Descent into Hell

by Peter Brune

  At dawn on 22 January 1942, two Albacores escorted by three Buffalo fighters flew over the beleaguered column and dropped a number of canisters: three contained food and another quantities of priceless shell dressings and morphia. Those obsolete but welcomed aircraft banked and flew in for a second passing, this time to bomb the Japanese positions, and, unfortunately, also the Australian. Gunner Russell Braddon reported that: ‘Three rubber trees lay up-rooted: a huge crater gaped like a burst boil; and, of the group of men who had stood there, all that could be discovered was one boot, one shoulder blade and one tin hat . . .’36 And as if enemy tanks, artillery, mortars, infantry, and air strafing and bombardment were not enough, daylight brought enemy sniping. Lieutenant Jim Howard, Carrier Platoon, 2/19th Battalion had already been wounded:

  It got full light, and I’m starting to move around a bit . . . and that’s when . . . this bastard up a tree saw me and took a couple of shots at me, while I was lying in the truck [the bullets creased Howard’s neck] . . . they frightened the shit out of me but didn’t hurt me . . . so I called out to a stretcher bearer and he dropped the tail board of the truck, and I moved as quickly as I could, and dropped on the lee side of the truck . . . there was a dead Indian . . . so I grabbed his rifle and got over to the drain, it was a big drain . . . and I got down the lee of the drain, and watched the trees on the other side of the road. And I got two of these bastards that were up there, sniping. They were firing at other targets. I saw one body drop out of a tree, and I suspect that the other bloke was caught, because his weapon dropped out of a tree.

  And that’s where Anderson found me and said, ‘Jim, can you walk?’ And I said, ‘With assistance yes.’37

  Anderson’s enquiry as to Howard’s ability to walk was pertinent. Between dawn and 9.00 am Anderson came to the painful realisation that the game was up. With ammunition stocks rapidly dwindling, casualties mounting at an alarming rate and with an enemy tank breakthrough a real possibility, he knew the column faced extermination. And, cruelly, the distant sounds of support from his rear had not become louder. Help was not on its way. The 2/19th Unit Diary would later record Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Anderson’s last order:

  . . . decided to leave M.T. [motor transport] Guns, and wounded and withdrew [sic] North, then East to Yong Peng. Orders were given for the force to withdraw to the North (Bearing 340 degrees), then East ‘B’ Coy, then ‘C’ Coy, then ‘A’ Coy, then 2/29th Bn., then ‘D’ Coy (who covered the withdrawal) at five minute intervals.38

  As often happens during withdrawals under intense pressure—and with poor communications—not everyone received the order out. The experience of Private Charles Edwards, 2/19th Battalion, is an example:

  He [Major Vincent] called up his Sergeant-Major to make a reconnaissance of the perimeter and report back to him. His name was Sonny Loy . . . he was so shot up around the jaw, . . . he had his head bandaged . . . He made his reconnaissance and he came back and said, ‘There’s a gap over on the west side of the road . . . about a hundred yards . . . with not a single man in it.’ So he [Vincent] said, ‘Get ten men and fill the gap.’ And Sonny said, ‘Where am I going to get ten men?’ And Vincent said, ‘Take Edwards!’ . . . And his batman was there, and his batman’s name was Lenny Harrison. Len’s nickname was ‘Crow’ and if you didn’t call him ‘Crow’ he wouldn’t answer you. So he said, ‘Take Crow . . .’

  He found eight others who I didn’t know. The ten of us trooped off, positioned ourselves along this hundred yards . . . we were on the western side of the road. Crow was on the river, then me, I suppose about three or four metres apart, then the rest of them . . . we spent the night, slept fitfully, next morning we woke up and Crow . . . said, ‘Edwards, can you swim? Would you swap places with me, I can’t swim, and if things get tough here . . . I’d drown.’ So we swapped places. Now within 30 seconds of that change, a Jap tank broke through the jungle about a hundred yards away, and machine gunned down that line. When I looked round at Crow, what was left of him you could have put in a plastic bucket . . . from then on I thought I had a guardian angel. I waited four or five minutes, nothing further happened, so I walked back up . . . there had been about 30 of us over that side of the road, and there were eleven of us left. We sent a man over to the east side . . . to see what was going on there and he came back and said, ‘There’s not a single man left’. They had gone up river and forded the river . . . I don’t know whether they either forgot about us, or sent a man over to get us and he didn’t get there . . . well, we had two badly wounded men with us . . . I met Clarrie Thornton there [of 4th Anti-Tank Regiment fame] . . .39

  Edwards did not make good his escape. He and Thornton were destined to be later captured and placed in Pudu Prison.

  When the remnants of Anderson’s column reached the Base Depot at Johore Bahru the true cost of their gallant fight became apparent. Lionel Wigmore:

  The 45th Brigade now had no commander or headquarters, no battalion commanders or officers second-in-command, and only one of its adjutants. Only two or three of its remaining British officers had had more than a few months’ experience. Anderson had 271 left in his battalion, including fifty-two wounded who made their way back. Of the 2/29th Battalion, which had first taken the weight of the main Japanese advance near Bakri, only 130 mustered at Yong Peng. Its commander and most of its officers had been killed or were missing. The 65th Battery numbered 98 at this stage, including 24 wounded who had made their way from Parit Sulong.40

  The Japanese had a dreadful reputation for extreme brutality towards a defeated foe. There were massacres of not only enemy troops but of women and children (around 3000 of them) in Port Arthur in 1904; there was the Rape of Nanking in 1937; and there were many examples of the Japanese demonstrating vindictiveness towards any unit or formations that had caused them high casualties. In other words, fight well against them, inflict heavy casualties upon them, and their unrestrained fury and inhumanity knew no bounds. The fate of the wounded left behind in the trucks at the rear of the 2/29th perimeter forward of Bakri is testament to that characteristic. Now, on 22 January 1942, the wounded at Parit Sulong were about to suffer the penalty for Anderson column’s heroic fight.

  Perhaps many of the wounded who were to be left behind, as well as a number of the impending ‘leaving’, must have had more than an inkling of what might lay ahead. Lieutenant Jim Howard, 2/19th Battalion:

  Snelling was a bloke I knew . . . he administered C Company . . . Snelling was in the wounded on the road [to Parit Sulong], I knew his wife, I knew his two kids. We went back a fair way, to the Scottish Regiment . . . I was conscience stricken, I said, ‘I can’t leave you here like this.’ And he said, ‘You piss off, and do as you’re told!’ You’ve been told what to do, now do it!’ And so I did.41

  The wounded comprised 110 Australians and 35 Indians. A large number of the critically sick and immobilised wounded were in the trucks; a small number—probably anticipating their fate—were engaged in attempting to crawl away from the truck column; others more recently wounded were seeking to drag themselves off the exposed road and gain the shelter of the vehicles; and, others still, such as the 2/29th’s Lieutenants Hackney and Tibbitts, lay underneath a truck firing in the general direction of the enemy, hoping to delay them and allow extra time for their comrades to escape. Captain Ray Snelling, his thigh shattered, lay against a truck wheel.42

  Having also suffered heavy casualties, the Japanese must have been eager to claim victory. Perhaps a small number of them saw Captain Snelling waving a crude white flag, which caused them and others to grow in confidence. Lynette Ramsay Silver, in her The Bridge at Parit Sulong:

  The Japanese were soldiers of 2 Battalion, 5 Infantry Regiment, Imperial Guards Division . . . under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Kojima Yoshinori. With a great deal of unintelligible yelling, vigorous arm waving and forceful, painful persuasion, they made it clear that all those still in the trucks, as well as those lying on the ground, were to assemble in front of a s
ingle-storey building, set on metre-high concrete stumps on the western side of the road.43

  Many of the wounded, incapable of movement or requiring the assistance of others, struggled pitifully to fulfil the command and were beaten severely—on their wounds by preference. And in some cases, when their captors’ patience ran out, death by the bayonet followed quickly.

  The prisoners were then made to strip to just their socks and boots, and pile their clothes and belongings in a heap. As more substantial numbers of Japanese troops moved through the area, Lynette Ramsay Silver has recorded that the sight of ‘100 nude bodies, unshaven and filthy, their unattended wounds dirty and clotted with blood or, in many cases, freely bleeding from the effects of recent blows and kicks44 was too good an opportunity to miss. The passing ‘visitors’ set to work on anyone within reach—repeated blows, bayoneting, rifle butt strikes and, as had occurred from the start, a demented preference for targeting existing wounds and thereby maximising the prisoners’ pain and misery. While these events were in train, an English-speaking Caucasian officer dressed in British uniform examined the clothing, then systematically collected valuables, money and pay books, after which the Australians and Indians were ordered to dress. The prisoners were then herded into a nearby shed where, crammed beyond the capacity of that dwelling, the worst wounded suffered dreadfully, crying out for water, a smoke, some form of medical attention. When a Japanese officer appeared and instructed troops to provide water and cigarettes, some of the wounded must have thought that a reprieve was near. After photos were taken of this ‘humanitarian’ act, the water and smokes which had been tantalisingly close were withdrawn.

  At sunset on 22 January 1942, the prisoners were tied together with rope or wire and some bayoneted, some shot and still others remained alive. Petrol from the Australian transport was used to douse the corpses—and a small number still alive—and soon the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh was punctuated by a small number of screams. Despite the fact that a Japanese officer walked around the scene shooting anyone showing signs of life, the suffering must have been beyond description.

  The 2/29th Battalion’s Lieutenant Ben Hackney, who had been left for dead, miraculously survived after having his boots removed, and his body checked for signs of life by numerous prods with the bayonet. After roaming the jungle for 36 days he was captured, returned to Parit Sulong, and then sent to Pudu Prison in Kuala Lumpur. Hackney and a young soldier named Wharton were to be the only survivors of the massacre.

  The Battle of Muar is noteworthy for a number of reasons. General Percival would later write that it:

  . . . was one of the epics of the Malayan campaign. Our little force by dogged resistance had held up a division of the Japanese Imperial Guards attacking with all the advantages of air and tank support for nearly a week, and in doing so had saved the Segamat force from encirclement and probable annihilation.45

  The sad truth is that serious mistakes were made at the top levels of command. Percival’s deployment of the 45th Indian Brigade at Muar was, yet again, another instance of him allotting tasks to formations that were simply beyond them. Whilst it should be acknowledged that Malaya Command’s intelligence was abysmal throughout the campaign, there can be no excuse for him refusing to follow General Wavell’s order to concentrate the 22nd Brigade AIF under General Bennett’s command. Percival’s excuse, as so often given, was the administrative difficulties of such a move.

  At the local command level, the performance of the 2/29th and 2/19th Battalions forward of Bakri and around the crossroads was first class. The 2/29th Battalion did not lose ground at any time during its fighting. The Battalion’s patrolling forward of its perimeter, its fire and movement, counterattacks, the use of mortars, and its leadership were all impressive. But, in hindsight, the unit did pay a heavy price because of two decisions. The first was the failure to withdraw it sooner from its forward position. First Brigadier Duncan, and later Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson, succumbed to the understandable desire to retrieve the Indians. But with the 2/19th Battalion already roadblocked to its rear, and the potential of the Japanese to block the passage between the two battalions, a speedier withdrawal by the 2/29th back to Bakri might have been desirable. The Indians would have had to trek only another two-and-half kilometres. The second mistake was Major Olliff ’s failure to employ his mortars and anti-tank guns to assist in a roadblock breakthrough. The consequent cutting off of a significant part of the 2/29th was the penalty.

  The 2/19th Battalion performed brilliantly at Bakri and during the withdrawal. Its early training in Australia and Malaya under Lieutenant-Colonel (later Brigadier) Maxwell had given it a solid basis for its prolonged training in Malaya. Its junior officers were well trained and led with great tactical competence and command skills; the Battalion’s ability to coordinate the use of its carriers and mortars was also impressive; and its performance in counterattack—particularly during the withdrawal—was most notable.

  A key component of the two infantry battalions’ success during the Battle of Muar was the quality of their support. The 4th Anti-Tank Regiment’s destruction of the enemy tanks near and at the cutting within the 2/29th Battalion’s perimeter showed an ability to site and camouflage its guns well; its crews’ fire discipline was superb, and its ability to slow and then destroy enemy tanks at the front and rear of their column was astute—especially under concentrated enemy fire. Throughout the Muar operation the 2/15th Field Regiment’s 65th Battery also provided strong support providing barrages, or destroying roadblocks and tanks.

  But underpinning the accomplishments of the battle at Bakri and the subsequent fighting withdrawal of the 45th Brigade remnant, the 2/29th and 2/19th Battalions, and the support units, was surely the expertise and inspirational leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Anderson. His ability to think quickly and decisively was critical; when events of high drama and import were constantly in train, Anderson’s calm, measured and seemingly unrushed command style impressed all around him; and his personal bravery in eliminating two Japanese machine gun posts was a stirring example to his soldiers. The demonstration of competent, calm and inspiring leadership travels like wildfire throughout any army unit. For his exploits during the Battle of Muar Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson was awarded the Victoria Cross.

  However, the failure of the feeble British attempt to recapture the bridge at Parit Sulong, which could have rescued the cut-off forces and prevented a massacre, caused a great resentment, and indeed bad blood, between the Australians and the British.

  17

  A GREAT SCANDAL

  Events elsewhere in Johore, leading up to and during the Australians’ defence of Bakri and their consequent withdrawal to Parit Sulong, deserve close scrutiny.

  On 16 January 1942, General Percival had anticipated the impending Japanese threat to his line of communication at Muar and on the west coast. Accordingly, he had adjusted the boundary between Major-General Bennett’s Westforce and General Heath’s III Corps, so as to give Heath the added responsibility of securing those communications—to which were now added the Trunk Road from Ayer Hitam to Yong Peng and westward to Batu Pahat. To bolster Heath’s resources for this additional III Corps task, Percival sent him the British 18th Division’s 53rd Infantry Brigade (Brigadier Duke), which consisted of the 2nd Cambridgeshire, the 5th Norfolk and 6th Norfolk Battalions. The Brigade came under the operational command of the Indian 11th Division (General Key). We have noted that the 53rd Brigade had arrived at Singapore only four days earlier. On 17 January, the Brigade was given three roles. The first was to relieve the British Battalion at Batu Pahat, which was accomplished by the 2nd Cambridgeshire. The second was to protect Yong Peng, by an occupation of a defile near the 78-mile peg on the Yong Peng–Muar road, which was undertaken by the 6th Norfolk. Kirby has recorded that: ‘the inexperienced Norfolks occupied Bukit [Hill] Pelandok and Bukit Belah early on the 18th and sent two platoons forward, one to patrol the road to Parit Sulong and the other to guard the bridge
there.’1 The relief of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Anderson’s 2/19th Battalion at Jemaluang—to allow it to join the 2/29th Battalion at Bakri—was the 53rd Brigade’s third task. This was undertaken by the 5th Norfolk Battalion.

  Whilst these changes were occurring on the Trunk Road and west coast, on 14 January patrols of Brigadier Taylor’s 22nd Brigade AIF had made contact with the Japanese north of Endau on the east coast. When the enemy bombed Mersing and Endau on 16 and 17 January, and therefore seemed to be preparing for an attack on that east coast, Brigadier Taylor withdrew his brigade—less his 2/19th Battalion—to Mersing. Kirby has recorded that during the morning of 18 January:

  . . . Heath visited Mersing and told Taylor that as from 6 a.m. on the 19th a new force, named ‘Eastforce’, would be formed under his command and that his task had been changed to that of protecting the Jemaluang–Kota Tinggi road instead of holding Mersing. ‘Eastforce’ would consist of 22nd Australian Brigade (less one battalion), 5th Norfolk and all other troops in the area.2