Kokoda (28 page)

JESUS! These Japs were monsters! Around the corner, into full view, came enormous Japanese soldiers, six foot two if they were an inch, and of all things they were wheeling
bicycles
. What was going on? As they came even closer, clearly visible on their vests were two crossed silver anchors above a chrysanthemum, indicating that these blokes were marines, and not mere soldiers as they’d expected.

But to business. Steady now. The key to an ambush was to hit the enemy while they were close enough for you to do maximum damage, but still far enough away that you could make good your own escape once the enemy had recovered from the initial onslaught. Also, everyone had to strike at precisely the same instant to achieve the greatest effect.

So it was that the Australians remained crouched, barely daring to breathe, waiting as the Japanese came closer… closer… closer… closer… waiting for their commanding officer, Lieutenant Chalk of PIB, to fire the first shot.

Now!

The
thud-thud-thud-thud
of the heavy machine guns rang out first, followed by the faster staccato of the automatic weapons carried by the individual soldiers. The first Japanese soldiers were mown down like grass, and the air was filled with their screams, though just behind them the other Japanese soldiers had quickly gone to ground and were already returning heavy, accurate fire. Sweet Jesus, these guys were good. And they had hardware. Mixed with the sound of the heavy machine guns was the relentless boom of mortars and soon whole clumps of jungle around the entrenched Australians began to explode as the heavy artillery hit. Many of the natives from the Papuan Infantry Battalion simply ran away, never to be seen again.

The Australians held their positions while the Japanese quickly put into operation the method of advance they had so effectively refined over the previous five years of war. That is, at the first shot all went to ground as they tried to pinpoint where the shooting was coming from. Then, while the forward contingent kept up fire to pin down this key danger point, other soldiers would work in flanking pincer movements to curve around to the left and right and ensure that the danger point was choked from both sides. If these pincer movements could meet up behind that initial point of fire then all the better, as once the principal attack point had been cut off from its support it was always easier to destroy.

After only a short time, it was obvious to the Australians that they were in danger of being encircled and, as quickly as they could, they withdrew along their planned routes of escape. Taking their wounded with them, they joined up with each other further down the track, where another platoon had made ready to cover their withdrawal and had set up the next ambush for the Japanese.

The mood of the men, even as they pulled back, was very positive, almost exuberant. Now that they had been ‘blooded’ in action, they felt stronger—as trite as it might sound—like a bloke who has lost his virginity might suddenly feel more of a man and comport himself more confidently thereafter. It wasn’t that they now swaggered back down the track, but there was certainly a consciousness that as a group they had seen action, had put ‘up a good show’, and had given the Japanese at least as good as they got—and probably a bloody sight better! The wounding of fellow soldiers was upsetting, certainly, but somehow in the hurly-burly of all the action and scrambling to get to the new position, a bloke didn’t really have time to focus on that. There would come a time for tears and overwhelming emotions over what had happened to mates, but that time was not now. Now was the time to check ammunition belts, get a feed, grab some sleep and get ready because those little bastards would surely be coming swarming again.

Back at the site of that first contact, a special unit of the Imperial Japanese Army was now, with great ritual and solemnity, gathering their dead to burn their now holy bodies on funeral pyres and ensure that their ashes were soon returned to Japan. A Nazi officer who was in Japan at this time to study Germany’s new allies in depth and prepare a report for the Third Reich’s military leadership, related the importance of such ceremony.

‘No one knows Japan,’ he wrote, ‘who has not seen how the ashes of fallen heroes are received. Hundreds stand in rows in solemn silence, members of national associations, veterans, the national women’s league and school children. They bow solemnly as soldiers, usually comrades of the fallen, carry the urns of ashes as if they were carrying something holy. The urns are delivered to the family members and brought to their distant villages. They sit in the trains in silence, holding the urns on their knees. Each who enters the train takes his hat off and bows deeply before the heroic spirit of the fallen and burns a small candle as a sacrifice. This is how the homeland honours its soldiers who have died on distant battlefields.’
¹¹⁰

Back in New Guinea with the Japanese forces there was sadness for the dead, but also a renewed reverence, for in a nation that worshipped its ancestors as deities, these fallen soldiers were now to be worshipped.

After that first thrilling attack on the Japanese, it would never be that easy for the Australians again. From this point on, the invaders were perpetually on their guard for ambushes, and only risked one or two scouts at the front at any given time—together with ever more natives as a screen—with the main body of Japanese soldiers well back from the point of contact. As the Australians soon found out, they were up against a superbly prepared fighting force.

Not only had the Japanese Army refined their jungle tactics— and practised those tactics for years at their Formosa Jungle Training School—but it had also developed a superb range of equipment specifically designed to operate in such conditions. It included mortar guns and ammunition that could be carried by just one man; a mountain gun that could be dismantled, with each piece being alternately carried by men in a platoon; haversacks that were strong but light and waterproof and the same colour as the jungle; sulphur ointments to treat wounds, mosquito repellent and vitamin tablets that could help keep a soldier going even when his food supply was low. Endless research and work in camouflage now meant that, almost literally, the Japanese soldiers disappeared into the foliage.

They not only wore jungle greens, which blended in superbly with their surroundings, they also covered their faces and extremities in a greasy green paint, and were proficient besides at covering their bodies with parts of bushes and vines to make them blend in to the background even further. Their helmets were also green with a kind of netting over them, extending over their face, which helped keep the mosquitoes at bay and also muffled any ringing sound a twig might make when hitting the metal helmet.

Sometimes the Australians would finally have some Japs in their sights and then, fair dinkum, it would seem that they would just vanish before their very eyes! For their part, the Japanese had no such problem with spotting the Australians. This was in large part because these strange round-eyed men from the south were not dressed in jungle greens, but were kitted out in the same khaki uniforms that had been so useful and appropriate for fighting in the Middle East. They were simply the spare uniforms available at the time, so that is what the men were dressed in. Their bare arms and legs were exposed to mosquitoes, leeches, the cold and Japanese eyes. General Blamey did not consider camouflage important and had insisted that it was not worth the trouble. If there was an irony in the situation it was that in the Middle East the Australians had long laughed at the ludicrousness of the Germans wearing their heavy dark-grey uniforms—perhaps perfect for Berlin, but hopelessly hot and visible in the desert sands—and yet here in the jungle highlands of New Guinea the Australian military command had made an equally elementary mistake. Not that many of the Australians on the ground had any time to complain about army fashion.

As the Japanese continued to advance, now more tentatively, the Australians fell back and crossed the fast-flowing Kumusi River on the Wairopi Bridge—so-called in pidgin English because it was made of wire rope. It was while on that western side of the Kumusi River, on the morning of 24 July, that the commander of the Papuan Infantry Battalion, Major Watson, got a message from Sam Templeton, which for the first time gave some clue about just what they were up against: ‘Reported on radio broadcast that fifteen hundred to two thousand Japs landed at Gona Mission Station. I think that is near to correct and in view of the numbers I recommend that your action be contact and rearguard only—no do-or-die stunts. Close back on Kokoda.’
¹¹¹

Thus, Major Watson’s contact with the Japanese from this point should only be in the form of a rearguard, executing a couple of quick ambushes to slow the brutes down, but they should avoid toe-to-toe donnybrooks.

In one skirmish, Joe Dawson found himself with Company Headquarters on a bank of the Kumusi River when a force of Japs appeared on the other side and a fire-fight broke out across the fast flowing waters. The Japs had mortars while Joe’s blokes had none. For the first time Joe heard the cough of the mortar on the far bank, followed by an explosion a few seconds later, practically on top of them.

In the middle of all this, a runner slithered in beside Acting Company Sergeant Major Joe Dawson and, by way of greeting, said ‘What’s the state of your underpants, Sarge?’ The short answer was ‘not good’, the same as everyone else’s, but anyway. The one thing that gave Joe comfort in such difficult moments was fingering his rosary beads and the silver shield of protective saints that Elaine had given him to put over his heart. Still, the runner’s message on this occasion at least provided additional relief. Sam Templeton’s Second-in-Command, Captain Stevenson, wanted them to move back to join 12 Platoon at Gorari. Joe gave the orders…

Before pulling out, the Australians took some delight in cutting the cable that held up the bridge and sending it into the rushing waters below.
That
would give the little yellow bastards something to think about, at least for the day or so it would take them to rig up a rough alternative. In those parts, where engineered infrastructure was primitive at best, there was very little to blow up to gain great advantage, but at least that bridge was something.

Under the overall command of Major Watson they fell back, but even then it wasn’t easy. There were no fewer than fifty river and creek crossings between their position and Kokoda, and each one presented its own difficulties. Mostly, the way over was nothing more than a couple of logs held together by vines. This was fine if you were a New Guinea native-born, and had been going across such ‘constructions’ all your life, but it was more than a bit hairy for blokes who were conscious that a single slip might mean their death. Still, it was worse where there were none, so each log crossing got the same treatment as the Wairopi Bridge. Gone to the depths below. Anything to slow the Japs down and give the Australian forces some breathing space to get themselves organised.

The Australians set up their next ambush just eight hundred yards to the east of Gorari where Major Watson saw that the track would force the Japanese soldiers into nice groups with little place for shelter from the Australians’ shooting. Bill Watson was a good man to have in such a situation. In down-time this son of a Tasmanian blacksmith was always smoking a pipe, and somehow—even in the middle of battle—exuded such ‘unruffledness’ and confidence that the soldiers around him felt that everything would be all right. A former rugby union player of great distinction, Major Bill had played five tests in the front row for Australia before the Great War. He had about him the air of one who had seen a battle or two in his time and had always come through, just as he would no doubt come through this one. Which was as well, in this instance, because all the soldiers knew that they were going to be up against it.

But the other great thing about the major was that he really
was
pretty much at home up in these New Guinea highlands. The journalist George H. Johnston called him: ‘one of the most picturesque characters of New Guinea… For years he was one of the best known soldiers of fortune in New Guinea. He recruited native labour (in a period he still refers to as his “blackbirding days”); traded around the island in crazy schooners; tried cattle ranching; worked as trader, beachcomber, plantation manager, and then as a gold prospector in the then practically unknown Owen Stanley Range. Several times he struck it rich, and always the money seemed to run away…’
¹¹²

For better or worse, New Guinea was in his blood. He spoke the language of the natives, understood them, and they in turn respected him immensely. There could nary have been a better man in the whole territory to have in charge, and the men felt it.

Now that they had doubled their strength with 12 Platoon, the confidence of the Australian soldiers had grown at least a little. If the boys on the concealed Lewis gun did their job properly, there might be some happy carnage.

That night, the Australians dug into their ambush positions and through the wee hours strained both eyes and ears to determine whether the Japanese were still coming at them. Even the tiniest sound of another soldier moving restlessly, or the bow of a tree creaking in the wind, could make an entire platoon grip their rifles more tightly. And is that just another shadow in the thin moonlight, or is it the silhouette of a Japanese soldier? Whither the dawn. Where are they?

‘They’ were still camped on the north side of the Kumusi River, waiting for some engineers to come forward and rig up another kind of bridge across the deep, fast-flowing torrent. At first light this was done in under an hour and the Japanese soldiers swarmed across.

They were a curious mix these men of the South Seas Force. On the one hand there were ruthless killers of the dreaded Sasebo Fifth Special Landing Force and the 144th Regiment, who were expert at intimidating local populations who resisted and wiping out their defenders; while with them were the rather more gentle engineers, who were superbly educated and deeply intelligent. Their expertise was in building bases from which the soldiers could launch their attacks, and bridges for them to cross rivers, ravines and the like. In New Guinea, Tokyo had hoped that the engineers might even have been able to build—using the many labourers they had brought with them from Rabaul—a fully-fledged road from Buna to Kokoda and thence to Imita Ridge just outside Moresby. But already that plan was looking unlikely.