JUNGLE PATROLS

Evening Star, Issue 24284, 27 August 1942, Page 3

JUNGLE PATROLS

AUSTRALIANS’ TASK IN NEW GUINEA HARDSHIP AHD HEROISM (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) SYDNEY, August 21. “ Our' patrols .have boon active. Behind this prosaic line in South-west Pacific Headquarters communiques lie stories of hardship, of heroism, of cheerless struggles against the exhausting terrain, of silent journeys and sudden actions. After weeks of skirmishing in the northern foothills of New Guinea’s Owen Stanley Ranges, talcs are now being told of strange lighting in this strange land. -Much of the action occurs in undergrowth so dense that a man can pass unseen only two yards away. Although the .Japanese are using picked commando troops, with special equipment (including green uniforms which merge with the background), the story of the campaign puts the Australian patrols well on the credit side in the number of casualties registered. In such country, where opposing patrols often come upon each other around a sudden track turn, much depends upon who fires first. Australians’ reactions in such circumstances have been notably and regularly quicker than those of the Japanese. Latest Jungle Fighting Command story tells how a 22-year-old West Australian killed at least five of the enemy in a Northern New Guinea forest clash. He escaped with a bullet in his shoulder. While other members of his patrol were having a midday meal, he was one of the guards posted in the thick undergrowth. “ I was holding my position when four Japanese, led by a native, approached within about ton feet,” ho said. “ Previously 1 had counted more than a dozen moving through the forest. I did not move, as my job was to gain information of enemy strength, but, unfortunately, my tommy gun rustled the leaves and the quick-cared native heard. He swung around and pointed where I was hidden. I knew f had to act fast. I fired from the hip, letting the Japanese have the full magazine They were so close that I could hear the bullets thud into them. All four fell dead.

“ Quickly other Japanese bewail to close in. I was seen and shot in the shoulder. T jumped into a creek and into bush on the other side of it. Two of the enemy chased me with fixed bayonets. 1 fired mv revolver at them. Tlie leading one fell back into the water —but 1 couldn’t wait to see what happened to the other. At any rate, no more came after me. and 1 got ' JAPANESE TACTICS. The Japanese invariably patrol in large parties, between 50 and GO strong, moving with intervals of about I.syds between each man. Each soldier carries a haversack made of pony skin, with the hair on the outside to shod the rain, a rolled raincoat-ground-sheet, and cither it sub-machine gun or a light bolt-action rifle. With uniforms of dark green cloth, they wear closefitting steel helmets daubed with green paint, and brown canvas rubbed-soled boots. In such large parties, mortars arc normally included among the offensive weapons. Natives scout ahead of the patrol. Australian patrols usually number six soldiers, with two or three police hoys as scouts. It is their practice to wait in ambush for the larger Japanese patrols, taking up positions alongside the track or around jungle clearings. After a devastating surprise attack the Australians make no effort to hold their positions. They retire immediately to hide in the darkest jungle recesses, where they'await the enemy’s withdrawal.

.Japanese system of dealing with an inferior patrol is unvarying. Their forces fan out through the undergrowth, searching the target area with a methodical arc of sub-machine gnu fire. Any man who stands Ids ground is sure to. he shot or captured. But ultimately, after an hour or more of scorching, the Japanese withdraw, taking with them their dead and wounded. Still the Australians make no attempt to move—for the enemy may have left behind snipers. Not until darkness comes do the men leave their hiding places, and move cautiously along a treacherous track to their base. INHOSPITABLE COUNTRY.

Although they have been more frequent recently, such encounters arc not the daily lot of our patrolling forces. The former New Zealand journalist, Osmar White, now a ‘ Sydney Daily Telegraph ’ war correspondent at an operational base, spent some weeks with Australian New Guinea patrols. He writes;

“ The most surprising truth I found about the work of these men was that it was neither spectacular nor exciting. It was mainly the dull, wearing, cheerless grind of existence and movement. in some of the world’s most inhospitable forest and swamp-land, it was not an incessant fight against the Japanese. It was an incessant fight against exhausting terrain, climate, disease, and accident.

“ The fight against the Japanese was almost incidental—a few minutes of blind action when patrols met, bechance or design, to contest some trivial path, or when some long and arduouslv prepared raid against enemy strongholds flashed into climax; at most a jumbled hour of gunfire, grenade-throwing, kill-as-kill-can.”