JAPANESE FORCE AMBUSHED

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24150, 8 January 1944, Page 6

JAPANESE FORCE AMBUSHED

COMMANDO OPERATION IN NEW GUINEA SYDNEY, Dec. 31. When the main Australian force began its drive up the valley of the Markham river, 18 Australian commandos, some of whom had won world fame in Japanese Timor, were given the job of taking Kesawai, at the end of a mission track running inland from Bogadjim, near Madang. They reached the Ramu river, left three behind to act as a covering force, and waded through in black darkness. The swiftly-running water was up to their chins, but they carried their gear on their heads and guided themselves by a thin signal wire. At daybreak, they stole into Kesawai, but the Japanese had gone. Denied a fight, they decided to find one for themselves.

Among them was Lance-Corporal Joe Poynton, of Western Australia, who had been awarded the D.C.M. and the Dutch Bronze Cross for his work in Timor. He offered . himself as a decoy to draw the Japanese fire. Followed by another man, he marched openly down the track towards Bogadjim, expecting bullets at every moment. For a mile they did hot come. He then arrived at a flat covered by thick kunai grass, and out of it came a burst of fire from a machine-gun. It missed, so the two, after firing a burst in reply, left hurriedly and reported back to the main body. Thefe tactics, they were confident, would* draw the Japanese, so they chose a spot and laid an ambush. They settled down to wait. Two hours later came the first signs of life, a screen of natives with bows and arrows. Then came the Japanese in fours and fives, until 100 of them were in view along the track. The natives stopped and pointed to some trampled grass. The commandos knew all about that. Their guns were ranged on it, but they held their fire. The Japanese clustered round to look. More and more of them came until there must have been about 50 in a bunch.

Then the leader went into action. He jumped out into the track and pumped six magazines into the crowd. The Other members of the party promptly joined in. Between them they had nine Owen guns and two Brens, and every gun fired at least six magazines. "It was a massacre.” said one of them afterwards. “They fell dead in big heaps.” But the commando leader on the track had been wounded. One bullet had creased his scalp, another went through a shoulder, a third through the calf of a leg, and he was also hit above and below the ankle. He staggered back for 100 yards and then was carried away. There was one other casualty. The machine-gun of one of the men became entangled in a bush. He grasped the barrel to pull it clear, -and it burned his hand almost to the bone. Later the patrol visited Kesawai n°ain. There they found a- mound 12 yards long by eight feet wide and three feet high.