Best Australian Yarns

by Haynes, Jim

  The two raids on 19 February, the first of sixty-four that Darwin would suffer, claimed at least 243 lives and around 400 more people were badly wounded. Some estimates by rescue workers of up to 1100 dead have never been substantiated. Darwin Mayor Jack Burton estimated 900 people were killed while the official government figure, given by the censor as fifteen several days later in order to prevent panic, was obviously nonsense. The best official count possible after the war estimated the number at 292 to 297 dead.

  While the number of those killed in the raids remains unknown, partly due to the fact that the Aboriginal population was not accurately recorded at that time or even included in the census, the number of injured hospitalised is known reasonably accurately and the figure of around 300 dead seems to make sense in light of the number injured.

  JH

  MITSUO FUCHIDA, SKY PILOT

  Captain Fuchida, the architect and leader of the Darwin and Pearl Harbor raids, was about to be involved in the Battle of Midway when he had to undergo an emergency appendix operation onboard the carrier Akagi.

  Akagi was hit and exploded and sank during the battle and Fuchida broke both ankles when the explosions threw him from a rope ladder he was using to leave the ship onto a deck metres below. He survived and spent the rest of the war as a staff officer.

  Fuchida was again apparently singled out by fate to survive against the odds when he was part of a group sent to Hiroshima the day after the atomic explosion to assess the damage. While all other members of Fuchida’s party died of radiation poisoning, Fuchida suffered no symptoms.

  In 1947, Fuchida met a group of returning Japanese prisoners of war and among them was his former flight engineer, Kazuo Kanegasaki, who was believed to have died at Midway.

  Kanegasaki told Fuchida that, as prisoners of war, Japanese soldiers captured by the Allies were well treated and not tortured or abused. He related how a woman whose missionary parents had been murdered by Japanese troops in the Philippines had cared for the Japanese POWs.

  Hearing this, Fuchida, raised in the Bushido belief of revenge for honour, was stunned and became obsessed with trying to understand Christianity, although at first he couldn’t find a Bible translated into Japanese.

  His obsession eventually led to a meeting with the Christian evangelist Jacob De Shazer and conversion to Christianity.

  Fuchida became a member of the Worldwide Christian Missionary Army of Sky Pilots and spent the rest of his life evangelising in the United States, becoming a US citizen in 1960. He died of a diabetes-related illness in 1976, aged 74.

  JH

  JAPAN’S FIRST DEFEAT—MILNE BAY

  While the outnumbered Australian militia were being pushed back along the Kokoda Track by a massive, well-trained Japanese army in August 1942, and the 500 soldiers of the 39th battalion at Deniki were holding back an enemy force ten times larger, the Japanese were planning an invasion around the eastern end of New Guinea. They planned to take Milne Bay at the eastern tip of the island and then get to Port Moresby and surround the Australian forces.

  The Japanese had regularly bombed the three Allied airstrips that were being constructed at Milne Bay since 4 August.

  Japanese intelligence reports mistakenly indicated a small force of Allied infantry constructing the three airfields at Milne Bay. There were, in fact, almost 9000 Allied troops at Milne Bay. About half of them were infantry, the rest were made up of over 1300 US engineer and construction troops and anti-aircraft and RAAF personnel.

  The Australian infantry stationed at Milne Bay included militia from the 7th Brigade and the 55th Battalion along with the men of the 18th Brigade 7th Division 2nd AIF, who had famously served alongside the 9th Division at Tobruk.

  On 24 August, a force of some 2000 Japanese troops, including 850 from the elite Marine Landing Corps, left Rabaul on three transports escorted by two cruisers and three destroyers. Another convoy left Buna to land further along the north coast and attack overland. Both convoys were spotted and subsequently attacked by the RAAF.

  The only Australian naval vessels in the deepwater bay were a destroyer and a transport. Both were able to leave before the superior Japanese force arrived.

  The RAAF effectively stranded the convoy from Buna on Goodenough Island by destroying the convoy’s landing barges. Air strikes against the larger convoy inflicted little damage but were partly the reason the troops were landed well away from the airstrips.

  The Japanese had complete naval supremacy at Milne Bay and were able to move troops up and down the coast at night. The RAAF had control of the air and were able to land and take off even when the airstrips were under heavy attack.

  The Japanese landed 2000 marines and two tanks 11 kilometres east of their intended landing place. These troops faced a long march through swamp and jungle but made a concerted attack on one of the airfields after pushing Allied defenders westward. The tanks simply bogged and were abandoned.

  The Japanese then landed 800 more marines and the big attack came, with artillery support from the warships, on the night of 31 August.

  The 25th and 61st Australian Militia Battalions, along with the 43rd US Engineers, took the brunt of this attack, which included three waves of frenzied Japanese troops attacking across open ground. The Allied troops held firm in a furious battle and the Japanese were repulsed.

  The Japanese were forced to withdraw back to the east and were pursued along the peninsular back to their base and again defeated by the 2/12th and 2/9th Battalions of the AIF on 4 September.

  The Japanese retreated from Milne Bay after sinking a British merchant ship on 6 September. It was the first time the Japanese had been defeated in a land battle and forced to withdraw after attempting an amphibious landing.

  At Milne Bay, 167 Australians died, along with fourteen men of the 43rd US Engineers. The RAAF were magnificent in their defence of the bay, taking off under fire and attacking Japanese ships and artillery without thought for their own safety.

  Only half of the expeditionary forces landed by the Japanese managed to evacuate. About 750 were killed in the battles and the rest attempted to retreat overland to the Japanese base at Buna, only to be hunted down by Allied patrols.

  Australian forces had inflicted the first defeat on the German army in World War II at Tobruk, and followed it up with the first defeat of Japanese forces—at Milne Bay.

  JH

  THE BRAVE 39TH

  On 25 August 1942, the Australian militia fighting on the Kokoda Track at Isurava received news that men of the AIF 2/16th Battalion were coming to relieve them and were only a day’s march away.

  Meanwhile, the commander of Japan’s elite South Seas Detachment, Major General Tomitaro Horii, an odd, obsessive man who rode a white horse during the Kokoda campaign, had placed his troops in the mountains for the attack on Isurava.

  The Japanese had landed 13,500 troops by 21 August and Horii had assembled about 6000 seasoned combat troops between Kokoda and Isurava ready for the push towards Port Moresby. Specialist units, including mountain artillery and engineers, supported these troops.

  The attack on Isurava began on the morning of 26 August. Horii sent the bulk of his combat troops in repeated attacks on the Australian positions at Isurava while a battalion of Japanese troops moved along the roughly parallel eastern track between Deniki and Alola to outflank the Australians.

  While the attack at Isurava was taking place, Australian commander Brigadier Potts established his headquarters at Alola, the first village south on the track from Isurava. Potts believed that the 1100 troops of his two AIF rifle battalions would be facing 4000 Japanese and had no idea that 10,000 of Japan’s best combat troops were encamped to the north.

  The 2/16th Battalion was on its way and the 2/27th Battalion was being held at Port Moresby until the outcome of the battle of Milne Bay was known.

  Early on 27 August, after heavy bombardment of Australian positions, the Japanese rushed the Australian perimeter from the north-west. Fresh troops repl
aced the Japanese soldiers who fell as wave after wave attacked the defensive line held by B Company 39th Brigade.

  Just when it appeared that all was lost, troops of 2/14th AIF Battalion arrived at Isurava and the Japanese withdrew into the jungle.

  The defence of Isurava by the young militiamen of the 39th Battalion against a massive elite Japanese army on 27 August 1942 ranks as one of the bravest actions in Australia’s military history.

  With all companies of the 2/14th AIF Battalion now at Isurava, the 39th Battalion were due to be relieved and return to Port Moresby, but their commander persuaded Brigadier Potts to allow the 39th to stay and support the troops who had come to their aid.

  JH

  THE 39TH BATTALION

  DENNIS O’KEEFFE

  I stood with my grandpa one cold April morn.

  As we heard a trumpeter bugle the dawn.

  I said, ‘Grandpa, what are those medals you wear,

  Were you a brave soldier, is that why they’re there?’

  He pointed and said, ‘See those names carved in stone,

  They were the bravest, they never came home.

  So stand with me now and salute them today,

  They lie buried in soil in a land far away.’

  Later I sat on my grandfather’s knee,

  In the park where the start of the march was to be,

  He talked of Kokoda, and told me the story

  And ended by saying, ‘There wasn’t much glory,

  Just young Aussies dying, so you could be free.’

  Then he un-pinned his medals and pinned them on me,

  And I stood up with grandpa and we formed in line,

  I held his hand as we marched to the shrine.

  Grandpa has gone now and since then I’ve grown,

  To be so bloody thankful that he made it home.

  For the young men who died had no chance to have sons,

  It’s a high price to pay to make boys carry guns.

  So I wear grandpa’s medals on each Anzac day,

  For I know, even now, there’s a debt to repay

  To the brave 39th, on a track called Kokoda,

  ‘Bloody heroes,’ who fought till the battle was over.

  PRIVATE KINGSBURY

  At daybreak on 28 August 1942, three fresh AIF companies faced the Japanese on the north-west Australian defensive perimeter at Isurava.

  As each company of the 39th Battalion was relieved, they were moved to the eastern and southern perimeters where cliffs and jungle made Japanese attack less likely.

  At first light on 29 August, Japanese troops began massing at the northern and western perimeters. They attacked in waves throughout the day and, despite heavy losses, penetrated the western perimeter, forcing the Australians to fall back towards the village.

  The right forward perimeter, facing Deniki, was also under threat of a breakthrough when Lieutenant Clements of C Company gathered men for a counterattack that was led by Sergeant Bob Thompson from Headquarters Company and Private Bruce Kingsbury from A Company.

  Kingsbury’s platoon had been overrun and wiped out in fierce fighting north of battalion headquarters and he volunteered to immediately join another platoon heading to the front line.

  Kingsbury had taken over the platoon’s Bren gun and was checking it when the Japanese attacked again. He rushed forward, firing the Bren gun from his hip and calling, ‘Follow me, we can turn them back!’

  Having succeeded in clearing a path through the enemy, which halted the Japanese advance, Private Kingsbury was shot dead by a sniper hiding on top of a large rock at the edge of the jungle. Kingsbury’s action turned the tide of the battle that day and saved the battalion headquarters from being overrun.

  Bruce Kingsbury became the first soldier to be awarded a Victoria Cross while defending an Australian territory. His was also the first VC awarded in the South Pacific.

  JH

  PRIVATE KELLIHER

  On 13 September 1943, at Heath’s Plantation just west of Lae, Private Richard Kelliher of the 2/25th Brigade 7th Division, whose platoon had come under heavy fire, saw his platoon leader, Corporal William Richards, shot down ahead of the platoon.

  Kelliher suddenly broke cover, ran 70 metres towards a Japanese machine-gun post and hurled two grenades at it; he then ran back, seized a Bren gun, returned to the enemy post and silenced it.

  He then asked permission to go out again to rescue Richards, which he did successfully under heavy fire from other enemy positions, undoubtedly saving the severely wounded corporal’s life. Nine Japanese dead were later found in the machine-gun post.

  In an interesting twist to this heroic story, Kelliher, an Irishman by birth, had been court-martialled for cowardice in the face of the enemy during the battle for Gona. He had always claimed his platoon commander, who was killed in the action, had sent him back from the front line to obtain orders and information.

  After he was found guilty, but later acquitted due to lack of evidence, Kelliher said he would prove one day that he was no coward.

  He did so at Heath’s Plantation ten months later, and was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery.

  JH

  A MYSTERY SOLVED

  HMAS SYDNEY

  A few years back, in a book I wrote about the Australian experiences of World War II, I discussed the sinking of HMAS Sydney and decided to write what I thought had happened.

  I’d always had a feeling that the German captain, Theodor Detmers, had told the truth about the encounter, and I had an idea why the captain of the Sydney acted as he did.

  This was a very risky thing to do as the wreck had not been found and many theories still existed. To make matters worse, the wrecks of the Sydney and Kormoran were discovered in between me writing the book and it being published.

  Sometimes, however, you get lucky.

  On 11 December 1941, the battle cruiser HMAS Sydney, the second ship of that name, built in 1933, was returning from escort duty to Fremantle when she sighted a strange ship off the coast of Western Australia, west of Geraldton.

  The vessel was the German raider Kormoran, disguised as a Dutch freighter, the Straat Malakka. Built in 1938 as the merchant ship Steiermark, and refitted in October 1940 as a hilfskreuzer or ‘auxiliary cruiser’, she was renamed Schiff 41 for operational purposes and named Kormoran by her new captain, Theodor Detmers.

  Detmers was the youngest of the German raider captains and had visited Australia on the training cruiser Koln in 1932. He liked Australians and celebrated at sea his thirty-ninth birthday, in August 1941, by issuing rum to the captured Australian crew members of a freighter he had sunk, the Mareeba, and singing songs with them.

  Between December 1940 and November 1941, Kormoran sank seven merchant ships in the South Atlantic and three in the Indian Ocean. She was cruising off the west coast of Australia when HMAS Sydney sighted her.

  Detmers knew he had to rely on disguise; his ship was no match for a battle cruiser. When the Sydney flashed ‘What ship?’ he deliberately replied by flag signals, rather than morse code, realising the more confusion he created and the more slowly he replied to signals, the longer he had to make a plan.

  He replied by hoisting the signal-code pennant halfway, meaning, ‘I can see your signal, but I can’t make out what it is’. When the signal was repeated, Kormoran replied, clumsily and slowly, first with one flag missing, and then with several tangled flags, that she now understood.

  The Sydney, 12 kilometres away, flashed a further signal asking ‘Port of destination?’ Detmers, who couldn’t understand why the enemy ship was maintaining radio silence and why he hadn’t yet been told to heave to, replied ‘Batavia’ (now Jakarta).

  The cruiser continued to close in on the Kormoran, flashing another signal, ‘Nature of cargo?’ The misspelled answer, ‘Piece goods’, was so poorly and slowly signalled it was probably unreadable.

  About 5 p.m., Detmers raised the Dutch flag and twice transmitted a distress signal ‘QQQ Straat Malakka’
(‘suspicious ship approaching’), impersonating the Dutch ship the Straat Malakka.

  This message was designed to be picked by the HMAS Sydney, confuse the situation and buy more time. It was picked up at several places on the mainland and acknowledged by the Perth station.

  Detmers waited for the cruiser to call his bluff by requesting the secret call sign letters for the Straat Malakka, which, of course, he did not know. Finally, the request came and Detmers hoisted the letters ‘IK’, which he had correctly guessed was part of Straat Malakka’s four-letter secret call sign.

  HMAS Sydney was now less than 1000 metres away, moving slowly directly abeam of the Kormoran.

  At 5.30 p.m., Sydney again demanded the secret call sign letters and Detmers struck the Dutch flag, ran up the German colours, removed his camouflage and opened fire with all six of the Kormoran’s 150-mm guns.

  It all happened in less than ten seconds.

  Because HMAS Sydney was so close, Detmers was also able to use his anti-aircraft guns and torpedoes. The first salvo from the Kormoran took out Sydney’s bridge and gun control tower.

  In the ensuing battle, both ships were sunk. The Sydney attempted to steam away after pounding the Kormoran until she was crippled. Detmers stated that there was an explosion on the Sydney as she disappeared over the horizon towards Geraldton.

  The surviving Germans then abandoned ship and the crippled Kormoran exploded and sank later that night.

  There were no survivors from the Sydney; all 645 men on board died and were never found. There were 317 survivors from the Kormoran. They remained prisoners of war in Australia until January 1947, twenty-one months after the war ended.

  Detmers gave a full account of the battle, but many Australians did not believe his story until the wrecks were found in 2005.