IN THE JUNGLE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3184, 19 October 1942, Page 3

IN THE JUNGLE

PATROLS HAVE BEEN OUT AMBUSH IN NEW GUINEA ALL IN A DAY’S WORK About mid-morning there was a break in the clouds, and the sun came out. The heat became more and more oppressive. Into the narrow slit in the forest where the track had been cut it beat down with breathtaking pulsations—a weight on the shoulders, a construction about the skull (writes Osmar White, Sunday Telegraph war correspondent at an undisclosed, operational base). Where the track came out on to the plain there was a rickety bridge of layvyer vine. Thence, from comparative straightness, it begain to twist in and out among stretches of true jungle sago swamp and hillocks where the trees seemed as violently cut off as by a feller’s axe and sun-drenches expanses of elephant grass began. Along those paths two parties of men were approaching one another, each completely unaware of the presence of the other.

The first, a party of Japanese marines, travelling south-west, was between 50 a nd 60 strong. It was moving at a rapid steady pace, and 12 to 15-yard intervals between each man. A separate file of Japanese carrytwo small mortars slung on poles brought up the rear. Four files behind the leader, one man carried a small, silk Rising Sun flag on a bamboo staff. The Australian patrol which was unwittingly approaching this considerable force comprised six Europeans and three native police-boys. One police-boy walked about 70 yards ahead of the main party, keenly scanning the mud for fresh tracks and pausing every now and then to listen intently. The leader was a tall, thin man in sweat and mud-stained shirt and shorts that had once been khaki. This tattered “uniform” had been doused in some soft of green die, which had been faded by sun and rain into irregular mottlings. Like the rest of the Europeans, the leader wore a battered slouch hat with a pigeon feather stuck in it, and his lean, pallid face carried a three-weeks stubble which he claimed protected him against insect bites. But his legs were bare from thigh to ankle and mottled with tick-bites that hhd been dabbed with scarlet mercurochrome antiseptic. He carried slung one one shoulder a Thompson sub-machine gun, and on the other a small, dingy, yellow haversack containing first field dressings, a tin of bully beef, a packet of mouldy biscuits, clips of spare ammunition, a Bottle of quinine tablets and “money” —a, dozen or so sticks of trade tobacco.

He walked with a free-jointed, long, loose stride that contrasted oddly with shuffling pad of the two natives who followed close behind him. The two patrols steadily approached each other.

At noon the police boy scouting for the Australian patrol stopped before turning a sharp bend, and moved into the cover of a thicket before continuing. 'He saw the Japanese scouts before they saw him at a distance of about 200 yards.

Like a flash he turned and sped back, gesticulating with panic-sticken urgency to the leading white man. “Japan’ ’e come! Japan’ ’e come, kerose-up too much! ” The tall man unslung his tommygun, and waved back the rest of the party.

“Nips,” he told them succinctly. “Do a bolt!”

There was no need to ask how many. The Japanese seldom, if ever, patrol in parties of fewer than 50. Without a second’s hesitation the Australians fled at full pelt up the path, floundering and slipping and cursing in the wet patches.

Quarter of an hour back—measured by normal pace—there was a smhll forest clearing where once natives had planted a grove of bananas and cultivated a patch of sweet potatoes. Vines now, choked the trees and runner grass and kunai had smothered the potatoes.

The Australian patrol made it in seven minutes at a wild gallop. Then the leader gave a low .whistle between his teeth, and his men pulled up panting, so drenched with sweat that their shirts hung to their backs.

“O.K. . . . You two with tommyguns, get up there behind the cedars. I’ll take the bamboo clump. Jim and Harry down the track under cover of the big deadfall. Jerry, lie where you like close in. You, Jacowe (to the leading police boy), you stick somewhere close to me. Tell other fella policeman walkabout along numberone master. Savvy!”

“Savvy too much, .master.” In thirty seconds the clearing was

deserted, utterly still under the sun. The native scouts and the first Japanese came into the clearing. They halted and called questions back . . . another dozen arrived. Another. The ruined orchard was swarming with small, green-clad figures. Down in the bamboo clump, the tall man waited very patiently and watchfully. Then he slid his tommy-gun forward, dropped it, slipped the catch, squinted, grinned—squeezed ever so lightly. A flat stutter ripped out and thundered back from the soundingboard of jungle tree-tops.

The first spatter of lead split a party of four or five Japanese standing together. Two went down, squealing.

Before the* rest could even drop into the grass for cover the other two tommy-guns from the cedar grove opened up, and .30’3 service rifles began to crack.

It was perhaps 20 seconds before the Japanese recovered from the surprise and began to fire. But then it was apparent that no considerable force opposed them, they recovered from the first moment of panic, took cover in the undergrowth, and began to locate systematically the points from which the Australian fire was coming.

But that 20i seconds of panic and confusion had cost them 10 dead and six to 10 wounded.

The rest of the force then began to break up the ambush, point by point. The Japanese method hardly ever varies in dealing with inferior forces in concealed positions. Having taken cover, they wriggle out fanwise through the undergrowth, searching the target area methodically and monotonously with a moving arc of submachine gun fire.,

The Australian patrol made no effort to stand, once the Japanese rallied. Every man moved rapidly and quietly away, invisibly behind a muffling green screen of foliage and inaudible in the echoing thunder of fire. Those who were, actually behind the enemy simply found themselves convenient hiding places—in tree forks, under logs, in particularly dense thickets —where they settled down patiently to await the enemy’s withdrawal.

For more than an hour, the Japanese continued their systematic scouring, arid surrounded one position after another only to find the quarry escaped.

Then they improvised litters for the dead and wounded, and made off down the path in the direction from which they had come.

■Six pairs of eyes watched them sardonically through leafy peepholes, and six pairs of jaws munched steadily on bully beef and mouldy biscuits. Until sunset, the Australians forebore to move. Firstly, there was no need to move, the job for the day being done. Secondly, the Japanese might have tried a double ambush and left snipers.

When darkness came, the tall man rose, straightened out his cramped limbs, and scratched himself thoughtfully, listened: whistled, gathered his men and began walking, feeling for roots in the dark with a sensitive boot toe.

It was no use looking for equipment abandoned by the Japs now, he thought. Besides, another patrol would be going through in the morning.