This much I can say—that I regard this Brigade as the best fighting formation in the AIF and second to none in this war or the last. Your new cmd. will be proud of it. Its discipline and tone is obviously high and that is not meant as praise—it is as it should be.
Be loyal to all the ideals we have built up around this Brigade of three hard-hitting, hard-marching and hard-living Battalions, and nothing in your lives will ever give you half so much pleasure as belonging to it or so much pain as leaving it.
Thanking you for your loyalty and cooperation; you are a great team and I’m proud that I was one of you. Thanking you and goodbye.
A. W. Potts. Brig.
271
Still not done, on 27 October, Blamey wired to his commanding officer in the field, General Tubby Allen: ‘Consider that you have had sufficiently prolonged tour of duty in forward area. General Vasey will arrive Myola by air morning 28 October for tour of duty in this area. Will arrange air transport from Myola forenoon 29 October if this convenient to you…’
272
It was a bitter blow to Allen, but as a soldier to his core he followed orders and thus ceded his command.
In Blamey’s view, General George Vasey had more of the right stuff for this kind of operation, as witnessed by one of Vasey’s first commands to his most senior officers when he arrived in New Guinea. ‘The Japanese… are vermin and like vermin they must be destroyed… we must not expect the Japanese to surrender. He does not. He must be killed whether it is shooting, bayoneting him, throttling, knocking out his brains with a tin hat or by any means our ingenuity can devise.’
273
And that was General ‘Bloody’ George Vasey all over, so-called because it was his favourite, if not only, adjective. One way or another, he would find a way to get the job done.
274
Have you heard? Women are arriving!
White
women!
Real
sheilas! Seventy Australian Army nurses have just docked on the hospital ship
Manunda
. They reckon they’re going to be staying for a while.
From everywhere, all over Moresby, the word spread, on this 28th day of October 1942. Sick men, injured men, crippled men, healthy men, strong men, men who were so fit and strong they were dangerous… all found sudden reason to head down towards the harbour, and maybe mosey along towards the
Manunda
to see what they could see. It had been a long, long time since they had been so blessed, that’s for sure. Nurse, I have a sudden stabbing pain in my chest… I think you’re breaking my heart.
275
It was 1 November 1942, and in the war correspondents’ compound at Port Moresby, the chap from the
Daily Mirror
, Geoffrey Reading, was chatting to his friend Chester Wilmot, who had just returned from Australia after his failed attempt to get rid of General Blamey. By Reading’s later account, it was then that George Fenton, the officer commanding the war correspondents, came up to them.
‘Chester,’ Fenton said, ‘Blamey would like to see you. You can take my jeep.’
‘Righto,’ the ABC man replied, and took his leave of Reading.
Half an hour later he was back, looking a little vague and shell-shocked.
‘Well, Chester, what happened?’ Reading asked pleasantly.
‘I’ve just been disaccredited… ’ Wilmot replied, still trying to grasp the implication of what had just happened to him.
‘Why, what did he say?’
‘He said: “Mr Wilmot, when you were on furlough in Melbourne did you or did you not say [to friends while in Melbourne recently] that I had been involved in rackets in the Middle East?”’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said “I can’t remember, Sir”.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said: “Well, Mr Wilmot, you are hereby disaccredited”.’
276
And that was it! After all Chester’s struggle, all his dedicated reporting, all his high-minded ideas about bringing the
real
story to the Australian public, a single stroke of the pen from Blamey could end it all and shut him down! It was hard for such as Wilmot— raised with an acute sense of justice and an inclination to right wrongs—to think straight, when in his view he was now
himself
the victim of extreme injustice but was powerless to do anything. By the following day Chester had gone the way of Rowell and Potts before him, flying back to Australia simply because he had fallen foul of Blamey. Given that Chester now no longer had accreditation, which had formally provided him with access to the Australian Army and the right to ask questions, there was no point in remaining in New Guinea.
As if to make it more bitter, this was the same day that after a long and bitter campaign against the retreating Japanese, the most forward of the Australian troops spied Kokoda ahead in the near distance.
The impending arrival of those advancing Australian soldiers precipitated terrible scenes in the Japanese field hospital at Kokoda, as later described by one Japanese soldier, Takida Kenji: ‘When the order to retreat was received, the seriously ill patients had to get up and walk. They all rose using walking sticks. However, many were too weak to support themselves and toppled over. The immobilised and seriously ill officers and troops took their lives one by one under the roar of enemy air attacks. The forest around the field hospital became a forest of grim death.’
277
Despite such misery among the Japanese, the forward Australian troops into Kokoda were met by many smiling natives—some of whom had previously worked for the Australians as porters—bearing flowers and fruit, and clearly delighted at their return. The Australians embraced them in turn, most particularly the former porters who had saved so many Australian lives. Stories of their maltreatment at the hands of the Japanese came to Australian ears and there would clearly be no struggle for the hearts and minds of the populace in these parts, as there had been in other parts of New Guinea.
But there was no time to tarry. A message was quickly sent from General Vasey to Eather and Lloyd: ‘Occupation of Kokoda is expected by our troops 2 November. Congratulations to you and the fine troops under your command for their rapid advance, you have made under shocking conditions which include hunger. The enemy is beaten. Give him no rest and we will annihilate him. It is only a matter of a day or two. Tighten your belts and push on.’
278
The key importance in regaining Kokoda was as before: the airfield. Within a day, enormous DC3 aircraft were taking off and landing, bringing forward in twenty minutes supplies that had been taking eight days by land.
At this point, the Allies believed the final capture of the remnants of the Japanese forces would be a cake walk. Intelligence estimated the enemy at about 1500 debilitated and sick soldiers across the whole Gona–Sanananda–Buna beachhead.
They were in for the shock of their lives. There were nine thousand. The battle for the beaches was to be a bloodbath.
Personally, MacArthur was so confident that victory would soon be at hand that, arriving in New Guinea on 6 November 1942, he moved his whole headquarters north, to Government House in Port Moresby, nominally so he could be close enough to lead more effectively, but perhaps so that he could be on site when the Japanese raised their flag of surrender.
The Jap is being more stubborn and tiresome than I thought and I fear the war of attrition is taking place on this front. The Jap won’t go till he is killed and in the process he is inflicting many casualties on us. I am beginning to wonder who will reach zero first.
General George ‘Bloody’ Vasey to Ned Herring, 23 November 1942
There is no doubt in my mind, that the Gona campaign was the worst and most horrific battle the 39th Battalion fought.
Joe Dawson, 39th Battalion veteran
It was 9 November 1942, and it was time for another parade. This one was up at the Koitaki sports field, just a few miles from Ower’s Corner and the start of the track. On this day General Blamey had travelled up there to talk to the men of the 21st Brigade—the 2/14th, 2/16th and 2/27th battalions. Having substantially recovered from their previous gruelling experience on the track, they were now thought to be ready to go again, despite the dreadful losses the battalions had already suffered.
In the 2/14th, for example, only 73 men remained of the 550 brave souls who set off up the track just under three months before. The rest were known to be either lying beneath the sod of the New Guinea jungle, or injured and recovering in a New Guinea hospital or now at home, or still missing in action, meaning that they were more than likely dead.
Though all three of the battalions were of course devastated by their dreadful losses, they were also justifiably proud of what they had achieved, and if they had bothered to think about it at all, they were of the opinion that Blamey had probably gathered them together to tell them so in person. They formed up before him then, at ease, with straight backs and clear eyes to await his words. Certainly, the bloke was less than popular for many reasons—not least because he was known as the one who had sacked both Rowell and their beloved Pottsy—but he remained their commanding officer and it was instilled in them to listen carefully to what he had to say.
Australia’s highest ranking military officer was set up on a wooden platform and began to speak in that notably imperious manner which had never sat well with Australian soldiers. Perhaps it was because of the time he had spent with the British, or because he had just risen so damn high, but in their view Blamey never seemed to display any empathy for their lot, any warmth, any remnant of the knockabout manner that Australian men admired in each other, whatever position they held. Rather, he had a lecturing tone which grated.
There would be no further retreats, he intoned imperiously, no fall-backs. They would do as they had been ordered and
attack
. They were to advance at all costs. They really were going to push the Japs all the way back to the sea this time, and there could be no excuses, for the campaign to date against the Japanese had been nothing short of appalling.
A shocked atmosphere suddenly descended on the troops as they realised they were being
criticised
.
Blamey went on… ‘You have been defeated, I have been defeated, Australia has been defeated,’ he said.
There was a stirring among the soldiers, a murmur of mutiny, of
outrage…
Then they heard the words that would never be forgotten, and Stan Bisset—as adjutant to his battalion, and therefore standing at the front of the men of the 2/14th—was well placed to hear Blamey’s next words clearly.
‘Always remember, it is the rabbit who runs who gets shot… ’
279
At these words, there was a real
rumble
in the ranks, a gasp of disbelief that Blamey had really said what he did. But the fact that they had all heard it confirmed it, and the disbelief soon gave way to barely contained white fury at his colossal presumption in saying such a thing to them.
They
who had fought so valiantly against a force that had outnumbered them by at least six to one.
They
, who had marched forward with impossible loads on their backs in good faith, only to find themselves totally outnumbered, outgunned, overwhelmed and undersupplied, as missiles and grenades were lobbed on them through the blizzard of bullets that was their most constant accompaniment.
They
who lost one by one and then two by two, and then
platoon
after
platoon
of their own beloved brothers-in-arms?
Just who the hell did Blamey think he
was?
He was a bloke who to this point—holed up in his luxurious digs in Brisbane—hadn’t demonstrated that he could lead a bunch of blowflies to a cow pat, and he was criticising
them
for the effort
they
had put in!
As the mutinous rumble continued, progressively more audible, like a volcano that was about to erupt, Blamey was incredulous. He could not believe that such ill discipline could go unchecked, but then perhaps he realised that he really had gone too far for he suddenly cut the speech short and left the podium. Shortly afterwards, he at least composed himself well enough to call a group of senior officers to a meeting to discuss the forthcoming campaign.
But Stan Bisset, for one, was so molten with rage that—together with other officers who felt the same—he simply refused to go. This refusal was partly in protest, and partly because Stan just did not trust himself to control his rising and violent rage towards the general. It was much better that he put a mile between himself and Blamey for the remainder of his time in New Guinea.
Word of Blamey’s disgraceful speech soon spread well beyond those who had heard it. A while later, when Blamey visited a Port Moresby hospital to visit wounded Diggers, he was amazed to see each one sullenly staring back at him, refusing to talk, and each munching a lettuce leaf…