The photo is a copy of a painting from the Australian War Museum CAT 105 by Sir William Dargie of Reg Ward standing and Don Johnson sitting by the twin Lewis machine guns on the Felix Rouselle during their return from the Middle Eastern war in Syria in 1941.The ship carried prisoners to Adeliade from the Middle East, and the Vichy French crew tried to take the ship to occupied France, Don held a revolver to the frog Captains head and made him turn south to South Africa, hijacked the ship to do it using the Lewis guns to keep the Vichy crew below decks till they got home across the Indian ocean........Story in DHJ4.htm..
Kokoda Track1942
Another time I was sitting behind a gum tree with the bulldog ants eating me alive, and the Japs were knocking the bark off both sides of the tree. My eyes were full of bark chips and If that wasn't bad enough, my mate George Gibson was throwing sticks at me and yelling. "Stop jumping around you bastard you`re drawing the crabs!" The bulldog ants were all over me in my clothes and me I was trying to pull the bastards off while under fire. The ant nest was at the butt of the tree I was behind. Two choices to be bitten or shot? Taken from "MEN OF COURAGE" Don Johnson's September 1942 memory of events.......
Taken from a book of Don Johnson's personal experience on the Kokoda track in New Guinea in 1942...Publisher sought.
YouTube - Don Johnsons WW2 Poetry Videos
CHAPTER 82
The 2/25 Battalion was at Caboolture Queensland. It's strength was now 32 Officers, 785 other ranks. We got orders on 31st August 1942. Prepare for embarkation to New Guinea. We were observed on an exercise by General MacArthur, just before leaving. We now received an issue of 42 Tommy Guns, so we now had eighty four in all. We caught a troop train to Brisbane and went to New Farm Wharf. There we boarded two troop ships the " Katoomba " and the " Van Der Lijn " a Dutch troopship. On September the first 1942 we headed north, part of a convoy of twelve ships. We had two Corvettes as escorts. The two troop ships, Van der Lijn and the Perthshire collided, off Townsville; one man died, others were injured. Van der Lijn was towed into Townsville and the troops from her eventually continued north on the " Cremer " to Port Moresby. The Australian and New Guinea troops by now had been fighting in the Owen Stanley`s and on the Kokoda Trail since July 23rd 1942. On the 10th September some members of our 25th Brigade were issued with green clothing and Yankee gaiters at Llola. These gaiters were pretty good in the jungle terrain, they were better quality than our standard issue, and they were good shin protectors. The Japs were getting near to Iorabaiwa Ridge. We were issued with five days rations. We were about to meet and hurt the Japs. On the 12th we moved forward at 0400hrs, A company leading. They were followed at hourly intervals by the other companies. Next morning we moved forward to take over from the 2/31 Battalion on Imita Ridge. There we used a perimeter circle defence. On the fourteenth we moved forward to Iorabiawa Ridge about forty miles from Port Moresby.
CHAPTER 83
Photo of Don early 1942
Other parts of the book below :.........OCCUPYING CURRENCY FOR AUSTRALIA>>>>
The other side of the Japanese ten bob of 1942
This part is dhj5.......CECILY JOHNSON AND ELLEN (NELL ) nee BRUMMELL / JOHNSON.............................................................
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Don Johnson
144 redbank plains rd. Bellbird Park 4300 Ipswich Queensland Australia
The Japs had got into the 39 Battalion Militia boys (Chocko's), from Victoria. These youngsters they were game! Just 16 to 18 year old boys, rushed into the jungle fighting without much training. These Militia boys fought against overwhelming odds. Just one almost Battalion (400 odd) of boys to hold the Kokoda trail at first 50 to 100 at a time, with little food and not much ammunition. They were facing literally thousands of veteran Japanese troops. Sure they had the Papuan Infantry Btn. one company of them. Usually these native people melted away under Jap Mortar and Machine Gun fire where it might have been death to stay. Having mainly .303 rifles to fight with, our young troops were handicapped. These boys were used to slow the Jap, while the experienced men were coming back from Churchill's war. We should have had trained men on standby! The boys staggered back into Port Moresby and had a deathly look on their faces. They`d been through hell. They wanted to get as far away from the Japs as they could get. The 39th Militia had one hard battle at Kokoda, and there the Japs tried to flank them, to cut them off, and to force them to withdraw, or be surrounded and butchered in a heap. The Jap had enough troops to do this during their advance across New Guinea. The remnants of the 39th with reinforcements from the 53rd Battalion, fought a rearguard action across the Kokoda trail. They fought alone till the 21st Brigade veterans, A.I.F. men back from the Middle East war, joined their ranks on August 26th 1942 at Isurava. The 21st Brigade boys of the 2/14th Battalion had their share of brave men at Isurava. Corporal "Teddy Bear" killed fifteen Japs with his Bren gun while his platoon was being over run. Corporal Charlie McCallum though wounded three times, kept a strong force of Japs at bay alone. Using a Bren gun and a Thompson sub machine gun, he held the Jap for a while, so his exhausted mates could escape from a trap to gain better defensive positions. At Isurva during a fierce battle, Private Bruce Kingsbury took the offensive alone. Bruce was armed with wounded "Teddy Bears" Bren gun, he charged a large group of Japanese firing this Bren gun from the hip . Killing many and scattering the rest with his deadly shooting ability, his platoon followed his lead as he chased the retreating Japs, who were driven back a hundred yards. A sniper fired and Bruce Kingsbury died, he had earned his Victoria Cross posthumously. The Japanese advance was held at Isurava for four days, until fresh Jap troops forced a withdrawal. Reinforced by first the 2/14th Battalion then 2/16th and 2/27th. Now a total of about 1800 Aussies barred the way to Moresby. These battalions were stretched out along the track to intercept the Jap circling flanking manoevers. The Japanese troops would always circle around the back of the defensive positions if possible to cut off the retreat of the Aussies. Still the Japs in thousands advanced across the island. Brigadeer Arnold Potts dug in with a thousand men of the 2/14, 2/16 and 2/27 battalions, on September 5th near Efogi, holding back the Japanese onslaught for three or four days with his 21st Brigade. More than a hundred Australians were surrounded and killed by the experienced Japanese troops near Efogi. Some got away. In hindsight if they had made their stand up on a spur just short of where they fought, they might not have been surrounded. The 21st Brigade A.I.F. Diggers now saw the "Chocko's" in a new light, calling them "Ragged bloody heroes!" The 39th was relieved on the fifth of September by the 2/27th Battalion and were numbered at 180 survivors on the sixth of September 1942.
CHAPTER 84
The 21st Brigade found it was a different ball game to the desert warfare. A few months earlier they had clashed with Rommel in North Africa and had won recognition there, dishing it out to the Italians and the Jerries. The war in the desert was more civilised somehow. Bearded now, near exhaustion, from lack of food and sleep the 21st Brigade and the remains of the 39th Btn. continued to fight a rearguard action in the worlds' roughest battleground. Over steep mountain spurs and across ravines where streams flowed in torrents, they were struggling through foot deep mud much of the time. The sun was almost excluded, the half light only just filtered through the overhead canopy of vines creepers and branches. The Aussies were still being forced to retreat or die, back through the villages of Isurava, Alola, Eora Creek, Myola, Efogi, and other villages along the trail. They would ambush the oncoming Japs and would have to pull out when they were encircled by units of the total ten thousand Japanese troops available. Every afternoon and night there were torrential downpours so the troops were wet most of the time. The wounded dragged themselves back towards Moresby and some were carried by the Fuzzy Wuzzies on their stretchers. Finally on Iorabiawa ridge the 21st Brigade and 39th Battalion remnants stopped the Japanese again and were then relieved by our 25th Brigade of three battalions. The Japanese General Horii was feeling the pinch, supplies were thin and he was over extended in his bid to win victory. Horii decided to dig in and wait for supplies and reinforcements before moving on Pt.Moresby.
CHAPTER 85
Our fesh troops of the 25th Brigade, 2500 men, joined the brave boys on Iorabiawa. We were to meet the remnants of the defenders some just alive and many of them wounded when we relieved them at the front. After one attack on the Japs in their trenches in our early engagements, using the 2/25th Battalion, we had been withdrawn from Iorabiawa Ridge by Brigadier Eather, as the Japs were trying to get around both flanks with their encircling tactics. So we came back to Imita Ridge and the 2/25th now were the rearguard. Privates O'Brien and Cruickshank used their Bren Guns very effectively on the Japs following our trail as part of the rear guard action. The closest the Japs came to Pt Moresby was at Imita Ridge on the seventeenth of September 1942. Our 25th Brigade of three battalions, they were in defensive positions thereabout. Our 2/33rd Battalion ambushed the Japs at the foot of Imita Ridge downing forty of the advancing enemy before they stopped coming forward. Major stewart was evacuated due to illness, and Major Marson ( Drover Dick ) became 2/25th Battalion 2.I.C. Our 25 pounder Artillery just two guns were brought up using catapillar tractors, to counter the mountain guns of the Japanese emplacements on Iorabiawa ridge. The guns came to a position near Imita, at Owen`s Corner. Manned superbly by the 14th field Regiment they pounded the Jap positions. The Japs were well dug in with fortifications of logs, packed earth and such. On September the twenty seventh the artillery fired about 700 shells from their 25 pounders at the Jap positions on Iorabiawa Ridge. They were destroying the Jap fortifications and killing many in their trenches. Wild screaming was reported all over the ridge. The guns were firing across about seven miles to hit their target. The fire was directed from forward O.Ps. - Observation Posts by Signallers operating in B company of the 2/25th battalion. The Signallers were using old valve Transceivers, the 108 type. They weighed perhaps 18kgs, power out about half a watt. They covered frequencies from 6 to 9 Megacycles but didn't have a Morse key then. Being very close to the front they might have attracted unwanted attention from the Japs by talking on the radio. So one handy Signaller John Ball modified some radios. He disconnected a capacitor and with the added necessary oscillation, these Sigs. used a battery terminal to interrupt the battery power and transmit morse code. Just like the old timers had in the early days of radio. This method was used to good effect. Later when on patrol in the Myola area and elsewhere, morse code was used with headphones, where the sound of any voice in the thick jungle brought sudden death to the unwary speaker. In New guinea you had to talk in whispers. It was the only way, and it gave us an edge on our yellow enemy. One 25 pounder gun was man-handled forward from Owen`s corner towards Imitia Ridge over a seven day period. After the fifty men had laboured to get it into a new position. It had all been all in vain because on the 28th the Japanese had left. Our men of the 39th battalion plus the A.I.F battalions 4/14, 2/16 & 2/27 had reduced the Jap numbers by one fifth as Aussies crossed the Kokoda trail skirmishing in retreat. A few days earlier on the twenty fifth day of september 1942 fighting patrols of the 2/25th Battalion penetrated the Japanese defences. The Japs had been well dug in with many heavy machine guns, mountain guns and mortars.
CHAPTER 86
I went alone from our lines on Imita forward to scout the Jap positions on Iorabiawa ridge. This was a volunteer job and I was supposed to take a few men with me, but I preferred to go alone. I thought I had more chance alone to get close enough. I had too good a look around the ridge and was finally spotted and fired upon. The Jap was bumping the stem of his peculiar grenade and throwing them my way from the heights on the ridge. I eventually escaped their attention and returned to make my report. I led a fighting party from Imita up onto Iorabiawa ridge while our Artillery shells were still landing among the Japs on the 27th. The Japs had reached the end of their tether, as they were starving and disoriented. Many were suffering from Malaria and Scrub Thypus. Then we set a trap for our yellow enemy, our experienced troops went up and we bumped them, they came back at us. Then we withdrew and left piled up a heap of tucker and goods, leftovers, tins of fruit. At this early stage we had plenty of supplies to tempt the starving Japanese soldiers. We run a half circle around that pile of goodies with Bren guns and Mortars. When about 500 of these Japs ran in and started feeding. When they had all came to lunch, we up em, and killed all the 500 there. From there on the Jap knew he was fighting men not boys. We knew all about the killing business. On the twenty seventh of September we attacked in strength. The 2/25th attacked from the front while the 2/31st and 2/33rd Battalions hit them from each flank. After heavy fighting we drove the Jap from Iorabiawa ridge. They left their equipment and stores and many unburied dead, in their haste to retreat to safety. They were up against three fresh Battalions and couldn't fend us off. We were so determined to wipe them out! Although they outnumbered us they had to pull out or die! The three fresh Battalions 2/25th, 31st and 33rd charged up onto Iorabiawa ridge. We were using cold steel bayonet tactics and had put all the Japs to flight on the twenty eighth of September 1942. The Japs ran so fast they left tons of needed equipment in their wake. We followed them for days in retreat. The exhausted Japs had taken quite enough punishment on Iorabiawa Ridge. They couldn't face our fresh 2,500 veterans and were gone.
Don and his trained horse Cubby Jack in 1983
CHAPTER 87
On the seventh of October Lt Barnet with four sections, a total of fifty riflemen, on a long range patrol contacted the enemy near Templeton's crossing. This was at Myola, an open area at the crest of the range. The patrol missed the side track into Myola and ran into an ambush. A Machine Gun opened up on the party wounding Private McKinnon. Lieutenant Barnet gave two sections a flanking order to the right under Lt. Cox while his two sections made a frontal attack on the enemy Platoon. The attack failed, Sgt N C Patterson died and both Lt Barnet and Sgt. Worland were wounded. Corporal Stanley of the R.A.P. - Royal Aid Post moved forward while under heavy enemy fire, to stitch a serious wound to Lt Barnet's chest. He received a Military Medal for his great bravery under fire. These troops found the side track to Myola on their return journey, it was unoccupied. They got back to where the Signallers were, contacted the Brigade and were told to hold the contact at Myola. The stretcher cases went back and the Patrol returned to Myola, there they were relieved by the 2/33 Btn. Lt Innis ( Bardia Bill) took charge at Myola, so full of our troops by now, some had been on various detours across country checking for Japanese pockets of resistance. Our 2/25th Btn. had gone by the Kagi track. Wyn Yeatman made sure they caught up to the Battalion, using his bushman skills. They were then sent to find a track around Templeton's Crossing, to cut the Japs retreat avenue, they were successful. Templeton's Crossing was a low saddle in the crest of the range on the Kokoda trail. It was thought to be a bottle-neck, where a Jap machine gun might hold us back. I had been working in the Mortar Platoon with Norm Duel his brother Stan and Sam Williamson, when we had some ammo to use. Norm Duel is a real survivor, he fought in the Middle East with us in the Mortar Platoon and he went to New Guinea three (3) times, probably a record for that very risky service. For if the Japs didn't get you, the deadly Malaria or fatal Scrub Thypus would. Spoke to Norm Duel in 06 at Greenslopes Hospital in the ward, He said "We were dueling a Jap mountain gun and he was getting too close, so we moved behind a hill and did them in, from behind the hill, he couldn't get enough elevation to hit us." Norm Duell was In Balikapan at war end and saw the Samurai Swords being handed over by the irate Jap.... Now I was employed in a dangerous job priming hand grenades that had been air dropped some with distorted bodys and bent primer detonaters, while doing this job I got thinking about Mortar bombs that had also been air dropped. I warned our boss Drover Dick and he promptly sacked me. I was sacked from the Mortar platoon by Major Marson our C.O. (Drover Dick). He said "Don't go near them you'll only panic them, you go with 'Banjo' the R.S.M." So I did. Near Templetons crossing we were supplied from the air with ammunition and mortar rounds dropped from 'Biscuit Bombers'. I tried to warn the 'Brass' that these rounds would explode when dropped into the Mortar barrel, as some would be armed by the impact after falling from the plane. I refused to operate in the Mortar team with defective ammunition and was sacked from it. They used the Mortar and the first round was a dud, the second one blew up in the barrel and destroyed company H.Q. I had dived into a trench expecting this to happen. More than a dozen men of our three battalions were killed by these mortar rounds that were likely to explode on impact in the barrel. I knew the principle of the arming mechanism and the danger of it. Dropping the Mortar round down the barrel using a normal shell fired the launch charge and armed the impact detonator at that same time. This system made the round safe to carry for use in a war zone, no rough treatment of the round was recommended. Near Templeton's crossing two of us were out scouting. I was trying to get a live prisoner for 'Drover Dick'. The other Japs I tried to capture were dead but this one survived. This big Mongolian type, he was kneeling saying the lords' prayer. I had shot him through the legs as he rushed me, his bayonet at the 'high port'. I had kneecapped him. At last I had a live prisoner for the boss, he spoke English too, a bonus for old Dick. I was also checking the pockets of the dead. While checking a Jap Officer for intelligence, maps etc, instead I found a Japanese made ten shilling note. To my surprise, here was an Australian occupation currency note, to be spent in Australia by our conquerors. Then there came a crunching sound and the Mongolian's brains showered up my back. My mate had finished the job with the Mongolian. He had clubbed him with the breech of the .303 rifle. " We`re here to kill Japs! " he said, this seventeen year old, mild mannered ex sunday school teacher. He hated them so much. We had recently found and had identified the remains of a friend in the Jap cooking pots, his buttocks were on the menu. This incident occured between Myola and Templetons Crossing. Our M.O. verified it, and it is on record, I made sure of it. This Digger Bert a Stretcher Bearer had been sitting with our section eating bully beef. Something caught his eye and he looked round a tree. Bert was shot in the head then by a Jap sniper, who had tied himself into a tree, twenty feet up or so. Matey Simmons fired his bren gun at the Jap till he fell from the tree in bits and pieces. We were driven back then and had to leave Bert's body. Next day we found his cooked remains in the pot. The Japs had slaughtered ten missionaries in New Guinea almost all of them serving there. Such animals of this Jap genera type were not hard to despise.
CHAPTER 88
Facts taken from a letter to Dept.Repatriation. Donald Hambleton Johnson Qx18024 2/25th battalion AIF From Army Files Middle East (Syria ) 7-4-1941 to 23-5-1942 New Guinea 31-8-1942 to 8-1-1943 On landing at Pt Moresby I was in the Mortar Platoon We carried ammunition 3 cases (75 lb) each, Mortar gun barrel (46 lb) Mortar base pad (36 lbs) in your pack on your back 6 to 8 mortar bombs Weighing 10 lb each (80 lbs in all) .303 rifle 9 lb, or Bren gun 23 lb In pouches of webbing on front of chest 6 Bren gun magazines weighing 3 lb each (18lb) spares. Plus 6 hand grenades in pockets half a pound each or more. Spare boots 3 lb, they wear out quick in the mud. (Don wore out 9 pairs of army boots in the mud of New Guinea he said they were made out of cheap cow belly leather, poor quality, the good leather comes off the top of a beast) Pack and haversack, clothes, toiletries, about 10 lbs and food if any??? Dc3 biscuit bombers dropped 4 gallon tins of hard dog biscuits, we ate crumbs till they went blue moldy in the pocket. Bully beef was splattered up and down trees so we ate as much of this as possible too, straight off the tree, it came in pyramid shaped cans. A captured stray mule carried on level ground (in Syria) 300 lbs and dry ground, no mud in the desert. Don had several Pack Mules shot while bring supplies to the front line in Syria, against the Vichy French and Foreign Legion. One was hit through the shoulders by a 75 mm shell which passed right through the Mule as it was led down to water and about to drink The tallest mountains in New Guinea are 14 thousand feet, they dodged these ones mostly . Notice the terrain in New Guinea 1300 steps to climb the golden stairway, it was just as bad going down as going up . Bogging to the boot tops, it rained constantly for 20 out of the 24 hours. More rain out of the saturated trees the other 4 hours. The constant rain, mud and no food and the climbing of mountains certainly was wearing on the knees. A total of 130 days in battle in New Guinea . Then he was flown out to Port Moresby from Kokoda Airstrip with 2 types of Malaria, Cerebal and the usual Malaria, Black water fever, pissing blood and Amoebic dysentery, where you were always shitting yourself. To your mates disgust! And then you would have to fight the Japanese? The nurses found the Japanese occupying currency 10 shilling note in his pocket when they cut his shorts off. As told to me by Don Johnson. Don Jnr
About this time we had upgraded our equipment and were nearly all using captured Jap equipment. Their light shovel was easier to carry, well balanced and had a sharp edge one side, used for hacking in man to man encounters, or just root chopping when needed. Their mess tins were better and some Jap troops had aluminium water bottles. The Japs wore rubber boots that pulled on like a glove, the big toe was separate from the other four toes. With these boots they could walk through mud without getting their feet wet. In the Desert Campaign there was no where to hide but in the trenches. New Guinea was different, there were plenty of big trees to get behind plus boulders and dense jungle. Of a night in N.G. it was cold and we`d lay down in a green moss sometimes six inches thick. It was getting along towards Christmas, and it sometimes rained for twenty hours and then a further four hours out of the trees. Many of us had Tropical ulcers that ate great holes into an arm or leg. They would start from a scratch or a pimple, the pus from them would run down into your boots and glue your socks to your feet, but the men kept soldiering on. It was possible to screw the ulcer out of a leg with some determination, leaving a deep hole, to fill with rag soaked iodine to heal. George Gibson, my good mate and I used to take the mickey out of the rare new replacements just a bit. George would say speaking of their new green uniforms. " You paw paw bastards green on the outside and yellow on the inside, and you give a man the shits!" This was his favourite jibe for the replacements, these men so new to the war business. I met Doctor Vernon on the track. He was tall and lean and about sixty years old. He was a doctor with the Fuzzy Wuzzies when we first arrived there. In the first war W.W.1. Doctor Vernon had been a Medical Officer in the Sinai Desert in the Middle East, serving with the Aussie Light Horse, after this War finished he was almost deaf. Dr Geofferey Vernon spent many years in New Guinea between the wars taking care of the 'Fuzzy Wuzzies'in an unpaid capacity. The good Doctor was 59 years old when the war came to New Guinea. When the 400 boys of the 39th Militia Battalion climbed the mountains to go to war with the Ten Thousand Japanese, he saw there was no Doctor to patch them up. (Shame on you Australia) So Dr.Vernon joined the ranks of these teenagers and their old W.W.1 Officers on the Murderous Kokoda Trail. So Dr. Vernon the civilian calmly went up the track to do his best, being partly deaf he ignored the orders he didn't like. He always said the place of the M.O. was at the tail of the retreating column with the second in command, and the last of the soldiers. He served without rank or pay and recognition. Even after our young troops were defeated by the Japanese, he remained at his post. He worked night and day in darkness and rain, with only a hurricane lamp light, to operate on the many wounded and dying. This remarkable man never returned to Australia, he went back over the Kokoda Trail with our 25th brigade the Japs now in retreat. He insisted on attending to the wounded in the Brigade. He could have gone home, being a civilian as he was. Dr. Vernon was a dedicated man and stayed on in his usual unpaid practice. I will tell you of one incident. The good Doctor and his offsider, Allan Drayden of the 2/25th, were operating on a severely wounded digger. Machine gun fire blew the top off the Grass hut that they were using. The chaffed grass rained down on the two medical men and their patient. The old Doc. said casually, "The rats are bad here Boy hold the light a bit closer." Dr Vernon's untiring service in the New Guinea Campaign probably caused his death in 1946 at the Samari Hospital. In places I'd see where our mates had been killed in hundreds, a couple of weeks before. ( Men of the 21st Brigade were found unburied on the tenth October 1942 in the Efogi village area.) We would have to walk up and bury them, all blown up and rotten, all Australians, many of them just kids. It's a shocking thing, our men lying dead everywhere, not to be laughed about.
CHAPTER 89
On October the twelvth we finally caught up to the retreating Jap Battalions at Templeton's Crossing. They were dug in there, fortified and had Mountain guns, Mortars, and heavy Machine guns. Now the boot was on the other foot. Unfortunately, we had to leave our Artillery back at Imita Ridge due to mountainous terrain and the steepness of the native track. At Templeton's Crossing the Jap had been reinforced by fresh troops their flanks were well protected. It took until the twenty second of October, to destroy the enemy there. The Aussies did much close quarter fighting using bayonets and grenades to kill their hated enemy with heavy casualties on both sides. The rain poured torrents daily and we were slowed in our advance by the quagmire. We encountered pockets of resistance left behind in each Village we passed through, and cleaned them out at Alola, Isurava, Deniki, and Abuari. I had heard rumours of an Aussie soldier who wore around his neck on his dog tag cord the bottom jawbones of several Japanese. I was to see him and to marvel at him, he was collecting them like scalps. He was a very fierce looking individual to strike on a jungle path and deadly serious about getting fresh ones for his collection. I was to see many dead Japs in the jungle. The pigs would feed on them a bit, their bottom jaw seemed the strongest part of them. You could see bottom jaws laying everywhere sometimes with half a dozen gold teeth. The pigs would roll their heads away trying to get at the rotten brains in them. One day I was up forward in a listening post and I had a nervous fellow called Jack with me. Suddenly close by in the dense jungle there came a few grunts possibly from a Jap straightening up. Nervous Jack sprang up and bolted back to our lines. My mates were calling to me to see if I was ok. I dared not answer them now, in case a Jap threw a grenade or fired on me. I waited alone for what might have been a Jap patrol. After a few more grunts as he moved about nearby, I eventually fired on the enemy and threw grenades and it stopped moving. Much later I moved forward and found a big boar pig, very dead. Well, we had tucker now, my mates were very hungry and they ate him raw. They were still chewing on his rind a week later, hair and all.
CHAPTER 90
Many of the 'City ites' were a bit new to the jungle. I became a leader of parties, with no Bushman in the patrol my mates got lost, wherever they went I had to go. Compasses played up in parts of the New Guinea highlands, iron in the ground? So Bushmen like myself, were heavily relied on to find the way. After travelling day and night with these parties, for weeks at a time, my health began to suffer. I had Malaria and starvation to thank. On hearing of a patrol through the trackless jungle the boys would say, "I'll volunteer if Johnno leads the party, we won't get lost then!" We were now killing Japanese four to one every day. In New Guinea after our men had fought the Japanese for sometime, our C.O. Dick Marson sent us out as forward scouts to capture the enemy if possible. I was out doing a bit of scouting and I sighted another Scout from another Battalion. He was one of our side. This I found out after shadowing him, and he was stalking me also, very carefully. When we were convinced of each other's nationality, we came together and talked. He said " Who are you working for? " I said " I'm working for Old Drover Dick." " Oh " he said " I know him." I said " It's a wonder you never came over to join our battalion?" He said "I wouldn't go near that mad bastard. I was with him in the Light Horse at Beersheba and Gaza, in the first World War!" We were doing a bit of scouting. They would send out a dozen a day, some would go in two's, but one's suited me better, my preference every time. The C.O. Drover Dick, kept asking for a live prisoner, this made it very hard. We could only get him dead ones and Dick he was going crook about it. He said he wanted to talk to the bastards, and I always asked what he wanted to ask them. Many of the Jap`s in New Guinea could speak English and some they would call out, "Where are you Jack where are you John? Where are you Bill? Where are you Jonesy?" If you were silly enough to answer them, they'd pop a hand grenade in on top of you. When we were in action or out scouting we always spoke in whispers, and never talked aloud. It could give the game away to our enemy. It put the Jap off guard, these men who walked and never talked. Never spoke aloud or made a noise We had the Japanese worried. Every waking minute was spent staring into the jungle, with about forty yards only that you could see in front of you, 100% alert day after day. This sort of drove you a bit crazy. You dare not stop watching for a second. My eyes were very good, it seemed I always had the edge on the yellow man my opposite number. I wasn't seeing things. I wasn't shooting at shadows. If I pulled off a shot there was a dead Jap at the other end of it. I would try to get them alive. The Jap would fire all the 6.5mm bullets out of his Arisaka rifle, from his noisy five round magazine. You would know it then, as he would come for you with his rifle, his bayonet fixed. I used a Thompson sub machine gun then and sometimes, I'd take his rifle from him. For then I was healthy and strong in those early days. At bayonet fighting I was an expert. I had taught the art in Grovely camp for twelve months before going to the Middle East. So then you'd have to kill him with it, or be killed. Other times I would simply shoot him with a 45 calibre slug burst from the Thompson. Hit him in the brisket or between the kidneys with it. After months of this kill or be killed close quarter fighting. I didn't have time to aim, just pointed the gun and fired, a reflex action. There was just the quick and the dead! After his death I would be checking his body for information on his regiment. I would see the mangled mess left of him, blood and gore, you could put your hand in where the bullets came out. The Jap rifle sounded more like a .22 calibre rifle firing, any Bushman could pick the difference between it and our louder .303 rifle. A 303 bullet might just go through you, and bore a hole in you, but the Thompson slug was shorter and fatter. When it came out it had a common tendency to flatten out while going through and would come out as big as a penny. The Japs used Dum dum ammunition sometimes, the pointed end cut off the bullet so the lead would spread on impact with my comrades. We soon found we had an advantage with our .303 rifles. When a Jap fired from behind some softwood trees where the roots came out at forty five degrees some feet up the tree. We could shoot them through the flanges of wooden root due to the power of the .303.
DROVER DICK
Our Commander was Dick Marson, on the New Guinea campaign.
He was for us, old Drover Dick, who down the Cooper came.
The one who rode with Redford, the cattle duffer mate.
They took a thousand head,
to South Australia straight.
This man who was our hero, was a first War Veteran true.
He walked us up the Kokoda trail, we took tea with a Jap or two
. The bursting shrapnel sliced his gut, his stomach it dropped out.
There was no doctor to stitch him up, just the Muleteer about.
I`d had a mule team in the Middle east, with the Second 25th.
Supplies we took to the front at least, till they blew my mules to bits.
I used to stitch their packs up, and counter line them too.
Old Dick knew I could do the job, to make him good as new.
So he said " Just send for Johnno, to put me guts in straight.
The Muleteer can counterline, or I'll be just crowbait!"
I blanket stitched him mate, was as neat as I could be.
He stood erect said, " That's first rate." and called out " Follow me!"........ by D.H. Johnson.
CHAPTER 91
On the eleventh of October the 25th Brigade got orders from the seventh Division : Maintain contact with the enemy by continual patrol activity, consolidate your positions now with one Battalion at Kagi, and the other two Battalions at Templeton's crossing to include Eora Creek. Secure Alola for use as an air-drop zone. By the afternoon of the sixteenth we were in positions on Templeton's Crossing with the 2/33rd and other Battalions. About 17:30 hours our Battalion position was subjected to enemy Mortar fire. Major Marson, and Privates C Pallister and A J Greensel were wounded by shrapnel. The enemy Mortar was sited about 500 yards away. After our C.O., " Drover Dick " had his gut sliced open he lay on the ground, the Doctor couldn't help him as he'd had an arm blown off. Yes Dick sent word, " Just get the Muleteer he's not squeamish." So it was left to me to clean him up, to remove the leaves and dirt from his intestines, put them back in, and to stitch him up. I had to sew the selvedge together, before I started to sew him up. I used some big blanket stitches and spider stitches to pull the cut together. He took it alright, he lay there conscious and he was a very tough old bastard. Just when the last stitch went in, Dick he got up and put on another shirt and called out, "Up and at em, follow me," you couldn't help but admire him. Even so as the other scout had told me, he said of Dick " He`s mad that bastard?" Like Wally Lewis the rugby footballer, Dick Marson had a public who believed in him. There had much earlier been some panic when word came down the line that Drover Dick had his leg off. Our small group was cut off behind the Jap lines near Iorabiawa when our Brigade withdrew back to Imitia ridge. No it wasn't Dick at all. It was A R 'Dick' Luckell from Bundaberg, we carried him till midnight, Ray Larson, Gibbo, DeBrit and I. We had a tourniquet of signal wire on his leg. It was pouring rain and pitch dark, our carrying party was behind the Jap lines, our troops had all withdrawn from this area. Dick died and we buried him. Dick had been singing softly, " Swinging along the road to victory," while we carried him, he was known as "Lucky" this very brave man! We dug his grave in the jungle blackness using our tin hats and bayonets in the heavy rain. I collected an oil bottle and some 4x2 pull through cloth, .303 rifle cleaning equipment kept in the rifle stock butt. With it I made a tiny candle to check the tracks to find my way back to our lines. Next day I tried to get Ray Larson onto his feet, and later I gave him a kick to get him up. He said "I can't Johnno." Ray had walked all night with a woodpecker bullet hole through the calf of his leg and had still carried Dick with us. I regret my rough treatment of him to this day.
CHAPTER 92
Efogi Clearing
The Japs turned tail and headed north on twenty eighth September forty two
. They'd struggled round on mountains fought stopped near Moresby by the few.
Eighteen hundred went to stop ten thousand in the jungle mountains high.
Fought and skirmished over land in a rainforest never dry.
Our fresh Brigade now drove them off and followed as they ran,
in places high we'd count the cost where our mates died every man.
Near Efogi in a clearing up among the mountains high,
stopped to wonder at the scene, dead men round a circle lie.
All around a circle green, bloated rotten stinking high,
dead Japs were piled up everywhere, by the dozen just to die.
So many died why came the thought?
What killed them though they tried?
There in a pit our brave men fought, two bren gunners fought and died.
Sat back to back to watch the clearing, though bullet riddled, soldiered on.
Slowly died with each bullet searing, fought till their last bullet fired and gone.
Two marksmen stayed upon the trail, let the wounded get away,
Japs in thousands were a coming o'er the mountain's narrow way.
Bren machine gun bullet spenders, deadly accurate this I say,
all around the bullets humming, squealing Japs were turned to clay.
Kokoda trail held till they died, slowed the Jap a little way,
though surrounded no surrender, at the time had death to pay.
21st Brigade men fought and died, two lives given on the day,
like Horatious at the bridge, didn't falter there to stay. ...........by D H Johnson.
I came across a place where a stand was made by two men in a pit against the Japs near Efogi. These two dead men had a Bren gun each and had used them very well. Yes for three hundred yards all around the weapon pit the ground was littered with dead Japs. They had used six cases of .303 ammunition and had fought back to back and kept the Japs falling until their Bren ammo ran out! We got their dog tags, but they were not mentioned in dispatches, a great pity. I think they were possibly of the Fourteenth or Twenty seventh battalion, game men of the 21st brigade. These two brave souls saw it out to the finish, they`d made their stand, bullet riddled at the finish.
A LAD OF THE 25TH BRIGADE.
He was riding on a stretcher, pale and weak from loss of blood.
As the Fuzzy-Wuzzies bore him, Through a sea of stinking mud.
He was badly wounded, but never a sign he gave,
Of the pain that he was suffering, Oh God - how he was brave.
I gave him a taste of water, and a smoke to cheer him up.
He said "Thank's old timer I'll be there to hear the Cup!"
Yes this Infantier showed guts!
By Sapper Bert Beros of the 2/5th Field Company 7th Australian Division Engineers.
Bert was the Kokoda Poet.
CHAPTER 93
Howard Strachan had been a Second Lieutenant in the Middle East, and had been recognized as a good Officer rising through the ranks on his merit. He was a Lieutenant when we left for Australia on the Felix Rouselle. During one battle in New Guinea in October he was shot through the forehead the bullet passed right through, and we thought him dead for sure. The Doctor just shook his head sadly about Howard. Said he was dead, but he was still wriggling. He squirmed around in the jungle for ten days, then he got up. Howard was still blind, deaf and dumb. But when he`d got his eyesight back, he picked up his Tommy gun and went back to the front, he hadn't eaten for ten days. After this we all called him " Whispering Strawn, or Strack." Howard couldn't speak above a whisper from that day on.
Bush Knights.
The Knights of the Kokoda trail, were Aussie Bushmen lean.
Frank Egan made them weep and wail, when he brought them death unseen.
This man he went on his own raids, saw Johnno in the hills.
He`d stopped to load up on grenades, where Johnno primed the Mills.
These men they whispered as they talked, armed to the teeth I'll state.
Frank crawled away he hadn't walked, more Japs would meet their fate.
One man from Goodooga, black, yes a Murray so true blue.
He carried a sugar bag on his back, filled with grenades, primed too.
He left camp wearing a loincloth new, went native I'll relate.
Went behind the lines to a Jap H.Q., fed them hand grenades old mate.
The Japs did, the natives brutalise, worked them hard as mules as well.
When a " Fuzzy " fell and couldn't rise, hamstrung him where he fell.
'Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels' bore our friends, mortally wounded down the track.
Our Goodooga boy he made amends, with Jap carrier parties black.
He killed the Samurai swordsmen, mean, set Jap slaves many, free to run,
Sent them back to the hills so very green, this fight for them he'd won.
of Frank Egan & Harry West by D H Johnson.
CHAPTER 94
We were different, we were seasoned troops, not jungle troops. Even among the seasoned troops, few were any good in the jungle at finding their way. I wore out nine pair of army boots. With continuous wear these boots stretched in the wet muddy conditions and were as loose as chaff bags. They were made perhaps out of cow belly leather too soft for the job. I wore every size 9, 10, 8, sevens. When we were climbing the Kokoda trail, it was so slippery you had to climb alongside the path as there had been so many troops over it. To sleep at night I would lay propped against a tree to stop myself rolling down the steep slope. Propped up, almost a sitting up position hanging on to a tree with your legs, like a monkey. If you let go during the night you would roll quickly down a ravine somewhere. There were thirteen hundred steps cut in one ridge alone. The army engineers cut the steps for us, and it made it easier for the wounded to travel back, and for the Fuzzy Wuzzy stretcher bearing parties. The Japs could bob up anywhere, it came down to sections of our men spread right across the face of the map. We were working in little groups. If one little group came under heavy fire, the others would converge on it and that's the way we did it. We went out with thirty men in a section, if we struck trouble well the others were hopefully out to the right and left of us. If we met a group of the enemy we could surround him and lock him in for elimination. I've heard some men of the Sixth division calling to us when they were behind the Jap, " Cease fire Twenty Fifth." We were shooting over the top of them. What helped us were the Bushmen amongst us in each section. These bushmen who knew roughly, in their heads where each band was, also picked well the shifting positions of the enemy force. It was a bit like mustering a big paddock of perhaps 50,000 acres of inpeneteable scrub and missing no stock in your muster even in the thickest scrub paddock. For this is what the Australian Stockmen had been very used to, on many of the western station properties. The sense of direction retained when mustering scrub cattle, this experience gave us the edge on the Jap. Instead of mustering sheep or cattle we were mustering Japanese. If they stayed in their machine gun pits we encircled them so quietly. We had about ten percent bushmen in our Brigade, pretty good bushmen. As many of our troops they were city boys, they didn't know what to do about the scrub. So it had been decided to try to get a bushman into each group. We went across the land spread out for two miles or so, and when we bumped into the Japs they would be in a group together. They were starving and almost the rear guard, but they would still have scouts out and we would converge around them. Fire power from our own troops was worse than that from the Japs because the Jap rifles were not much better than a .22 magnum. You were never certain that your friends were alongside you due to the dense jungle. Our troops they got their orders from the gunfire and converged. They might be half a mile back or ahead there was no Battalion situation, not fighting as a Battalion it was more like Guerilla warfare. We had radio's, Transceivers, and those old valve jobs would get wet, but we still used them effectively. The old walkie-talkies were handy too when we needed to talk. When we had contact with the enemy, our troops to the right and left would hit them from each flank. So we over came them this way, the Diggers just joined in the fun.
CHAPTER 95
On one unusual occasion I was sent over to another valley to see what was going on. There was a war going on over there and we knew nothing about it. Old Dick sent me to have a look to see what was going on? There were so many Jap and Australian rifles lying about, that a couple of tribes had gathered them up and were having another little war between themselves on the side. When I saw who it was who were killing each other on the side, I didn't interfere as it was their business. I reported this information back to the boss, and we left them to it. They were certainly plonking away at each other. You get used to the slaughter house while you are there, the blood and guts everywhere. Finally when you leave you`re bloody glad to go! To be a forward scout you must move very silently, you were a dead duck, if a Jap spotted you first. I would go off at daylight in the morning alone scouting, or just on dark if the moon was out, but it seldom was. We were quieter operators than the Jap, the old .303 rifle would open and shut without any noise. The Japs they had tin magazines that used to rattle, and there was a rattle when they were shutting the bolt putting a bullet up the spout. If they were only out there forty yards away, you would hear the bolts rattling. When you heard the unmistakable sound you knew he had one up the spout, and was probably trying to get you in his sights. He was telegraphing his punches. They were an unstoppable force but they'd met an unmovable object in New Guinea. I considered the Jap soldier to be a robot who was predictable. I met his scouts every day for months, and killed them one at a time. I'd hear the bullet go into the breech block, a special rattle. I'd count his shots at me while I stirred him, to draw his fire. So now would come the last desperate charge. I'd debate with myself, man to man, or the easy way, a burst from the Thompson. Sometimes we would meet in a small clearing, I'd grab his rifle barrel behind the bayonet and step in and take the rifle from him, then I would have to finish the job, the Jap wouldn't surrender. So I spiked him on his own bayonet and left another for the pigs to fatten on. My friends they ate these wild pigs who fed upon the bodies - starvation said they may. We lived like walking scarecrows at half our normal weight.
CHAPTER 96
The Yank DC3 biscuit bombers dropped 'Dog biscuits' without parachutes in four gallon cans. These biscuits normally so hard you could break a tooth biting one. ( The Australian Army were still using these biscuits in 1965, branded 1942 on the tins.) These biscuits ended up as crumbs. Bully beef was dropped also and it burst open and we ate it immediately. A supplement was the Japanese rice we captured from the retreating, and many dead Japs. We were waiting for supplies from the 'Biscuit bombers' DC3, and our battalion M.P. 'Provo' had taken charge and was calling to us to get out of the drop zone. We had felled a few trees and cleared a piece of jungle with machetes and had lit a few fires to guide the Yanks for the drop. The Military Policeman was giving orders," Get back get back! " The cases of bully beef were falling and one hit the M.P. and killed him outright. The 'bully beef' came in wooden cases free falling from the planes in a one pound tin shaped like a pyramid with the top cut off. You opened them from the bottom end, with a key supplied. We ate this bully beef in the Middle east and in New Guinea when we could get it. When these free falling wooden boxes hit the ground they just went splat and burst open, scattering tins of meat every where. Some would hit a log or stump and the tins all busted so we would be eating meat off the logs and stumps. The biscuits they dropped out in tins. Often the tins would fly open and the biscuits would smash into pieces like corn. So you would be walking about picking up a pocket full of crumbs. After awhile the crumbs soaked with your sweat would go blue mouldy so you dumped them.
CHAPTER 97
Many of the men I served with had known hard times. Before the war, during the 1930's depression, some had been walking around the country from town to town looking for work. To get the dole they had to collect it in a different town each time, so they were carrying their swags. They were used to working in the bush as ring barkers, so many of the city boys had done so. Some would jump the train to Charleville 500 miles and other towns out west and they`d walk from there looking for work. Several big stations would give them a bit of scran 'tucker.' A bit of tea and sugar, flour, and a bit of corned meat to keep them going. Some walked from Mungindi out to Longreach and back and never found a job. We were able to work and fight on very light rations. Good pre-war training, this had made our soldiers so self reliant in the New Guinea campaign. Like myself they were used to sleeping on the ground, finding a meal in the bush, be it some squatters sheep, or tasty kangaroo tail soup. I had become used to wandering through scrub while tracking straying horses or cattle, often sleeping on their tracks overnight. After working droving sheep or cattle on light rations, for some the old time Drovers. I became used to living on muddy bore water and a few limes off a lime bush, while riding back for sometimes a week to get straying cattle. Sleeping on my saddle at night. My mate Sam Williamson found a discarded Tommy gun left with a heap of grenades on the trail so we had one more gun to use against the enemy. Sam was doing his bit with the Tommy Gun now, as the Mortar shells were too dangerous to use. Sam was leading a section of men and came on a stand of tall Kunai grass. He spotted a movement in the grass on this still day. A Jap rose with a grenade and drew his hand back to throw. No other option, Sam fired a burst from the Tommy gun and another one died for the Emperor. Sam too had walked the country from town to town in search of work.
CHAPTER 98
An Aboriginal, Harold West of Goodooga, New South Wales, was recommended for the Victoria Cross twice. At Templetons Crossing his best mate Fred Murray a 'lation', was killed there by the Japs, Harry then became so determined to take revenge . Perhaps because he was only an Aboriginal, he got a Military Medal, this very brave man, he survived the campaign. Later after months of service behind the Jap lines Harry had broken his leg, and while in hospital at Pt.Moresby he got Scrub Typhus and died in the hospital. His medal was given to his mother.WEST, Private, HAROLD, NX43500. A.LF. 2/1 Bn. Australian Infantry.Died 26th November 1942. Age 31. Son of Herbert and Agnes West; husband of Doris West, of Goodooga, New South Wales. B 1. C. 22.War Cementary New Guinea. Harry West would take off the uniform and go native, quite naked, with just a sugar bag draped over his shoulder holding a few grenades. He moved like a black cat through the jungle behind the lines among the Japanese. The Japs might be having a meal when an Aboriginie rolled a few grenades among them. He`d mutter softly, " Have a chew on these eggs matey! " He'd be melting back into the trackless jungle as the grenades exploded. He blew up a Jap H.Q. killing some staff Officers. He threw a dozen grenades where the Jap troops were thickest. Harry had stirred up a hornets nest, he was followed for miles and lay hidden for hours. The Jap patrols searched for days after that ambush, for a black man, far too smart to be caught. Harold could track and hunt with the silent stealth and homing instinct of the true stone age hunter, there was no one better at jungle warfare. He saw the way the Japs were treating the natives as he shadowed their carrying parties far behind the enemy lines. The Japs overloaded the natives and worked them to death. When a native fell down from exhaustion, and couldn't rise. Up came a Samurai and hamstrung the native, with his sword. So injured now he couldn't walk and there he died so slowly. Our Harry could even the score. He specialised in killing these cruel bastards and left many of these sadists for the pigs to eat. He brought silent death to the cruel sword wielding Japs, cutting their throats as they dozed, "Just like killing a sheep!" He said in his quiet way. He sent the native carrier boys out of harms way.
CHAPTER 99
Frank Egan seemed somehow to be aligned or assigned to kill Japanese, that's what he said he was about and that's what he did very well. Frank belonged to the 2/31st Battalion. Frank would come forward through our lines from where the 2/31st might have been taking a break from battle. Not Frank though he was always on the job. Frank he would go on forward alone with one thing in mind. Frank was of average height and build, but he was very determined in his personal quest to kill Japanese where ever he could meet them. Frank he was a Bushman and came from Mungindi New South Wales and grew up in the town there. I hadn't seen him for a few years, I was busy priming grenades 'Mills Bombs', putting the fuses in them for use against the Jap near Templetons crossing. Then I heard a faint rustle behind me in the bushes and turned to see Frank creep into view. " Oh " I said "It's you, Frank!" He said " yeah." I said, " where you going?" He whispered "Straight ahead, I mean business I'm after Japs!" I wished him luck and he went forward into the enemy lines straight ahead. He eventually returned to Australia and he survived the war. I went on a recce patrol again to try to get old Dick a live prisoner. I stalked a Jap scout for thirty minutes and after the scout had fired all his bullets at shadows. As usual the Robot, he came for me. This Jap came at me with a fixed bayonet and I flogged it down with the Thompson gun but he kept trying to spike me so I shot him. I had no option, kill or be killed. I only had to hit him once in the chest and then he was clay. The 45 calibre submachine gun bullet would fit in a 45 revolver but the barrel of the revolver would eventually split like a banana, a bit too much power. The .303 calibre Bren gun was very accurate often we fired short bursts of five rounds and then resighted. With the Bren it was possible to put three slugs in one man's head, at three hundred yards in a burst, which would blow the top off his head as he fell. This sometimes happened to our enemy, some of his dead showed the signs after a bren gun had been in action. It was a very deadly weapon to use in the desert campaigns, but in the Jungle close quarter fighting the Tommy Gun suited me better.
CHAPTER 100
My mate Percy Watt was really something he was with me in the Middle East, also in New Guinea. He had no fear of death and was a great morale booster. Always walking in the open while under enemy fire. I'd say " Keep down Percy mate they'll shoot you." He'd always laugh and say " Those bung eyed bastards can`t kill me Johnno, they can't shoot straight." Percy was as thin as wire and never stayed in one position, he was always moving, so active. He was always a target and they never hit him though they tried often, he too survived the war.
CHAPTER 101
The Jap brought up their mountain gun and pounded us with it. It was of Pommy make a ten pounder 1928 model. Some Englishman made a quid on it's sale no doubt. So they sent us up a mountain gun. What arrived was an antitank gun that fired armour piercing bullets, next to useless in our situation? It took four black Yanks to carry it up to our position. One big Negro said to me " Where's the god-damn shooting match man? " Just then a barrage came over from the Jap mountain gun. Trees and limbs were smashed to splinters close to our position. He went pale, he rolled his eyes showing the whites, and said " Man I've got the pile's awful bad! " I laughed loudly and said, "That's shit man!" The next time I looked up, just after another barrage passed the Yanks were gone. That Jap mountain gun eventually wound up in the Buderim Museum after the war. The gun was on low buggy wheels, it had a barrel about three foot long and it fired a ten pound shell. The mountain gun was made in Birmingham in 1928 it was stamped on the gun, it took a direct hit on the barrel, in action to stop it. The Japs were expert gunners, they had plenty of ammunition, and they were well supplied using slave native labour to bring up the ammo. They could fire that bloody thing all day and it was devastating. The ammo was branded BSA. The Japs had the same sight on the mountain gun as the woodpecker machine gun. The explosive ten pound shells would burst just above your position in the trees. The gun would be set up a hundred yards or so from our front line. They fired explosive and air burst shrapnel and continued to do so till we arrived at Gona.
CHAPTER 102
The capture of the airfield at Kokoda changed a few things for us. Now we had an airfield we could eat again. We could now evacuate our wounded instead of forcing them to walk. Until now they had to walk, or be carried back through the very steep up and down of the jungle quagmire. A trip that could take more than a week for the fit, never mind the walking wounded. The airfield at Kokoda had 1,000 yard runways, and had been used before the war by New Guinea Airways taking loads of rubber out. It is pretty high there among mountain tops covered in clouds. Here on the seventh of November 1942 the 16th Brigade moved on the Jap lines from the front. The Japs were thick on the ground between Oivi and Gorari. They had fresh fat troops on a three mile front line and they were dug in here for a hard fight. They'd obviously decided to make a stand again. Brigadier Eather sent our 25th Brigade forward, and the 2/31st Battalion to encircle the Jap forces, in one effort to cut the main Kokoda - Buna track at Llimo cutting any supply lines they might have. We now had some air support and the Jap lines were bombed and strafed. The 2/31st Battalion moved forward through Jap wire entanglements, bayonets fixed for hand to hand fighting. The 2/31st finally came to a clearing where it was death to try to cross so they dug in, meanwhile the 2/25th was attacking the Jap lines from the rear. They had slipped round behind the Jap. By November the tenth the 3 Battalions of the 2/25th Brigade were tightening their strangle hold on the desperate trapped Japs.
CHAPTER 103
A bit more than a month after the 25th Brigade had attacked the Japs on Iorabiawa Ridge we had kicked them out of Kokoda. The Owen Stanley's were now returned, back in our hands again. The Natives were very happy to see us for they'd had a rough trot with their yellow masters. D company of the 2/31st met a Jap patrol and fought them with bayonets and Tommy gun fire power. The Japs were driven back and D company attacked and drove the Japs back into their own lines and entanglements. The leading troops were amongst the Japs in the trenches and fighting them hand to hand. Strangling, bashing, spiking, and shooting, using hand grenades to kill them in the trenches. D Company occupied the Jap trenches in triumph.
CHAPTER 104
In the Oivi area we managed to surround another mob of Japs. We were hosing them with bullets and soon they were screaming and running in circles, throwing their equipment away to move faster. They ran my way and I killed them till I ran out of ammo for the Tommy Gun. Aussies died to the left and right of me and the frantic Japs ran right over the top of me and on through our lines in blind panic. I grabbed a Tommy Gun from a dead mate and continued firing at the Japs as they ran from sight and went. We evened the score. It was dangerous in the jungle warfare we were just as likely to start a war with our own side, one section shooting at the other. The city boys couldn't tell the difference between the 28 calibre Jap rifles and our heavier sounding .303s. The bushmen among our ranks did know the difference, all had used guns before the war Roo or Pig shooting. We often heard the cheeky Japs calling, "where are you Smithy, where are you Blue." Then their noisy rifle actions as they closed their bolts said they were Japs. So we didn't invite hand grenades we just kept our mouths shut. The Jap Mountain gun killed many Australians, before we took it off the Jap, the most deadly thing they had in New Guinea. The Woodpecker machine gun, it cut the trees down about waist high. Where we fought them, you could read the story there among the splintered timber. The Japs had cleaned all the native gardens out, there was no food to eat among the native population. On the northern side of the island the Jap had cut down all the coconut palms and used them for corduroy across swamps. All along the track there were bicycles left by the Japanese. Could you ride them through mud a foot thick? I never gave them a thought. Too much mud and hills with steep slopes.
CHAPTER 105
Two Tregarthen brothers worked behind the Jap lines, they were Aussie Commando types Z force, who led a few natives in raids on the Jap reserve troops. These men found a missionary woman. After the Japs had raped her they mutilated her and then they had pegged her out still alive to die. Left her on an ant nest, after a bit of bayonet practice. Is it any wonder the Aussies developed a murderous attitude towards this type of cruel Jap sadist? Our troops knew of this atrocity and others and showed little mercy to the Jap from then on. For now they seethed with hatred and it kept them going forward to kill these yellow bastards. The Tregarthen boys after surviving for months behind the Jap lines, were still waging their private war with the Jap. Feeling thirsty they propped their Tommy guns against trees, and were drinking at a river. Their native friends shot them with their own guns.
CHAPTER 106
We all carried a blanket and they were usually pretty greasy and often damp. We would roll into this single blanket at night in the wet rain forest. A mate showed me his ear, he had maggots in it from off the greasy blanket, so he thought. He was going crazy worrying about these maggots in his head. No Doctor was there to see him, none available to bother with our problem. So I collected up some milk tablets and dissolved them in water. My friend lay on his side and I poured the milk into his ear, the maggots gorged on the milk and came out of his ear. After a few treatments just to be sure he was clear of maggots, he was ok.
CHAPTER 107
My good mate Reg Ward got hurt in action in november 1942, up in the Owen Stanley's. We were attacking a machine gun nest, one of our boys got stitched down the back by the enemy machine gun. It opened him up like a butchers knife, but it didn't kill him. Reg got hit in the right hand as he fired on the Jap position with a Thompson sub machine gun. Then after I lobbed a grenade into the machine gun nest, that had finished them. They flew Reg out to Moresby and from there he went back to Hughenden in Queensland. He had survived the butcher shop in the hills of New Guinea this very brave soldier.
CHAPTER 108
Another time I was sitting behind a gum tree with the bulldog ants eating me alive, and the Japs were knocking the bark off both sides of the tree. My eyes were full of bark chips and If that wasn't bad enough, my mate George Gibson was throwing sticks at me and yelling. "Stop jumping around you bastard you`re drawing the crabs!" The bulldog ants were all over me in my clothes and me I was trying to pull the bastards off while under fire. The ant nest was at the butt of the tree I was behind. Two choices to be bitten or shot?
CHAPTER 109
The Sixth Division troops, some had come up, they were a Brigade. They said to us, " You can go home now, fix up things at home, now we'll handle them!" This was in the morning, that evening we had to go in and rescue them, they had suffered heavy casualties. This Division had been in the desert, took Tobruk and Bardia from the Italians and had kept the German Afrika Corps at bay at Tobruk while the Aussies were there. Greece and Crete had known them, but they were new to the Jap Jungle Warfare Campaign. It was a different affair altogether. The 25th Brigade, was unlike many of the other brigades, our Brigade seemed a bit short of support. After we'd left the Iorabaiwa ridge, we didn't have Support troops. No very useful Artillery, Machine gunners, Transport, or Ambulance services available. Just riflemen Bren gunners, Tommy Guns and a few old mortar bombs when we had them.
CHAPTER 110
Then Major General Tomitaro Horii of the Imperial Japanese South Seas Force, made another mistake. He had his troops dig in on our side of the fast flowing Kumusi river, it was then more than 100 yards wide. They were now making a stand at the village of Oivi. They had made elaborate defences of logs and packed earth and had their backs to the river. They had dug trenches and weapon pits. To no avail they were again evicted, driven out! In one murderous assault our A.I.F. troops ripped into the enemy Head Quarters, and in minutes had piled up 500 dead Japs in the clearing around it. The surviving Japs were desperate to escape. They left behind their Stores, Weapons, Mountain guns, Machine Guns, Mortars, their Pack horses, and hundreds of slave native carriers from Rabaul. That night they tried to escape over the flooded Kumusi river, using rafts canoes and improvised means, some even swam. Many of the overladen craft capsized and hundreds were drowned Including General Horii, Commander of the New Guinea forces.
CHAPTER 111
After I'd been sacked from the Mortar platoon near Templetons Crossing by the boss Drover Dick I joined the R.S.M. in a search for his dead brother. The Regimental Sergeant Major "Banjo Patterson" had gotten leave to find and bury his brother. Banjo was unhappy with his recent loss, he had lost two brothers and a sister in the first world war. After searching for several days without finding the body, I went on alone in my search, leaving a sick Banjo at an aid post Myola, while doing so. Later a dead Jap was found to be wearing a watch taken from Banjo's dead brother. While searching for this man I came across a single set of tracks in the jungle mud made by our type of boots. I was searching and following his tracks carefully for some time. I finally found a man laying in the jungle his jaw and face a mangled mess. He was wounded in the neck jaw and throat and was a mass of blood, whiskers, and grime. He had been several days there wounded and flyblown. He seemed close to dying, so I knelt by his side and whispered to him, knowing the Japs could be close by here. He opened his eyes and said, " Will you clean me up, I`m Indian and if I die dirty, it will be no good I won't go to our heaven." "Yes mate" I promised him," I'll clean you up, give you a shave so you don`t die dirty." So I did. While doing so I checked his wounds and decided to stitch them. I had to tie two teeth of his bottom jaw together to keep his shattered jaw attached as I did my rough surgery on his mangled face. So shortly he was clean and shaved and I had stitched up his wounds. I looked at him again and said " I know you now mate, you are one of the Fazaldeen's from Mungindi a Jockey." This cheered him up and he responded well, with my help he was not going to die. I got him up and carried him back to the medics and he lived and survived the war. He wrote me a 6 page letter after the war and thanked me again, he had written using red ink.
PICTURE FROM THE COVER OF "HORSEMEN BOLD".....a published book .written by Don Johnson senior...
Stock Routes Inspector Don !960
CHAPTER 112
Finally I ended up in Myola, with the wounded and dying again. I found a Jap mule there and caught up to the battalion by riding the mule to the Kumusi river. I now had Blackwater fever a serious version of Malaria, plus Amoebic Dysentery and was very very sick now. There at the bank the old mule started hee hawing, he was a bag of bones, so was I. Then a Jenny donkey ran up, she was fat as mud. I said to a Digger " Give us some of that rope." I then looped the Jenny Donkey. I had been riding this old brown Mule, with only a rope halter. So I put the halter on the Donkey and swum her across the fast flowing Kumusi. I managed to lead a bit of half inch rope across the river it was cold and deep, choked with dead Japs and hopefully full Crocodiles. Then we were able to rig a bridge across the Kumusi river. This river we called the 'Wireopy' when we put a rope bridge over it on november 13th. I was there where 400 Japanese had died with their General Horii, the day before. So the muleteer, got the rope across and got things back on the road again. There at the Kumusi river I found a native hiding in a foxhole. There were many dead Japanese all around him, where we had exterminated them. Jacky came up out of his hole and hugged me, called me boss he was so pleased to see the white masters again. He had been brought from Rabaul as a slave labourer and came from Bougainville originally. He was very black, big and strong and he adopted me, looked after my welfare. He stopped me diving into the Kumusi river to get a Jap saddle for my donkey. " Crocodile here " he said and he dived in and got it for me. He and many other slaves had been abandoned by the escaping Japanese. I left him at Popondetta with many other natives of his tribe. It took eight boongs to carry a stretcher case across the steep Kokoda trail, and they had to be all of the same tribe generally, or they would fall out. A boss boy was handy with his knocking stick to clout the lazy ones about the head to get them to work. At Popondetta airstrip a Major gave me forty boongs and asked me to get them to pitch tents. I tried to show these people how to do it. I erected six myself but they just couldn't master the job. I was very ill and was waiting for a ride by Biscuit Bomber south over the mountains to Pt.Moresby. A few Yanks were lounging around on the sidelines, big healthy men. One pulled out a tin of Australian tobacco and said, "Bloody no good rubbish." And threw it away. I was dying for a smoke and now I could taste it. No I wouldn't give this fat Yank the satisfaction of begging. I eventually caught a DC3 plane back to Moresby. I gave the donkey to the old Major before I left.
CHAPTER 113
Our 2/1st field regiment had blasted the Japs with 25 pounder artillery at Gona, when we got there. Flying Fortresses dropping bombs, delayed action, and fragmentation charges on them. Beaufighters and Bostons strafed their positions with .50 calibre slugs, and our good old Wirraway fighters, had dive bombed the Jap too. In the Gona and Buna area we found the Japs had Australian equipment and were using Jeeps, and Blitzwagons with a Kookaburra for their number-plates, captured back to the north in the Islands, Singapore and elsewhere. Yet here on a remote New Guinea north coastline they'd met their Waterloo.
CHAPTER 114
In the New Guinea campaign we fought the very experienced Japanese Army, they often outnumbered us by five to one. It was classified as the worst campaign in civilised history. We were on the Owen Stanley Kokoda Trail, Gona area from July 42 to Jan 1943. There were a total of 2165 deaths in the Australian side including all who had fought there in the Kokoda campaign. There were during 1942 - 1943, 35,000 casualties. 6,000 caused by enemy action and 29,000 caused by tropical diseases. ( 21,000 caused by Malaria.) Caused when the 2/25th brigade and her sister Brigades had fought and beat the superior numbered Jap troops, and had driven them back across the island to the Gona area. The 2/25th Battalion, they were down in strength to 3 Officers and 177 Other Ranks. ( We had started with 32 Officers and 785 other ranks?) Most of these people were suffering from Malaria. Some had also Dysentery, and deadly Scrub Typhus. The 2/33 Battalion numbered now 3 Officers and 113 other ranks. The 2/31 and the other Brigade Battalions suffered similar casualties in the campaign. Lt. Col. Millar died of Typhus, after his men had moved back from Gona. The troops had to walk to Popendatta to be airlifted to Moresby by Biscuit bomber DC3. When I had months earlier returned from the Middle East we had heard of the " Brisbane line," This line of defence was where we had to stop the Jap advance. Instead we had stopped them dead in New Guinea. The New Guinea campaign was so different to the Middle East one. Our troops with experience, had gained it in the desert. A different world to the steamy jungle on the mountains seven or eight thousand feet high, the small ones. Several of the hills there were fourteen thousand feet high. Until we crossed the Kokoda Trail, no white man had passed before us. The trail was one used by the Fuzzy Wuzzies for centuries past. We had moved forward at a snail's pace, floundering through knee deep mud. Our troops slipped and slid up and down the slushy track, where the sunlight only just filtered through the over head rain forest canopy. The vines tore at our clothes, the " Wait awhiles" were worse than barb wire. At night the fireflies flew like little cigarette coals and the wind blew and howled incessantly. We were often drenched by torrential rain, and lay wallowing in our trenches in the water, to be looked down on as crazy by the passing Fuzzy Wuzzies.
CHAPTER 115
When we were starting out on this campaign before we attacked in earnest just after leaving Port Moresby. There at Iorabiawa Ridge, Brigadier Eather had demanded for his troops and got a week's supply of food and ammunition. Got it before we set off from Iorabiawa Ridge, he risked the wrath of his superiors. With the rations came the order "Make a stand, do not retreat one inch, if necessary you and your troops will die there!" There the Invincible Japanese Army front line troops were stopped and put to flight, when the 2/25th Brigade counter attacked, led by Brigadier Eather. From this point started the retreat back to Tokyo by the surviving demoralized remnants of the New Guinea Japanese forces. The Kokoda campaign cost 13,000 Japanese casualties and produced only thirty eight prisoners alive. Whenever any were captured and driven under escort to the rear, they usually tried to escape and were sometimes shot doing so. It usually rained every night, we could only lie on our groundsheet, with a gas cape stretched over the top to keep some rain off, but not all. Where we had dug in, our rifle pits would fill with water. Small wonder we suffered from tropical maladies including Malaria, dysentery, ulcers and tropical sores. Strangely we didn't get colds sore throats or Pneumonia, we were never dry? To carry the wounded we cut two saplings and attached a blanket and a mate was carried away by the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.
CHAPTER 116
The Medical Officer decided to allow Maggots and Leaches on the wounds, Maggots only eat dead flesh, stopping Gangrene setting in. The men of the Brigade Signal Section ran signal wires from Bisatibu on the Port Moresby side of the Owen Stanley Range to Kokoda on the northern side. It is just sixty miles as the crow flies.
It really was ten days walking in the mud 12,000 feet high in some places, between Myola and Templeton's crossing. This signal wire when found by lost Diggers told them they were back on the track again. I met some Yanks on the northern side of New Guinea who had been airlifted in, most were laying about complaining. I asked one " What's the matter
Yank?" He said, "I'm fatigued man!" Our boys were all very thin from starvation and tropical diseases but we were still mobile. So I laughed and said "You are soft from too much ice cream and no exercise boy."When I got back to the Hospital in Port Moresby, I had been delivered by a Yank DC3 biscuit bomber. There in the hospital in my fevered state
suffering from Malaria, Blackwater Fever, and Amoebic Dysentry, I had the filthy clothes cut from my skeleton frame. I was just aware enough to feel shame in the presence of these wonderful nurses. From the pocket of my ragged clothes the nurses found my Japanese ten shilling note souvener, all screwed up, and they gave it to me before burning my
old rags. I had finished with New Guinea.
Slouch Hat.
When you see the hat or hear the tune so fair,
you'll know what it's about.
The old " Slouch hat " that our Digger`s wear,
and the " Waltzing Matilda " no doubt.
Yes we have some pride in what we've done,
of the convict blood in this race.
We'll never be happy unless we've won, to lose is a big disgrace.
Whenever asked, well we've been there, to aid our friends in War.
Our boys they've died, yet died with flair, since the Breaker fought the Boer
. Well now we're multicultural, mixed, all sorts, but Aussies any rate.
New Aussies can be good at sports, so say " Good on you mate."
It doesn't matter how smart you are, don't try politics, be a clown.
You can be very popular, till the newsmen pull you down.
Character assassination is their trade, they cut tall poppies short.
Brain-washing by the sentence made, they got Bondy didn't they sport?
When you see our Diggers on a farewell parade, all races so proudly march there.
And the 'Waltzing Matilda' so loudly is played, it picks up your feet with its flair.
The Bayonets are fixed and Sabres displayed, for the Diggers, it's walking on air.
They're off to do battle with the tools of their trade, the young and the brave proudly there. by D H Johnson.
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