GRIM FIGHTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 January 1943, Page 4

GRIM FIGHTING

“TOUGHEST OF WAR” VETERAN’S VIEWS. NEW GUINEA EXPERIENCES. Parties of men from battalions which saw some of the hardiest fighting, in the New Guinea campaign have arrived in Australia on leave. Others have been invalided home. Some of theA.I.F. troops who came to Sydney were only six weeks in Australia between their return from the Middle East and Ceylon and their embarkation for New Guinea, where they were “on the track,” fighting and marching, for 77 days. Among them are soldiers who fought in Libya, Greece, Crete and •Syria, before they went to New Guinea. Men who served in the Middle East campaigns consider that the fighting in New Guinea was the toughest they have been through. JAPANESE GOOD SOLDIERS. “The sickness was the worst part of it,” said one young private. “On the other side of the range you could set your watch by the rain which fell every day, and you had to sleep in mud and pools of water.” The men consider that the Japanese are good soldiers, especially in the jungle. “They are good shots,” said a warrant officer. “Many of the wounds received by our lads are head wounds. But when we got at him with the bayonet the enemy ran all right. He will put up a good defence, however, when he is in a strong position. Of course, when we got to the beach, he was caught like a rat, and he could not do anything except stick. His mountain gun was what did most of the damage to us.” One veteran said that Australian mortar teams carried loads of up to 601 b. over the Owen Stanley Range, each man carrying a mortar part weighing about 401 b. and about 201 b. of his own equipment and rations. These loads had to be carried for seven days along the track before the teams reached the front and went into action. TRAINED IN CEYLON. Every man seems to be satisfied that the Japanese learned more from them about jungle fighting than he taught them. Some of the men had been trained in the Ceylon jungle on their way home from the Middle East, and they insist that this acclimatisation and training “saved them” in New Guinea. Corporal P. M Fowler described how his brigade went into its first New Guinea action at Templeton’s Crossing, drove the Japanese from their position, and then was held up for some days south of Kokoda. Finally the battalions put in a night attack, “and he was gone in the morning.” Early in November the battalions reached malarial country, and were hard hit by malaria. On December 21 his unit came out by air, with as many as 68 officers and men in a single transport plane, or “biscuit bomber.” “CUT THROUGH STEEL HELMET.” A wounded lieutenant was the victim of a Japanese mortar bomb which struck a tree above 'him. Portion of the bomb cut clean through his steel helmet, “spliced” (to use his own expression) his nose and lip, and then struck him in the foot. This occurred in October, on the trail between Templeton’s Crossing and Kokoda, early in the drive on Buna. In a casualty clearing sttation just behind the line, a surgeon operated on his face, and “preserved his original contours.” Half an hour later the clearing station came under Japanese fire from the air. Not knowing that there was a portion of the mortar shell embedded in his foot, he began a long walk toward Morseby. He walked for four days, after which, he says, he gave in, and travelled the rest of the way by stretcher. Private Terry Locke, of Stanmore, who had two years’ service overseas, described how he wrecked a Japanese pillbox with a grenade in the final assault at Cape Endaiadere before being wounded by a Japanese grenade; which burst syds. in front of him. CARRIER KNOCKED OUT. With three others, Locke was moving forward in a Bren carrier. His three

companions were shot by snipers and, approaching the pillbox, the carrier was knocked out by enemy fire. He jumped out, with four grenades, and made his way, apparently unobserved, to within 15yds. of the pillbox. “I threw a grenade right in the centre of the pillbox,” said Locke. “They must have seen me as I stood up to throw, because the Japanese grenade arrived, and here I am. “I fell, forward, doubled up, and I don’t remember much more. Later, when it was dark, I crawled back though our lines. I ‘blacked out’ several times, but I was eventually picked up by the Americans.”