by Tony Hill
John Elliott was not one to miss the opportunity to report a major military operation. Four hours after the first landing and with Legg already ashore, Elliott flew in from GHQ in Manila by RAAF Catalina flying boat. As the plane came down to land, he observed: ‘. . . it was easy to see that this time it was an AIF show, Diggers’ hats and jungle green were dotted all over Brunei Bay’.11 Elliott joined the command ship, where: ‘Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead chatted to his artillery chief and brigadier and puffed his cigar like a man smoking with a deep inner satisfaction.’ It was clear that the commanders were elated with the progress being made. Australian troops pushed inland under blue skies and a hot sun and Elliott went ashore to talk with the soldiers, but did not meet up with Legg and he returned to Manila to file news coverage.
Later on the day of the landing, Legg sought out an American Public Relations Officer he knew was aboard one of the ships and swiftly arranged a flight on board a Catalina to Manila. The six-hour flight the next day took him over North Borneo and the islands of the Philippines, above the former battle fields of Bataan and Corregidor, to touchdown late in the afternoon on the waters of Manila Bay. He wrote his talks during the flight, had them passed by the GHQ censors that evening and the next morning broadcast five stories to the ABC by shortwave, before catching up with John Elliott, who walked with him through the battle-scarred city. Legg then returned to Brunei.
Twenty-four hours after the 9th Division had entered Brunei Town, Legg and other war correspondents travelled by barge along the wide jungle-fringed river, to the native quarter of the town where stilt houses were built over the water. Amid the scattered destruction of the European quarter, Australian troops were brewing tea with the bodies of dead Japanese nearby. The sound of mortar fire could be heard from the hills overlooking the town, where the Australians were still pursuing other enemy troops. As he was leaving the town Legg had the most pleasant experience of all his time on Brunei. ‘Passing a humble native house I came on a young-old Malay of very serious mien. He bowed, and although it was well on towards evening, wished me ‘Goot morning.’ I grinned and replied ‘How do you do?’ Whereupon his face broke into a broad smile and he said, surprisingly, ‘Be happy . . .’12 Legg remained in Borneo until he returned to Manila for his next major assignment, the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay.
More than 300 Australians were killed in the capture of Tarakan and Brunei Bay, with fighting continuing on Borneo in some areas until the end of the war. The final major operation of the Borneo campaign was the landing at Balikpapan on the east coast of the island.
Regret to Inform You – Balikpapan
Regret to inform you John Elliott, War Correspondent representing Australian Broadcasting Commission, killed Balikpapan three July.13
On 3 July 1945, John Elliott became the first ABC correspondent killed in the field. His death was the end of a chain of events: of fateful decision, missed opportunity and tragic misfortune.
In April, while back in Australia on leave from Manila, Elliott made the decision that would eventually send him to Balikpapan. He had resigned from the ABC to take up a job with a newspaper but, at the ABC’s request, he agreed to stay on for the Borneo campaign. He then returned to Manila.
On his return journey, Elliott immediately noticed the changes at work in the late stages of the war. Army PR sent him up on a Priority Three movement order though ‘actually, north of Townsville, a 3 Priority is about as useful as a dog’s licence’.14 At Biak, he found Priority Three ticket holders ‘milling helplessly around’, still waiting for a flight after three weeks in limbo, but a call to the American PR chief, Colonel Diller, got him aboard a plane. In Manila, he found the prices for food sky-high – ‘it’s like Russia all over again’ – and parts of the city much changed.
There’s still no glass in the scorched steel window frames of our office in Manila, blasted with the rest of the city when the Japanese High Commander in the Philippines, bested by General MacArthur at every point in the game, ordered the city to be levelled to the ground and then fled north to Formosa. Two months ago, looking up from my typewriter, I stared at a mountain of smouldering rubble, concrete, stone, and twisted steel, marking the spot where once had been the city square and its blocks of offices. The air was sickly with the smell of the dead trapped beneath the wreckage; a thick dust covered everything. Overhead whizzed a barrage of American shells on their delicate mission of blasting out the Japs from Intramuros, while sparing the civilians penned inside. Today everything is peaceful. Outside our window, MacArthur’s car stands parked on the levelled square – that hill of rubble has long been devoured by bulldozers, and the view unfolds of a sluggish, yellow river, and beyond emerald lawns I can see the crumpled wall and crooked spires of the wrecked Spanish city.15
At that stage of the campaign, Elliott reported that the Americans had killed around 138,000 Japanese in the Philippines, more than 30,000 in the last six weeks alone, and speculation was now focused on MacArthur’s next move. Allied bombers had caused great damage to Japan’s supply convoys between Okinawa and Borneo and the Japanese in the island archipelagos south of the Philippines were now contained. Singapore remained in Japanese hands but Rangoon had been re-captured by the British, and the Japanese were under pressure in China. The momentum in the war was pointing towards Japan itself.
Elliott had access to reliable shortwave transmissions for sending his stories to the ABC, but correspondents were now in search of new stories or new angles on the war. Elliott wrote several reports about life in Manila under the Japanese occupation: Filipino vaudeville shows with comedians who mocked the uncomprehending Japanese in Tagalog; and the change in fortunes of the newspaper, the Manila Tribune, forced to become a mouthpiece for Japanese propaganda. He also mentioned the tale of a tall, red-haired American radio commentator, Bert Silem, who was ‘halfway through his broadcast when the Japanese bombers knocked out the radio station’ in 1942. Three years later, a gaunt, emaciated Silem was freed from the Santo Tomas concentration camp and immediately went back to work. ‘At the microphone again, Bert Silem began: “As I was saying before, when I was so rudely interrupted . . .”’16
At this time, Elliott also reported the story of a transport plane that crashed in a hidden valley in the remote and almost inaccessible mountains of New Guinea. The valley could be reached only by a high, narrow mountain gap and was nicknamed Shangri-La. Three of the twenty passengers on board the plane survived, and Filipino medics and workers were parachuted into the valley to effect a rescue. A small airstrip was cut into the valley and a glider was landed. The survivors were eventually rescued in a daring operation in which the glider was ‘snatched into the air again by the grab-hook of a low-flying plane’. Elliott’s report included the transcript of the walkie-talkie conversation between an American combat reporter in the plane and the team on the ground.
When non-stop flights began to China, Elliott grabbed the opportunity and spent two weeks in Chungking and Kunming, sending wireless messages on the campaign against the Japanese in China and attempting to broadcast colour stories by shortwave. Chungking (now Chongqing) was the capital of Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalist government and Elliott submitted a list of questions for the nationalist leader. Chiang Kai-Shek’s responses, possibly drafted by the nationalist Ministry of Information, were eventually received by the ABC several weeks after Elliott’s death. Elliott’s trip cut across plans by Haydon Lennard who was waiting to visit China from his new base at South East Asia Command (SEAC) Headquarters in Ceylon. China was part of Lennard’s SEAC beat and he was annoyed to find that Elliott’s presence in China delayed his own trip. Elliott’s next assignment was the quick dash from Manila to cover the Brunei Bay landings, also covered by Frank Legg.
As the Borneo campaign dragged on, Elliott had planned to finish up with the ABC on 21 June, but he again agreed to a request to stay on and cover the initial stages of the Balikpapan operation, codenamed OBOE Two (the OBOE operations were not undertaken in
number order). He cabled the ABC from GHQ:
HAPPY COMPLY INSTNS [instructions] YOUR PR44560 OF 11 JUNE MY COVERING INITIAL STAGES OBOE TWO BEFORE RETURNING.17
Troops of the 7th Division landed at Balikpapan on the south-east coast of Borneo on 1 July in the largest Australian amphibious assault of the war. John Elliott’s first news despatch began:
At Balikpapan, the cobra rears its deadly head, crocodiles are common in the delta region but Seventh Division Diggers under the overall command of General MacArthur hit it on July 1st, because Balikpapan is the most important oil port in the Far East; Balikpapan Bay affords a good anchorage for an almost unlimited number of ships and it’s the most important oil centre nearest Japan.18
Almost 230 Australians would die in the last major Australian combat operation of the war at Balikpapan, but Elliott was only covering the opening days and the ABC had plans to replace him with Fred Simpson, Len Edwards and the recording gear.
When Elliott arrived on D-Day from Manila he said he would stay only two days, then return to Manila. His idea was to collect enough data to make a few broadcasts and put them over from Manila. On the second day, however, he missed his plane by five minutes, so decided to stay another two days and get more material.19
He was killed on the afternoon of the next day, 3 July. Elliott and a Department of Information correspondent, Bill Smith, had been with an Australian patrol when they were shot in error by an Australian Bren gunner. At the time, ‘everything was going like clockwork’ and correspondents were moving about the front without restriction.
Both men were seeking names of troops in the forward area when they were shot down – Elliott getting material for his broadcasts and Smith for his Weekly Diary feature. For reasons unexplained they had wandered into enemy territory near where Jap snipers had been holding up our troops for some hours. They picked out a Jap shelter, sat down in front of it, and began exchanging notes and having a bite to eat. Just a few minutes before three Japs were killed a few yards from where they were sitting. Smith had removed his slouch hat, but Elliott retained his American visor cap which, from a distance, looks very like a Jap cap. An Australian Bren-gunner, 700 yards away, saw two figures, was convinced they were Japs, and fired, killing both men instantly. He cannot be blamed for what happened. He was only doing his duty.20
Fred Simpson wrote to the ABC with some more details gleaned from conversation with a captain who had been on Balikpapan at the time. ‘Elliott and Smith were passing through a no-man’s-land with a patrol. They stopped for a rest. Whether they fell behind the patrol, or whether the patrol went on is not clear.’21 The official Army report said only that both men were killed in action.
Elliott and Smith were buried the next day at the Balikpapan War Cemetery by an Army chaplain, Alan Laing, who later wrote to the ABC.
On the day of the funeral I was at the cemetery to bury a lad from my own unit, Pte Wm Aitken of 2/1st Aust Pioneer Battalion, and the bodies of the two correspondents were brought along at the same time and at the same request of Capt Williams, the Press Relations Officer, I read the C of E burial service for them also. There was a very large gathering present, both of war correspondents and members of the Pioneer Unit who all joined in singing the hymns ‘O God Our Help in Ages Past’ and ‘Abide With Me’ at the beginning and end of the service.
In a short address I had the opportunity to speak of the loyalty and devotion of all three men to the cause in which they served, albeit in different capacities and I commended them and their families to the care of God and the prayers of those present. There was a very reverent and solemn atmosphere throughout the service and I think that no one was not moved deeply by it.
Their grave, which they share, lies on the gentle slope of a hill about 300 yards in from the beach, a little north of the landing area.22
Following Elliott’s death, Fred Simpson took over coverage at Balikpapan. With the troops of an Australian cavalry commando unit heading north towards Samarinda, Simpson could hear the tell-tale chatter of Bren Guns as soldiers cleared out Japanese positions from the rainforest edging the red-dust road.
‘Here are a small group of men on the side of the road. They are kneeling and I pause to think of the day, is it a weekday or Sunday, I should know better for divine service for these troops isn’t a matter of any particular time or place. It’s any time, any place.’ With a little white cloth placed on an abandoned Japanese table, the chaplain offers a requiem mass for the dead ‘to the accompaniment of the boom of the twenty-five pounders and the whining whistle of the shells overhead as they tear towards the enemy positions.’ Simpson listens as the chaplain tells the men: ‘The greatest consolation that you can give to the relatives of the men who have passed is to tell the wives and mothers of the comradeship and bravery of the men who have been your mates, remembering at the same time that they were the men of your regiment.23
Simpson remained in Borneo with the recording technician Len Edwards for the surrender of the Japanese at Kuching and to record interviews with POWs released from the Japanese prison camps.
Chapter 16
MOST PROFUSE AND FREQUENT – SINGAPORE
In early 1945 Haydon Lennard became the ABC correspondent attached to Mountbatten’s headquarters at South East Asia Command (SEAC) in Ceylon. Chester Wilmot had been destined for the role but was by then reporting as a war correspondent for the BBC in Europe.
In May, Lennard covered the capture of Rangoon. He provided some of the first recorded interviews with prisoners of war freed in Rangoon and his reports told of the destruction and filth in the wake of the Japanese occupation, and the clouds of DDT sprayed through the city to control the disease-bearing flies and mosquitoes. During his time at SEAC he also travelled to China – following immediately after John Elliott’s trip – and drove along part of the reopened Burma Road.
The capture of Rangoon signalled that victory in the rest of the South East Asian theatre, including the liberation of Singapore, was that much closer. After three and a half years of war, the end came swiftly. In early August, America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and soon afterwards Japan signalled its surrender.
At the end of August, Lennard was back in Rangoon to watch Japanese commanders in Burma sign a preliminary surrender agreement with the occupying British forces. He then sailed with the British fleet which arrived off Singapore on 4 September. The liberation of the island – the fall of which in 1942 had seemed such a hammer blow to Australian security – was now at hand.
On 5 September, Lennard began cabling a series of running stories, attempting to give the ABC an immediate coverage of the historic events. ‘Most profuse and frequent’ was how an ABC news compiler plaintively described the flood of copy that was now coming in from the correspondent in Singapore.
Liberation and Revelation
Singapore today celebrated its first day of freedom in three and a half years by crowding the streets, cheering, and watching the Japanese being lined up before British Headquarters to receive orders.1
Lennard’s despatches and the despatches of the newspaper correspondents were the first draft of the story of the liberation of Singapore, and the story of the island under Japanese occupation. These excerpts from Lennard’s first cables have been arranged to give a feel for the sequence of events in Singapore.
FIRST WAVE OF OCCUPATION TROOPS LANDED 0500 HRS GMT.2
THE FIRST CONTACT WITH THE JAPANESE IS TAKING PLACE ON BOARD THE CRUISER HMS SUSSEX WHICH WAS RECENTLY HIT BY KAMIKAZE BOMBERS AT THE HEAD OF THE MALACCA STRAITS. THE FIRST TROOPS ASHORE ARE EXPECTED TO MAKE AT LEAST A TWENTY MILE TRIP FROM THEIR TRANSPORTS TO THE COAST BY SMALL LANDING CRAFT.
LANDING MAIN WHARF EMPIRE DOCK, TROOPS ARE DISEMBARKING FROM SMALL LANDING CRAFT AS COMBAT TASK FORCE. (THOSE) ROAMING SINGAPORE ARE ORDERED TO ASSEMBLE AT SINGAPORE FOOTBALL GROUND. THOUSANDS ARE EXPECTED TO BE IN OUR HANDS BY NIGHTFALL.3
ENTRY INTO SINGAPORE WAS MADE BY INDIAN TROOPS WITH STREETS PRACTICALLY D
ESERTED APART FROM GROUPS OF NATIVES, MOSTLY CHILDREN, WHO GATHERED ON THE WATERFRONT AS A WELCOME PARTY. AT REGULAR INTERVALS JAPANESE GUARDS ARE POSTED ALONG THE STREETS AND A JAPANESE REAR GUARD PARTY IS STILL IN ENEMY HEADQUARTERS.4
ARMED CLASHES BETWEEN UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT AND JAPANESE COLLABORATORS HAS BROKEN OUT OVER THE LAST FEW NIGHTS. SMALL PITCHED BATTLES HAVE BEEN REPORTED. A GENERAL WARNING TO KEEP OFF THE STREETS AFTER DARK HAS BEEN ISSUED PENDING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FULL MILITARY CONTROL.5
The priority for Lennard was news of the Australian POWs. Liberation became revelation as the full story of life under Japanese occupation could now be told. Lennard reported that there were approximately thirty-five thousand Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees in Singapore, still awaiting release. Changi was the largest camp.
Dutch and British comprise the bulk of the six thousand men inside the high walls of Changi Prison today. Approximately three thousand AIF personnel are located in native grass huts outside the gaol walls. They feed from one makeshift kitchen. Officers live in concrete coolie lines, four sharing each tiny room, and in small wooden huts outside the gaol. Other ranks sleep on platforms made from split bamboo. They have no beds and many are without blankets.6
Total AIF deaths reported but not officially accepted or substantiated is approximately five thousand four hundred and fifty-four – that is from total AIF force of nearly twenty thousand captured in Malaya and Netherlands East Indies. AIF records office states that no estimate can be given as to casualties suffered by large forces of AIF taken from Singapore to other parts of the Far East and South East Asia since 1942.7
