by Pacific War Uncensored: A War Correspondent's Unvarnished Account of the Fight Against Japan
All around me life seemed to be going on as normal even though the Japanese forces appeared to be only just over the horizon. I was amazed to find a coalminer’s strike being threatened, and that the mines might be left idle. With supply lines being threatened, it seemed imperative that everyone in the country pull together to support its industry. How stupid would it have been if Japanese bombers managed to carry out attacks on the mines before the opportunity had been taken to extract as much coal from them as possible? America was offering support to Australia, but it could not be guaranteed when this would actually arrive.
Map showing an overview of the Japanese attacks on Broome, Wyndham and Darwin in northern Australia. The fear in 1942 was that an extension of this 2,000 mile battlefront would cut off supply lines from America and the United Kingdom. Sydney Sun
Gradually the realisation began to dawn in Australia that the Japanese threat was getting nearer. Plans were started to ensure that nothing useful was left for the Japanese in the event of Australia being invaded. Demolition was carried out by the military, in the destruction of cars, bicycles and gasoline supplies, and appeals were made to the general public for their cooperation. Australians had already had some experience in such practices during a rapid evacuation that had taken place in Darwin. British employees of the British Phosphate Commission who reached Australia after evacuation from the Nauru Islands told me that preparations there included the demolition of installations that were worth millions of pounds.
In addition to this, over two thousand people had been evacuated from New Guinea. All these events appeared to bring home the seriousness of the situation—the shortcomings of the defences of Malaya and Java were in danger of being repeated all over again. Finally there was an awareness that the Japanese attackers had a large number of skilful fighters who should not be underestimated. Both Australia and New Zealand were prepared to join forces and call up men up to the age of sixty, amounting to an almost total mobilisation of their populations.
I was grateful to be given the opportunity to publicly give my own views on the war by a friend of Marie’s, called Mr. Clayton, who asked me if I would give a speech at The Constitution Club in Sydney. In all the big towns and cities of Australia at that time there were branches of The Constitution Club, whose members came largely from the local business community. Mr. Clayton had a son who was in the Australian forces, and I knew that there were many people who were also keen to hear about the conflict as they too had family in the forces. I consented to give a luncheon speech at the club, and when I arrived I was surprised and delighted to find General Gordon Bennett amongst the audience.
I had always found General Bennett to be one of the most honest and forthright commanders in the Far East, and so I was very pleased to be able to stand up in such an arena and defend his reputation. Some people were of the opinion that the general should have stayed in Singapore and fought with his men, but as far as I was concerned he did exactly the right thing in escaping. His expertise in understanding the enemy was of far greater value in helping the Allies develop strategies against the Japanese than remaining in the battlefield and fighting on the front line.
The Japanese were making quick progress now in Java, and were moving rapidly through the islands of the South Pacific. It seemed they were intent on eventually attacking Australia and cutting off the vital supply lines, which forced the Allies to start garrisoning the vast sparsely populated areas of what was called the Northern Territories. Some evacuation of Darwin had already been taking place, with anything that might be of use to potential invaders being destroyed. Many evacuees were also arriving from New Guinea, and Australia now was at a heightened level of preparedness for their potential attackers.
In spite of all these concerns, the remainder of my time in Sydney was very pleasant, and with my newfound fame Marie and I were invited to quite a number of parties. I bought myself some civilian clothes to replace the military uniform I had been wearing since Perth, which made me feel a lot better. After a number of days though, I received a telegram from Brydon Taves in Melbourne asking me to return there immediately. With great reluctance I packed my things and took the train back, as news started to trickle through that the Japanese were now in almost complete control of the Dutch East Indies.
I was also saddened to hear that there had been quite a number of casualties amongst my fellow newspapermen during the Japanese invasion of Java. Among them was Bill McDougall who had tried to get away on a ship that unfortunately sank, and he was eventually picked up by the Japanese. For the second time in his career Bill was a prisoner of war, and I felt terribly sad, as I remembered how I had tried to persuade him to leave Java with me.
We then received news that General MacArthur had escaped from the Philippines, and had arrived in northern Australia on a fast motorboat. We found out that he was going to travel from Darwin down to Alice Springs and then make his way to Ballarat near Melbourne. I decided to go to Ballarat and get on the same train that he would be travelling on, and attempt to get an interview with him. My plan succeeded so far as getting on the train, but when I tried to move down towards the general’s carriage I found the way guarded by groups of officers. Later in the war I did, however, get to meet with the general, which was an occasion I will never forget.
Harold’s War Correspondent’s Credential and Identification Card, issued in May 1942. The nationality on it is noted as being British. Author collection
Another War Correspondent’s Identification Card, this time issued in June 1942, but this time the nationality has been noted as American. This was a common misconception about Harold, as he was a British correspondent working for an American news agency. Author collection
As I was now stationed in Melbourne, Marie decided that she and Pat would move there from Sydney so that we could all be together again. We managed to find accommodation at Stratton Heights, which was an apartment block overlooking the River Yarra. Once more though, just as we seemed to be settling down I received a message from New York telling me that I had to return to the war front, wherever it happened to be. The war in the Pacific was spreading out over a large area, and it was essential that the Allies try and gain air supremacy over the Japanese. Finding suitable locations for runways was not easy—they had to deal with the heavily forested and swampy terrain of the South Pacific islands or the dry dusty desert of northern Australia. Undeveloped territories also lacked infrastructure, which made supplying any newly formed bases extremely difficult.
The Allies needed to start building airbases, and some land was found at a place called Townsville in Queensland. Even though this was a quiet agricultural area, it had the advantage of having wide areas of flat land for developing runways. From there it was possible for bombers to launch long-range attacks on the Japanese bases, in particular Rabaul in New Britain and Wewak in New Guinea. So myself and a number of other correspondents were booked into The Queens Hotel in Townsville, which was a rather ramshackle affair situated on the waterfront.
Among my fellow colleagues were Byron Darnton of the New York Times, also known as “Barney,” Bill Kent of the Chicago Sun, and Tom Yarborough of the Associated Press. There was no real organisation of the press like I had experienced in Singapore, and scarcely any facilities for us to work in; the press officer in charge of us was also an Australian army dentist. There seemed little for us to report on, and we used to spend most of our time visiting the outlying army camps. Over time a number of other bases were built around Townsville, and though facilities were poor to begin with, they did improve as they became more established.
One evening my fellow correspondents went out to one of the outlying camps at Charters Towers to visit the soldiers, but I had decided not to join them and stayed back at the hotel and continued with some work. I was quietly sitting there reading through some papers when I was suddenly disturbed by our press officer, and dentist, who was excitedly waving a press release in the air. This was the first press release that he had r
eceived, and its contents were significant as it contained details of the Coral Sea Battle, which was quite a turning point in the war. The Japanese fleet had been confronted in the Coral Sea by the Allies, who had defeated them, temporarily at least, from advancing towards Australia. It was the first news we had received of this conflict, and I found myself being the only correspondent in possession of this information.
I immediately sat down and started to write a cable to our New York office, but as I was doing so I thought what a shame it was that the other correspondents had missed out on this momentous news. So I wrote cables to their newspapers as well, being very careful to make sure they were all slightly different from each other. For example, in the cable to the Associated Press I described in detail how people had jumped over the side of a stricken Japanese aircraft carrier. I put each correspondents name at the end of the cables and sent them off. On the following day I received a message from New York, asking me if I could match the Associated Press release of people jumping over the side of the Japanese ship, as it was so well written! Of course the other correspondents were very grateful to me, and we all became very firm friends as a result.
CHAPTER TEN
Townsville
One of the greatest friends that I made in Townsville was a 26year-old lieutenant from the American air force. His name was Christian Herron, and he was a captain of a B26 bomber stationed there, and someone who I found to be a most remarkable young man. Christian, or Chris as he preferred to be called, was slightly above the age of the other pilots, and had at his disposal a motorbike on which he used to give me pillion rides while touring around the local area. This was always a comical sight, as my stiff right leg had to be stuck out at angle from the side as we motored up and down the roads.
The airmen in Townsville were involved with the bombing of Japanese installations in New Guinea, which by now was almost totally under enemy control. Their main target was Rabaul in the Dutch East Indies, and there was a feeling of real determination among the airmen, whose average age was twenty-two, that they were getting revenge for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. These youngsters who were constantly taking to the air were readily becoming veteran bomber pilots, and deadly killers, which was a tremendous pressure for them to live under.
I interviewed one young Private Hugo H. Speir from Minnesota, who at the age of twenty had been attributed with shooting down his squadron’s first Japanese Zero. He was only pint-sized and had been serving for seventeen months, and was convalescing from an attack of dengue fever when I met him. Speir described to me an action he had been involved in during April while on a mission over Rabaul. He was an aerial gunner on a medium bomber piloted by a Lieutenant Clarence McClaren, who had been assigned the task of bombing shipping wharves.
When they arrived at their target they immediately encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire, but managed to dive through low-hanging clouds and successfully bomb their objectives. They were heading homewards when Speir observed Japanese fighters taking off. The Zeros caught them up over the sea, and one approached within four hundred yards before Speir blazed away at it with his turret guns. The Zero then sheered off, and Speir was just congratulating himself on a job well done when he saw another Zero swooping up behind the bomber’s tail. The bomber banked to the left, but the Zero climbed high and again attempted to approach the tail. The Zero now got within three hundred yards before Speir let fire again with two hundred and fifty rounds. This time he saw the tracers enter the Zeros cockpit, after which the Japanese fighter seemed to be suspended for a while before it wobbled and then spiralled down towards the ground with a trail of belching smoke. Spiers was due to come of age in July, but by all accounts it seemed that he had already surpassed this stage of his life.
Carrying out a bombing mission to Rabaul was by no means an easy task, and a very tiring one. The distances between aerial targets in the South Pacific were vast, which required the bombers to make a stop along the way and refuel. They would fly to Port Moresby in New Guinea, which was over eleven hundred miles away, touch down briefly to refuel, and then take off again quickly to continue their mission to Rabaul. The distance from Port Moresby to their targets was almost as far as the distance they had previously flown from Townsville, and then after completing their missions they had to reverse the whole process again on the return journey. I was very interested to hear about these missions, and told Chris that I would like to take part in one. My interest must have made an impression on him because he went to see his colonel, Hank Sebastian, and asked for approval for me to take part in one of these missions.
Somehow permission was granted, and early one morning I found myself at the airfield being dressed up for a bombing mission. I had a parachute on my back, a gun in a holster around my waist, a full set of in structions on how to use a survival kit, and a big knife for killing any wild animals that I might come across if we should crash in the jungle. All these things were hung on me, and I began to feel like a rather badly wrapped Christmas parcel. After being loaded with all these items, it was time for me to join the rest of the squadron and listen to our commander issue instructions as well as details of the latest weather reports, before strolling out to our waiting bombers.
The propellers on the planes were revving up and spewing biting dust clouds everywhere. I was appointed to Chris Herron’s aircraft, and found it a little difficult cramming myself between the radio operator and navigator while laden with all of my equipment. Our squadron comprised eight planes, and we took off late in the afternoon through gathering darkness and into the unknown. Eventually we landed at Port Moresby to refuel, as had been planned, and the whole process was carried out very quietly, quickly, and with as little fuss as possible.
We were up at dawn the next day and our crew once more reassembled, while all around us the noises of the nearby jungle reverberated in the chill tropical air. Once more the propellers were being revved up, and almost simultaneously the first light of morning began to break. With our engines roaring we hurled down the runway and held our breath—it was always a tricky business taking off with a full load of bombs onboard. Our craft, though, gradually lifted off the ground and headed high towards the thick clouds above us.
Chris had a complete air of confidence about him as he took the roaring bomber high over the clouds, and we flew into what seemed to be a new world of yellow gold sunshine with a cotton wool floor. As we settled into a period of steady flying, Bombardier Lieutenant George Barnhill brought me some water in a canteen, along with a 0.45 automatic and phial of iodine, which I was told would not only sterilise a wound but also purify jungle water. I was told to keep these things safely close to me, because airmen had been known to spend weeks in the jungle after being shot down.
I had heard some amazing survival stories of pilots who had needed to bail out. One that I particularly remember involved a lieutenant called Plunkett, who was shot down in his fighter plane by Japanese Zeros that had suddenly appeared from behind the clouds and attacked him. After struggling with his plane, he was eventually forced to bail out at fifteen thousand feet. He did not remember much about the jump, which might have been due to him pulling the ripcord too soon and the shock rendering him unconscious. When he finally came round he found himself sitting in a tree with his parachute entangled in the branches above his head. With a splitting headache Plunkett managed to disentangle the chute and make his way down to the ground.
He then proceeded to hack his way through the jungle using his knife, in a direction that he hoped would take him back to Port Moresby. He took bearings from the sun as he made his way, and checked the saltiness of the rivers for an indication that he was getting nearer the coast. In the end he decided his journey would be made quicker by swimming down the rivers, despite noting along the way the threatening presence of crocodiles in the water and on the banks. He managed to scare off their attention, though, by thrashing at the water, and at nighttime Plunkett would spend his time in the treetops, while around him
he could see the glowing eyes of the jungle beasts shinning in the dark.
For days he lived entirely on coconuts, and was lucky enough to encounter some friendly natives who guided him and also provided him with food. One day, though, while swimming the rivers Plunkett suddenly felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder, and when he looked round he saw the nose of a crocodile. He immediately dived hoping to duck under the beast, but the animal did not give up, and clamped its jaws around Plunkett’s right shoulder. Remarkably he managed to loosen the crocodile’s grip by hitting it with his jungle knife across the nose and then made it to shore. Again he was fortunate that some helpful natives tended to his wounds and got him back on the trail towards Port Moresby.
Peering out at the thick jungle below, I started to think about all the possibilities that lay below for me, and prayed silently to myself that I would not need to use any part of my survival kit. The inside of the bomber was a little reminiscent to me of the inside of a submarine, in that the conditions were cramped, with an array of gauges, meters, noises and the smell of fuel. We were now flying high, at a speed of two hundred miles per hour, and when the clouds broke occasionally we were provided with further glimpses of the thick jungle below and a reminder of our mission. I examined my parachute nervously, and wondered if I would ever be able to pull the ripcord in the event of us being forced to bail out. For the moment I tried to visualise myself in the jungle with a gun and phial of iodine, but my daydream was broken as our plane dropped six hundred feet.
The plane had plunged deeply as it encountered some air pockets, and the experience was quite nauseating, but Chris managed to steady the aircraft. We then encountered a strong head wind and the skies suddenly darkened, while water started to stream across the windows. We were now over the sea, and we dropped a little more in altitude. The navigator was busy poring over charts and aerial photographs, and the rear gunner took up his position in the turret. The navigator called out that we would be over the target in ten minutes, and Chris asked me if I wanted to sit between him and the co-pilot to get a better view, an offer I accepted. Ahead of us I could see a white cloudbank. Chris decided there wouldn’t be time to go over it so instead we travelled straight through it, revealing on the other side Rabaul Harbour laid out in front of us. Looking down on it all reminded me of the type of scene you would find on a picture postcard with the land clearly laid out on the background of a blue sea.
