Harold Guard

by Pacific War Uncensored: A War Correspondent's Unvarnished Account of the Fight Against Japan

  Around the harbour I looked down and could see some large ships along with a number of smaller vessels. We crossed the harbour and then suddenly swooped down low. I looked across at the altitude meter and noticed that it was now registering one thousand feet. At the same time I saw from the ground gun flashes which exploded into black balls of smoke all above and around us. I was startled by a loud cracking noise, which sounded to me like somebody crushing open walnuts. Fortunately there was no obvious sign of damage to our craft, and so we continued to drop in altitude, this time to seven hundred feet. Chris croaked sharply through his throat microphone that our target was now coming into sight. I could now see some long parallel dull coloured buildings, and then our bomb bay doors opened and I was fascinated to see incendiary sticks spread out over a wide area and then explode below us.

  Having experienced the exhilaration of the attack, I hoped that we would now make our way back home. The motor roar started to intensify, and we started to climb once more up towards the clouds. Our turret gunner then reported that there was a Japanese Zero on the starboard side, and Chris muttered something under his breath and we increased our speed. Two more Zeros were then sighted, but we were unable to press the engines any harder as our fuel was running low, and we needed to conserve what we had left in the tanks. In addition to this I also noticed that the temperature needle was now almost touching the redline.

  One of the Zeros moved out ahead of us and then climbed high, before turning and swooping back down towards us. I thought that our time had come and that there was no way the Zero could miss us. Chris, however, did not lose his nerve, and with a determined look on his face turned our plane so that we banked down to the right and towards the sea. The Zero was forced to pull out of the steep dive, and in doing so exposed its underside. Our rear guns fired towards the red discs on the Zero’s wings, and I saw some of the tracers go to either side while others entered its belly.

  We were still plunging towards the water, and I could see military barges below on the surface of the sea. We swooped low again at just seventy-five feet, and I could actually see the Japanese soldiers on the barges jumping over the side as our fire entered the vessels. I looked backwards at the bellowing black smoke and red flame, and it certainly looked as if the vessels had been well and truly hit.

  There were, however, three Zeros still paying us some attention as we swooped once more towards the sea. The tail gunner reported once more that two were at our rear, and then suddenly from behind an upper cloud another appeared and hurled itself towards our port side. I heard his guns chatter as he swooped over us, and once more I heard a cracking sound like walnuts being opened. More balls of smoke surrounded us, and our rear gunner swore loudly as his gun began to jam. Thankfully, it freed again just in time, letting forth bursts of fire that sent one of the Zeros zooming away.

  At that point there seemed to be a lull in anti-aircraft fire, and only one Zero was now coming our way. Chris narrowed his eyes on the enemy aircraft, and then with a skilful wrist turn we swooped under the oncoming aircraft. Our turret gunner let go with his fire, and then croaked through the interphone, “That’s got the bastard!” We then rose once more, and this time we were on our way as the tail gunner started to sing “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.” The whole business of sighting the target and undergoing the battle took I think about fifteen minutes—it went so quickly that I had barely enough time to be frightened.

  The strangest thing then happened. The whole crew suddenly laughed unrestrainedly, and nobody really knew the reason why, but I think it was their way of releasing tension. Chris now began to relax and even permitted me to take the controls for a short while. I felt very proud to be sitting alongside him in the co-pilot’s seat as he brought the plane carefully into land. Waiting airmen then hurriedly clustered around our plane as we climbed out with stiff joints to their welcome.

  The whole experience had seemed incredible to me, and I timidly asked Chris if it would constitute what he might describe as being a “hot raid.” Chris said, “Jeez! I’d say it was! Those tough little babies gave us a run alright, but I think we gave them plenty of trouble too.” Everyone seemed satisfied with the mission, though out of the eight bombers in our squadron only five managed to return. We then ate, and drank some newly made iced lime squash, all within the sound of the nearby jungle noises. Afterwards we prepared our beds underneath the plane’s bomb bay doors, draping mosquito nets to form a tent. As I put my head down and drifted into an exhausted slumber, I could not help wonder once more what had made the sound of cracking walnuts during our flight.

  The next day I arrived back in Townsville, and found that an official communiqué had been issued about the mission that I had been on, which simply stated, “On Thursday morning our Air Force attacked shipping barracks, warehouses and machine-gunned personnel. Incendiaries were dropped on the wharf establishments. The enemy attempted a fighter interception with four Zeros.” It went on to describe how eight of our aircraft had taken part in a raid but only five of them had returned, but little other information was provided. I then sat down to write my own story and based it around the communiqué, but also included details about how Chris Herron had dived his aircraft from three thousand to seventy-five feet over Rabaul and attacked the enemy target. I also provided details of how the Japanese fighters had struck at us on the way back, and that we had ended up with more than fifty holes in our aircraft.

  I felt very pleased with my finished work, as it really illustrated what it was like on a bombing mission, but as soon as I had handed it in I found myself in the middle of a terrific controversy. Apparently there was a complete ban on any correspondent entering any theatre of war, and this included going on an operational trip in a bomber. Straight away there was an exchange of messages between Townsville and Brisbane and Washington, and it took five days for the censors to decide what to do about me, and also my story.

  I was saved by a General George Kenney who at that time was in command of the American Air Force in New Guinea. He said that in his opinion the story was a morale booster to his men, and that if a correspondent was able to go on a mission it should be an encouragement to some of the young men who were involved in these dangerous escapades. After five days I was exonerated from breaking any rules, and my story was at last released, with the headline: “War Ace On Bombing Mission.”

  So it was that I was able to get involved with these bombing missions, but they were not always as successful as the one I went on with Chris Herron on that first occasion. Raids were going on day and night, and it was sometimes difficult to keep up with what time of day it was. I remember talking to a canteen mess orderly about this, who admitted that he never knew from one moment to another as to whether he had to go and serve up supper or breakfast. However, he also told me that the pattern of the conflict itself would sometimes help him keep track of the days, as he said that on Tuesdays and Thursdays the Japanese would bomb the airfields and on Wednesdays and Fridays they tended to concentrate on the harbour. This he humorously quipped could also help in the planning of the menu, as they could always plan to have fish on Fridays.

  Being with the US Air Force meant that days could start at 4:00 am, and never seem to finish. If you were starting in the middle of the night, then it would seem that you had been out all day, but after checking your watch would find that it was only 10:00 am. One particular incident I remember occurred while I was accompanying a night mission, which started with a very bumpy trip in the back of a truck out to the airfield in the company of three Marauder bomber crews. After we finally arrived at the airfield we assembled together in some long wooden huts where coffee and toast were served, which was much appreciated in the early hours. I felt somewhat in the way all of the time—we sat at long wooden benches to eat and drink, and because of my stiff right leg I had to sit on the end. It stuck out into the gangway, and though I was frequently apologetic about the nuisance that it caused, the lads in this group were very friendl
y to me and addressed me affectionately as “Guardy boy.”

  The refreshments in the hut seemed to lift the mood of everyone, which for most of our time together had been quite tense. Within the ranks of these brave servicemen were some quite young lads, and despite their best efforts to be jolly it was not hard to notice the tensions etched upon their faces. Then it was time for us to depart, and once more we trooped out into the inky black darkness of the night. I did my very best to keep up with the rest of the lads, and stumbled at times quite helplessly across the rough terrain towards the waiting bombers on the runway. An arm reached out and guided me towards the plane in which I was to travel, which was to be piloted by a Lieutenant C. McIver. I made a mental note to myself to get the names of the rest of the crew, but figured that there would be plenty of time to do this once we were in the air.

  My harnesses and kit were all checked, and it was then time for us to climb up the tail end ladder into the plane. Ours was the first in the squadron to take off, and the engines roared once more as we taxied into position at the end of the runway, which had now been illuminated on both sides by torches. There was considerable jolting going on inside the craft as further manoeuvres took place, and the bumping gradually increased as we made our may down the runway. I looked across nervously at our payload, and prayed that nothing would happen to set them off unexpectedly. To everyone’s relief the jolting soon stopped, signifying that we were now in the air. I was able to look outside through a small window, and below us I saw that we were passing over a slightly wooded area at the end of the runway.

  Conversations now started up between the crew members, and we were all just getting to know one another when we were interrupted, first of all by a bright glow illuminating the darkness outside, which was then followed by the sound of a muffled thunder clap. The first thought to run through my mind was that one of our engines had exploded, and my thoughts immediately leaped back to considering the condition of our unexploded payload. This thought, though, was soon quashed with the news that was relayed through the interphone, telling us that the mission was abandoned as one of the other planes in the squadron had “cracked up.” We were not out of danger though, as our pilot McIver now had the task of flying us back down over the ever-increasing flames below us on the ground.

  I began to feel the same prickly feeling on the back of my neck that I had experienced when I came across the Japanese troops smashing plates in that bungalow in Java. I braced myself as the plane once again jolted as we came back into contact with terra firma, before finally coming to a halt. We clambered down from our plane as ambulances and crash vehicles sped towards the site of the unfortunate craft, which I found out later had failed to get off the ground before crashing into the woodland. As we entered the operations room there was an air of gloom and all thoughts were for those brave young comrades who had been lost. I found it difficult to find any words to say, and succeeded in only humbly offering round a pack of Lucy Strikes.

  Another frightening time on a night bombing mission occurred when I was onboard a flight with a Lieutenant Millard Haskin. Conditions were particularly poor this night, because as well as having the pitch darkness of the night to contend with, there was also a very hard driving rain that restricted any visibility of the ground. We had been flying high over sea for most of our journey when we encountered a terrific storm that lasted for a good hour. For the entire time we were buffeted about, and it seemed that all there was in front of us were thick banks of grey rain clouds, surrounding us from every angle. There was much activity on board, and our radioman was frantically twiddling knobs and looking intently at the various gauges and dials that were available to him. There was also an increased amount of banter through the interphone by the navigator, the majority of which seemed highly technical and unintelligible to me.

  After a fashion I concluded for myself that nobody had any idea as to where we were, and I casually questioned our navigator as to our position. “Up in the air,” he retorted sharply, which was a conclusion that I would have been able to reach myself. To everyone’s relief though, there was at last some respite when the radio operator finally made contact with someone, somewhere, and outside it was possible to see the blurred lights on land below us. We circled the blurry lights, but soon found ourselves back out at sea again. I didn’t know whether this was an expected manoeuvre or not, and began to nervously adjust my parachute just in case. My actions were spotted and the crew joked with me, saying it was probably best that I bail out now so at least they could fix their position on somewhere down below. We had been in the air about an hour longer than originally expected, and the fear was, of course, that we would run out of fuel. But suddenly those blurry lights once more came into view, and we descended through the driving rain. Rain had covered the runway, and it seemed that our landing would almost be as wet as landing in the sea. It was a great relief then to experience the familiar jolting as we came into contact with the ground once more and to safety. It had been, once more, very much a “touch-and-go situation,” which could have easily ended in disaster for all of us and reminded me again of the skill that the relatively inexperienced aircrews had to use in order to survive.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Port Moresby

  Back in Townsville I was regularly getting letters from Marie, telling me how she and Pat were settling in quite well, although they were of course looking forward to the time when we could all be together again. Events in the war were now moving very rapidly, though up on the Pacific front, following the Coral Sea Battle, I think there must have been quite a sizeable withdrawal of the Japanese from parts of New Guinea. As a result all the correspondents were then moved from Townsville up to Port Moresby in New Guinea.

  I shared tents with Australian and American correspondents in the Papuan jungle along with the airmen stationed there, and the conditions were pretty primitive, and very uncomfortable. Mosquitoes and all sorts of other creatures could turn up in the most unexpected places. At night the insects would make quite a noise and provide another reason for not getting a good night’s sleep, but so was the prospect of, at any time, there being an enemy attack. The airmen in the camp used to sleep with their aircraft, and drape mosquito nets from them to form tents. They were ready for action at any moment, and ate when they had time, with only lukewarm water to wash down their food. Conditions were no easier for the men when they were in the air, and having to fly for long periods at altitude. A waist gunner from Iowa, Sergeant Frank McCarthy, told me how cold it could get, and how easily arctic temperatures would penetrate his thick sheepskin lined bombing jacket despite having previously been sweltering in the tropical heat of the jungle. None of this seemed to dampen the men’s enthusiasm, though, for waging an unceasing war against the Japanese.

  In such conditions I was really glad to be in the same camp with my friends Barney Darnton, Bill Kent and Tom Yarborough. One of my most constant companions was a well-built Papuan boy, who for some reason wanted to attach himself to me. I decided to christen him “Gibson,” for reasons I can’t remember, and he would address me as “Guard Sa.” Gibson was completely naked when I first met him, and so I found him a pair of bright blue trousers from somewhere to cover his dignity, causing him to become known as “Gibson of the Blue Trousers.” He proved to be very useful to me because he knew his way around the jungle area, and would travel with me in an old jeep to a lot of the air bases around Port Moresby. I think that Gibson may have been schooled within a mission, as he was very strict with me when I used to swear. “Number one topside, he come this side, and be very angry with you Sa!” Gibson would say this whenever I let an expletive slip, as we bumped our way around the rough terrain in our jeep.

  It did not surprise me that Gibson had received some education from a mission, because despite the conflict there were still plenty of missions left in New Guinea. I later met up with an Archdeacon called Stephen Gill, from Sussex in England, who had continued to run a mission under the most trying of c
ircumstances. He had been carrying out his work in New Guinea for nearly thirty-four years, and was very determined not to give it up despite the dangers that befell him. The Archdeacon’s mission was situated in the Mambare River area, and he told me that on one particular day he was completing a jigsaw with a young native girl in one of the mission’s huts when a Jap anese airplane flew low overhead firing bullets everywhere. A trail of these passed right between the Archdeacon and the girl, but miraculously did not harm either of them.

  Unfortunately such attacks were not restricted to the Japanese, and on another occasion the same thing happened, but this time the perpetrator was an American bomber, who after spraying bullets everywhere succeeded in smashing the Archdeacon’s much-prized barometer. He was so incensed by this act that he went and complained to the nearest band of Allied troops he could find, who happened to be Australians. His protests must have gotten through to the necessary command of these forces, as later on that day another American plane passed over dropping a letter of apology. Despite this, a similar incident happened again, but this time with an Australian plane. The Archdeacon had to take evasive action while he was in the middle of hanging out his washing. After this he was advised by the Allied troops that he should move out of the area, which was becoming more and more dangerous, as the Japanese were using ground nearby as a supply dump.