Nerves at High Tension When Engaging Japs

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 58, 11 March 1944, Page 4

Nerves at High Tension When Engaging Japs

FEILDING YOUTH’S EXPEBEBKOBI “We’ve been in action!” wrote Stgt* C. D. Thompson, son of Mr. and Mrs. % A. Thompson, of Gladstone Street* Feilding, in the course of an interesting letter to his parents In which he gave a rather vivid pen picture of the state of nervous tension which jungle warfare in the Pacific islands produces in th# troops when about to engage the Japs. “Most of our action,* * he writes, “was in pushing our way through this damn jungle and it sure makes you sweat blood. Nerves were pretty tense because we never knew just when or where we would strike the yellow devils. I think I saw every bird that moved and leaf that fluttered. This went on for days before we struck them. Every night we would dig our foxholes, sit in them with rifles and knives ready, and wait for anything that might be fbolish enough to sneak around. “There are a few pigs here and I’m pretty sure they suffered a few casualties because they would insist on wandering near us and at night a chap doesn’t wait to ask any questions; he just lets fly. It was a pretty nervewracking business at night and sleep was out of the question most of the time. The slightest rustle of a bush and everyone was wide avrake ready to blast the darkness wide open and 1 think quite a few sighs of relief went up at the crack of each dawn. “Quite a few funny incidents happened while the scrap was going on. ... Once while advancing through the jungle and everyone was keyed up, for we were expecting to meet the Japs at every step, a fowl scuttled through the undergrowth just ahead of us and everyone hit the mud just like one man. I didn’t think I ctmld move so fast one minute I was snooping forward and the next flat on my stomach with rifle ready. What a game! “We had a thrill a few nights ago. The ack ack opened up at some Jap bombers. The shells were bursting just over our heads and the shrapnel came whizziug down all round us. I reckoned I pushed the bottom of my foxhole down another three inches. ... We ran a couple of Japs to earth yesterday and bottled them up in a cave. They wouldn’t came out so the boys tossed them a few hand grenades just to show there was no ill feeling and then turned the machine guns on. “Earlier in the day we came across a crowd of “Nips’* who had been unfortunate enough to pick a fight with onr chaps and they came off second best. ... We secured some good souvenirs. ... They are a tricky crowd, but I feel quite confident we are more than & match for them.”