HECTIC DAYS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 October 1943, Page 3

HECTIC DAYS

OF JUNGLE FIGHTING IN SOLOMONS ORDEAL OF SMALL NEW ZEALAND FORCE i ATTEMPT TO BLOCK ENEMY ESCAPE (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) VELLA LAVELLA, October 12. Two days before the New Zealanders expected contact with the main body of the Japanese troops on northwest Vella Lavella, a party of 50-odd men set out from headquarters to sit on the main trail leading from the enemy positions to the inland hills. Their objective was the top of a long ridge running 1000 yards up from the coast where they were to guard against a possible enemy escape from an enveloping movement of the main Kiwi forces. A native guide showed two platoons the way in. Though they marched all day Sunday they were still an hour from the trail at dusk, and reached it on the following morning, when they established themselves as firmly as possible on cither side of the track and began the patient task of watching and waiting. The track here was well worn. It had been used by the Japanese trekking into the Marquana Bay-Timbala Bay area ever sinceo the American invasion of the island a month previously and much of the undergrowth had been smashed down, leaving a few clearings in the midst of which grew tall thick trees with flange-like roots, forming natural protective fire positions. Beyond a radius of 20 or 30 yards the undergrowth closed in once more. There was no view through the forest which showed either the sea or any landmarks. AN ANXIOUS WATCH . “Here on Monday morning, our native guide saw 40 Japanese close to our objective,” one of the members of the party said afterward. “He was very excited and counted their numbers to me on his fingers. We took two sections up to the track ready to receive the enemy, but by midday when we were all in position, the approach of between 90 and 100 Japanese froze us to the ground. The enemy came in parties of various sizes. They carried rations and arms and passed within six feet of us without the slightest sign of being conscious of our presence. We could not open fire because we were greatly outnumbered and were split at that stage into two parties, one on either side of the track. We stayed where we were till four o’clock when a clatter in a gully announced a Japanese attack on one platoon. “The Japanese had made a mass attack, jumping from tree to tree and letting go with all they had with light machine-guns, grenades and rifles. Our boys held them off with steady rifle fire, and as soon as opportunity presented we got a few bursts into the enemy’s flank, which allowed the platoon to rush over to our side of the track, where a united defence was formed." MANY ATTACKS REPELLED An officer of one platoon who was later to guide the men down to the shore and to safety, took up the story. “We poured a few magazines into the Japanese and they faded into the trees, losing several dead,” he said. “But they surrounded us as we lay on the side of a hill in a perimeter of about 20 by 30 yards, and roared round us, shouting at the top of their voices and belting grenades and machine-gun fire at us. Then they charged, again and we fired only when we saw a target. We tossed grenades behind trees and into hollows and the Japanese retired for half an hour. Then they came again and one man, probably an officer, stood upright to take a look at us. Possibly, he thought we were all dead, and he called something out. But we changed his shouting to a scream, and no other Japanese stood up to get the same fate.

“Fortunately, we were left alone all night, though we could hear the Japanese moving round us talking now and again. But they did not come in. We were short of rations now. We had to abandon them in the first moments of the Japanese attack. Our haversacks were lost, too, and all that was left was jwhat each man could carry in ammunition. Some did not even have their water bottles.” Next day the Japanese tried again and every day till Friday, till the New Zealanders were so weak that they knew that remaining in their present position indefinitely would be fatal. On Thursday an officer and two men had made a dash through the Japanese lines to get word to headquarters, but the party left on the ridge could wait no longer. They had taken a sufficiently heavy toll of the enemy to makb him extremely cautious. A score of Japanese lay dead outside the Kiwi perimeter. GALLANTRY OF WOUNDED “So we cut poles for stretchers,” the officer said, “and prepared to fight our way to the coast, carrying the wounded with us. We buried some of our dead, but our losses in killed were very few. The morale of wounded and unscathed was wonderful. Not a moan came from any of the wounded men. Those who could walk or help themselves did so. They needed water badly, but we had none to give them. I hoped to find some nearer the coast. They had had nothing to eat for days. “On Friday we fought our way the 1000 yards of jungle track between us and the coast. We had plenty of .fighting on the way, but it was better than sitting still and waiting to be picked off and to grow faint from hunger and thirst. It was wonderful how the men responded to the decision to get on the move. They brightened up, laughing as we fought down the hill, giving the Japanese everything they had and taking good care of themselves. We had a few casualties, but nothing compared with what the enemy took. “At the bottom, still inside the Japanese positions, we hauled stretcher wounded through mangrove swamps of black oozing mud deep to our knees. There wasn’t a groan from them. I managed to collect a little water after we formed our new perimeter on the fringe of the bush—enough from a hole I scraped in the mud and from a hollow tree stump to fill three water bottles. Two I reserved for the wounded. One I handed round among the rest.

“We had 51 in our party then, six of them wounded. When the one bottle had been passed round its allotted 45 men and was coming back to me there was still water in it. That will show the spirit of the men.” RESCUE PARTY ARRIVES. Relief came on Saturday and of the rescue in which six men —five from a

rescue party- —lost their lives in two abortive daylight attempts, the men who had spent nearly a week in a hell on earth, spoke feelingly. They weie sitting on the shore on Saturday night. They could see nothing in the blackness. At eight o'clock, a noise of barges creeping in from the sea was heaid. The noise stopped a matter of 300 yards out. Shallow coral reefs bad blocked progress. Remembering the fate of members of the rescue party who had died in trying to reach the shore during the afternoon, the men on shore waited in suspense. The barge engines had stopped. There was no sound. And then six feet from the shore a head appeared and another and the dim outline of a canoe and of a rubber lifeboat. A rope from the barges was secured and the first out were those who had been wounded. They were laid carefully in the lifeboat and the canoe. Their escort took knives to fight off sharks. Then a dozen at a time the rest of the party slid into the water and crawled and swam to the boats. The perimeter on shore grew smaller till at last just six men armed with grenades remained. They slipped away unmolested. Clothing, watches and personnal gear were left on the shore. Only the soldier’s greatest friend, his rifle, tommy-gun or Bren gun, went with him to safety. Next evening, resting after their trials, the men of those platoons approached their padre with a request that they hold a short service of thanksgiving at their deliverance. And behind the thatched Methodist Church in the native village of Iringila where before the war New Zealand missionaries took the Gospel to this Solomon island, natives and 50 men listened in the peace of a Sunday evening to a ( simple practical talk on the text of “Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends,” and joined together in the singing of the Doxology and “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.”