Kokoda (23 page)
As John Curtin had so aptly quoted: ‘Nearer, clearer, deadlier than before, the cannon’s opening roar…’
I remember Ted or I stating the idea that fighting in this would be like fighting in a fog. We thought about this as we went along. You wouldn’t be able to see much. Your bullets would go through all the bushes, just like in a fog, you wouldn’t know whether you were hitting anything. And if somebody shot at you, you wouldn’t know whether he had hit you.
Report from Lieutenant William Alec Palmer and Lieutenant William Edward Young
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Read this alone—and the war can be won. It is an historical fact that in all tropical campaigns since ancient times far more have died through disease than have been killed in battle… To fall in a hail of bullets is to meet a hero’s death, but there is no glory in dying of disease or accident through inattention to hygiene or carelessness.
Colonel Masanobu Tsuji
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New blood. At the end of June 1942, 30th Brigade, comprising the 39th, 49th and 53rd battalions, was reinforced by thirty-six officers snaffled for the most part from the 7th Division, which had just returned from the Middle East. Major General Sir Thomas Blamey’s view was that it would help to strengthen the fighting power of the militia units if their leadership ranks could be leavened with experienced officers. The 39th took half of these officers and the other two battalions divided the rest, though the 39th approached the new officers differently from the 53rd. A key difference in the approach taken by the 39th Battalion, was that the 39th posted the new officers to battlefield command positions. The 53rd Battalion, meanwhile, did not give command of a single company to one of these men most experienced in running a company on the battlefield, and instead used theirs back at headquarters as staff officers.
In sum, the 39th got one major, six captains and eight lieutenants. And while New Guinea had at that time a fair number of what was known in military parlance as ‘Snarlers’, short for ‘Services No Longer Required’—which was what a number of incompetent AIF officers in the Middle East had their papers stamped with—the experienced AIF officers who joined the 39th now proved to be first class.
As a rule there was an immediate respect, if not awe, for these new officers who had actually been in the thick of battles. These men had a presence about them, an authority, quite unlike most of the officers they had replaced. From the beginning of their tenure, there was a sudden surge of voltage through a battalion life that had tended towards lassitude in recent months since their commanding officer Colonel Conran had spent so much time in hospital with various illnesses.
It was a surge of power that was desperately needed. The newcomers were nothing less than shocked by what they’d found with their new charges. They’d heard that the Chocos were bad, but had never imagined it could be
this
bad. The officers had come from serious military outfits, where reveille was at 5.30 a.m. and not a minute later; where men shaved, polished their boots and presented for inspection; where they knew how to strip and assemble a Lewis gun in ninety seconds flat and reassemble it; where there was a basic understanding of military techniques and tactics. Here, though, despite the fact that the men seemed willing enough, there was a general laziness and slovenliness that seeped into most things, and a complete lack of understanding that THEY WERE IN THE ARMY NOW!
And it wasn’t just the officers’ imagination. Five weeks before, back in Australia, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Major General George Vasey, had written to all Australian Army commanders asking them to submit their estimation of the combat efficiency of brigades under their command, with the highest rating being an A for ‘Efficient and experienced for mobile operations’, down to ‘F’ for ‘Unit Training is not yet complete’.
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The 39th, together with the 49th and 53rd battalions, had been classified with an ‘F’ grading. (The 49th Battalion had not moved one jot from the estimation of Blamey’s Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Sturdee, the previous July that it was ‘quite the worst battalion in Australia’.
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)
And yet here, with the Japanese right at their door, was ‘F Troop’, while back in the calm of Queensland, the ‘A Team’—the 7th Division, which these officers had just left—was being held in reserve. To the bewildered new officers it just didn’t seem to make sense. What was the army
thinking
? Rumours among the officers just might be true: that high command had taken the view that New Guinea might be a hopeless case, like Singapore. And if that was so, then it didn’t make sense to lose your frontline troops to the Japanese, as had happened in that tragedy, and it was a much better idea to keep them safe for the main game, which was to defend the Australian mainland.
Dismay at the decision to keep the prime troops back from one of the likely frontlines went into the highest reaches of the Australian Army, with Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell, then Commander of the 1st Corps, later noting that the decision not to send the AIF made his ‘headquarters weep at the time’,
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In his memoirs, Rowell called it a ‘cardinal error’.
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Whatever they thought of the decision at the time, however, the newly arrived simply had to do what they were sent to do: whip their new charges into shape. From the moment the new officers arrived there was an imposition of genuine army discipline; an insistence that soldiers rise at reveille, immediately shave and get themselves presentable; that they do physical fitness activities; that they genuinely engage in at least basic military training, including drill, route marching and night work, instead of digging ditches and the like all day long.
There was resistance initially from some members of the 39th, but even these men could see that if they went into battle they really needed to be in better shape and, besides, it was much better to work with rifles any day of the week than shovels every day of the week.
While there was some relief among the older officers of the 39th that they’d been replaced and were now free to return to Australia, there was also relief among one or two of the older men who were allowed to remain. Chief among these was Captain Sam Templeton, the Commanding Officer of the 39th’s B Company, who had continued to grow in the battalion’s estimation as the weeks had passed. With all of his experience and senior years, Sam Templeton projected confidence and a can-do spirit to a group of mostly much younger men who were in need of precisely those qualities. It was also likely that a lot of them were missing their fathers, from whom they had so suddenly been separated for the first time in their lives.
Others of more mature years had already attached themselves to the 39th. One notable fellow was Father Norbert ‘Nobby’ Earl, a refugee from Sacred Heart Mission near Samarai, which had been evacuated to Moresby. Looking to make himself useful, Nobby turned up at the HQ of 39th Battalion one afternoon, and an account of his arrival would later be written in 39th Battalion veteran Victor Austin’s book
To Kokoda and Beyond
.
Nobby: ‘I am Father Earl. I have just been appointed Chaplain of the 39th Battalion.’
Commanding Officer: ‘That’s news to me. I haven’t been informed. (
Pause
.) Where’s your uniform?’
Nobby: ‘They didn’t have any uniform to give me.’
C.O.: ‘Do you mean to tell me you haven’t got a uniform! What clothes have you got?’
Nobby: ‘All I stand in—a shirt, singlet, pair of shorts, pair of long socks, a pair of shoes.’
C.O.: ‘Where did you join the army?’
Nobby: ‘In Port Moresby, half an hour ago.’
C.O.: ‘Have you a pay book?’
Nobby: ‘Oh yes, I have a pay book!’
C.O.: ‘That means all you have is a pay book and the clothes you stand up in?’
Nobby: ‘No! I have something else.’
C.O.: ‘Well man, tell me what it is.’
Nobby: ‘Four cases of whiskey.’
C.O.: ‘Come in, Padre. Come in. What are you standing out there for?’
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Meanwhile, Damien Parer and Osmar White were now well on their way. They had begun their trip to the north coast of New Guinea on 2 July 1942 by embarking on the schooner
Royal Endeavour
, which took them along the south coast of the island, west of Port Moresby, until they joined a convoy of canoes going up the Lakekamu River. From there they began the gruelling process of foot-slogging their way across the mountains with the porters taking the supplies to Kanga Force.
Though nothing would stem the deepening friendship between the writer and the photographer, one thing that confounded Osmar White now that they were together twenty-four hours a day was Parer’s insistence on saying his prayers every morning and every night, no matter where they were, no matter the circumstances. At a later point in their travels together, they found themselves sharing a hut with fifty of the roughest, toughest and perhaps most God-forsaken soldiers in the territory as all were turning in for the night to sleep.
But not yet they weren’t. Damien Parer fell to his knees, and began praying, rather loudly. One soldier took mild umbrage and called out: ‘I say, Parer… ’
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Forgive him, Father, for the soldier knew not who he was dealing with on this subject. Damien had always been more than merely serious when it came to praying. Back in Sydney he had asked his sweetheart Marie how she prayed and when Marie had told him she prayed in bed, he had told her very firmly that that just wasn’t good enough. The only way to pray, he told her, was on your
knees
, and he had been so persuasive she had done it ever after. It was like when Damien had told her he didn’t want to do any ‘parking’, because it could be the ‘occasion for sin’. It wasn’t simply what he said, it was the way he said it…
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Just like Marie, the troops in the hut sensed equal sincerity in Damien. For as soon as the soldier said, ‘I say, Parer…’ the documentary-maker looked up and said, in a clear, penetrating, entirely unembarrassed voice, ‘Just a minute. I am saying my prayers.’
As Osmar White recorded: ‘There was silence until he had finished—and no word of comment.’
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He was a strange cove all right but, by Jove, Osmar White liked Damien an awful lot. And Parer returned the affection in kind. One thing he noted about Ossie was that, as an experienced traveller in these parts, he was practically obsessed with staying as clean and hygienic as possible. It was not vanity: it was survival. Every night before turning in, White washed his whole body, before putting powder under his armpits, on his groin and his feet. Even the tiniest scratch was immediately covered with iodine before he carefully put adhesive plaster…
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In these parts, the writer explained to the photographer, such measures could mean the difference between life and death.
They continued north, Ossie with his enormous Mountie hat atop and large revolver by his side, Damien ever and always jingle-jangling his way forward, with cameras, lenses and tripods seeming to grow out of his very person.
In the wake of the Allied successes in the Battle of the Coral Sea and at Midway, General MacArthur’s firm desire was now to gather his forces and launch a massive simultaneous attack on all of the Japanese forces now entrenched in Rabaul, at Tulagi, on Guadalcanal and at Lae and Salamaua. This would be a mere prelude to his stated main goal all along: returning to the Philippines in triumph.
MacArthur’s masters in Washington, however, would have none of it. To begin with, such places as Tulagi and Guadalcanal were not designated as being within MacArthur’s zone of responsibility and, in any case, the command in Washington had already decided on a more measured attack in stages. Their orders were for, first, Admiral Ghormley’s forces to take back Guadalcanal, and then for MacArthur’s men to launch on the Japanese in Lae and Salamaua. Then, and only then, would MacArthur be allowed to move on Rabaul. It was a decision which was well received by a US Navy highly reluctant to provide ships for what it saw as General MacArthur’s adventurism.
For his part, the good general was furious that his own daring plan was being rejected. It seemed crazy that
they
could presume to know what was the best way for
him
to proceed militarily when they were ten thousand miles away from the front!
Still, as June 1942 progressed, MacArthur focused on how best to achieve the tasks that the joint chiefs of staff had set him. He came to the view that, for the purposes of both launching future attacks and defending against further Japanese encroachments, the tiny settlements of Milne Bay on the eastern tip of New Guinea, and Buna on the north coast of New Guinea, would be key. Milne Bay could offer a strategically important Allied airbase, as from there they would be able to harass all Japanese ships around the Coral Sea and also defend the key water passage to Port Moresby.
As to Buna, an airfield for American bombers could also be easily constructed on the flat, grassy terrain just inland from the seaside village, which would be useful when the time came to retake Rabaul. Another crucial reason to establish a force in Buna was that all New Guinea maps showed that the one thoroughfare between the north and south coasts of the island started at Buna and meandered across the Owen Stanley Range, via a government settlement called Kokoda before coming out at Port Moresby. Kokoda was important, also, as it had an airfield, native hospital, police house, officers’ houses and surrounding rubber plantations. MacArthur had some slight concern because, as he told Blamey, ‘There is increasing evidence of Japanese interest in developing a route from Buna through Kokoda to Port Moresby and that minor forces might try to use this route to attack Moresby… ’
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