by Peter Brune
The fate of those numerous groups varied enormously. Some have quite simply never been seen or heard of since. It is highly likely that many were executed on the spot by their Japanese captors. Others, including a number of the officers, were captured and sent to Pudu Prison in Kuala Lumpur. As stated, Mettam’s party, which included Roxburgh, Kennedy and Christie, regained their Battalion in Singapore. Another group reached Sumatra and were captured; another fought behind the Japanese lines with the Chinese communists; and one group made their escape to Australia—where they faced the accusation of desertion, although charges were not laid.19
While Headquarter Company of the 2/29th was enduring the misery of its swamp experience, there had been a lull in the fighting at the 2/19th Battalion area. But that lull was broken by a further demonstration of the poor training and discipline of the Indians. At about 7.40 pm a small number of them began to fire wildly—at nothing—and in the resulting panic and confusion, yet more men were wounded. Private Gus Halloran, 2/19th Battalion:
Well, apart from being completely disorganised, they moved like a patch of damp fog. There were blokes trying to keep them under control . . . they’d put them into a position, and as soon as something moved at night—we used to observe strict silence at night complete absence of gun fire or reaction—these blokes would blaze away . . .20
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Anderson and his officers spent much of the night of 19/20 January preparing the structure of the ‘new’ force and its objectives for the withdrawal to Parit Sulong. Five companies were formed: the almost intact 2/29th Battalion’s B Company (about 100 men) was left under the command of its Captain Maher; the A and C Company 2/29th remnant was allotted to Captain Westbrook’s original 2/19th Battalion’s 1 Platoon of D Company (the other two had been left out of battle), making a complete company; and the 2/19th Battalion’s A, B and C Companies retained their establishment and commanders. The remaining Indians were designated as two groups: one consisted of two companies of Jats (Major White), and the second was a composite group of Garhwalis and Rajputs (Captain Wood).
The order of march of his force clearly demonstrates Anderson’s ability—as Lieutenant Jim Howard has termed it—as ‘a master of quick decision exercise’. He deployed Captain Keegan’s B Company 2/19th as his advance guard; Keegan was followed by three carriers under Lieutenant Howard and two British anti-tank guns; next came Battalion HQ; this was followed by a troop of the 65th Battery, the mortars and a section of carriers (Lieutenant Pickup), and various other HQ platoons; then came the trucks carrying the wounded, Anderson’s most vulnerable and cumbersome component; then the Jats, who formed a flank protection for the trucks; and, to complete the main portion of the column, Anderson deployed his last section of carriers and placed Captain Snelling’s C Company 2/19th as a reserve with a counterattack role. In order to guard his left and right flanks in as much depth as possible, Anderson placed his A Company (Captain Beverley) and his composite 2/29th–2/19th D Company (Captain Westbrook) on either side of the road, and roughly in line with the main column of trucks. The 2/19th adjutant, Captain Hughes, was given command of the rearguard, which consisted of Captain Maher’s B Company 2/29th Battalion, the Jats, one section of the 65th Battery, the last section of carriers and two 4th Anti-Tank Regiment guns.21
Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson set the eight kilometres of road to the 95-mile peg as his first objective for 20 January. He wanted to get there before nightfall. It was imperative that that objective be gained, since the ground from Bakri to it consisted of some cover. But from that peg onwards, the ground around the road was composed of swamp and rice paddies, which would leave his force open to daylight air bombardment. Therefore, should he fail to move forward of the 95-mile peg during darkness, his column could be comprehensively mauled.
Anderson and his officers worked through the night before issuing their orders just before dawn. All trucks were assessed for use, the wounded were loaded into those selected vehicles, ammunition was distributed, all nonessential material was discarded, and the padre and Pioneers dug graves for a dawn burial service. At around 7.00 am on 20 January, Anderson’s column left Bakri.
At 8.00 am Captain Keegan’s B Company advance guard struck a roadblock not far out of Bakri, and about 800 metres in front of Captain Newton’s old A and B Echelon harbour. The Japanese selection of their block was astute, as it was sited on a rise south of the road; its approach was bordered by swamp which ran right up to the road on the enemy right flank; it possessed a further swamp area to the Japanese left flank which also covered access to its rubber approach; and, to its rear, lay a belt of further swamp north of the road.22 Keegan attacked almost immediately. Employing their now standard drill, the carriers and machine guns provided strong supporting fire, but the B Company attack faltered at about 40 metres from the enemy. Anderson reacted swiftly by ordering Captain Beverley’s A Company into the fray to attack the Japanese left, or southern flank. In an extraordinary addition to his orders to Beverley, Anderson told him to tell his men to sing. A Company responded with ‘Waltzing Matilda’ as they went into battle. In their book, Did Singapore Have to Fall?, Karl Hack and Kevin Blackburn claim that Lionel Wigmore had ‘waxed lyrical’ when making the claim.23 Wigmore had not ‘waxed lyrical’. Private Gus Halloran, 2/19th Battalion: ‘We were on the left of the road . . . the road blocks were put in up the road. I heard the song and dance, the Waltzing Matilda . . . as they went in, and they did a remarkable job! . . . the hair used to stand up when I heard Waltzing Matilda for a long time after!’24 Obviously Anderson wanted to raise the spirits of the participants, as they became engaged in an attack from which all knew there would be significant casualties. Newton in The Grim Glory referred to it as an attempt to ‘relieve the tension’.25
And Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Anderson played no small part in this victory. When Keegan’s B Company went in the second time, Anderson personally destroyed two enemy machine gun posts with grenades and shot two Japanese occupants with his pistol. Further, he was constantly among his troops, and his unshakable demeanour inspired them. Private Jim Stewart, Signals, 2/19th Battalion: ‘I can remember Anderson walking around saying, “Now keep down chaps, keep down, don’t put your heads up too high.” But he’s walking! Absolutely, completely unperturbed!’26
As the embattled convoy then moved on, with Captain Beverley’s A Company now the advance guard, Anderson faced two critical problems. The first was the need to enable his line to gain some momentum, as it was still too contracted, and therefore most susceptible to artillery and air bombardment—particularly the trucks carrying the wounded and the convoy’s supplies. The second was that the trucks were rapidly filling with further casualties. The first roadblock had cost B Company one of its three platoon commanders killed, one badly wounded, and fourteen other ranks dead and nineteen wounded. As the column moved through the former 2/19th A and B Echelon harbour, they witnessed evidence of a savage and costly fight. Amidst the burnt-out trucks and bodies of both Australians and Japanese lay priceless rations and ammunition which were gratefully retrieved by the column. The whereabouts of Newton and any other survivors could only be guessed.
At 12.30 pm on 20 January, Anderson’s column came to a second major roadblock, which consisted of a number of abandoned A and B Echelon trucks and stacked tree trunks. It was manned by numerous dug-in infantry and about six machine gun posts. The enemy had again chosen his site well, as its approaches from either side of the road were covered by tree-ridden swamp. To compound this problem at the front of the column, the Japanese now increased their pressure on its rear—four of the rearward column trucks were lost and the Jats ‘had become difficult to control’.27 As the column rearguard lost ground, Brigadier Duncan personally led a counterattack of a mixed group of Australians and Jats and, although it cost him his life, restored the situation.
Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson once again reacted quickly to the front roadblock. In an effort to strengthen Beverley’s A Company advance gu
ard attack, he sent in Westbrook’s composite 2/29th–2/19th D Company, on Beverley’s left flank, or left-hand side of the road. Private Gus Halloran’s experience as a part of its 2/19th Platoon during that attack clearly demonstrates that not all ventures by the soldiers of the column were clear-cut victories, and that on occasions, confusion reigned:
We were on the left of the Battalion . . . We put in an attack on a hill . . . a platoon strength attack. We wouldn’t really know what we were going up against, because there were Japanese there and they were in trees and in a variety of places . . . it was an abortive attack, anyhow. We got done. We did a bayonet charge . . . we didn’t know what we were charging at really . . . and they were shooting at us in large quantities. And they were hitting some, and they hit me in the elbow. It didn’t do me any harm, it just went through and through . . . it wasn’t impeding me at all really, I could still run, I had my legs.28
Westbrook’s second platoon was from the 2/29th and was led by Lieutenant Cootes. Its task was to test the enemy’s strength by a wide movement around this left flank. Gunner Jim Kerr, who had been a member of Sergeant Ken Harrison’s reserve 4th Anti-Tank Regiment gun crew at Bakri, had been posted to Cootes’s platoon for the withdrawal:
. . . and the Japs were entrenched on this slight hill . . . so we had to go through the jungle—I mean jungle—around the back of this hill . . . the Japs saw us and started firing, because they were on top of this hill . . . a couple got to the top I think but not too many . . . when we broke off the action there was only nineteen of us . . . when we were finished, we didn’t get back to the main body again . . . and then we wandered around these nineteen of us . . .29
Kerr’s subsequent experience clearly demonstrates the influence of sheer luck when soldiers were cut off. Wigmore cites Cootes’s fate as being ‘Killed in action 12 March 1942 (after capture)’.30 The truth is that the Japanese executed Cootes and a companion swiftly after their capture because they were covered in sores and were in very poor physical condition.31 Wigmore states that the survivors eventually reached Yong Peng. Some did, but a number of these men (including Kerr), after having separated into small groups, were captured and placed in Pudu Prison in Kuala Lumpur. (It is extraordinary to contemplate that Jim Kerr had joined the army at fifteen years of age, had had his seventeenth birthday while engaged in avoiding the Japanese in the jungle, would later slave on the Thai–Burma Railway, and, was destined to celebrate his 21st birthday back in Australia in 1946.) Westbrook’s third platoon was also a 2/29th component, and was led by Lieutenant Carr. It too attacked along this left flank, with little success, and Carr was killed in the process.
Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson now deployed his reserve C Company 2/19th (Captain Snelling) through Beverley’s company on the right flank. Yet again Anderson stamped himself on events by personally addressing Snelling’s soldiers. It must have been quite a speech. The 2/19th Unit Diary recorded the men’s response:
. . . every man was fighting mad. Mortar shells were directed on to targets by Infantry men just a few yards from the target (voice relayed back) gunners were fighting with rifles, bayonets and axes (range too short for 25 pdrs. except to Jap rear areas west). A gun crew pushed its 25 pdr. round a cutting and blew out the first road blocks (vehicles) at 75 yds range. Carriers pushed within 5 yds of Jap M.G.’s and blew them out. Two carriers [attacked a] concrete house . . . House contained 3 Jap M.G.’s and about 60 men. Men went forward under heavy M.G. fire and chopped road blocks to pieces with axes. About 1830 hrs the Japs had had enough and cleared out . . .32
Lieutenant Jim Howard, 2/19th Carrier Platoon:
People got carried away . . . they were going to get through—win, lose or draw . . . I can remember the 25 pounder over open sites straight across the road with a high explosive shell. It lifted bloody bodies and trucks up and put them down again . . . that was the afternoon I got hit.33
Although Captain Snelling was badly wounded with a shattered thigh, and Westbrook’s attack was both fruitless and costly on the left flank, the C Company success demonstrates the Australians’ excellent use of their carrier and artillery support, and their recurring ability to mount very successful close quarter bayonet charges. Yet again, Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson demonstrated his tactical excellence and inspirational leadership. After two savage roadblock confrontations in daylight, the column now successfully moved over the open ground it had sought to cross during darkness, and all within its ranks might have been excused for thinking that their objective lay near. But at midnight on 20 January, an Indian soldier informed the column that the bridge at Parit Sulong lay in Japanese hands. Anderson immediately sent two despatch riders, who confirmed the news.
At around 2.30 am on the morning of 21 January 1942, Anderson moved his exhausted column out of the last section of open country, to occupy about one-and-a-half kilometres of rubber-covered road. Two hours later he sent a recce patrol under Sergeant Lloyd Davies, C Company 2/19th Battalion, towards the Parit Sulong bridge. Davies returned at about 7.30 am to report that it was in enemy hands. The column, now about five kilometres out from the bridge, came under an early morning Japanese attack upon both its front and rear. A Japanese attack of company strength at the front was beaten back when Anderson sent his B Company (Captain Keegan) around his left flank to swing in behind the enemy. Anderson then sent his carriers down the right side of the road. The Japanese were between Keegan’s soldiers on the left and the carriers on the right, and were subjected to telling fire and took heavy casualties and withdrew. At the rear of the column, the 65th Battery artillery brought down accurate fire upon an enemy tank attempt to pierce their lines. Anderson’s column moved on, and at around mid-morning its A and B Companies 2/19th Battalion reached the outskirts of Parit Sulong. It was here, so close to their goal, that the advance guard found the Japanese had set up numerous machine gun nests in depth around the bridge and village. But when wireless communications were briefly re-established, Anderson learnt that General Bennett had a relief force on its way. When artillery fire was heard in the distance, the men’s spirits rose. Courage feeds on hope.
Anderson’s column faced three enormous problems as 21 January 1942 wore on. The first was the extreme pressure again placed upon both its front and rear. As his manpower resources were now stretched to breaking point, he was forced to employ soldiers from his transport, artillery, and even those wounded who could make a contribution, to protect the main body of the column. The infantry companies were concentrated at the back and front. His second difficulty was the wretched condition of his wounded. During the late afternoon the enemy intensified his air bombing of the convoy, which resulted in a further loss of vehicles and often the death of some of the wounded. His third dilemma was the inevitable dwindling of his resources: small arms ammunition, mortar and artillery shells, and importantly, medical supplies.
Two thrusts were made towards Parit Sulong and the river late that morning and early afternoon. At around 11.00 am, Indian troops attacked from the west and actually gained the bank of the river, while later Captain Beverley’s A Company and Captain Keegan’s B Company were also able—with the decisive support yet again of the 2/19th Carriers—to reach the river bank. But when Beverley’s Company reconnoitered the bridge with a view to an attack upon it, they soon discovered that the enemy strength there precluded their chances of success. Anderson would have been still clinging to the hope of a breakthrough from the other side of the Parit Sulong bridge.
As further casualties were taken throughout that afternoon, the two doctors suggested that the Japanese be approached to allow a number of trucks over the bridge carrying the most seriously wounded. Captain Victor Brand, Medical Officer, 2/29th Battalion: ‘It was my idea. I went to Anderson and he said, “Well, you discuss it with Lloyd Cahill [Regimental Medical Officer, 2/19th].” Which he did . . . Anderson agreed . . . so we spent a lot of time getting wounded into trucks. And then Anderson changed his mind. He said, “No, only one or two [ambulances] w
ith the worst wounded.” ’34
During the late afternoon and into the night the Japanese exerted further tank pressure upon the rear of the column. A little after 8.00 pm Lieutenant Ross (65th Battery) and Sergeant Tate realised that the enemy tanks had made an entry into the perimeter. This assault was first met by grenades—lobbed into the leading tank’s turret when an enemy soldier opened it—which caused the tank to grind to a halt. The anti-tank gun then scored a direct hit on that vehicle and set it ablaze, causing a roadblock. By a combination of that gun, anti-tank rifles and grenades, the Japanese were held back. In a rare piece of good fortune, the 8th Division wireless truck managed to send General Bennett a message asking for ammunition, food and morphia. Because the cipher books had been long destroyed, Colonel Jim Thyer (Bennett’s GSO1) replied with a message that only an Australian might have understood: ‘Look up at sparrow fart.’
The intervening hours of darkness before dawn on 22 January 1942 were a misery for the exhausted soldiers and the wounded. Private Jim Stewart, 2/19th Battalion:
The shelling on the last night was just unbelievable . . . I was so completely exhausted, I was actually asleep during the bombardment, in the drain [running alongside the road] that was my cover. And it blew me out [of the drain], and woke me up. And I saw all these flashes going on and I thought I better get back in. Yeah, it was a very heavy night . . . you can imagine being in those trucks on the open road . . . there was just a line of trucks and the shells were coming everywhere.35
