OFFICER'S ORDEAL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 294, 12 December 1942, Page 7

OFFICER'S ORDEAL

AMAZING FORTITUDE

EXPERIENCES NEAR GONA

(0.C.) SYDNEY, Dec. 10. An amazing stoty of fortitude and endurance was told to Geoffrey Reading, Daily Mirror war correspondent in New Guinea, by a 22-year-old officer who took part in the recent Gona fighting, and lived a macabre nine days, after he had been wounded, before he stumbled across some Australians. On November 22 he set out with a patrol of nine to clean up Jap. positions in the vicinity of Gona village. The party moved through a thick swamp, which hampered their advance and delayed the attack. About dusk, after breaching a native-built fence between a kunai patch and a grove of coconut palms, the attack was begun. "Immediately it seemed as though we had walked into a Jap. ambush," said the officer. "The enemy fired on us from the front and the rear. One by one the members of the patrol were hit and fell. I received a bullet wound in the side of the head and dropped unconscious for what seemed ages. But it could have been no longer than a few seconds. "When I came round the battle was ending. I felt as though my head had been taken off and was revolving slowly around my shoulders. I fell unconscious again, and when I recovered my senses I found that the bleeding had ceased." The officer had a full water bottle, but a shot had grazed his neck and he found it impossible to drink. When he tried to call for help he found that his voice had gone. He tried to make his way back to the Allied lines to get attention and stretchers for the others in his party, but he had crawled only 15 yards when he fell asleep. Wounded Again "At dawn next morning I was awakened by the sound of heavy firing, and discovered that I was in the middle of another battle. Lying on the ground, I couldn't tell who was firing or where the bullets were coming from," he said. "A stray bullet passed through my shoulder. I was by this time desperately thirsty, and decided to look for water in the bottom of a Jap. slit trench. After two hours' crawling I found one, and fell into it, trying to absorb the moisture through my body. "Later in the day there was an other Australian attack, and an Australian soldier fell dead a few feet away. I crawled out and took his water bottle and sprinkled the water over my head.

"Days went by. I lost all sense of time. I had just enough strength to crawl out of my pit each night and fill a water bottle, pannikin and a tin with water from pools. A whole pile of emergency rations had been dropped nearby, but the irony of it was that I was unable to eat."

He kept waiting for another Australian attack so that he could be rescued. He lived in this way for seven days. He remembered hearing on the morning of November 29 a terrific Allied aerial and mortar bombardment accompanied by heavy shelling.

Fifteen Yards Prom Gona

"I was only 15 yards from Gona village and right in the target," he said. "I had never seen before so great a concentration of high explosives. The shock of the bombs kept lifting me right out of the trench in which I sheltered. All the grass around was flattened and set on fire. It was like being in the middle of a baker's oven. I received a third wound—this time in the shoulder — from a bomb splinter. It was then that I felt I could no longer stand the torment.

"For seven days I had heard the Japs talking and walking about. Sometimes they passed within three feet of my trench. When the bombardment began they took to the bush and returned as soon as it was over. I felt that another five minutes of it would drive me mad. For the first time in seven days I got to my feet and stumbled towards a Kunai patch.

"On November 30 I reached a track cut through a small mound. I fell down the cutting and lay panting on my back. Looking up I saw three Australian soldiers in a tall tree. These were the first live Australians I had seen for nine days. I was at the absolute limit of my endurance."