Descent into Hell

by Peter Brune

  Beverley’s 7.30 am departure did not eventuate owing to the British anti-tank support’s failure to arrive at the designated time. But at 8.00 am a Japanese force of around 300—which despite 2/19th patrolling at dawn that day was not detected in its movement from east of the Parit Jawa Road—attacked the carrier-occupied ridge, which forced the carriers off that feature. Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson reacted swiftly. He ordered Captain Beverley’s assembled troops to immediately stage a two-platoon attack upon this enemy force and retake the ridge. Lieutenant Weily’s platoon put in a frontal attack, while Lieutenant Crawford’s platoon moved along the ridge astride the Japanese right flank. Sergeant Christie’s section of three carriers moved in support of this counterattack. Anderson waited for the attack to begin and then sent orders by carrier for Captain Keegan to move his B Company about 360 metres eastwards to cut off the Japanese force south of the ridge. To cover B Company’s absence from their line Anderson ordered Captain Snelling’s C Company to hold the Indians at Bakri village and plug that gap.

  If Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson’s reaction to the Japanese attack was both decisive and astute, then the implementation of his orders by his A and B Companies was equally impressive. Lieutenant Weily’s A Company platoon put in their frontal attack with great gusto, and when Lieutenant Crawford’s platoon attacked along the ridge on the enemy’s right flank, the Japanese were halted and eventually forced to withdraw. And then came a new Malayan Campaign experience for the Japanese: they ran headlong into Captain Keegan’s waiting B Company. The experience of 11 Platoon is an example of the B Company experience. Lieutenant Pat Reynolds, OC 11 Platoon:

  After emerging from the defile where visibility was about 10 yards, our field of vision was enlarged to 40 yards, but only at five feet above the ground, which was densely covered with young rubber.

  After 150 to 200 yards, my leading section topped a rise and saw Japs about 60 yards away. The section commander, Corporal Turner, kept going for another 20 yards before ordering the men to open fire. The Japs literally ran around in circles.31

  When two of his sections became bogged down, Reynolds was able to employ his men’s excellent fire and movement training, by moving one section to enfilade the enemy positions. Under a shower of grenades the platoon put in a spirited bayonet charge and routed the enemy. After the fighting had concluded, the Japanese resorted to old tricks. As various members of A and B Companies went ‘back over the battle area to make sure that all the Japanese were dead and to establish a quick count’32 a number of the ‘corpses’ came to life. Despite some anxious moments these were eliminated.

  The duration of this 2/19th counterattack lasted a mere 90 minutes but cost the Japanese some 140 dead at a cost to the Australians of ten killed and fifteen wounded. As had happened along the 2/29th front, not only were the enemy forced to pay a severe price for their attacks, but they were unable to capture and hold any part of the 2/29th or 2/19th perimeters. The Australians retained their ground.

  If the 2/19th felt an unrestrained euphoria at the Battalion’s first engagement, a sobering piece of news reached Anderson during that fight, when he learned that Captain Newton’s rear transport location had been attacked by some 400 to 500 Japanese who had come from the direction of Parit Jawa. Anderson immediately ordered a section of carriers to destroy the enemy roadblocks and force a passage through to Newton. This failed. To compound a rapidly deteriorating chain of events, the Japanese bombed the area at 10.00 am and scored a direct hit on 45th Brigade HQ. Lieutenant Ben Hackney, 2/29th Battalion, who had been one of the wounded evacuated from that forward battalion’s perimeter, witnessed the devastation:

  Outside the brigade headquarters was an ugly sight . . . men’s bodies lying everywhere . . . portions of soldiers’ stomachs hanging on limbs amongst the leaves of the trees—torn bloodstained limbs scattered about with only a lump of bloody meat hanging to them to indicate the body from which they were torn—just beside the road a naked waist with two twisted legs lay about two yards from a scarred bleeding head with a neck, half a chest and one arm . . . There were some still alive but bent over, and others crawling, with every manner of injury.33

  Amongst the victims of this carnage was Major Julius of the Australian 65th Battery, 2/15th Field Artillery, who was mortally wounded; all of Brigadier Duncan’s staff, except his Brigade Major were killed; and the Brigadier himself was stunned to the point of being unable to continue his command. The human cost of this bombing was horrific, but the destruction of all of the copies of Westforce signals cipher meant that communication with the rear would be delayed for some critical time. The 45th Brigade Major immediately asked Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson to assume command of the Brigade.

  In the early afternoon of 19 January 1942, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Anderson was faced with a command consisting of the forward and isolated 2/29th Battalion, which had already been cut off by roadblocks twice, but had tenaciously held its ground; with continuing pressure upon his own 2/19th perimeter at Bakri; with a grievously threatened line of communication that had seen his A and B Echelon attacked and cut off; with a considerable remnant of the Jats still stranded and all but lost outside of his perimeter; and with the cruel prospect that if he should fail to extricate this force, the Japanese might capture the rearward prize of Parit Sulong and destroy Westforce.

  The mild-mannered, softly spoken commander of the 2/19th Battalion was about to lead his mixed force through one of the most tragic, yet inspiring, confrontations in the Australian story.

  16

  TO PARIT SULONG

  The Japanese pressure upon the 2/29th and 2/19th Battalions intensified as 19 January wore on. During the afternoon about 200 of the long-awaited Jats moved into the 2/29th A Company perimeter from the adjacent jungle and swamp. In consequence, the enemy immediately began a concentrated shelling of that area. Utter pandemonium ensued. Sergeant Bert Mettam, Mortar Platoon, 2/29th Battalion:

  They’d become a rabble. They’d lost almost all their officers and NCOs . . . they were in our lines . . . they [the Japanese] started this shelling, and it was very intense . . . these Indians, when the shelling started, they were being told to take cover or get down, but they were running around like chooks . . .1

  And ‘running around like chooks’ had ramifications for others. The Japanese artillery, using a ‘spotter’ plane which could clearly see the Jats, was able to bring down accurate fire onto the exposed Indians—and the dug-in Australians. Lance-Corporal John Roxburgh, HQ Company, 2/29th Battalion:

  If the approaching scream continued on over our heads we knew we were safe but when it stopped in front of us we copped it. Limbs of trees began crashing down on top of us, men with huge chunks of flesh ripped away from their bodies began moving back to the RAP while those unable to walk were carried back by their comrades. The Indians in front of us instead of lying flat on the ground panicked and began rushing madly through our position. The result was absolute carnage, those that lived were frightfully torn by shrapnel and those that died were blown to bits.2

  When the artillery barrage lifted, the Japanese mounted attacks under mortar fire across the forward C and B Company fronts. B Company repulsed theirs and inflicted telling casualties, and although one C Company platoon was forced back about 40 metres, a counterattack eventually saw the Japanese driven back some 500 metres.3

  While the 2/29th was thus occupied, pressure had mounted upon Captain Keegan’s 2/19th B Company perimeter. At about 3.00 pm, a Japanese force estimated to be at three-company strength, and supported by heavy machine gun fire, placed severe pressure upon Keegan’s front. As the afternoon progressed, the 2/19th deployed four of its carriers and its 3-inch mortars, while the 65th Battery personnel joined the fray with additional mortars borrowed from the Indians. The Battalion Unit History would later record that with B Company’s platoon commanders directing and controlling the mortar fire from forward positions, coupled with the infantry and carrier firepower, the Japanese had sustained at leas
t 300 casualties.4

  Late that afternoon, Major Olliff received orders from Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson that his 2/29th was ‘to cut its way back to 2/19th travelling east side of the road’.5 The order of withdrawal was A Company, Battalion HQ, HQ Company, C Company and B Company. Last were a number of trucks in which about 40 or 50 wounded had been placed. The anti-tank guns and a small rifle detachment formed a rearguard. The companies were to move out at ten-minute intervals and an artillery barrage was timed to assist their withdrawal.

  By this time the Japanese had a number of machine gun positions behind the 2/29th—a notable one being in a small brick dwelling positioned just off the road—and when A Company began its withdrawal it was brought under raking fire from both sides of it. Small numbers of its soldiers were ordered to silence these posts, but it was a forlorn hope, and all perished. In preparing for his withdrawal, Olliff now made a critical error in judgement in that he decided not to employ his mortars and anti-tank guns against the enemy positions.

  A Company was cut to shreds first in attempting to attack and clear the Japanese positions, and subsequently, in trying to cross an open patch of ground near their original perimeter between the road and jungle. Hours later at Bakri it would number a mere 45 to 50 soldiers—no officers and at half of its original strength.

  It will be remembered that the men of HQ Company were deployed on the western side of the road. They were next out and were to face that same open patch of ground twice. Major Olliff, who had taken over command after Robertson’s death, was amongst the first hit. Bob Christie, Signals, 2/29th Battalion: ‘and suddenly he [Olliff ] said, “They got me, they got me in the hand!” He turned around and they shot him down the belly. I’d say it was a machine gun bullet . . . very close to where we were.’6 Lance-Corporal John Roxburgh, HQ Company:

  The . . . side of the road was continually raked with machine gun fire so in single file with bayonets fixed we began this mad dash for freedom. The whole road was littered with dead and dying Indians, several hundred more who had endeavoured to reach us by coming up the road had obviously been ambushed and wiped out by the Japs . . .

  The track we moved along ran parallel to the road and some five feet below this level the road forming a natural protection for us from enemy concentrations on the right. To our left was jungle and swamp so our only outlet was this all too narrow path we moved along.

  At last there came a halt for in front of us lay an open stretch of some twenty yards which had to be crossed at top speed.

  Several men already lay dead in that open space and it was a gamble between life and death when your turn came to make the dash. Our sig officer who was in front of us [Lieutenant Arthur Sheldon] went down but the rest of us made the grade . . .

  So our retreat continued only to be halted a few moments later. Word was sent back from A Company that the Japs had consolidated in front . . .

  Orders came back to turn in our tracks and go back along that never to be forgotten path.7

  But worse was to follow. Corporal Bob Christie: ‘When Jock Olliff got shot and Sheldon got shot, and other blokes got shot, we then went straight into the rubber on the left . . . and we ran into our own artillery fire . . . it was a tremendous amount, a lot of our blokes got killed . . .’8 In their desperate flight, they missed a small track which some of the Jats had used for a passage through to the 2/19th earlier in the day. Both B and C Companies found that narrow exit and returned to the 2/19th lines that night.

  When the 2/29th were ordered to pull out of their perimeter, their medical officer, Captain Victor Brand, had decided that if the rearward Japanese roadblocks could not be broken, he should stay behind with the trucks holding his wounded. When that attempt failed Brand was ordered out. Captain Brand:

  I was going to stay. It was [Lieutenant] Neil Gahan who said, ‘Come on you’ve got to go!’ I said, ‘I can’t leave the wounded.’ He said, ‘Don’t be silly. You’ve got to come!’ I was going to say to the Japs, ‘These men are under the control of the Red Cross.’ I wouldn’t have been able to get a word out.9

  And the Battalion doctor wasn’t the only one who sensed the fate of anyone who fell into Japanese hands. The wounded must have felt totally helpless. Sergeant Bert Mettam, HQ Company:

  The trucks were lined along the road, and as I walked out, I remember I was walking down the side of the trucks and more or less on the road, and this chap called me, and I went over to him . . . and he said, ‘Bert, please don’t leave me here, don’t leave me here!’ And I said, ‘Where are you wounded Allan?’ He pointed down into his groin . . . And I said, ‘Don’t worry about it Allan, you’ll be alright. The trucks’ll be taking off shortly, as soon as the carriers clear the road.’ And then I went on.10

  Shortly after, as Captain Brand and his walking wounded made good their escape with elements of B Company, they heard ‘yelling and screaming coming from the direction of the trucks’.11 The details of the massacre of those 40 to 50 members of the 2/29th Battalion were never recorded—despite there being an eyewitness—nor does any form of official documentation exist.12 At around 8.30 pm on 19 January 1942, about 190 men from the 2/29th who had escaped from their forward Bakri perimeter arrived in the 2/19th lines. A Company had around 45 to 50 all told; B Company about 100; C Company about 45; and there were seven officers.13

  Meanwhile, Headquarter Company, having been driven into the swamp and jungle by the artillery barrage, was to spend a miserable night. And in that darkness and despair came one of the horrors of war: the mercy bullet. Sergeant Bert Mettam:

  I heard it; I heard the whole thing. I know who the chap was who gave him the mercy bullet . . . it was his mate. Every time that poor old ________ made a moan . . . the Japs had a machine gun lined on us, and they were firing . . . and by that time I’d moved over onto a bank . . . they were firing tracers . . . and every time there was a noise—moaning or calling out, the machine gun would open up. One bloke got hit in the neck . . .14

  Lance-Corporal John Roxburgh, 2/29th Battalion: ‘. . . I can still remember someone saying, ‘For God’s sake kill me, shoot me!’ And I heard a gun go off, and the next thing there’s this bloody silence. It was right in the middle of this swamp at about two o’clock in the morning.’15

  After three days of trekking through jungle and rubber in its attempt to reach Yong Peng, the HQ Company Group found the enemy had beaten them to it. What then transpired would create great antipathy between some of the Battalion’s officers and its other ranks, both at the time and after the war. Sergeant Bert Mettam:

  I think it was about the third day. We started off, and after we’d been walking for perhaps an hour, two hours, a road appeared on our left. And coming down it were bloody Malays and Chinese and Indians . . . rubber tappers. They were all fleeing down this road . . . where we were heading for, this kampong, the Japs had been in there that morning . . . and they [the tappers] were all fleeing. They told the officers this, so they had a conference . . . they called me up . . . they said to me, ‘We’ve got to split up, split up into small groups.’. . . I didn’t like the sound of that. I thought, two hundred of us, all armed, that we could go on. Anyhow, they were the instructions, so I asked them for a compass—didn’t have any to spare! And I asked them for a map—same answer, didn’t have any to spare. They said, ‘All we can tell you is that Singapore is in a general southeasterly direction.’ Then they started to tell me how to tell north by your watch. The officers all went together they didn’t split . . . some [of the officers] said they were heading north; they were going to hide away until the Jap forces had gone through, and then they were going to make their way back to Singapore. And I thought, ‘Well, that’s a silly bloody idea, you’re in front of the Japs now, you might as well keep going and stay in front!’16

  Corporal Bob Christie:

  That’s something I don’t want to talk about. I can still see them, the officers . . . Gibson, Morgan, McGlinn . . . discussing it . . . and saying, ‘Now we’ll split up in
to groups of six.’. . . Sumner [Captain] was with us at the start. We had no compass, we had no map. All we went by was the sun.17

  Corporal Jim Kennedy, 2/29th Battalion, had joined the Battalion with his Albury mate, John Roxburgh:

  And they split us up into small parties and they took the compasses! Bob Christie was with us; Jackie Cowell, Strahan White, and Alec Ross and us [Roxburgh and Kennedy] . . . no compass; no map; no food; limited ammunition . . . they [the Japs] didn’t know we were there, and we didn’t want them to know we were there, we weren’t heroes who were going to take on the Jap army, so what we wanted to do was to get back to Singapore to reform the Battalion . . . the Malayans were on the side of the Japs because they were getting paid . . . and at one stage, one was leading us into a Jap camp, and we had to do away with him . . . bayoneted him. Green pineapple is not recommended for your gums and teeth, I can tell you that now, but it helps if you’re hungry . . . that’s why now, I won’t go camping anymore—I’m a great believer in motels. The point is, we were just lucky, we finally got to a Pommy camp . . . and they fed us . . .18