HOW JAPS. FIGHT

Grey River Argus, 16 March 1942, Page 1

HOW JAPS. FIGHT

N.Z. Man’s Story

AFTER MALAYAN EXPERIENCES WELLINGTON, March 15. Probably the first man to return to New Zealand .after fighting in Malaya is one who had the unusual experience of engaging in guerrilla fighting behind the Japanese front. His impressions of the Japanese and ot the war in Malaya are, in some respects, different from those that have been generally gained in New Zealand. He fought as a sergeant in the Malayan Volunteers, and had for fourteen years been a member of the Malayan Government Survey Department, m which many New Zealanders were employed. Nearly all of his live weeks of active service was m the northern part of the peninsula. A guerrilla unit, he said, would consist of about thirty men. The method was to go up the coast or up a river m a launch, and land with the object of holding up the enemy s traffic forty or fifty miles behind his advancing troops. Armed with grenades an tommy guns, they would disembar < at 3 .a.m. in swampy country under cover of mangroves, and attack light Japanese forces they could find on that day and the next day, and depart on the third night. Some oi the raids very very successful, and he believed that a Japanese brigauiei Was captured by one party. The New Zealander took part m three such ra’ds. He was wounded by a smper in* a tree during fighting on the Palembank front in Sumatra. He described most of the country as swanipy cX’nd covered with jungle. He added that the Japanese were particularly good at warfare in places where they was such cover. Iriej were quite good fighters and were fearless. “We found they were generally pretty rotton shots with the rifle.” he added. They used a po-nt twenty,-seven calibre riila. IMey handled mortars very effectively, and they were able to knock out British armoured cars with mortars. He did not see any British tanks in action against the invaders. The sergeant scouted suggestions, that Malaya had proved unreliable. The Malay forces fought well. J-he volunteers, who were really civiimas, were even better than the Malayan regulars. The New Zealanders left Singapore ten days before its fall. Hio Skit was disbanded, and they were told to get out of the country as oest they could. Most of them did get away. Though Singapore was being bombed heavily when he left, normal life was continuing, and snops and offices were still open. It was there he saw air warfare, and he stated the Japanese air force was definitely good. The Messerschmitt planes that were there would be of Japanese make, though he oelieved that there were some German ones, land they seemed to be superior to the Buffaloes. The sergeant stated that if Japanese attempted to land in Australia 1 , they would encounter quite different conditions to thosd in Malaya, where there was plenty of food and the invaders could land vvith nothing more than their arms. For transport, they stole the Malayans bicycles, and one might see- several hundred Japanese coming down roads cn bikes. It would not-be so easy to live off the country if they invaded Australia.