japanese in the Gazelle Peninsula. The Japanese were similarly content to remain around Rabaul. Although fought for justifiable military and political reasons, the offensive campaigns on New Guinea and Bougainville remain contentious and open to debate. Even the general commanding the 6th Division for most of the campaign thought that no one in the division ‘was happy in being involved’ nor wanted to do more ‘than was absolutely necessary’; they hoped instead to participate in something that would contribute ‘more directly’ to the end of the war.2 Despite such misgivings, the 6th Division fought an offensive campaign with ruthless skill to destroy the 155

Japanese in New Guinea. Having relieved the American garrison at Aitape on New Guinea’s north coast in November 1944, the 6th Division advanced on two axes eastwards towards the Japanese base at Wewak and the remaining Japanese in New Guinea. One axis followed the coast while the other followed the Torricelli Range and on into the Prince Alexander Range. The 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment was the division’s first combat unit to arrive at Aitape in late October. The regiment’s squadrons began patrolling well beyond the former American perimeter, both along the coast and inland into the Torricelli Range. These were not small, stealthy reconnaissance operations but large fighting patrols intent on hunting out and killing the Japanese. By the end of November the regiment had killed 73 Japanese and taken seven prisoners, with just one Australian killed and one wounded. By the year’s end the regiment’s squadrons had moved more than 60 kilometres along the coast from Aitape and some 30 kilometres into the Torricellis.3 Between February and April 1945 this area became the battleground for the 2/7th and 2/10th Commando Squadrons, while the 2/9th Commando Squadron operated closer to the coast. By early May the Australians on the coast were poised to take Wewak. To cut off and block the Japanese from retreating, on 11 May Farida Force made an amphibious 156

landing at Dove Bay, east of Wewak Point. The force included the commando regiment (less one squadron), elements of a machine-gun battalion, two 75-millimetre guns, and a detachment of two mortars – some 623 men in total. The force came ashore with naval gunfire support from two RAN corvettes and a sloop. Although a minor operation when compared to those on Borneo, the modest landing at Dove Bay was perhaps the most spectacular moment of the Aitape–Wewak campaign. Further inland, in the high ground south-west of Wewak, to cut off a line of Japanese withdrawal, the 2/7th Commando Squadron became involved in heavy fighting to capture and occupy the Sauri villages in the Prince Alexander Range. Fighting continued right up until the end of the war, by which time the always-understrength commando squadrons had suffered 21 officers and 120 other ranks as battle casualties.4 In November 1944 Lieutenant General Savige’s II Australian Corps, like the 6th Division, took over from the American garrison on Bougainville. Headquartered in Torokina, on the island’s west coast, Savige’s corps included the 3rd Division, two independent brigades and the 2/8th Commando Squadron. The squadron had spent much of the previous two years in the Northern Territory before moving in mid-1944 to Lae, where it came under the command of Major Norman Winning. Towards

Geoffrey Mainwaring, Wounded native carrier, 1944. Official war artist Geoffrey Mainwaring sketched this portrait of a New Guinean carrier, Kanjingai, while he was recovering in a casualty clearing station in Aitape. Kanjingai was with a patrol from the 2/7th Commando Squadron when he was shot in the chest in the village of Tong, in the Torricelli Range. ART21614

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Part of Farida Force comes ashore on ‘Red Beach’ at Dove Bay, east of Wewak, New Guinea, 11 May 1945. OG2945

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the end of the year an element of the squadron landed in secret at Jacquinot Bay in New Britain as part of a reconnaissance force. This was prior to the 5th Division’s subsequent landing in the area in November, by which time the squadron was on Bougainville. The 2/8th Commando Squadron had a long campaign. Between the end of December 1944 and late August 1945 the troopers had only one three-day rest and a lone ten-day break. Operating largely in the mountains of southern Bougainville, the squadron patrolled continuously. Patrols generally lasted four to six days, but nine-day patrols were not unknown. During this time they collated track information, made terrain reports and located the enemy. Once patrols had gathered this information they were free to strike against the Japanese by setting an ambush or taking a prisoner. Despite having a fighting strength of only 175 men, the squadron became adept at aggressive raids, with 282 confirmed kills and seven Japanese prisoners captured. For this the squadron suffered seven men killed and 16 wounded.5 Savige recognised the squadron’s strengths and capabilities as well as its limitations. He employed them as cavalry and likened them to his ‘eyes and ears’ operating in front and on the flanks of the main infantry force.6 Yet even here frustrations existed between the corps commander’s expectations and the pace of the

squadron’s advance. Savige first met Winning when the latter was the adjutant of the 2/5th Independent Company in 1943. Savige, who micromanaged the campaign on Bougainville, initially wanted Winning to be bolder and eliminate Major Warfe’s tactics for the 2/3rd Independent Company on Bobdubi Ridge, with the 2/8th Commando Squadron thrusting parties forward in sufficient strength to occupy river crossings. Instead, Winning worked to his more immediate superiors and tied the squadron’s movements to the pace of the neighbouring infantry battalion. Winning did not want to over-extend the squadron’s reach and so leave its own flank exposed.7 Later in the campaign the squadron did ‘bound’ ahead of the infantry, gathering reconnaissance in what Winning described as ‘less spectacular’ but ‘more important’ work.8 Between May and August 1945 he also had a company from the PIB under his command. In common with other units, the 2/8th Commando Squadron worked with ANGAU and interacted closely with the Bougainvilleans. When the Australians reached new areas, refugee compounds were built as villages were evacuated to prevent Japanese reprisals against the Bougainvilleans. By July the commandos were helping to protect approximately 2500 refugees.9 The Bougainvilleans were vital allies. Sergeant Tom Hungerford later wrote: 159

They knew their own places like the backs of their hands. They knew what lay around the bend in every track, so they had a big say in where we put our ambushes. They led us in and out by the safest tracks, often those known to nobody but their relatives, or ‘one talks’. They saved us miles of walking and hours of reconnaissance, and – I’m certain – a lot of casualties.10

The 2/2nd Commando Squadron on New Britain was, by comparison, engaged in a more leisurely war. Having spent a year in New Guinea, towards the end of 1944 the squadron returned to Australia, where its men enjoyed an extended leave. After a period of training and reorganisation, in April 1945 the squadron embarked for New Britain, where it landed at Jacquinot Bay and came under the command of the 5th Division. The squadron then moved to Wide Bay and spent much of the rest of the war patrolling. For much of this period the I Australian Corps (consisting of the 7th and 9th Divisions) idled on Queensland’s Atherton Tablelands waiting for a role. It was ‘totally boring’, one trooper recalled: we were well trained, well experienced, fit as fiddles. There was a war going on all over the Pacific and here we were spending our time … playing soldiers or playing cricket or football and getting into trouble.11 160

Despite the longstanding expectations of the Australian government and army, and MacArthur’s own assurances, by early 1945 it was clear that Australian ground forces would not be used in the Philippines. MacArthur would instead concentrate on Borneo and the Netherlands East Indies. The justifications for the Borneo operations, codenamed ‘OBOE’, were tenuous. The United States Navy’s blockade of the Japanese Home Islands already prevented Japan from receiving oil from Borneo, while it would take months, if not years, to repair the oilfields and refineries. The OBOE operations were largely motivated by MacArthur’s personal ambition, and would have seen the AIF conduct a series of amphibious operations in Borneo, Sumatra and Java. The Australian government, however, refused to release the 6th Division from its campaign in New Guinea. Ultimately, only three of the six proposed operations went ahead. The OBOE operations themselves were spectacular and more lavishly supported than any other Australian operation of the war. OBOE One took place on 1 May 1945 when the 9th Division’s 26th Brigade landed on Tarakan Island, off Borneo’s north-east coast, with a view to seizing the airfield for use in the subsequent operations. A day earlier, the 2/4th Commando Squadron had landed unopposed on nearby Sadau Island with an artillery

At sea aboard an LST on 29 April 1945, soldiers from the 2/4th Commando Squadron check their weapons and equipment ahead of their landing on Sadau Island the next day. From left: Lance Corporal Kenneth ‘Ken’ Moss and Troopers Edward Lofthouse, Richard ‘Dick’ Donnelley,

Francis ‘Frank’ Beatty, and Alfred ‘Alf’ Irwin prime grenades. All but Donnelley were veterans of the squadron’s earlier campaigns, and Moss, Beatty and Irwin were originals of the 2/4th. Moss was later wounded on Tarakan Hill. 090874

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At sea aboard LST-457, Lieutenant Paul Beal (left) of the 2/3rd Commando Squadron briefs soldiers before their amphibious landing on Balikpapan, 27 June 1945. 018791

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battery to suppress Japanese fire from the Tarakan invasion beaches. The squadron moved to Tarakan on 3 May. Tarakan was the 2/4th Commando Squadron’s toughest campaign, mostly because the men were misused as assault troops. Between May and August 1945, 15 men from the squadron were killed and 47 were wounded. ‘Resistance was fierce’, recalled one man. Japanese snipers tied themselves to tree branches, while concealed machine-gun entrenchments dug into jungle ridges ‘mowed down approaching patrols’.12 The squadron’s commanding officer, a veteran of Timor and New Guinea, broke down after three weeks and the squadron’s second-in-command was subsequently sacked because, it was rumoured, he refused to needlessly risk the lives of his men.13 The rapid loss and removal of two key appointments suggest that the strain experienced by the squadron was severe. The fighting for Tarakan Hill in early May was one of several instances in which the squadron was employed as infantry. Its 25-year-old intelligence officer, Lieutenant Francis ‘Frank’ Gorman, later reported angrily that the 2/4th’s men were repeatedly used as shock troops, forced to attack Japanese pillboxes at close range with rifles, light machine-guns and grenades for ‘no effect’ but heavy casualties. The infantry’s mortars and PIAT guns (anti-

tank weapons used against Japanese pillboxes and bunkers) were borrowed from neighbouring units, but ‘ONLY after the situation had demanded’, losing time and tactical advantage.14 The lack of unit stretcherbearers was another handicap, and meant that combat troops and medical personnel from the regimental aid post had to collect casualties, often becoming pinned down by enemy fire themselves.15 In Gorman’s opinion the title ‘Commando’ was apparently being interpreted as ‘Supermen’.16 The rest of the 9th Division landed in Brunei Bay and Labuan Island in North Borneo on 10 June 1945 for operation OBOE Six. The objective was to secure the bay and surrounding area. The 2/9th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment’s 2/11th Commando Squadron, originally kept in divisional reserve, was committed to action and came ashore on the first day of the landing. The operation was completed by mid-July, and for the rest of the war most of the squadron’s time was taken up with civic action, administering and caring for the nearly 70 000 civilians in the area. The last of the Borneo operations, OBOE Two, was an amphibious landing at Balikpapan on Borneo’s southeast coast. This was the most controversial campaign of all. Senior Australian commanders recommended withdrawing the 7th Division from the operation, with one 163

describing Balikpapan as ‘a derelict Dutch oilfield’. Other officers thought the operation lacked ‘any real object’.17 MacArthur, however, would not be denied; the operation went ahead and was lavishly supported by firepower. Balikpapan was pounded for nearly three weeks in what was the longest pre-landing air and sea bombardment for any amphibious operation of the war. Standing aboard an LST in the dawn of 1 July, the 2/6th Commando Squadron’s Captain Maurice ‘Morry’ Lewis described the sea as full of American, Australian and Dutch cruisers, destroyers and other ships: pouring broadside after broadside into Balikpapan. We could feel the concussion as hundreds of guns were fired. They made an abrupt, penetrating ‘krump’, and clouds of brown smoke would swirl around the hot muzzles. Ashore we could observe shells bursting in plentiful abundance … delighted to see our own ships, Shropshire, Hobart, and Arunta … the boys cheered them on.

While still waiting to go ashore, Lewis again described the view of the landing beaches: What a sight Balikpapan was now! Great billowing clouds of black smoke soared thousands of feet up from the raging oil-fires and darkened the skies; from 2 miles out the devastation could be seen, buildings flattened, plantations stripped, dozens 164

of fires burning fiercely, the twisted and blackened skeletons of the oil refineries; and now we could hear the sounds of fighting going on ashore, and occasionally the long stream of flame from one of our flamethrowers somewhere on the hills.18

Landing on ‘Green Beach’, the 2/5th and 2/3rd Commando Squadrons of the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment had the task of helping to secure the easternmost flank of the invasion area. The 2/6th Commando Squadron supported the central push along Milford Highway, and during the third week of July the regiment moved across the Australian front to take up the forward positions there. The squadrons encountered frequent patrol clashes and ambushes against the Japanese right up until the end of the war. But here, as elsewhere on Borneo, there was little to distinguish the work of the squadrons from that of the neighbouring infantry battalions. For many Australians the long-hoped-for news of Japan’s surrender on 15 August brought bittersweet emotions. Spontaneous rejoicing broke out in cities across Australia, but for the men in the front lines the announcement was greeted with a more sombre reaction. Little attention had been paid to Nazi Germany’s collapse in May. Now, with Japan’s defeat, there were few wild celebrations. The 2/4th Commando Squadron’s war

diarist on Tarakan, for instance, recorded ‘jubilation’ shown by all ranks on the day, yet by the next day reported that the news was received ‘quietly’ in most quarters – even with the issue of three bottles of beer per man to celebrate victory.19 Many soldiers experienced conflicting emotions: relief that the war was finally over; apprehension for the future. In the mountains of southern Bougainville Sergeant Hungerford recalled such sentiments: ‘Suddenly we were unemployed … we had to begin thinking about returning to civvy life: and I don’t think there were many who had a very clear idea of what that meant. I know I didn’t.’20 Other men welcomed the return to civilian life. After witnessing the formal surrender of the Japanese in New Guinea at Cape Wom on 12 September, the 2/7th Commando Squadron’s Lawrence ‘Laurie’ Buckland confessed his homesickness in a letter to his mother. He had enlisted in June 1941 when he was just 17. The young corporal wrote that he had thought he was tough, that he feared no one and laughed in the face of danger. He had enjoyed the soldier’s life, but now he just wanted to go home: to his mother and sisters and the comforts he had been denied for so many years.21 He returned to Western Australia but re-enlisted in 1950: he fought in Korea with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, where he briefly became a prisoner of war.

In the weeks and months following the surrender, Japanese forces across the Pacific were concentrated together for repatriation, and war crimes were investigated; Australian fighting units became responsible for garrison duties and civil administration. The highest priority was placed on returning Australian prisoners of war. Major Edmonds-Wilson and fellow officers from Zentsuji camp in Japan were among the earliest prisoners to return home, arriving in Darwin in late September. Although he stated publicly that it had been impossible for the Japanese ‘to keep our boys down’, former prisoners of the Japanese would for decades suffer mentally and physically as a result of their captivity.22 (Edmonds-Wilson himself died in 1951, aged 43.) The men still serving in the islands found their ranks thinning over time as men were transferred to other units or returned to Australia for discharge. A long-serving soldier predicted in mid-October that by the time his 2/5th Commando Squadron had returned to Australia from Balikpapan there would be no celebration with the rest of the unit, lamenting: ‘we won’t see half of our cobbers back in Aussie as they would have proceeded to their home town’.23 Having returned to Australia, by February 1946 all 11 commando squadrons had been disbanded. For countless Australians the years of peace that followed 165

Australian soldiers aboard American landing craft race towards the invasion beaches at Balikpapan, 1 July 1945. Amid the tension and excitement of hitting the beach, Trooper Andrew ‘Andy’ Pirie remembered coming under the hail of the naval bombardment. Between twisted coconut palms and debris, the ‘stinking smell of cordite, and the din from exploding shells’ were all around. They pushed forward amid ‘the chatter-chatter-chatter of machine-gun fire’, through shells and destruction, and off the beach. (AA Pirie, Commando double black: an historical narrative of the 2/5th Australian Independent Company, later the 2/5th Cavalry Commando Squadron 1942–1945, 2/5th Commando Trust, Sydney, 1993, p. 416.) 018812

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Following the end of the war men of the 2/10th Commando Squadron toast their flag in New Guinea, 18 September 1945. 096754

the Second World War presented their own challenges. Many returned men found solace in unit associations or service organisations. One such body was the commando association whose Victorian branch in 1964 dedicated the Australian Commando Memorial at Tidal River on Wilsons Promontory, the ‘birthplace’ of commandos in Australia. Designed by F John ‘Curly’ Papworth, the memorial cairn acknowledged the eight Australian and two New Zealand independent companies raised during the war, and commemorated the sacrifice of some 600 commandos. Since 2013 the memorial’s honour roll has also borne the names of those commandos killed in Afghanistan, including Corporal Cameron Baird VC MG. It is easy to claim that Australian independent companies and commando squadrons have been overlooked in the histories of Australia in the Second World War. Given the unprecedented and unmatched scale of Australia’s contribution and involvement in the conflict, in which some 40 000 of its people died, it is not possible to popularly recognise every unit or celebrate every individual act of valour. The independent companies and commando squadrons, however, warrant special attention. A study of their training, employment and experiences highlights the diversity and proficiency attained by Australian forces during the war, and offers historical lessons on the employment of such specialised 168

units. The independent companies and commando squadrons also offer insights into issues such as the interactions between Australians and the local peoples of the region, as the support and assistance of the inhabitants of Timor, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Borneo were vital to both the survival and the success of Australian forces and the Allied war effort. During the course of the Second World War the independent company’s role evolved: conceived for the European war and focused on raids and guerrilla warfare, it became akin to the traditional role of cavalry, carrying out reconnaissance on the flank of a main force. This change reflects the nature of the war in the Pacific – especially in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands – where information was more effective than sabotage. Yet even as late as 1945 commando squadrons could be misused or underemployed, assigned to roles better suited to infantry battalions. The Australian independent companies and commando squadrons achieved their most impressive results when wielded by senior commanders who understood both the capabilities and the limitations of these units.

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Ivor Hele, 2/10th Australian Commando Squadron: patrol sets out for jungle, 1944.

Ivor Hele, Intelligence NCOs searching Japanese, 1944.

ART26730

ART26728

In November 1944 official war artist Ivor Hele returned to New Guinea, where he spent a week with the 2/10th Commando Squadron at Aitape. He considered this one of his most productive trips of the war: ‘I am quite anxious to carry the resulting material to a complete sequence.’ This series was based on his own experiences while on patrol with the squadron at the Suain Plantation. Hele wanted to record the importance of patrolling in 12 paintings (two of which are reproduced here). The scenes that he and others on patrol experienced were brutal. On one occasion two Japanese in a camp were ‘shot up’ and fell into a fire. One body was completely blackened, leaving ‘just a mess’, while the other managed to crawl out of the fire before he died. In another instance a patrol found signs of Japanese cannibalism. Hele wrote: ‘This is where we found a Jap corpse with head & hands cut off – meat cut from ribs – & stomach opened to get kidney. All being wrapped up in a ground sheet from flies – pot boiling off stage.’ In December Hele moved to Bougainville to work, but on

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New Year’s Eve 1944 he was involved in a jeep accident in Lae, New Guinea, and was seriously injured. Next month he returned to South Australia to recover. Having proposed a dozen works for the 2/10th Commando Squadron’s patrolling series, Hele struggled to complete the sequence. In February 1947 he confessed: ‘I honestly could not paint another dark picture, or I’d go crazy.’ Once described as ‘too grim’ for public exhibition, the works in the series are today considered among Hele’s best. (Letter, Ivor Hele to Lieutenant Colonel John Treloar, 30 November 1944, AWM: AWM315 205/002/006 03. The proposed works were: Early morning breakfast; They clean their rifles and equipment; Patrol sets out; Patrol in jungle; Japanese sighted; Two Japanese done over; First signs of cannibalism; Patrol resting in jungle; Intelligence searching Japanese; Return at dusk; Wash and clean up; and Sentry on duty. List of patrol sequence: AWM315, 205/002/006 03. Letter, Hele to Treloar, 10 February 1947: AWM315, 205/002/006 03. Letter, Louis McCubbin to Lieutenant Colonel John Treloar, 6 June 1947, AWM: AWM315 205/002/006 03.)

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The 2/7th Commando Squadron in New Guinea, after coming out of action in the Prince Alexander Range, 30 May 1945. A few days earlier Trooper Clive Upright, seated third from the left, was in action near Sauri village on 11 May – his 25th birthday. An Aboriginal man from Jerilderie, New South Wales, he was awarded a Military Medal for standing up in full view of the enemy to direct his unit’s machine-gun fire onto a Japanese position. Upright was one of several Aboriginal men who served with the squadron. Lance Corporal Conrad ‘Con’ Bell remembered them as good men and good soldiers: ‘You trusted your life with them and they trusted their life with you’. Upright died in 1979. (Interview with Conrad Bell, 2/7th Commando Squadron, AAWFA: 9 March 2004.) 092715

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This Japanese ‘good luck’ flag was presented to the Japanese soldier Yamaguchi Yoshito with the inscription, ‘Congratulations on your enlistment from members of the Horticultural High School in Tottori prefecture’. Along with the signatures, slogans

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were included wishing longlasting good fortune: ‘seven lives’; ‘sincere service’; and ‘with your health’. Written in English in indelible pencil is ‘Captured at Screw River 18.3.45 by “B” troop’, of the 2/7th Commando Squadron. REL/03704

Members of the 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment with a Japanese Type 92 Heavy Machine Gun captured at Dove Creek, New Guinea, 24 May 1945. Allied troops nicknamed the weapon the ‘woodpecker’ because of the distinctive sound of its fire. 018525

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Lieutenant James Garrick places a tablet of the antimalarial drug Atebrin in the mouth of Trooper George Martin of the 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment at Boiken, New Guinea, during the daily ‘Atebrin parade’, 15 July 1945. Such parades were introduced as part of stringent anti-malarial procedures established in an attempt to limit the disease’s almost rampant spread. Officers were obliged to place the daily dose of Atebrin on the tongues

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of their soldiers and then inspect their mouths to make sure the tablets were swallowed. The officer then officially recorded administering the dose. Despite such precautions, 6235 men from across the 6th Division were admitted to medical units with malaria, and 11 380 with other tropical diseases, while just 979 were admitted with battle casualties. After the war it was suggested that a strain of malaria resistant to Atebrin had existed in the area.

(Stan Wick, Purple over green: the history of the 2/2nd Australian Infantry Battalion 1939–1945, 2/2nd Australian Infantry Battalion Association, Sydney, 1977, p. 292. Report on operations, 6th Division war diary, Aitape–Wewak campaign, AWM: AWM54 603/6/5; Allan S. Walker, The islands campaigns, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1957, pp. 360–70.) 094178

Sergeant Lowther Lees charges a flame-thrower’s air pressure tank during a course at the 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment at Karawop, New Guinea, 18 July 1945. The flame-thrower was a truly horrifying weapon. As Australian notes on the weapon observed, ‘flame has a powerful psychological effect in that humans instinctively withdraw … even when their morale is good. In addition, it is a casualtyproducing and lethal agent.’ The flame and smoke also had a considerable blinding effect on victims, while the gases from the burning jet of flame were also toxic. These gases caused immediate disablement when inhaled, scorching the lungs, while the poisonous effects of carbon monoxide and lowered oxygen content also caused casualties. So, too, could the radiant heat emitted from the flame. The Australians used flame-throwers successfully on several occasions in the Aitape– Wewak campaign, and they were considered both effective weapons and assets to their own troops’ morale. (Notes on flame-throwers, 6th Division war diary, December 1944, part 2, AWM: AWM52, 1/5/12 Report on operations, 6th Division war diary, Aitape–Wewak campaign, part III, AWM: AWM54, 603/6/5.) 094284

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Soldiers lay out markers to identify the dropping zone for the delivery of supplies and ammunition by the RAAF’s ‘kai bombers’. The 2/9th Commando Squadron’s Trooper Hubert ‘Harry’ Bell found the time his section spent ‘guarding’ a similar area a welcome relief from the stresses of jungle warfare. Writing to his mother in February 1945, Bell remarked how the men enjoyed an abundance of sun and fresh water, with a river for swimming, and ‘plenty of tucker’. At night they could light fires, brew cups of tea, and talk as much as they liked before going to sleep between silk sheets made from the damaged parachutes. ‘It’s heaven’, he wrote, ‘and no mistake.’

Sergeant TAG ‘Tom’ Hungerford outside his hut in Nairona village, southern Bougainville, 7 June 1945. A native of Perth, Western Australia, he went to Japan with the occupation forces after the war. The journalist and author later worked at the Australian War Memorial before joining the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition in 1953–54. His works included the classic war novel The ridge and the river (1950), which tells the story of a three-man patrol from his squadron in southern Bougainville. 093033

(HH ‘Harry’ Bell, ‘Wee Wee to Wewak: recollections 1925– 1946’, vol. 2, p. 111, unpublished manuscript, AWM: MSS1994.) 083406

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Bougainvilleans in an ANGAU camp at Morokaimoro sew palm leaves used in building huts for the 2/8th Commando Squadron and Bougainvillean refugees, 7 June 1945. 093034

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Returning to Morokaimoro from an eight-day patrol, the 2/8th Commando Squadron’s Trooper James ‘Jim’ Yates (left) and Lance Corporal Gordon Wells enjoy a rare luxury: fresh apples delivered to their camp by airdrop, on 12 June 1945. 093172 181

Raiding parties from the 2/8th Commando Squadron prepare to move off from Nairona village, an outlying patrol base for the squadron’s headquarters at Morokaimoro, 7 June 1945. 093025

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A scene typical of any number of river crossings carried out in New Guinea or the islands: members of the 2/2nd Commando Squadron cross the Yara River during a patrol on New Britain, 28 July 1945. Two other troopers are ready to provide covering fire if necessary. 094619

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Sport has always been an important part of military life; it has helped maintain physical fitness, encouraged teamwork and kept otherwise idle hands busy. This football team, pictured on 31 October 1944 at Kairi on the Atherton Tablelands, included, in the back row: the 2/6th Commando Squadron’s Lance Corporal Harry Coventry (far left, died of wounds 13 July 1945), the 2/5th Commando Squadron’s Lieutenant Frank Redhead (fifth from right, killed 6 July 1945) and Lance Corporal Alfred Bell (third from right, killed 4 July 1945). 082457

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Soldiers from the 2/9th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment train in the Ravenshoe area of the Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, 14 February 1945. 086663

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After a long wait, from April 1945 the 2/9th and the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiments sailed from Queensland to Morotai in the Celebes, Netherlands East Indies. Morotai was used as a staging area for the operations in Borneo. Here equipment is loaded onboard American LSTs at Morotai in preparation for the Australian amphibious invasion of Tarakan. 018439

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John Papworth, Bombardment of Tarakan Island, Borneo, 30 April 1945, 1945. ART93010

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The 2/4th Commando Squadron in forward positions on Tarakan Hill, 5 May 1945. 089449

Tarakan Hill, 4–6 May 1945 Having secured Sadau Island, the 2/4th Commando Squadron moved to Tarakan on 3 May 1945, two days after the 26th Brigade had landed. The squadron was immediately committed to the difficult task of taking Tarakan Hill. Tarakan Hill was a steep, heavily timbered feature on the eastern outskirts of Tarakan township. The hill dominated the country for 1000 metres and was dotted with well-concealed pillboxes, dug-outs and tunnels with machine-guns that covered all avenues of approach. Capturing the hill would assist with securing much of the rest of the township and surrounding country, but an assault would first have to cross a steep-banked creek spanned by a narrow footbridge. A rifle company from the 2/32nd Battalion had tried unsuccessfully to take the hill on 3 May in the first repulse suffered by the Australians during the campaign. The 2/4th Commando Squadron relieved the 2/32nd Battalion in the area that afternoon and began patrolling. The squadron’s second in command,

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Captain Patrick ‘Pat’ Haigh, planned an attack where one troop would gain a base on the slopes of Tarakan Hill, followed by a second wave that would go on to secure the rest of the hill. The company attacked the next morning at 9.30 am after an air and naval bombardment, and moved under mortar and machine-gun fire. Japanese fire increased as the Australians advanced. One soldier quipped: ‘This is bloody suicide!’ ‘Yes’, another replied, ‘but orders are orders.’24 Suffering casualties, the attacking sections became pinned down. Tanks were called on for support while another troop moved out in a wide arc on the right flank and reached the crest of the hill before being pinned down by Japanese mortars and machine-guns. The action turned in favour of the Australians with the arrival of three Matilda tanks, which went well forward and from less than 50 metres ‘poured’ high-explosive shells and machine-gun fire into Japanese-occupied tunnels. The combined pressure from the tanks and the two commando

troops forced the Japanese out, and by late afternoon the Australians, after knocking out two concrete pillboxes near the crest, occupied three-quarters of the hill. During the night of 4/5 May Japanese raiding parties armed with spears, grenades, and artillery shells fused to act as bombs attacked the squadron’s newly established perimeter but were driven off. Japanese sniper fire subsequently harassed the Australians for much of the day. The rest of the hill was not taken until about 6 pm on 5 May. The Japanese once again tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the Australian position that night. ‘Mopping up’ continued the next day, with the Australians clearing the feature of the Japanese defenders who remained in the many camouflaged tunnels that honeycombed the hill. Each tunnel entrance was

systematically destroyed – entombing the occupants. Lieutenant Francis ‘Frank’ Gorman later reported: Very few enemy casualties were counted on Tarakan Hill, and his actual losses will never be known. It is known, however, that many had dug their own graves, efficiently filled in by our own Pioneers with boxes of gelignite.25

Tarakan Hill cost the 2/4th Commando Squadron five killed and 13 wounded.26 The unit was relieved by the 2/3rd Pioneer Battalion in the early morning of 7 May, only to become immediately involved in a new action along Snags Track. By the end of the campaign the squadron counted 56 battle casualties, including 15 who were killed or died of wounds.

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Members of B Troop, 2/4th Commando Squadron, move through the wrecked and burnt-out oilfields of Tarakan, May 1945. 089412

An aerial view of the landing beach on 7 May 1945, a week after the 26th Brigade’s invasion of Tarakan. 089622

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A sniper pair on Tarakan Hill, 5 May 1945. A veteran of New Guinea, Corporal Clayton ‘Chicka’ Donnelley holds the Australian-made SMLE No. 1 Mk III (HT) sniper rifle, fitted with an Australian P18 scope. His spotter, Lance Sergeant Gordon ‘Bill’ Burley, had previously served in Timor and New Guinea. 089447

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An aerial view of Labuan Island, Brunei Bay, North Borneo. On 10 June 1945 the 9th Division’s 24th Brigade, including the 2/11th Commando Squadron, landed on ‘Brown Beach’, east

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of Victoria Town. During the campaign the Australians moved inland to capture Labuan Airfield, and became involved in fierce fighting in an area called ‘The Pocket’ before

crossing the island to take the airfield at Timbalai. The 2/12th Commando Squadron participated in securing the outlying parts of the island. OG2823

Major James Clements (kneeling, right), commanding the 2/11th Commando Squadron, examines documents discovered in the Japanese governor’s residence and a local police station on Labuan Island, 13 June 1945. Trooper Geoffrey ‘Geoff’ Grant (kneeling, left) was killed three days later. He was 20 years old. 109578 199

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Trooper Milton Heuston was 18 when he volunteered for the AIF in 1944, joining the 2/12th Commando Squadron. Heuston bought the ownership and rights to this ‘two-up’ game from an older soldier who had served in the Middle East. The latter’s

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father had used many of the penny coins during the Great War. This purchase proved lucrative for Heuston, and the game was used in Townsville, Morotai, Labuan, Kuching and Rabaul during and after the war. REL30802.001–.012

The 2/11th Commando Squadron’s Troopers G Daly (left) and John ‘Blackjack’ McInnes. McInnes found the typewriter in the Japanese governor’s residence on 13 June 1945. He was also the drum major of the 2/9th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment’s pipe band. 109577

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A stretcher party carries a wounded member of the 2/3rd Commando Squadron in Balikpapan, 2 July 1945. It was ‘damn hard and exhausting work’, recalled the squadron’s Signalman Walter ‘Wally’ Little. (Ron Garland, Nothing is forever: the history of 2/3 Independent Company (renamed 2/3 Commando Squadron), Ron Garland, Sydney, 1997, p. 342.) 110838

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A patrol led by Lieutenant David Carew-Reid (left) from the 2/3rd Commando Squadron inspects a deserted Japanese headquarters at Balikpapan, 20 July 1945. Trooper Cyril Wood (right) is about to enter the hut. 112040

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The 2/3rd Commando Squadron’s Trooper John ‘Jack’ Lewis (centre) operates an improvised flying fox to bring fresh water up a ridge from a creek in Balikpapan, 19 July 1945. A prominent boxer within the squadron, Lewis went on to fight professionally after the war. 111720

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Corporal William Kendall (left) and Lieutenant Francis Spinks of the 2/3rd Commando Squadron barter for goods from a local merchant in the village of Nanang, 25 July 1945. 112465

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A widower, Captain Raymond ‘Doc’ Allsopp was the 2/5th Commando Squadron’s medical officer. In the afternoon of 1 July 1945 at Balikpapan a section of the squadron was ambushed on a low spur and an officer and a soldier were wounded. Despite being under fire from at least seven machine-guns, Allsopp went forward to tend to the wounded. The officer was sent back for treatment, but as Allsopp began to carry out the other man, Trooper Stephen Usher, the latter was hit again and Allsopp was shot in the left thigh. The 30-year-old medical officer carried on, coolly and calmly, crawling to dress the wounds of another soldier before bringing water to the dying Usher. Allsop also dressed another soldier’s wounds and carried him to safety.

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While attempting to rescue yet another badly wounded soldier, Allsopp was mortally wounded by mortar bomb fragments. He had saved the lives of at least three men that day, at the cost of his own. ‘I have never known a medical officer to equal him nor have I ever known a braver man’, wrote the squadron’s commander Major Ian Kerr. Kerr recommended Allsopp for a posthumous Victoria Cross. The recommendation was supported by the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment but was dismissed by the 21st Brigade’s commander. Allsopp was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches. (Captain Raymond Jesse Allsopp: AWM54, 391/13/21; ‘Catholic doctor gives life for men’, The Catholic Weekly, 30 August 1945.) PR00601,12

Sapper Roy ‘Darky’ Warren, 2/5th Commando Squadron, inspects a Japanese soldier’s personal effects. As the Japanese forces were concentrated and disarmed, in late September the 7th Division’s headquarters issued instructions on the treatment of prisoners to counter the growing ‘sadistic tendency’ of some Australians towards their captives. Harsh treatment and beatings of the Japanese had occurred, and theft of their private possessions was not uncommon. The order

stated that such behaviour not only lowered Australian dignity but was also contrary to the ‘principles of fair play’ for which Australians were known. Manhandling, thievery and fraternising with the Japanese were strictly forbidden. (7th Division administration instruction No. AG 49/45, ‘Treatment of Japanese prisoners’, 23 September 1945, 7th Division General Staff war diary, September 1945, part 1, AWM: AWM52 1/5/14 /82.) PR00601,12

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With the war’s end Australians and Japanese encountered each other peacefully for the first time. However, there was no doubt that the Australians were the victors. Standing on Milford Highway in Balikpapan, the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment’s Lieutenant Colonel Norman Fleay, speaking through an interpreter, reads the articles or conditions of surrender to a Japanese officer, August 1945. Not included in this photograph is the column of Japanese soldiers standing with a white flag, waiting to surrender. PR00601,12

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Japanese swords and flags were highly favoured as souvenirs from the battlefield and prisoners of war. Australian servicemen, especially those who had earlier fought against the Germans and Italians, often had a poor regard for Japanese equipment and personal kit. But the swords issued to Japanese officers and noncommissioned officers were considered ‘beautiful’. Japanese flags were equally popular, with the victors often writing their

names on captured flags and posing for photographs while displaying their trophies. There was also a market demand for Japanese souvenirs, with Australian soldiers trading and selling trophies to basearea troops, Americans and the navy. A lieutenant from the 2/3rd Commando Squadron on Borneo recalled that flags dipped in blood and sporting a few bayonet holes were worth twice as much on the black market. The 2/3rd Commando

Squadron’s Warrant Officer II James Watson captured this Japanese ‘good luck’ flag at Balikpapan. Among the words written on the flag were the slogans: ‘Win at all costs’ and ‘Pray for vigorous fighting’. (Interview with Trooper Richard Donnelley, 2/4th Commando Squadron, 11 May 2004, AAWFA: 2000; interview with Lieutenant Thomas Lewis, 2/3rd Commando Squadron, 7 October 2003, AAWFA: 0759) REL30800

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Corporal Herbert Gallagher, 2/12th Commando Squadron, looks on as 127 Japanese officers and soldiers, as well as six Malays, prepare to surrender at Kuching in Sarawak, Borneo, on 19 September 1945. 119243

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Originally sourced from an RAAF officers’ mess on Morotai by the brother-in-law of Trooper Frederick ‘Fred’ Lyons, this flag was flown on Sadau Island and later on Tarakan. In addition to signatures from members of the 2/4th Commando Squadron, at war’s end Corporal Arthur Bury inscribed the names of the unit’s 15 dead and 41 wounded onto the flag’s hoist (see overleaf) to serve as a Roll of Honour. REL41231

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Abbreviations

AAWFA AIB AIF ANGAU AWM Cav. Coy Div. DSO Ind. Inf. LST MC

Australians at War Film Archive Allied Intelligence Bureau Australian Imperial Force Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit Australian War Memorial Cavalry Company Division Distinguished Service Order Independent Infantry Landing Ship, Tank Military Cross

MG MID MM NAA NCO NGVR PIB RAAF RAN Regt SRD VC

Medal for Gallantry Mention in Despatches Military Medal National Archives of Australia Non-commissioned officer New Guinea Volunteer Rifles Papuan Infantry Battalion Royal Australian Air Force Royal Australian Navy Regiment Services Reconnaissance Department Victoria Cross

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Acknowledgments

Made possible through a gift from Berenice, Berry, Nick and Samara, this book is dedicated to the memory of Lance Corporal John R Talintyre, who served in the 2/7th Independent Company (later the 2/7th Commando Squadron) from 1942 to 1946. Talintyre was born in Blackburn, Victoria, on 19 June 1924. He was working as a clerk when war broke out, and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 12 January 1942. Aged just 17, Talintyre put up his age by 19 months in order to enlist. He joined the 2/7th Independent Company and went on to serve in Papua and New Guinea, participating in the Aitape–Wewak campaign in 1944–45. He was discharged on 3 July 1946, having spent 1,588 days in the army, including 1,132 days on active service outside of Australia. After the war Talintyre built his first home, studied accountancy and later worked in the finance industry. A great organiser, family man and lover of good food, wine and travel, he was an active member of the Australian Commando Association New South Wales branch until illness prevented his continuing involvement. Twice married, this beloved father of Kim, Berry and Nick, and grandfather of Simon and Samara, died on 23 June 2013. This book is an illustrated history of Australia’s first commando units: the 12 independent companies

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and commando squadrons who served, fought and suffered in the Pacific War. The production of a work such as this would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many people. In addition to the Talintyre family, I thank Lornita Papworth for giving permission to reproduce the artworks of her father, Corporal F John Papworth, and Professor Rosemary Sheehan, daughter of Lieutenant Michael Sheehan, for drawing my attention to the extensive collection her father donated to the Australian War Memorial. Richard Pelling from the Australian Commando Association Victoria and Peter Epps from the 2/2nd Commando Association were also helpful. Assistant Directors Anne Bennie and Tim Sullivan were early advocates of the book, and I also recognise my many colleagues at the Memorial who have contributed to this work in some way, particularly members of the Research Centre, as well as Bridie Macgillicuddy, Kate Morschel, Ian Roach and Eleni Holloway for their specific curatorial support and assistance. Kate Burge, Ian Roach and the Memorial’s multimedia team and photographers did fantastic work to produce the images for this book, and Ron Schroer, too, was instrumental to this project in his administration of publication arrangements. I likewise acknowledge the ceaseless support and encouragement of Ashley Ekins, Head of the

Memorial’s Military History Section, and the ongoing camaraderie, collegiality, and endless coffee provided by my colleagues: Michael Bell, Dr Steven Bullard, Peter Burness, Emma Campbell, Dr Lachlan Grant, Dr Meleah Hampton, Michael Kelly, Andrew McDonald, Aaron Pegram, Juliet Schyvens, Haruki Yoshida and Christina Zissis. Special thanks go to Lachlan and Aaron for commenting on the manuscript, and to Emma, who assisted with ordering images. It is to Christina, though, that I am the most indebted for her tireless work on the manuscript and for her attention to detail. I am also grateful to cartographer Keith Mitchell and The Watermark Press for their permission to reproduce Mitchell’s map, first published in Peter Collins’s Strike swiftly (2005). Elspeth Menzies from NewSouth has been this book’s champion from the outset, while Emma Driver saw it through to production. I am particularly grateful to Averil Moffat for her diligence in editing the manuscript, her comments and feedback. Finally, to my wife, Bianca, and son, Leo, two of my greatest supporters: thank you for your patience and tolerance of my evenings spent amongst papers and books, and for your encouragement.

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Notes

1 They were the first

14 ‘Commando units in training’, The Argus, 11

1 War diary compiled from notes covering

February 1942; ‘Commando units in Australia’, The West Australian, 18 February 1942.

Introduction

period 21 January 1942 to 2 February 1942, AWM: AWM52 25/3/1/5.

1 Lieutenant Frederick Winkle diary, 24–25 October 1942, Australian War Memorial (AWM): PR03106.

2 Tim Moreman, British commandos, 1940–46, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2006, p. 9.

2 ‘Spied for weeks on Kokoda Japs’, The Courier 3 The men of Timor, Cinesound, 1942, AWM:

2/2 and 2/4 Australian independent companies in Portuguese Timor, 1941–1943, William Heinemann, Melbourne, 1954, p. vii.

F01615.

4 Dudley McCarthy, South-West Pacific Area

4 William Noonan, Lost legion, Allen & Unwin,

Sydney, 1987.

– first year: Kokoda to Wau, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1959, p. 85.

5 ‘The official history of the operations

5 ‘How commandos were born’, The Daily News,

and administration of Special Operations Australia conducted under the cover-name of Services Reconnaissance Department’, vol. 1, p. 9, National Archives of Australia (NAA), Canberra: A3269 07/A.

18 November 1944; F Spencer Chapman, The jungle is neutral, Chatto & Windus, London, 1948, pp. 8–9. See also Michael Calvert, Prisoners of hope, Jonathan Cape, London, 1952.

Mail, 12 November 1942.

6 ‘The official history of Special Operations

Australia’, p. 15. 7 Dick Horton, Ring of fire: Australian guerilla

operations against the Japanese in World War II, Leo Cooper, London: Secker and Warburg, Melbourne, 1983, p. 150. 8 Lynette Ramsay Silver, Operation Jaywick:

60th anniversary, Australian National Maritime Museum with the Australian War Memorial and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Sydney, 2003. 9 Lynette Ramsay Silver, The heroes of Rimau: unravelling the mystery of one of World War II’s most daring raids, Sally Milner Publishing, Sydney, 1990, p. 106. 10 ‘Brilliant Australian commando attack on

Singapore base’, Army News, 23 August 1945. 11 Interview with Lionel Veale, No. 1

Independent Company, 15 September 2003, Australians at War Film Archive (AAWFA): 0616.

3 Bernard Callinan, Independent company: the

6 Commando Association (Victoria), ‘History of No. 7 Infantry Training Centre and the formation of the independent companies 1941–1942’, Sabretache, vol. 12, no. 4, April 1970, p. 92. 7 Notes on origins and development of

Australian independent companies, p. 1, AWM: AWM113 17/4/1. 8 Veale interview.

16 Detailed instructions for the employment of

No. 1 Independent Company, No. 1 Independent Company war diary, 18 July 1941, p. 3, AWM: AWM52 25/3/1/1. 17 Untitled document by J Edmonds-Wilson,

No. 1 Independent Company, pp. 2–3, AWM: AWM113 11/2/36. 18 Major J Edmonds-Wilson, No. 1 Independent

Company war diary, 21 January to 2 February 1942, AWM: AWM52 25/3/1/5. Alexander ‘Sandy’ McNab, We were the first: the unit history of No. 1 Independent Company, Australian Military History Publications, Sydney, 1998, p. 34.

2 Timor and Wau 1 ‘Australia’s darkest hour, warns PM’, The Argus,

9 December 1941. 2 Interview with Mervyn Wheatley, No. 2

Independent Company, 4–5 February 2002, AWM: S02787. 3 Baldwin interview. 4 McCarthy, South-West Pacific Area – first

Independent Company, September 1992, AWM: F04843.

year, p. 601; ‘WA man sniped 47 Japs’, Mirror, 2 January 1943. Elsewhere, Wheatley said he had 27 certainties. ‘All 7 sons in the services’, The Daily News, 17 April 1944.

10 An independent company, war establishment,

5 Callinan, Independent company, p. 100.

9 Interview with Rolf Baldwin, 2/2nd

p. 4, AWM: AWM54 198/3/1. 11 Notes on commando training, 2/3rd

Independent Company war diary, AWM: AWM52 25/3/3/1. 12 ‘Our troops learning commando war’, News,

15 September 1942; ‘All can help to keep the Japs out’, The Farmer and Settler, 15 January 1942. 13 ‘AIF in action in Malaya’, Western Star and

Roma Advertiser, 16 January 1942.

222

15 Unit titles were changed later in the year with the addition of the prefix 2/*.

6 Neil McDonald and Peter Brune, 200 shots:

Damien Parer, George Silk and the Australians at war in New Guinea, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, New South Wales, 1998, p. 175. 7 A short history of East Timor, Department of Defence, Canberra, 2002, , accessed 14 October 2015; Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese thrust, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1957, p. 467.

8 Steve Gibbons MP, House of Representatives,

3 New Guinea

Commonwealth Hansard, 27 September 1999, p. 10,701.

1 Tozer was later commissioned and was

9 Lance Corporal Barrie Dexter in Syd Trigellis-

Smith, The purple devils: a history of the 2/6 Australian commando squadron, formerly the 2/6 Australian Independent Company 1942– 1946, 2/6th Commando Squadron Association, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 81–82. 10 2/6th Independent Company war diary, 8

December 1942, AWM: AWM52 25/3/6/5. 11 Notes from Private Percy Cunnington’s

diary, 2/6th Independent Company, p. 6, AWM: PR04136. 12 Interview with William ‘Bill’ Grant,

who served as William Macarthur, 2/5th Independent Company, 16 March 1990, AWM: S00936. 13 History of Kanga Force, pp. 27–28, AWM:

Mentioned in Despatches in 1945. Years later he became a member of the Western Australian parliament representing the electorate of North Province for the Liberal Party from 1974 to 1980. His father was Major Hubert Tozer MC MM. Phillip Bradley, On Shaggy Ridge: the Australian Seventh Division in the Ramu Valley campaign: from Kaiapit to the Finisterre Ranges, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2004, p. 33; ‘Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia: John Carmichael Tozer’, , accessed 18 January 2016.

War II, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. 193. 13 Jack Arden, ‘What is a commando?’,

unpublished manuscript, p. 15, AWM: 3DRL/6766. 14 Assault on Salamaua, p. 2 and Notes on

formation of independent companies, p. 1, AWM: AWM54 583/7/11. 15 GE Lambert (ed.), Commando, from Tidal River to Tarakan: the story of the No. 4 Australian Independent Company AIF, later known as 2/4th Australian Commando Squadron AIF, 1941–45, 2nd/4th Commando Association, Melbourne, 1994, p. 270. 16 Report on operations: Markham–Ramu Valley

2 ‘Tropical service of an independent company’,

campaign, p. 4, AWM: AWM54 595/7/8, part I.

20 July 1943, p. 1, AWM: AWM54 583/7/4.

17 Private John Tozer in Trigellis-Smith, The purple devils, p. 166.

3 History of Kanga Force, p. 121.

14 History of Kanga Force, p. 91.

official history, chapter II, p. 1, AWM: AWM67 3/277, part 1.

18 Origin and outline history of Australian independent companies, February 1941 to May 1943, p. 4, AWM: AWM52 25/3/2/1.

15 Phillip Bradley, The battle for Wau: New

5 Summary of operations, 12 January to 16 April,

19 Grant interview.

p. 3, AWM: AWM54 583/6/2.

20 David Dexter, The New Guinea offensive,

6 Interview with Mick Sheehan, 2/5th Independent Company, 3 July 1990, AWM:S00985.

Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1961, p. 566.

AWM54 578/9/1.

Guinea’s frontline 1942–1943, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2008, p. 243. 16 The following is based on Bill Marien’s

‘Winnie the war-winner: the scrap happy radio that contacted Australia on April 19, 1942’, pp. 1–3, AWM: AWM54 571/4/50; Cyril Ayris, All the bull’s men: No. 2 Australian Independent Company (2/2nd Commando Squadron), 2/2nd Commando Association, Western Australia, 2006, pp. 223–30. 17 ‘Winnie the war-winner’, p. 2, AWM: AWM315

748/003/050. 18 Callinan, Independent company, p. 121. 19 Report by Captain GE Parker, No. 2 Independent Company, 13 May 1942, AWM: AWM315 748/003/050.

4 Brigadier MJ Moten comments on draft

7 Medical report, October 1942 to April 1943, AWM: AWM54 583/6/2.

21 David Horner, General Vasey’s war,

Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1992, p. 272.

8 Report on operations, New Guinea, 22 January

22 ‘Tropical service of an independent company’, pp. 1–2.

to 8 October 1943, p. 4, AWM: AWM54 589/7/1.

23 Interview, Bruce L’Estrange MM, 2/7th

9 Letter to Jim Brill from GR Warfe, AWM:

Independent Company, 22 January 2004, AAWFA: 1266.

AWM93 50/2/23/489; interview with General Savige, 10 April 1951, p. 2, AWM: AWM93, 50/2/23/21. 10 Letter, Captain Robert Hancock, 10 May 1943,

AWM: PR91/052. 11 Sheehan interview. 12 Letter, Lieutenant AW Crawford, 17 March

1943, in Mark Johnston, At the front line: experiences of the Australian soldiers in World

24 Letter, Geoffrey Mainwaring to Colonel JL

Treloar, 22 November 1947, AWM: AWM315 205/002/008 02. 25 L’Estrange interview; ‘Wedding L’Estrange– Barratt’, The West Wyalong Advocate, 5 July 1948. In his 2004 interview L’Estrange said he was 16 when he entered the Militia and 18 when he volunteered for the AIF and joined the 2/7th Independent Company.

223

26 McDonald and Brune, 200 shots, pp. 186–87.

9 Evacuee rations – Buin area, 25 July 4, AWM:

27 Dexter, The New Guinea offensive, p. 172.

AWM54 80/6/13.

AWM: PR01564/3.

10 The Pidgin word ‘wantoks’ or ‘one-talks’

24 Lambert, Commando, from Tidal River to

28 Operations in Goodview, Ambush Knoll,

and Timbered Knoll areas, 2/3rd Independent Company war diary, 29 July 1943, p. 2, AWM: AWM52 25/3/3/11. 29 2/6th Independent Company war diary, 18

September 1943, p. 9, AWM: AWM52 25/3/6/9. 30 Report on action Kaiapit 19–21 September

1943, 2/6th Independent Company war diary, p. 4, AWM: AWM52 25/3/6/9. 31 Report by Captain GG King, 2/6th

Independent Company war diary, September 1943, AWM: AWM54 595/7/27. 32 Report on action Kaiapit 19–21 September

1943, message from Lieutenant General Edmund Herring to Major General George Vasey, 2/6th Independent Company war diary, AWM: AWM52 25/3/6/9.

4 The final campaigns 1 Peter Pinney, The devils’ garden: Solomon

Islands war diary, 1945, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1992, pp. 131–32. 2 ‘A personal story of the service, as a citizen

soldier of Major General Sir Jack Stevens’, unpublished manuscript, p. 93, AWM: 3DRL3561.

refers to people who speak the same language, and who come from the same family and tribal group. TAG Hungerford, Straightshooter, Fremantle Press, Fremantle, Western Australia, 2003, pp. 236–37. 11 Trooper Osborne in Trigellis-Smith, The purple devils, p. 221. 12 Ralph Coyne, The first commandos: Ralph

Coyne’s wartime experiences 1942–45, Petaurus Press, Canberra, 2009, pp. 50–51. 13 Coyne, The first commandos, pp. 53–55. 14 Interview by Lieutenant WN Prior with

officer, 2/4th Commando Squadron, pp. 14–15, AWM: AWM54, 617/7/2. In the original document Prior’s interview with the officer is anonymous, but in the squadron’s published unit history he is identified as Lieutenant Frank Gorman. Lambert, Commando, from Tidal River to Tarakan, p. 362. 15 Medical officer’s report, 2/4th Commando Squadron, May–June 1945, AWM: AWM54, 2/2/56. 16 Prior interview, p. 16.

3 Gavin Long, The final campaigns, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1963, pp. 278, 280.

17 David Horner, High Command: Australian and Allied strategy 1939–1945, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, and Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1982, p. 405.

4 Long, The final campaigns, p. 385.

18 Captain MT Lewis, unpublished document,

5 Report on operations, 2/8 Commando

Squadron diary, pp. 7, 33, AWM: 3DRL 2529, 78. 6 Tactical doctrine for jungle warfare, tactical

pp. 4–5, AWM: 3DRL/3848. 19 2/4th Commando Squadron war diary, 15–16 August 1945, AWM: AWM52 2/2/56.

directive No. 10, tactical employment of cav. commando regiments and units of New Guinea Inf. Bns, AWM: 3DRL 2529, 124.

20 Hungerford, Straightshooter, p. 235.

7 Savige notes on draft official history, vol. VII,

22 ‘Major JE Wilson coming home’, Laura Standard and Crystal Brook Courier, 5 October 1945.

chapter 5, p. 6, AWM: 3DRL2529, 128. 8 Report on operations, 2/8 Commando Squadron, p. 7, AWM: 3DRL 2529.

224

21 Letter, Lawrence Buckland to mother, 14

September 1945, AWM: PR82/144.

23 Letter, Trooper TA Hacker, 11 October 1945,

Tarakan, p. 354. 25 Prior interview.

26 2/4th Commando Squadron war diary, 5 May 1945, AWM: AWM54 2/2/56.

Further reading

AB Feuer, Commando! The M/Z Unit’s secret war against Japan, Praeger, Westport, CT, USA, 1996.

Don Astill, Commando white diamond: memoir of service of the 2/8 Australian commando squadron; Australia and the south-west Pacific 1942–1945, Australian Military History Publications, Sydney, 1996.

Ron Garland, Nothing is forever: the history of 2/3 commandos, R Garland, Sydney, 1997.

Cyril Ayris, All the bull’s men: No. 2 Australian Independent Company (2/2nd Commando Squadron), 2/2nd Commando Association, Perth, 2006. Arthur Bottrell, Cameos of commandos: stories of Australian commandos in New Guinea and Australia, AEE Botrell, Adelaide, 1971. Jack Boxall, A story of the 2/5 Australian Commando Squadron AIF, Metropolitan Printers, Sydney, c. 1970–79. Bernard Callinan, Independent company: the 2/2 and 2/4 Australian Independent Companies in Portuguese Timor, 1941–1943, William Heinemann, Melbourne, 1954. Archie Campbell, The double reds of Timor, A Campbell, Perth, 1988. Paul Cleary, The men who came out of the ground: a gripping account of Australia’s first commando campaign: Timor 1942, Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2010. Peter Collins, Strike swiftly: the Australian commando story, Watermark Press, Sydney, 2005. GB Courtney, Silent feet: the history of ‘Z’ Special Operations 1942–1945, RJ and SP Austin, Melbourne, 1993. Ralph Coyne, The first commandos: Ralph Coyne’s wartime experiences 1942–45, Petaurus Press, Canberra, 2009. David Dexter, The New Guinea offensive, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1961. Colin D Doig, The history of the Second Independent Company, C Doig, Perth, 1986.

Dick Horton, Ring of fire: Australian guerilla operations against the Japanese in World War II, Secker and Warburg, Melbourne, 1983. TAG Hungerford, The ridge and the river, Angus and Robertson, London, 1952. Phillip Knight, Where to now: memoirs of my stint in the 2/11 Commando Squadron, attached to 24 Brigade of the 9th Australian Division, in the Operation OBOE Six on Labuan Island and British North Borneo (Sabah) in 1945, P Knight, 2004. GE Lambert (ed.), Commando, from Tidal River to Tarakan: the story of the No. 4 Australian Independent Company AIF, later known as 2/4th Australian Commando Squadron AIF, 1941–45, 2nd/4th Commando Association, Melbourne, 1994. Colin R Larsen, Pacific commandos: New Zealanders and Fijians in action: a history of Southern Independent Commando and First Commando Fiji Guerrillas, Reed Publishing, Wellington, New Zealand, 1946. Gavin Long, The final campaigns, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1963. Dudley McCarthy, South-West Pacific Area – first year: Kokoda to Wau, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1959. Alexander ‘Sandy’ McNab, We were the first: the unit history of No. 1 Independent Company, Australian Military History Publications, Sydney, 1998. RJ Martindale and RL Martindale, Blokes from the cav.: personnel of 9th Australian Division Cavalry Regiment and 2/9th Australian Cavalry (Commando) Regiment, RJ Martindale and RL Martindale, Sydney, 1993.

Shawn O’Leary, To the green fields beyond: the story of the 6th Australian Division Cavalry Commandos, Sixth Division Cavalry Unit, History Committee, Sydney, 1975. Peter Pinney, The barbarians: a soldier’s New Guinea diary, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1988. Peter Pinney, The glass cannon: a Bougainville diary, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1990. Peter Pinney, The devils’ garden: Solomon Islands war diary, 1945, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1992. AA Pirie, Commando double black: an historical narrative of the 2/5th Australian Independent Company, later the 2/5th Cavalry Commando Squadron, 1942–1945, 2/5th Commando Trust, Sydney, 1993. Alan Powell, War by stealth: Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942–1945, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1996. Darren Robins (ed.), Proud to be third: personal recollections, photographs, and biographical roll of the 2/3rd Australian Independent Company Commando Squadron in World War Two, D Robins, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 2007. Lynette Ramsay Silver, The heroes of Rimau: unravelling the mystery of one of World War II’s most daring raids, Sally Milner Publishing, Sydney, 1990. Syd Trigellis-Smith, The purple devils: a history of the 2/6 Australian Commando Squadron, formerly the 2/6 Australian Independent Company, 1942–1946, 2/6th Commando Squadron Association, Melbourne, 1992. Lionel Veale, The Wewak mission: coastwatchers at war in New Guinea, L Veale, Gold Coast, Queensland, 1996. Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese thrust, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1957. Christopher CH Wray, Timor 1942: Australian commandos at war with the Japanese, Hutchinson Australia, Melbourne, 1990. 225

Index Commando units No. 1 Independent Company 22–23, 26–27, 32–35, 42–43 1st Australian Commando Training Battalion 101 1st Commando Fiji Guerrillas 32 1st Commando Regiment 16 No. 2 Independent Company 17, 33, 48, 49–54, 64 2/2nd Independent Company 103 2/2nd Cavalry (Commando) Squadron 139 2/2nd Commando Squadron 103, 104, 160, 183 No. 3 Independent Company 30, 33 2/3rd Independent Company 94–98, 100, 112, 120–22 2/3rd Commando Squadron 103, 162, 164, 203, 204–205, 206 No. 4 Independent Company 33 2/4th Independent Company 17, 52, 53, 100–101, 123 2/4th Commando Squadron 103, 160–65, 192–94, 215 No. 5 Independent Company 24–25, 29 2/5th Independent Company 55–56, 81, 85–86, 97–98 2/5th Commando Squadron 103, 164, 184–85, 208, 209 2/6th Independent Company 14–16, 41, 54–55, 83, 93, 101–102, 104, 124–35 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Squadron 144–45, 148–49 2/6th Commando Squadron 103, 164, 184–85 2/6th Divisional Cavalry Regiment 102 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment 104, 156, 175–77, 230 2/7th Independent Company 54, 62, 86, 93–94, 97, 106–107, 108 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Squadron 141–43 2/7th Commando Squadron 102–104, 156, 172–73 2/7th Divisional Cavalry Regiment 102 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment 3 (inside front), 86, 102, 104, 164, 188–89, 210

226

2/8th Independent Company 54, 101 2/8th Commando Squadron 41, 56, 104, 155–59, 180, 182 2/9th Commando Squadron 102–104, 156, 178–79 2/9th Divisional Cavalry Regiment 102 2/9th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment 102–103, 163, 186–89 2/10th Australian Commando Squadron: patrol sets out for jungle, 1944 12–13, 170 2/10th Commando Squadron 102–104, 150, 169–70, 230 2/11th Commando Squadron 102–103, 163, 198–99, 201 2/12th Commando Squadron 102–103, 198–99 2nd Commando Regiment 16 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 16 No. 7 Infantry Training Centre 31

A–Z AIF (Australian Imperial Force) 16, 27, 33, 49, 93, 103–104 I Australian Corps 160 II Australian Corps 156 2/22nd Battalion 35 2/32nd Battalion 192 2/40th Battalion 49 3rd Division 97, 156 5th Division 100, 159 6th Division 27, 155–56, 160–64 7th Division 27, 100–101, 124, 160, 163–64 8th Division 17, 27, 32, 49 9th Division 27, 100–101, 124, 160, 163 17th Brigade 94 24th Brigade 198–99 26th Brigade 100–101, 160, 195 Abbott, Harold 21 Aitape–Wewak campaign 108, 156, 158, 170, 177 Allied amphibious landing at Lae 100–101 Allied Intelligence Bureau 19 Allied invasion of Japanese Home Islands 155 Allied offensive in New Guinea 93 Allsopp, Captain Raymond Jesse ‘Doc’ 20, 208 Ambon 32, 49

Ambush at Numamogue, Timor, 1946 44 Ambush Knoll 98 ANGAU (Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit) 59, 159, 180 Arden, Private John ‘Jack’ 98–100 Assault on Salamaua (film) 112 Atebrin 176 Atherton Tablelands (QLD) 160, 184–87 Australia military intervention in East Timor 54 preparedness for Pacific War 32–33 Australian Commando Association 168, 220 Australian Commando Memorial 168 Australian commandos in general 28, 30–32 Australian flag 214–17 Australian mandated territories 27 Australian Militia 93 Australian New Guinea Administration Unit 59 Babiang 150 Baird VC MG, Corporal Cameron 16, 168 Balikpapan, Borneo 152–53, 162–64, 166–67 Barratt, Beryl 110 Barry, Lieutenant Edward 120–21 Battlefield burial of three NCOs, 1944 99 Beal, Lieutenant Paul 162 Beatty, Trooper Francis ‘Frank’ 161 Bell, Lance Corporal Alfred 184–85 Bell, Lance Corporal Conrad ‘Con’ 172 Bell, Trooper Hubert ‘Harry’ 178–79 Bena Force 104 Black Cat Track 57–58, 86 Blewitt, Trooper Gerald 4, 6 (inside front) Bobdubi Ridge 96, 98, 100, 112, 122 Bombardment of Tarakan Island, Borneo, 30 April 1945, 1945 190–91 Borneo 16–17, 86, 152–53, 160–64 Boswell, Trooper Percy ‘Perc’ 144–45 Bougainville 17, 27, 33, 35, 154–56, 159–60, 165, 180 Bougainvillean scouts 6–7 (inside front), 159–60 Bougainvilleans sewing palm leaves for ANGAU 180 Japanese reprisals against Bougainvilleans 159 Boyland, Captain George 48

Britain declaration of war on Germany 27 military mission to Australia 16, 28–32 British commandos 28, 33, 102 Brunei Bay, Borneo 163, 198–99 Buckingham, Corporal Donald ‘Buck’ 98–99 Buckland, Lawrence ‘Laurie’ 165 Buibaining 87 Buisaval Track 57–58 Buka Passage, Bougainville 33, 35 ‘Bulldog stakes’ 59, 62–63 Bulldog Track 59 Bulolo Valley 59, 62–63 Bumbum 141 Buna 14, 55, 83 Burley, Lance Sergeant Gordon ‘Bill’ 196–97 Bury, Corporal Arthur 215 Bush, Charles 44, 51 Byrne, Lieutenant Edward 141 Byrne, Trooper William 154 Callinan, Major Bernard 48, 53, 68 Calvert, Captain J Michael 28, 31 Canungra (QLD) 101–102 Carew-Reid, Lieutenant David 204–205 Carman, Trooper RG 154 cavalry (commando) squadrons areas of operation 12–13 formation from independent companies 102–104, 123 historical lessons of 168 nomenclature 12 Cavalry commando with Owen gun, 1944 109 Chapman, Captain F Spencer 28, 31 China 17 Churchill, Winston 28 Clements, Major James 199 coast-watchers 19 colour patches 18 Colt Model 1911 pistol 111 ‘commando’ (term) 102 Commando officer, 1943 92 commando squadrons areas of operation 12–13 formation from independent companies and cavalry (commando) squadrons 102–104

historical lessons of 168 nomenclature 12 Commando weaving, 1943 21 Cory, Lance Sergeant John 123 Couche, Lieutenant Ronald 4, 6 (inside front) Coventry, Lance Corporal Harry 184–85 Crowley, Private Jack 138 Cunnington, Private Percy 55, 57 Curtin, John 49 Daly, Trooper G 201 Darwin 66 Dawson, Private Walter ‘Wal’ 117 Day, Corporal Henry 37 Day, Private John 37 Department of External Affairs 103 Dexter, Lance Corporal Barrie 55 Dexter, Major David St Alban 102–103, 105 Dexter, Chaplain Walter 103 dice 132 Dixon, Lieutenant George 22 Donaldson VC, Trooper Mark 16 Donnelley, Corporal Clayton ‘Chicka’ 196–97 Donnelley, Richard ‘Dick’ 161 Donovan, Lance Corporal John 64–66 Double Tenth Massacre 19–20 Douglas twin-engine C-47 aircraft 78–79, 148–49 Dove Bay landing 156, 158 Dove Creek 175 Downs, Private William 142 Dumpu 148–49 Durant, Trooper Harold 4, 6 (inside front) Dutch New Guinea 54 Dutch Timor see Timor East Timor 54 Edmonds-Wilson, Major James 22–23, 27, 32, 33–35, 165 Egan, Lieutenant Hubert ‘Hugh’ 95 Evacuation of wounded from Rai Mean, 1946 51 Fairbairn–Sykes knife 40 Farida Force 156, 158 Finisterre Ranges 88, 104, 144–45 Finschhafen 124 Fitchett, Ian 33 flame-throwers 164, 177

Fleay, Lieutenant Colonel Norman 57, 59, 62, 210 Florida Islands see Tulagi flying fox 206 Forbes, Trooper Ernest 8, 10 (inside front) Fowler, Corporal John ‘Jack’ or ‘Chook’ 139 Friemel, Private Paul ‘Peter’ 20–21 Gallagher, Corporal Herbert 213 Garrick, Lieutenant James 176 Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain 155 German New Guinea 54 Geyer, Lance Corporal Kevin 39 Ghiggioli, Acting Lance Corporal Ernest 34 Good, Corporal Robert ‘Roly’ 115 Gorman, Lieutenant Francis ‘Frank’ 163, 193, 224 Grant, Trooper Geoffrey ‘Geoff’ 199 Grant, Warrant Officer William ‘Bill’ 102 Grounding of HMAS Voyager, 1944 52 Guadagasal 58 Guerrilla Warfare School 32, 101 Guadalcanal 30, 32, 33 Haigh, Captain Patrick ‘Pat’ 192 Hancock, Captain Robert ‘Bob’ 98 Harcourt, Major Harry, 83 Harris, Private Herbert ‘Bert’ 132 Hele, Ivor 12–13, 41, 56, 92, 96, 99, 122, 170–71 Heuston, Trooper Milton 200 HMAS Armidale 53 HMAS Voyager 52–53 Hobson, Trooper Keven 230 Hooks, Corporal Percival ‘Hooksie’ 98–99 Hungerford, Sergeant TAG ‘Tom’ 20, 159–60, 165, 179 Huon Peninsula 101, 124 Hutchens, Trooper Roy ‘Reg’ 144–45 independent companies areas of operation 12–13 become cavalry (commando) squadrons 102–104, 123 historical lessons of 168 nomenclature 12 raising of 16 Independent Company Reinforcement Depot 101 227

Indigenous commandos 172 Induna Star 34–35 Intelligence NCOs searching Japanese, 1944 170–171 Inter-Allied Services Department 19 Irwin, Trooper Alfred ‘Alf’ 161 Iwo Jima 155 Jacquinot Bay, New Britain 159–60 Japanese Allied invasion of Japanese Home Islands 155 American blockade of Japanese Home Islands 160 attack Allied amphibious landing at Lae 100–101 attack Australia 49 attack Kavieng 34–35 attack Pearl Harbor 32 Australian treatment of prisoners of war 209 cannibalism 170 in New Guinea 54–55 in New Ireland 23, 27 reprisals against Bougainvilleans 159 in Singapore 19–20 surrender 164–65, 210, 213 swords and flags 146, 174, 211 in Timor 50 Japanese Type 92 Heavy Machine Gun 175 Java 49 Jeffery, Trooper William ‘Bill’ 144–47 kai bombers 178–79 Kaiapit 41, 55, 89–91, 93, 101, 104, 124–35 airstrip 136–37 burial map 135 Kaiapit Village 130–31 Kanga Force 57–63, 85, 93–94 Kanjingai 157 Kavieng, New Ireland 23, 27, 33–35, 42–43 Kellett, Corporal Ronald 142 Kelly, Ned 33 Kendall, Corporal William 207 kenpeitai (military police) 20 Kerr, Major Ian 208 King, Captain Gordon 124, 125 228

Kneen, Major T Paul 57 Koepang, Timor 49–50 Kokoda 15–16 Kokoda Trail 55, 59 Komiatum Ridge 100 Komiatum Track 95 Krait 19–20 Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo 213 Labuan Island, Borneo 163, 198–99 Lae 97, 100–101 Lake, Private Henry ‘Harry’ 82 Lamont, Trooper Kenneth 150 Lancer Force 48, 53 Landing Ships, Tank (LSTs) 100–101, 152–53 Lark Force 32, 35 League of Nations 27, 54 Lees, Sergeant Lowther 177 Leonard, Corporal Edward 142 L’Estrange, Sergeant Bruce ‘Slugger’ 108–11 L’Estrange, Lance Corporal Ronald 108 Lewis, Trooper John ‘Jack’ 206 Lewis, Captain Maurice ‘Morry’ 164 Little, Signalman Walter ‘Wally’ 203 Littlejohn, Lieutenant Richard ‘Dick’ 40 Lofthouse, Trooper Edward 161 Lorengau (Manus Island) 33, 35 Loveless, Signalman Max ‘Joe’ 64–66 Lyon, Major Ivan 19–20 Lyons, Trooper Frederick ‘Fred’ 215 M Special Unit 19 MacAdie, Major Thomas 97 MacArthur, General Douglas 49, 155, 160, 164 Macarthur, William 102 McInnes, Trooper John ‘Blackjack’ 201 Maclean, Sergeant Kenneth ‘Ken’ 115 Mahon, Private Leonard 113 Mainwaring, Geoffrey 109, 157 Malaya 17, 32–33 Manus Island 33, 35 Markham Valley 101, 124, 136 Martin, Trooper George 176 Matheson, Lieutenant Colonel George 30 Matilda tanks 192 Mawhood, Lieutenant Colonel JC 28 The men of Timor (newsreel) 17, 74

Middle East 49, 102 Milne Bay 55, 59, 100–101 Mindello 74 ‘Mission 204’ 17 Mission Hill 124–25, 128 Montevideo Maru 16, 35–39 Morokaimoro, Bougainville 155, 180, 181, 182 Morotai, Celebes 155, 188–89 Moss, Lance Corporal Kenneth ‘Ken’ 161 movie camera 86 Moving up onto Namling Ridge, 1944 96 Mubo 58–59, 62, 81, 86, 93–94 Mubo Track 108 Muir, Lance Sergeant Andrew ‘Bonny’ 98–99 Murray, Signalman Donald 70–71 Namatanai (New Ireland) 33 Namling Ridge 96 Nanang 207 Netherlands East Indies 32, 49 New Britain 27, 103, 155, 160 New Caledonia 30, 33 New Guinea 17, 27, 49, 54, 89–107, 155 Allied offensive in 93 effects of war on New Guineans 59 New Guinean carriers 84–85, 93, 133, 157 New Guinean guides 94 New Guinea Volunteer Rifles 56–57 New Hebrides see Vila New Ireland see Kavieng New Zealand commandos 28, 31–32 Northern Territory 33 Numamogue, Timor 44 OBOE operations 160–64 O’Brien, Warrant Officer Class II John 70–71 Okinawa 155 Operation Jaywick 19–20 Operation Rimau 20 Owen sub-machine gun 138 Papua 54 Papua Infantry Battalion 124, 155, 159 Papworth, Corporal F John ‘Curly’ 8, 10 (inside front), 52, 168, 190–91 Parer, Damien 17, 53, 68, 96, 112, 120 Parker, Captain George 64, 66

patrolling fighting patrols 156, 159, 204–205 Ivor Hele’s painting series 170 raiding parties 182 reconnaissance 93, 98, 104–105, 144–45 Pattern 1907 bayonet 147 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii 32 Peel, Lieutenant Edward ‘Ted’ 4, 6 (inside front) Petersen, Private Harvey 38 Philippines 155, 160 Pinney, Corporal Peter 20, 122, 151, 155 Pirie, Trooper Andrew ‘Andy’ 166 Port Moresby 54–55, 76–77 Portugal 50 Prince Alexander Range 156, 172–73 Prior, Trooper Jack 139 prisoners of war 35, 49, 165, 209 RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) 19, 27, 32, 33, 50, 93, 178–79 Rabaul, New Britain 32–33, 35, 49, 155 Rae, Private James ‘Jim’ 101 Ramu Valley 101, 103, 104, 105, 124, 139, 141, 148–49 RAN (Royal Australian Navy) 19, 27, 32, 93 rations 97, 181 Read, Lieutenant Sidney ‘Sid’ 92, 112, 120–21 Redhead, Lieutenant Frank 184–85 Reeve, Acting Corporal Sydney 26 returned servicemen 165–68 Richards, Signalman Keith 64–66 river crossings 183 Robb, Private Cyril ‘Squib’ 117 Robbins, Private Herbert ‘Robbie’ 112, 115 Roberts, Lieutenant Howard ‘Daubler’ 1 (inside front) Roberts-Smith VC MG, Corporal Benjamin ‘Ben’ 16 Robin Force 30, 33 Rose Force 17, 33 Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Beach Commando 17–19 Royal Papuan Constabulary 86 Sabien, Private Walter 87 Sadau Island, Borneo 161, 163, 190, 192, 215 Salamaua 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 97, 100

Sanananda 102 Sanderson, Lieutenant Ralph 17 Sargeant, Corporal John ‘Jack’ 45, 64–66 Savige, Major General Stanley 97–98, 98, 156, 159 Services Reconnaissance Department 19 Sheehan, Lieutenant Michael ‘Mick’ 86 87, 94, 98 Shin-gunto sword 146 sickness 97, 100, 176 signallers 47, 64–67 Singapore, fall of 49 Singapore Harbour 19–20 Sio 124 SMLE No. 1 Mk III (HT) sniper rifle 196–97 Smyth, Lieutenant Eric 48 Solomon Islands 19, 27, 32, 49, 54, 55, 59, 93, 168 see also Guadalcanal Southern Independent Company 32 Sparrow Force 17, 33, 45, 48–50, 52–54, 70–71 Special Air Service Regiment 16 Special Operations Australia 19 Special Operations Executive 28 Spence, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander 48 Spinks, Lieutenant Francis 207 sport 184–85 Sprigg, Sergeant Ronald 70–71 stretcher party 203 Sturdee, Lieutenant General Vernon 28 Suter, Private Donald 87 Talintyre, Lance Corporal John Ronald 2–3 (inside front), 20, 220 Tarakan, Borneo 160–63, 188–97, 215 Thorpe, Trooper Francis 139 Timbered Knoll 99, 112–21 Timor 16–17, 32–33, 45, 47, 49–54 leaflets dropped by Allied aircraft 75 signallers 64–67 Timorese 50, 53–54, 70–71, 73 Tomasetti, Sergeant William 70–71 Tongan commandos 32 Torricelli Range 156 Townrow, Trooper Malcolm ‘Mick’ 8 (inside front) Tozer, Private John 89, 93 Tulagi, Florida Islands 33, 35

two-up game 200 United States 54–55, 93, 97, 100 blockade of Japanese Home Islands 160 ‘island hopping’ strategy 155 United States’ Silver Star 83 Upright, Trooper Clive 172 Usher, Trooper Stephen 208 USS Sturgeon 35 Vasey, Major General George 104, 124 Veale, Corporal Lionel 20 Vila, New Hebrides 33, 35, 41 Villa Maria 50 war artists 96 war correspondents 68 Warfe, Major George 98, 120–21, 159 Warren, Sapper Roy ‘Darky’ 209 Watson, Warrant Officer II James 211 Watson, Roy ‘Duck’ 139 Watson, Captain W Derek ‘Watto’ 41, 125 Wau 54, 57–62, 78–80, 85, 94, 106–107 Wau aerodrome 80 Wells, Lance Corporal Gordon 181 Wewak see Aitape–Wewak campaign Wheatley, Private Marvyn ‘Doc’ 50–52 Whelton, Private William 138 Whittingslowe Fighting Knife 40 Wide Bay, New Britain 160 Wilson, Corporal John ‘Butch’ 133 Wilsons Promontory, Victoria 24, 28–32, 54, 101, 168 Winkle, Lieutenant Frederick 15–16 Winnie the war-winner 64–67 Winning, Major Norman 6–7 (inside front), 56–57 , 62, 158–59 Wood, Trooper Cyril 204–205 Wood, Private Reginald ‘Reg’ 115 Yara River, New Britain 183 Yates, Trooper James ‘Jim’ 181 Yoshito, Yamaguchi 174 Z Special Unit 12, 19 Zentsuji camp (Shikoku, Japan) 22, 165

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Men of the 2/6th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment at Wondecla Railway Station, North Queensland, set out for Townsville and New Guinea, 1 October 1944. Trooper Keven Hobson (far left) was killed in action with the 2/10th Commando Squadron on 13 March 1945, having enlisted in mid-October 1939. He was 27 years old. 08096

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