BOOBY TRAPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1943, Page 3

BOOBY TRAPS

USED EFFECTIVELY BY NEW ZEALANDERS AGAINST NIGHT-PROWLING JAPANESE. . EPISODES ON MONO ISLAND. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) TREASURY ISLAND. Booby traps laid by the New Zealanders round their Mono Island perimeter caught a number of Japanese night prowlers on trip wires which set off grenades fused to instantaneous discharge. It is an old trick, but it worked well, and the light of the morning disclosed many pools of blood from which wounded Japanese had been dragged out by their companions. The Japanese indulged in a lot of night work on Mono. It was impossible to stop their infiltration completely, as our perimeter was wide and at times a score or more Japanese prowled among our lines and foxholes chattering among themselves, singing sometimes, and conducting themselves with a strangely carefree abandon that suggested a queer twist of psychology or, what might well have been possible, an over-indulgence in their alcoholic saki, of which many bottles were found in abandoned camp sites. They sat on fallen trees, felt gingerly for men’s heads in foxhples, threw coconuts and pieces of coral here and there, and clicked signals to each other 'with wooden sticks. TRICKY SNIPERS.

Four of them sat for two hours within a yard of a wounded New Zealander, but they never saw him. One poked a skinny hand under the log roof of a big foxhole and was riddled with a tommy-gun burst. There were occasional inter-changes of fire, and though one night no enemy were killed, four lay “dead” after the second night. It transpired that they had a purpose, for from trees along the beach came snipers’ fire on the following day. At least nine snipers were found in one day and eliminated by spraying the tops of the trees with bullets.

One battalion has a story about “The Corpse that Walked” which has the testimony of thhe commanding officer to guarantee its veracity. Late one afternoon shots from the tree tops of coconut palms whizzed close to a private’s head. He turned his automatic rifle into the palm and was rewarded by the falling of the sniper’s rifle and the slumping of a barely discernible body among the greenery. The Japanese had been tied to the tree and his body stayed where it was. Dusk was falling, so the body was left alone. In the morning it was gone. This was the first time New Zealanders encountered Japanese night prowling tactics. CORPORAL’S ADVENTURE. On Vella Lavella the enemy had stayed quiet in his own perimeter and we became rather sceptical of the tales about his perambulatory habits. Not so on Mono. To see and to feel was to believe. A South Island corporal now knows what it feels like to have his steel helmet 'lifted slowly back while he slept in a foxhole. He woke to semi-consciousness one night as his hat was being pulled gently upward. Not realizing what was happening, he drowsily pulled it back on his head. Next moment the hand jerked it up again and truth dawned on the corporal. Someone was trying to lift his chin up to expose his throat; The corporal did not drowse any more. He lashed out with his fists, and a dark form slid off in a hurry. Rumour has it that the corporal slept no more that night, nor the night after. Once awakened to the potential menace of night prowlers, the New Zealanders took effective steps' to stop them. The booby traps helped a lot and reinforced sentry posts repulsed at least one determined Japanese attempt to infiltrate. After three nights the Japanese gave it up.