Down
the years the Navy has been given some peculiar assignments and apparently
owing to the fact that they have been able to cope with them, the principle has been established that, if a situation is very difficult, it is handed over to the Navy. A distinguished Admiral has stated that the difficult we do at once; the impossible takes a little longer. And that has been the situation at Milne
Bay where, amongst difficulties of climate and terrain, the almost impossible feat of turning a coconut grove into a well disciplined seaport has been achieved.
The story starts back in August 1942.
In August 1942, the Japanese, as a result of their success in New Britain and the northern coast of New Guinea, made a determined attempt to take Port Moresby. To do this they
picked the eastern end of the Kokoda Trail, which leads from Buna over the Owen Stanley Range to Port Moresby.
The story of the gallant defeat of the enemy the Allied armies and air forces is already
part of the history of Australia, and was the beginning of this story for a small party of
Australian naval officers and men who were called upon to set up shop at various small ports to control and escort the supplies required by the other forces.
Port Moresby had been established as a small commercial harbour in the days of peace, and was, therefore, the first port of
transshipment from the mainland. The high command decided that it would be necessary to use Milne Bay as the main
transshipment port for the ejection of the Japanese from the eastern coast and, in particular, the taking of Buna, Gona and Sanananda.
The Japanese, foreseeing this move, nearly beat us to it. The forward echelon of engineers had just completed an airstrip at Milne Bay when the Japanese decided on a sea-borne invasion of that port. At this stage the R.A.N. commenced to operate in Milne Bay. A lone
Beachmaster was landed from an Australian warship.
His early days were, to say the least of it, difficult. The northern shore of Milne Bay is approximately forty miles in length and the southern thirty miles. He had considerable difficulty in deciding which section of this beach he would be Master of. A division of Australian troops had arrived at about the same time,
and since Milne Bay produces very little except coconuts and mosquitoes, it was with some difficulty that he found a residence. His first office was with
an Australian brigade, and he was not amused by the arrival in the middle watch on the 26th August of four Japanese warships in the bay.
That night the Japanese landed from barges at Ahloma on the north shore, and proceeded to march towards their first objective-the airstrip. The Japanese ships pulled out at daylight, leaving behind their landing barges and a large dump of stores. The Army, assisted by a small but indomitable air force, proceeded to strafe them day and night.
On the 27th a further party of Japanese vessels arrived, accompanied by bombers and fighters, and the Beachmaster, as the sole representative of the R.A.N. ashore, was hard put to keep in touch with the situation and relay the requisite information to Naval Headquarters.
We were still running our own merchant ships into the bay, bringing supplies for the troops, and the handling of this shipping was complicated by the presence on most nights of Japanese warships.
And so the battle proceeded until on the 11th September the Japanese had been finally routed. Survivors were evacuated by Japanese warships, and stragglers were mopped up for many weeks to come.
During this period S.S. Anshun was sunk by gunfire at the wharf, but the hospital ship Manunda, which was anchored in the bay at the time with all lights burning, was not molested in any way.
So began the story of the Naval staff at Milne Bay.
With the defeat of the Japanese invasion force in this area the way was shown for turning a large stretch of water surrounded by coconuts into a major shipping port.
The Naval staff was increased and headquarters set up on the back veranda of the District Officer's cottage. Rations were short for the whole garrison, and every one lived on tinned food for many weeks.
The situation was helped out by the loan of sufficient New Guinea natives to build a hut in which to set up the business end of the Naval office. It is difficult to imagine how the organization would ever have got started without the assistance of these natives.'
Fortunately they are able to build houses without nails or any tools other than long knives; the frames of the house being made of poles with the cross members lashed
together with coconut fibre. The roof consists of bamboo leaves sewn together with the same fibre. The floors are made of split bamboos lashed together, and the sides of coconut matting.
The net result was a dry, cool dwelling, ideally suited to a climate with a heavy rainfall, high humidity and an average temperature of about 85 degrees. Sanitation was on a "back-to-nature" plan, and cooking was carried out largely on open stone ovens.
Our next enemy to the Japanese was malaria, Milne Bay having the reputation of being one of the worst malarial areas in the world. This was quickly borne out by ninety per cent of the Naval staff going down with it. It was impossible to evacuate these people, or even put them into hospital, except in very severe cases, owing to the tremendous pressure of work. Ships of all sorts and descriptions were arriving almost hourly and had to be piloted, routed and escorted in waters which were almost totally uncharted. Wharves and suitable anchorages were hard to find, and the staff worked an average of about eighteen hours a day.
Since there was nothing in Milne Bay except coconuts, and no comer store to go down to and buy odds and ends, it was necessary to make improvisations for everything. The greatest difficulty at first was light. Cyphering by hurricane lamp on furniture made out of
packing cases with a malarial headache and surrounded by mosquitoes, is not a very easy pastime. Outside, mud up to the ankles made the carrying of messages to and from the cypher office and wireless station an exhausting and messy procedure.
The Japanese naturally did their best with nuisance raids to make life even more difficult. Slit trenches were usually full of water, and of course at the first sign of aircraft all lights had to be extinguished. Actually, I think every one will remember those nights spent in the slit trenches as a humorous and, in retrospect, amusing episode. As there was completely nothing one could do about it, these nightly sessions became the scene of much anecdote and repartee. It was usually possible for someone surreptitiously to make a cup of tea to help pass the time. Easily the worst part was the mosquitoes, and the fact that it was even more difficult to face another eighteen hours' work with practically no sleep.
Milne Bay on the night of a full moon is a remarkably beautiful place, but in order to appreciate its attractions one requires a long chair behind a gauze screen with an ice box, a fan and a native boy to bring refreshments. Its beauty is sometimes hard to appreciate on tinned beef and hot chlorinated water.
From the start, a search was made for better quarters, and then there was a lucky break. The best house had naturally been taken over by the
General Officer commanding the troops, but owing to its conspicuousness, it was known as Target House, and as soon as better and more efficient
quarters could be found for the General, we made a strong bid for it. And so, one fine day, the White Ensign was hoisted o~-er a very picturesque rambling building some sixty years old sitting on the top of a hill. Although the garden was full of hibiscus,
Bougainvillea and many other tropic flowers, and there were many fruit trees inviting
consumption, the house was inhabited by white ants and rats.
When the Army moved out, they certainly moved. Furniture being at a premium, it was
obviously necessary for the General Staff to take every thing that could be moved, without house actually falling down. This was accomplished very thoroughly. This left the Navy in possession of a beautiful house as naked as a new-born child. It was a great deal better than a native hut in a swamp, but the question of furniture had to be solved at once.
Shipping space was at a premium, and the only things that were getting in were meagre rations and essential military stores. It was rumoured that in the outer islands there were old and deserted plantations, and so one day H.M.A.S. Fauro Chief-a small auxiliary ketch, used as Examination Vessel-set sail with twelve New Guinea boys to the eastward. Her homecoming was awaited with breathless anticipation by the staff. No shipwrecked mariner ever searched for a sail on the horizon so diligently as they. One fine day she came sailing up the bay and signalled for a motor truck, and in due course a
miscellaneous collection of tables and chairs, shelves and cups, cutlery and tools, was disgorged.
But the "piece de resistance" was a kerosene refrigerator. It was much the worse for wear and extremely heavy to handle. Finally it was installed in the house, and Both Watches for Exercise set about making it work. It had three burners which were finally persuaded to bum, and in triumph some jugs of water were placed inside to freeze. We waited patiently for about six hours. On opening the door it was found that the temperature had risen to nearly boiling point, and it would have made an excellent oven for cooking the lunch. At this stage an old New Guinea hand on the staff said this had happened before to him and after trying everything else he had cured it by standing it on its head. By clearing lower deck this evolution was achieved, and, lo, and behold, on returning to an upright position it worked! and has done ever since. [This information is passed on without charge to all other owners.]
In order to service the ships in harbour, it was necessary to have a boat, but there were no boats. A scouting party was despatched and eventually a hull was found. The arrival of one of H.M.A. ships in harbour gave us the wherewithal to do a little barter trade, and presently a Ford V8 engine was acquired and duly installed. Unfortunately, it was not possible to arrange for it to go astern, nor was there any crew. Once more, the natives came to the rescue, and the Noic, as she was christened, then appeared with a most fearsome crew, as the first tender to Milne Bay.
By this time it had become essential to establish a Port War Signal Station down the bay in China Straits. Up on a hill, overlooking North Foreland, a native hut was built and a pathway cut up through the bush. In here
were installed a yeoman and three signalmen and an Aldis lamp. They had a small wireless set to communicate with the Naval Staff Office. Owing to the fact that they were twenty-five miles to seaward of the rest of the garrison, their food supply was largely dependent upon their own ingenuity.
Shooting fish with rifles and blowing them up with hand grenades helped a lot, and a nearby native mission presented them with some chickens. Actually they fed better than the rest of the Naval staff, but theirs was a lonely and difficult life. They were outside the Fortress area, dependent upon themselves for protection, and in the event of Japanese war vessels proceeding up harbour, they were some eighteen miles to seaward of them and had to lie very low.
This was the easternmost part of the Milne Bay set up. It became presently essential to establish a transitional point farther up the coast. This was placed under the control of Commander Sinclair, D.S.O., R.N.R., who was responsible for pushing for-ward small ships with cargoes transhipped at Milne Bay. In a gallant endeavour to save one of these vessels, he was killed in an aircraft attack, and the Navy lost an invaluable officer.
The picture in the latter months of 1942 from the Naval point of view was that it was essential to press forward, against enemy air attack, the supplies for the Army operating against Buna. Such stores had to be carried from Milne Bay in small vessels through
almost uncharted waters. Their safe passage was in no small measure due to the
magnificent work of the Australian A.M.S. vessels. It was with the greatest pleasure that every one in Milne Bay welcomed the announcement
the Honours List of the award of the OBE to the Senior Naval Officer afloat commanding these vessels.
In waters encompassed with reefs under a sky commanded by the enemy, these small vessels not only escorted merchant ships but were used as troop carriers at critical periods. The freight was actually handled by small ships manned by Australians, and larger vessels of the Dutch Mercantile Marine. The highest praise is due to the officers and men of this fleet. They lived on tinned food; their ships were loaded down to the marks with personnel and freight; they were subject to bombing attack throughout their voyage, and during loading and unloading at their terminal ports. They suffered many casualties, and when the final history of the New Guinea campaign is written, the names of these men will rank high in the annals of the Mercantile Marine.
Particularly outstanding were the Dutch. Coming from a race who for five hundred years have been renowned as sailors, it was not to be expected otherwise, but it is still worthy of note, against incredible difficulties, they were always ready to sail on time and face the enemy with cheerfulness and efficiency.
Largely owing to the efforts of the Dutch, American and Australian small ships, it was possible to throw forward sufficient supplies to clear Papua of the enemy. Without this sea-borne support, the task of the Armies would have been infinitely harder.
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In and around all this traffic worked the Australian survey
ship - difficult work at any time.
The charting of the waters to be used for our offensive was made
infinitely more difficult by the attentions of the enemy in the area. |
It is not easy to "take a sight" while the
ship is being strafed, nor is it conducive to efficiency to be near-missed with fragments of shell passing through the chart room while one is endeavouring to put the day's work on paper.
In spite of these hazards, the work went on, and the little surveying ships turned up methodically in port for what little stores we could give them to take them back to their station. It was little we could do. Rations were short everywhere, and the surveying ships were not designed for long and arduous work in the tropics. Their task is still going on, and without this essential path-finding, it will be impossible to push forward against the enemy. Fortunately, thanks to our growing air strength, it is possible for them to work these days in comparative peace, but no praise is high enough for the courage and fortitude with which they faced a task without precedent in the history of the Australian Surveying Service.
The building up of Milne Bay did not escape the notice of the Japanese, and from time to time the public must have realized from press reports that the bay was not without interest to both sides.
There were many night and a few daylight raids, but the most determined effort to put the port out of action was made on the 14th April, 1943. The Japanese sent over about one hundred aircraft, whose objective was patently the harbour and shipping. It was a perfect day for acrobatics, and in the beauty of the battle of streamlined aircraft in a cloudless sky, it was hard to realize at the time that decisive issues were at stake.
The R.A.A.F. went into action in a head-on attack, and the sky was full of aircraft twisting and turning and sometimes burning. Long spirals of smoke traced the end of the enemy and huge columns of water in the bay showed the viciousness of his attack with large patterns of bombs. just as the air was full of aircraft
maneuvering for attack, so was the harbour of ships.
In the years to come, when Milne Bay is once more a copra plantation, it will be hard ,or a visitor to believe that there was a day
when this peaceful looking harbour was the scene of a spectacular trial of strength in the South-west Pacific.
| The results of that action were conclusive.
It was the final attempt of the enemy to break the back of New Guinea. From then on Milne Bay has been in the happy position of England after the Battle of Jutland. Irrespective of losses, the enemy has never returned in force.
To-day the United Nations are on the offensive, and New Guinea is the springboard for the assault on the Japanese strongholds in the South Pacific.
The days are gone when Australia feared invasion, and the growing flood of supplies from the United States is reaching its crest, which we all hope and believe will carry us on to victory.
This would not have been possible until a remote period if a small army of determined people had not held on to New Guinea. The actual fighting was done by the Army and the Air Force, but this was made possible by the forcing of supplies into Port Moresby and Milne Bay by the men who go down to
the sea in ships. |
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Port Moresby will always remain on the map as a commercial port, and those who read will always remember the gallant stand they made,
when the enemy was within twenty-five miles of their gates.
Milne Bay, however, has been only a means to an end, and in days to come it will again be a coconut grove, With the heavy rainfall and hot sun, the forest will soon reclaim the roads, the bridges and the camps. The sooner that day comes the nearer we will be to defeating the enemy, but those who watched and worked to convert the coconut grove into a major seaport will always remember with affection and pride those difficult days.
G. B., Commander, R.N. |
