Amid the screaming, explosions of grenades and chattering of machine guns there was never a bird to be seen, but curiously the bountiful butterflies seemed entirely unaffected. It was not uncommon for soldiers on both sides to be fixing bayonets to fight for their very lives when, at the moment of highest tension, enormous butterflies of the most extraordinary colours and contours alighted on the helmets of those about to charge. God’s own insects wafted away, of course, at the first serious movement forward, but to the soldiers who saw them at such moments, the butterflies always seemed to project a sense that, whatever the hostilities of the moment between man,
they
represented timeless nature, had been there long before man entered their domain, and would be there long after he was beneath the sod.
Though there were moments of great desperation, happily for Colonel Honner, platoon after platoon of the 2/14th Battalion kept arriving throughout the day, taking over from the battered platoons of the 39th, who were then able to fall back, rest, and fill the position of Battalion Reserve, grouping near the centre of the Isurava village. Each newly arrived god of the 2/14th lifted morale even further. In one splendid moment, Honner looked across to see something that he would remember for the rest of his life. It was Captain Claude Nye’s 2/14th B Company marching into Isurava to relieve the 39th’s valiant B Company, which had taken a terrible mauling over the previous two days, but was
just
holding on.
‘I do not remember anything more heartening,’ Honner would later write, ‘than the sight of their confident deployment. Their splendid physique and bearing, and their cool, automatic efficiency— even the assembly line touch as two platoon mortar-men stepped one on either side of the track to pluck bombs from the haversacks of the riflemen filing past them without checking their pace—made a lasting impression on me.’
180
It was a veritable ballistic ballet, which could only have been achieved by a team trained to operate like a well-oiled machine, and Honner wondered if the Japanese could possibly have such fine soldiers.
Honner’s mood was so improved that only a short time later, Joe Dawson, on a brief errand to Battalion Headquarters, was amazed to see Colonel Honner holding a strange leaf in his hand and explaining its botanical significance to a slightly bemused lieutenant. It was an odd episode, but Joe took heart from it. If the colonel could find time to be talking about leaves, maybe things weren’t so grim after all.
Of the newly arrived troops, one was Stan Bisset, and he immediately set to work collating information, moving around the perimeters counting heads and the estimated dead—both Australians and Japanese—and putting it all together so that Battalion Headquarters would always have up-to-date information of the situation. It was because of his grasp of the situation and knowledge of intended orders that Stan realised that his brother Butch’s 10 Platoon of B Company—already proven as one of the battalion’s finest—was soon going to be put in the toughest position of all, relieving 39th’s B Company 11 Platoon on the highest ground of the western side of the perimeter.
Something was wrong. The Australians had not yet crumpled, and the reports coming back to General Horii were full of phrases such as ‘unexpected resistance’ and ‘suffered many casualties’. How could this be? How could such a flimsy force of Australians be holding up his finest troops? Yes, they had provided unexpectedly strong resistance back at Kokoda, but that had surely been an aberration, one of those things that happens in war when through any number of factors a nominally inferior force that is well dug in can hold up a superior one. He most certainly had not counted on that level of resistance continuing at Isurava, and he was worried.
By the late afternoon of 27 August, all of 2/14th Battalion—bar A Company and Headquarters Company—were in place at Isurava. Their confidence remained high. One private from the 39th, Jack Boland, would later recount a significant episode to a fellow 39th soldier and subsequent author, Victor Austin.
‘I was in a reserve position when the 2/14th troops arrived that afternoon, and as they were moving past I heard one of them say, “Where are these Japs? We’ll have them back in Tokyo by the weekend.” A while after that the fighting became hotter and the wounded started coming back. Towards dusk a couple of the 2/14th walking wounded came back through our position and I heard them asking each other how they had “copped it”. The gist of the conversation was:
‘First 2/14th Digger: “How did you get yours?”
‘Second 2/14th Digger: “I don’t know. I didn’t see any Japs but I got bayoneted. Who said these bastards couldn’t fight?”
‘First 2/14th Digger: “Who do you mean? The Japs or the Chocos?”
‘Second 2/14th Digger: “Both!”’
181
The newcomers had spent just a small amount of time fighting side by side with the 39th, and their estimation of their abilities had changed indeed. Far from being soldiers who would melt when the heat was on, they had already proved themselves to be ‘ragged bloody heroes’ to use the tag that the AIF bestowed upon the 39th.
182
Though the situation remained desperate, it was still considered stable enough that the wounded men of the 39th capable of walking could be evacuated back to Alola, with instructions to make their way to Moresby from there. No fewer than twenty-eight of them were put in the care of Lieutenant Johnston, and limped or staggered southwards to safety. They had done more than their bit, and would be marked for life by the sacrifice they had made. It was now for others to take over.
Shortly after the wounded had left, there was a brief lull in the fighting. It wasn’t that the sound of shots had faded completely, so much as it had fallen away from the searing staccato of the morning and early afternoon. Ralph Honner took the opportunity to lead some of his senior officers down to ‘rear creek’ to shave themselves and have a quick wash. Apart from the virtues of personal hygiene, it was deeply ingrained in the culture of Australian military officers that they had to present themselves well to their men, and that a clean, clear face upped the likelihood that clean, clear thinking was going on just behind it.
Still, the men had only been down at the creek for a short time when a wild-eyed runner arrived in a gallop to inform Colonel Honner that the front being manned by E Company had just been penetrated by the enemy. As Honner would later describe it, ‘I looked over at the unsuspecting Merritt. It seemed a pity to disturb him. “Captain Merritt,” I said. “When you’ve finished your shave will you go to your company? The Japs have broken through your perimeter.” Merritt didn’t appreciate the Drake touch. An astonished look hung for an instant on his half-shaved face; then it lifted like a starter’s barrier and he was off like a racehorse.’
183
Happily, the Japanese penetration into the Australian lines proved to be short-lived as both the ‘counter-penetration and mobile units’ swung into action, but it had been close.
Back at Alola on this afternoon, Brigadier Potts was greatly worried, for he, too, was receiving reports that wave after wave of Japanese soldiers kept crashing upon the shores of Isurava. He knew that it could only be a matter of time before the Australians would be swamped. And he also felt a growing anxiety about what was happening on the parallel ridge, where the only defence against a developing Japanese thrust was the 53rd Battalion. There remained a dire risk that if the Japs pushed through all the way to Alola, the men at Isurava would be cut off from their supply line and then that would be it for the whole campaign. The only alternative for the Australians would be to melt into the jungle in an effort to save themselves.
Lieutenant Sakamoto was in command of the large body of Japanese men of the 144th Regiment who were making this thrust that Potts most feared, and he had to this point been amazed at the ease with which his men had been able to fulfil General Horii’s orders: ‘Advance along the eastern side of the valley, deploy to the south of Isurava, cut off the Australians’ withdrawal, and annihilate them… ’
184
They had first come into contact with Australian soldiers from the 53rd Battalion on 25 August and had completely routed them, forcing them to flee back through the jungle. When another 53rd patrol came looking for them on the following day, they too were sent scurrying by Lieutenant Sakamoto’s men.
Now, on 27 August, Brigadier Potts, knowing that the danger to the men at Isurava had never been more acute—and that the whole campaign hung in the balance—sent out two more companies of the all but completely demoralised 53rd to block the Japanese advance. If this failed, the only hope was that the men of the 2/16th could get to Alola in time to thwart the next attack…
Up at Isurava, most of the detail of this was blessedly unknown to Ralph Honner, and he was able to give his full concentration to the task at hand. As near as he could reckon, his men were killing the Japanese at a rough ratio of ten to one, by simple dint of the fact that they were dug into well-entrenched positions, and the invaders were not. It was with grim satisfaction that he noted that his men were now, to use his phrase, ‘surrounded by a scattered rampart of the enemy dead… ’
185
But, not daunted, the Japanese used the same tactics that had worked well for them in the past. Blocked in one area, they probed in another. Now that Merritt’s E Company had successfully withstood their attacks, the Japanese turned again to B Company on the high western flank who would now bear the brunt of their full-on assaults.
The tactics of the Japanese were as ruthless as they were costly in casualties. The command continued to send wave after wave of attackers onto the positions of the men of B Company as a clear method of determining the exact location of the Australian guns. Once the Australians fired heavily on the marauding Japanese foot-soldiers, cutting them to pieces, the Japanese mortar-men and mountain gun platoons would zero in and start firing. With every bullet and every mortar fired from both sides, and every artillery shot from the Japanese, the foliage of the jungle progressively thinned as leaves were blown away, small trees fell and the killing fields of fire became ever more clear.
By now the Australians were gaining some familiarity with the ways of the Japanese attacks. From out of the jungle at a distance of what sounded like 150 yards or so, they would hear a guttural shouted order. Closer then would come the gibberish repeated once or twice as the order went down the chain of command and then, as Ralph Honner would write of it, the whole palaver was ‘succeeded by a wave of noisy chattering right along the front, almost as if the men in the leading sections were assuring each other that they were all starting out together to do or die. And as the chatter ceased they would crash from their concealment, leaping to the attack in a coordinated line.
‘In larger scale attacks, by two or more companies, a system of chanting the orders forward from the rear was used, apparently with the same idea of securing a simultaneous assault by all the storming sections emerging from the forest in which they could hear but could not see each other. Away in the distance a powerful voice would chant an order of half a dozen to a dozen words. Somewhat nearer, three or four voices would be loudly lifted together in similar half-sung phrases; and on a closer, wider line a dozen junior commanders would take up the refrain in unison. Then, right along the front, the final, urgent order would rise from half a hundred throats, to be followed by the impressive sight of the serried ranks of Nippon rushing to their doom.
‘As they were mown down, and it became apparent that to fight on would result only in heavier losses, the news somehow filtered back into the forest. From its dark recesses, a clear bugle call would ring out, and the attackers would turn and vanish into their jungle fastness as swiftly as they had come.’
186
And so it continued, with the only advantage for the Australian defenders that at least with all the shouting and carry-on, they were given as much as five minutes warning that an attack would soon be on the way in, and they could set themselves accordingly. The Japanese bodies began to pile up, but so too did the casualties and deaths among the valiant men of B Company. Up at the highest point of this perimeter, Butch Bisset’s 10 Platoon came under withering fire, but held their positions, exacting a terrible toll on the unfortunate Japanese soldiers sent to attack them.
Right in the middle of a furious fire-fight, Father Nobby Earl suddenly appeared, walking with a shovel over his shoulder towards an Australian soldier who had just been shot, and clearly killed, in no-man’s land between the two forces. War or no war, bullets flying or no bullets flying—but by God it was the former—Nobby was going to give the fallen soldier an immediate Christian burial. As soon as he moved in front of the Australian soldiers they of course immediately stopped firing, and then the most extraordinary thing happened…
The Japanese also stopped firing. Yes, Father Nobby was clearly distinguishable as a man of God, with his priestly ‘dog-collar’ plainly visible; but it was by no means certain that all of the Japanese soldiers would recognise that, and just one easy shot from one of them would have brought him down. But nary a shot. Maybe it was his simple courage that stopped them; perhaps no man wanted to bring down one who was clearly unarmed, taking no defensive or cowering action; or maybe the simple humanity of his action awakened an equal humanity on those all around—whatever the case, not one shot was fired.
The two forces waited in the simmering jungle as Father Nobby dug a shallow grave, manhandled the soldier into it, covered it again and said his prayers. Then, equally purposefully, he put the shovel once again over his shoulder and walked back towards the Australian perimeter. At the very instant he was safely out of harm’s way, the Japanese unleashed a fusillade to wake the newly dead. It was back on, and it went through the night…