BEHIND JAPANESE LINES

Camp News, Volume 4, Issue 158, 22 January 1943, Page 3

BEHIND JAPANESE LINES

Scouting In Solomons A.I.F. COLONEL TELLS HIS EXPERIENCES “The Japanese have, made the bush their friend in many ways; blit they are lacking in true bush sense. The average Australian or American bushman can lick theih kite high. Papua and the. Solomons have proved that.” These are the .words of a New Zea-land-born colonel of commandos of the Australian Imperial Force, recently attached to the United States Army forces on Guadalcanal Island and now in New Zealand recuperating from an attack of blackwater fever. The colonel actually visited Guadalcanal before the United States Marines landed there, and is therefore well acquainted with the-area and. with the jungle conditions in which he has been operating. He has been leading parties into the Japanese back areas, forming estimates of numerical concentrations, marking down the positions in which the concentrations hire sited, locating gun positions,. searching out supply dumps, and finding.out the enemy food position. ■ \ The parties • normally consist of the colonel, an American officer, and three or four- native Solomon islanders. The latter are either ex-policemen, boys, or guides, and ’are intensely loyal to the Allies and . fanatically Japanese. The colonel, says that many Japanese have been wiped out by the island natives. He is personally acquainted with the native police sergeant whose gallantry was recognized in the recent New Year’s Honours List. . ’ Warning of Attacks. Not the least important duty of the scouting parties was to ascertain if the enemy was preparing to attack, and, if so, to discover the direction and objective of the attack. Warning carried back to our lines would then permit the necessary dispositions to be made, to counter the enemy moves.

It takes time to train a city dweller to bushcraft, the colonel says, but ,the natural bushman knows how to keep his eyes open and what to look for. He can detect the Jap. every time. "The Japs use the trees, and know which they can cut down for food. They know which fruit is safe to eat and which vines to cut to get water. They know enough to keep off the jungle tracks, but when they get off them leave so much sign that it is easy to see where they have passed. They are good with their fires. Whenever they light one there are always three or four men to wave branches over and disperse the smoke so that it filters imperceptibly upward through the trees. Their camouflage is very good, and it is very easy for anyone not sufficiently vigilant to walk right up to one of them and not know he is there. And they are very treacherous, too.

“I would not say the fanatical charac ter is universal among them,” the colonel said. “Certain of them are fanatical by instinct, and the others feel ashamed not to follow their example. They have a one-track mind. They formulate a plan and try to force it through irrespective of what modification of the expected circumstances may arise. This has proved very costly to them in some of their enterprises.” “The Japanese owe a good deal to their use of smokeless powder,” the colonel continued. “They are not good shots and

for that reason hold their fire till their target comes close. . Their mortar work is very good and accurate at longer range. This is probably due to the knee-high type of weapon, which has no sights. -T'ney find their target, and being very used to, and accurate in, estimating range, know just what angle of elevation at which to fire them. “Their gunpits are very well camouflaged, but fortunately they do not have very much artillery on Guadalcanal. The artillery fire is very erratic and does not compare with- ours. Some of the guns which at one time shelled Henderson airfield were set in caves. .. "They keep very poor local security behind their lines. I don’t know whether it is that they are so confident that we cannot get among them. Their positions now are mainly in the hills and valleys of the high country, and their observation posts are very efficient. In my type of work, however, they are very clumsy. "When I came away from Guadalcanal the enemy were getting in a bad way for supplies. Some were being dropped by parachute to them, and they were attempting to float barrels of rice ashore. As to the numerical strength remaining to them there, I would say that war correspondents’ estimates I have seen recently are very much too high. Japanese Diaries. "Practically every Japanese soldier keeps a diary,” the colonel stated, “and quite a number of them in English. Il would astound you how much those Japs know about us. I personally don’t think there is much they don’t know.” The colonel’s description of his experiences when on scouting expeditions behind the enemy lines makes it clear that it is a hazardous and arduous job. The scouts cannot smoke for fear ol revealing their positions. 'Most of the movement is carried through at night, and they have some very close calls. If combat does occur, firearms are only used in the greatest extremity, for the noise reveals position and entails the transference of activity to another area. Knives are relied on as far as possible, and the life and death struggles kept silent. “I have had one or two close calls myself," the colonel says. “I have been within a yard of a Japanese sentry and managed to escape observation by lying absolutely motionless close to the ground. “We take canned rations into the jungle with us, and pick , up what native foods we can. This is also supplemented with natural foods from the bush. "During the last stunt I was on before coming away from the island we managed to sort out ,the positions occupied by more than 1500 of the enemy, and they were later dealt with from the air.” The colonel has been away from New Zealand about 20 years. He was born in Waihi and attended Napier High School and Dannevirke High School before going to Australia. He is a mining engineer in civil life and has been in South America, Malaya, Borneo, New Guinea, Siam, Burma,, Japan, China and Africa while following his profession. He had just arrived, back in Australia from the West Coast of Africa when the war broke out and enlisted in the A.I.F. in Western Australia. He has a brother and sister in Wellington, and met them for the first time for 12 years a , week or so ago. The sister is a sergeant in the Women’s Auxiliary Army.; Corps. “As soon as I’m fit again I’m going back into it,” he says.