Australian Party’s Terrible Sufferings

Manawatu Times, Volume 67, Issue 111, 4 September 1942, Page 5

Australian Party’s Terrible Sufferings

(Sprsl&l Australian Correspondent.) Received Thursday, 9 p.m. SYDNEY, Sept. S. After sixty days of grim hide-and-seek with the Japanese in the Jungles of the Netherlands East Indies a party of Australians have reached safety. Several of the original band died of sickness, exhaustion and starvation but about thirty have reached Australia. All the men spent Bomo time in hospital on arrival here “Food was the vital question but the natives gave us rice, com and eggs, so for the first three weeks we got along reasonably well,” said a member of the party. “Then sickness and hunger made inroads on our toiling band. Malaria and stomach trouble spread, possibly because of tiie foul water we were compelled to drink. The situation grew steadily worse and the change from the dry to the wet season made conditions even more trying. “The Japanese kept hunting for us, but friendly natives informed us of the whereabouts of the enemy’s search parties. However, we suspected that other natives were telling the enemy of our whereabouts. For 150 consecutive meals we had rice only and precious little at that. A*: of us lost weight, some as much as tour stone. “Towarns the end even the slightest exertion would br.ng on a fresh bout of malaria. When men died we scraped shallow graves with our steel helmets. It was a strange thing that as the sufferings increased so the men organised themselves into religious groups for prayer and we had our services every Sunday.”