Invasion Rabaul (3 page)

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

I’m chasing the bugle in Bonegilla sun,

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

My thoughts ever wonder, Oh why the hell

Do poor foolish Diggers go AWL?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The widespread disappointment soon evaporated with the receipt of some good news: the 23rd Brigade was going to Melbourne to participate in a grand parade. Delighted by the prospect of a day in the big city, the
soldiers were measured for new tropical-weight uniforms. On the night of February 13, 1941, all three battalions donned their summer battle dress and boarded trains for the five-hour ride to Melbourne.

The first of five trainloads pulled into the city at dawn the next morning, and by 0800 nearly four thousand soldiers had assembled on Alexandra Avenue. Mobile canteens served hot stew and
“pannikins” of tea, and the men washed in a nearby river before lining up three abreast for the parade, held to raise money for the Greek War Victims’ Appeal fund. At precisely 1000 the marching orders echoed down the avenue:
“Slope arms! By the left! Quick march!”

An estimated one hundred thousand citizens, many waving colorful flags, lined the streets of Melbourne to cheer for their boys from Victoria. The parade thrilled the entire city, according to one local reporter:

Wheeling onto St. Kilda Road, the troops received a great cheer from the crowds on Princes Bridge. The column swung along Swanston Street past the Town Hall, where the Governor, Sir Winston Dugan, took the salute. Confetti and streamers and torn-up paper came spiraling down on the column from shop verandahs and office windows as the men marched smartly by. Keeping good order, knees and arms tanned almost to the deep brown of their boots, the men looked in capital physical condition.

At the front of the 2/22nd Battalion, the band played snappy new arrangements written by Sergeant Gullidge, including renditions from the soundtrack of the hit movie
The Wizard of Oz
, released just a year earlier. The lyrics of the theme song were remarkably appropriate: Australians had been calling their country “Oz” for years.

After the parade the 23rd Brigade returned to Bonegilla, where the routine seemed even harder to endure. However, the outlook for the 2/22nd improved when an advance party departed for Rabaul in late February to set up the battalion headquarters. The rest of the men received a few days of home leave prior to their anticipated deployment.

As there was no fighting yet in the Pacific, the soldiers tended to be optimistic during their brief visits, though they knew the value of a proper
farewell before leaving home. Bandsman Herbert W. “Bert” Morgan, visiting his family in Fairfield Park, Victoria, spoke like a Salvationist in explaining that he was going to fight
“for God and the King.” On the morning of his departure he embraced his wife, daughter, and infant son, then hoisted his little daughter onto the mailbox by the front gate. Eleanor Morgan sat there, supported by her mother, and waved a small Australian flag while her father walked down the street and turned the corner with a final wave.

G
RATEFUL FOR THEIR SHORT VISITS HOME, THE SOLDIERS TOLERATED A FEW
more weeks of training back at Bonegilla. Once again the tennis players set out to build a court, but no sooner was it finished than orders arrived for half the battalion to embark to Rabaul. The selected troops traveled by train to Sydney on March 11 and boarded the steamship
Katoomba
, a grand old liner of more than 9,400 tons.