Kokoda (61 page)

As macabre as this apparent cannibalism was, it was one particular Australian death with absolutely nothing to do with Japanese savagery that attracted their attention. Just a little way forward from Menari—where some ‘biscuit bombing’ had been done to keep the forward troops supplied—there was a fresh grave. It was that of a provost sergeant who had survived bullets, grenades, mortars and malaria, only to be struck dead by a large tin of biscuits. Stone, motherless,
dead
. To this point there had been a lot of near misses, but this was proof positive that it fair dinkum was worthwhile standing well back from any dropping zone when the fly-boys were doing their stuff.
²⁵⁸

This far into the campaign, however, death did not have the same effect on the soldiers that it once had. At a later point down the track, the men even openly mocked it. At the top of one ridge, from a shallow Japanese grave emerged a skeletal arm and hand at an angle of forty-five degrees to the ground. Each Digger shook that hand as he passed, saying things the like of ‘G’day, Dig, how ya goin’?’

Now that the tide of the Japanese advance had been turned, the temptation was for the Australians to turn into a flood of fire rushing after them, but the lessons of the campaign had been learnt. At this point, consolidation was every bit as valuable as helterskelter harrying, and the Australian soldiers proceeded carefully, aware of the mortal damage a well-executed ambush could wreak upon an advancing force.

In these early stages of the ‘advance to the rear’, the Japanese soldiers had no such fear of an ambush in front of them, and were constrained only by their own exhaustion and weakness, a result of two solid months of an under-resourced and bitter campaign. At least at their backs they had the 15th Independent Engineer Regiment blowing up the same bridges they’d so recently built, to slow the Australian advance.

The Japanese war correspondent Seizo Okada noted, ‘none of them had ever thought that a Japanese soldier would turn his back on the enemy…’
²⁵⁹
and the mood of the exhausted Japanese troops was beyond demoralised. Their mission had been to take Port Moresby and they had
failed
in their duty to do so. Under such circumstances, death seemed not an inappropriate end for them, but though some indeed took that option, most who had made it this far were united by a common instinct for survival.

Each tried to find strength in his own way. Some wanted to return to Japan intact to fight again for the greater glory of the Emperor; some so that the 144th would remain an effective fighting force and their battalion colours would once again know glory. One though—Sergeant Yuki Shimada of the 144th Regiment—struggling in the ragged end of the retreat, had a far more universal motivation. With every tortuous step he was reminded of a conversation he had had with his mother just before he left home for the war. ‘You
mustn’t
die,’ she told him, as she held him close. ‘You
musn’t
die. You must come home. You
must
come home.’
²⁶⁰
Yuki faithfully promised his mother that he would, and somehow that promise and the memory of his mother’s words gave him strength.

One by one, the villages of Nauro, Menari and Efogi, slowly, slowly came and went as the Japanese made their long trek back to the beachhead, harassed all the way by the American planes that had now arrived in New Guinea in force and that were constantly, furiously, patrolling, looking for retreating Japs to bomb and strafe.

As they staggered through each village the first port of call for the retreating Japanese soldiers was the vegetable gardens, but this far into the campaign there was simply nothing left. For the previous two months soldiers had been going back and forth and raiding, and now there simply was no more food left. Even when they sent out patrols to fields they knew to be seven miles away, they found them to be picked clean, with nothing to show for their exhausted effort.

Fortunately, ahead of them at Gona, fresh Japanese troops were marching out to meet them, providing a strong rearguard for them, bringing food, and also furiously working on finishing the defensive positions that had been under construction over previous months.

Feeling wretched, Father James Benson was in fear of his life, as he had been for months. Since having been taken prisoner by the Japanese, mostly he had feared that they would kill him, though on this occasion he thought it more likely that one of the Allied planes that were pounding Japanese positions around Buna and Gona would do for him. But, as ever, somehow the danger passed and, extraordinarily, he was still here, still alive. Right now though, there was some kind of commotion outside. There was a new prisoner being brought into their makeshift prison, situated just inland from the coast. An Australian, a lieutenant colonel, as evidenced by the shoulder tabs on his filthy uniform. He was as emaciated as a half-dead dingo, with the haunted look of one who had been through more horrors than he could quite comprehend. He was also nursing a very bad wound on his leg.

Father Benson lifted a careful hand of greeting and softly said: ‘Benson, missionary… ’

Was the figure about to say in reply, ‘Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Key, of the 2/14th Battalion… ’?

Father Benson would never know, as the missionary was suddenly belted in the head by the wretched guard, Fujoka, who roared at him ‘Benson! Speak no!’, before leading the gaunt officer away again.
²⁶¹

For all that, some time
would
be spent at a later point trying to determine if it had been Lieutenant Colonel Key. It just about had to be him, as there was no other Australian lieutenant colonel known to have been captured since Key and several others had disappeared after the attack on the Isurava Rest House at the end of August.

The following day Father Benson received word via an interpreter that the officer was wondering if he could borrow any English books the missionary might have. The missionary sent him every book he had, and also gleaned the information that the officer was so sick he could only take liquids from a tin. Father Benson would never see the figure again and shortly afterwards heard that he had been taken to Rabaul. Soon thereafter Father Benson received another visitor who he really could talk to. It was a journalist, a war correspondent from Japan’s foremost newspaper,
Asahi Shimbun,
and in excellent English he said his name was Seizo Okada. They talked for several hours, and did the same over the next few days.

Father Benson found Okada to be an extraordinary fellow, especially for the attitude he expressed about Japan’s militaristic culture.

‘I feel it is impossible for Japan to win the war,’ he told the missionary frankly, ‘and what a horrible prospect it would be for the world if she did!’

Uncertain of how far the journalist could be trusted, Father Benson said something noncommital, and the war correspondent followed up.

‘Please believe that what I say is genuine. I am no secret police spy. I am an honest man, a writer, who hates all that militarism stands for. Militarism must go.’

When Father Benson carefully put the view that militarism simply went with the territory of Japanese Shintoism and Emperor worship, the journalist was passionate.

‘All that must go, too! We of the intelligentsia will stand for it no longer.’

In essence, Seizo Okada made the Christian missionary understand that even in the middle of this war—with planes overhead and men toting guns all around, while other Japanese soldiers worked heavily building fortifications against the coming Allied attacks—there was a new Japan trying to emerge and it couldn’t happen soon enough.

‘The day of freedom will come,’ he said firmly, ‘and what a day! I shall be able to speak and write what I feel in my heart.’
²⁶²

The day came. The great American leader, General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the whole Southwest Pacific Area, arrived in New Guinea to inspect the terrain over which he had gained such intimate knowledge—from Brisbane. Well, it wasn’t quite the highlands where all the action had taken place, but it was as close as he could comfortably get.

On 3 October, Generals MacArthur, Blamey, Herring and Kenney, accompanied by the Australian Minister for the Army, F. M. Forde (who absurdly was dressed in a pith helmet, and carried a side-arm) visited Ower’s Corner. They were there to watch the departure of the 16th Brigade, under the command of Brigadier J. E. Lloyd, as they went up the track to support the 25th Brigade which was right on the tail of the now-retreating Japanese. It was MacArthur who was the focus though. The Australian troops got a look at this legendary military figure for the first time, as the cameras all around snapped and rolled, and the journalists took note. MacArthur always provided terrific copy with dramatic comments.

Drawing himself up into the classic military straight-back posture, the American general told Brigadier J. E. Lloyd: ‘Lloyd, by some act of God, your brigade has been chosen for this job. The eyes of the Western world are upon you. I have every confidence in you and your men, good luck, don’t stop.’
²⁶³
With which, the great man got back in his jeep, saluted and was driven off. General MacArthur proceeded in a southerly direction towards Moresby, where he spent a comfortable night in Government House, before returning to Brisbane. With his men, Brigadier Lloyd headed north, north to the Japanese beachhead and… they knew not what.

Over the next weeks the Australian soldiers in the 25th and 16th brigades continued to push the Japanese back along the track, although not without difficulty. Just as they had done to the Japs— setting up ambushes at killing grounds of their own choosing—so too were they now forced to tread warily as it was done to them in return. Sometimes there would be almost no resistance, and then suddenly the Japanese would make a stand, requiring the Australians to blast their way through.

The two critical battles of Japanese resistance came in the familiar territory of Templeton’s Crossing and Eora Creek, where the Japanese took shelter in the weapon pits that had been dug by the Australians only a month before.

Flags were important in the Japanese military culture. In the early part of the New Guinea campaign, if a Japanese soldier was wounded severely enough to return to the beachhead, all members of his platoon would sign a Japanese flag for him, as a memento of the time they had spent together. For all the reverence they held for the Japanese flag, however, it was the regimental flag that they regarded as practically holy.

During the retreat, when the Australians made a massive charge on an entrenched Japanese position, one soldier, Yutaka Yanagiba, found himself the sole defender of the regimental flag as the Australians came within just a few steps of it. He knew his duty, which was confirmed by a direct order from his immediate superior officer. The ancient tradition was that when the regimental flag was threatened in that manner, the flag had to be burnt, and the flag bearer with it.

Operating more from atavistic instinct than conscious thought, Yutaka wrapped the flag around himself, threw gasoline all over his helmet and body, and charged into one of the primitive huts in the village where they had been staying, a hut that was now on fire. There was a split second calm as the fumes met the flames and then, with a massive
whoomp
, both the Japanese soldier and the flag were on fire.
²⁶⁴
He writhed in agony on the floor, waiting for the blackness of death to engulf him and end the pain, and send him wondrously to join the spirits of his ancestors. But the meeting was deferred as the Japanese soldier inadvertently fell into a hole in the floor extinguishing the flames. All was suddenly dark and quiet. In agony, he nevertheless remained still, the more so because he now heard the unmistakable gibberish of Australian voices, saying things unknown but seemingly very excited at the success of their attack.

Presently, the voices faded as it became dark outside and the Australians continued their pursuit of his retreating comrades, and Yutaka decided to risk coming out… to find that he wasn’t alone after all. A Japanese officer had also just emerged from his own hiding place, and upon seeing him asked the obvious: ‘What happened to the flag?’

Private Yanagiba apologised profusely, saying he had intended to self-immolate with the flag, but had fallen into a hole, meaning that both he and the flag had survived.

‘Well, bring it with you now,’ the officer said.

And Yutaka would have, but as he could neither walk nor see, given the severe burns to over fifty per cent of his body, he gave the flag to the officer and told him he would have to advance to the rear with it himself.

As to the badly burnt soldier, he did the only thing he could do: stagger forward, vainly hoping to reach Japanese lines and be evacuated out. (Amazingly, he eventually was.)

The Australians continued to push forward, never knowing at what point the Japanese might have set up an ambush for them. As it always was in battle, the difference between life and death was a hair’s breadth. At one point the lieutenant of a company of advancing troops was just making his way down the track, with his men close in behind, when he tripped on a root. At the very instant that he tripped and fell forward, a Japanese machine-gunner opened up, and killed the two men who had been standing right behind him.

The soldiers behind those cut down immediately went to ground as the Japanese machine-gunner sprayed bullets in their direction. One combatant, Sergeant F. B. Burley, later recounted for the magazine of the 2/2nd Battalion, that: ‘I spent an eternity of some seconds behind what I considered the smallest tree in all New Guinea. The fire was from a well-known woodpecker, and by the amount of timber gradually being cleared in my vicinity I considered the name woodpecker most apt.’
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