Guadalcanal; Transit Flight; Fighting lady; Withdrawal to Olympus.

AE2 in Sea of Marmora by Charles Bryant

GUADALCANAL

"To any U.S. Man o' War - Urgent-from J. E. R. Bougainville x Forty twin-engined planes passing Bougainville heading Tulagi area - 0940." 

The signal staff sensed something in my attitude, and they crowded round. The comments were varied, ranging from bitter invective to fierce and mighty oaths. The messenger rushed the pink slip to the compass platform; word spread like wild-fire around the ship and almost as soon as the captain put the news through the loudspeakers the ship's company knew of the impending attack. From the flagship the bunting ran up-

"Convoy prepare to repel enemy aircraft. The convoy will get under way immediately." 

Within a quarter of an hour the entire convoy had weighed and commenced to steam slowly up and down midway between Tulagi and Guadalcanal, waiting, tense and watchful, hearts beating a little quicker, nerves keyed up to breaking-point. Forty planes were a large force in 1942.

Bougainville was two hundred miles away approximately, roughly an hour and a half flying-time for the enemy force. Overhead our rather inadequate covering fighter patrol, of Grumman Martlets circled lazily in the sky. We searched anxiously for reinforcements. Perhaps the other flights had gone out to intercept, and we wished them luck! The recollection of the terrible drubbing we had received in the Java Sea when our fighter protection had been negligible only served to lengthen the already long faces. 

In the meantime we did what we could to ensure the impending arrivals a warm welcome. The next hour was sheer agony while lookouts strained their eyes through powerful Barr and Strouds - the period of waiting before an air-raid, especially when the approaching force is strong, is indescribable. The assembly of grey ships slid silently through the water, altering course every ten to twelve minutes, A.A. guns pointing skywards, tin-hatted sailors waiting, watching.

Time dragged on and we were beginning to feel a little encouraged by the lengthy interval when a burst of gun-fire from the most advanced cruiser drew everyone's attention. Battle was on! Torpedo bombers! Dozens of 'em!-sweeping in to launch their 800 lb. of T.N.T.! Flying very low, very fast and with their cannon spewing long wicked bursts, they presented a disturbing sight.

Bedlam followed as the Navy went into action. Every weapon capable of discharging a projectile, from 8-inch guns to -303 Lewis, disgorged all manner of flame, shot and smoke, and then the long sleek planes were amongst us, a thousand pounds of death within each belly. Exultant yells from the compass platform: "One down! . . . No. Two . . . three . . . Hooray!" Our gunners opened up. The ship shook and jumped so that it was difficult to determine whether we had collected a tin-fish or not.

Three hundred yards on our port side we saw two planes racing six feet above the water between us and the U.S. cruiser Vincennes. The foremost burst into flames as an assortment of tracers, shrapnel and hot lead connected. It crumpled into the water and sank in a cloud of steam and black smoke. Our skipper was out for blood, and under his instruction the main 6-inch armament flamed into action. There were planes in every direction and the mustard-coloured smoke of high explosive from our guns added to the general blur of gun smoke, burning planes, and exploding bombs.

The range was horribly close for 6-inch, but it was much closer for the unfortunate pilot whose machine collected the major portion of our second salvo. All that remained of him visibly was his tail-fin projecting from the water. It was no exaggeration to say that visibility was reduced forty per cent by the smoke, both from gun-fire and from the burning transport Elliot upon which a frustrated Japanese had crashed his plane when his torpedo failed to hit. Three stragglers made a belated arrival and weaved in and out of the convoy in a desperate attempt to do some damage and get away with it.

Their welcome was decidedly warm. They separated, and the foremost came within range of our point-fives. The clatter was terrific. Two batteries of point-fives, two batteries of multiple pompoms, and odds and ends of automatic weapons added to the steady, devastating fire of our 4-inch. The drone of plane motors and the thud of bursting shells killed all sense of fear, creating a ferment of excitement that drew one from shelter to watch this grim duel. It was obvious that he had been hit, and he began to settle. Have you watched the last furlong of a horse race and been mentally astride the favourite's back? 

Every man who was not actively engaged rode that plane. We chanted together as he glided nearer to the water: "Get down you bastard . . . Get down you bastard ... You bloody beaut!" this, as with a sickening lurch, the plane toppled end over end into the drink. His two companions had better luck temporarily. Both of them miraculously avoided being hit. One, however, was pounced on by our fighters outside the "arena" as it were, and was shot down in flames over the jungle. Our fighters had little hand in the show beyond that they were 10,000 feet up warding off high-level bombers. An unlucky Grumman collected from somewhere and we were treated to the rather chilling spectacle of a fighter plane diving straight as a die from 10,000 feet to the water.

The next quarter of an hour was spent assessing the damage. Generally, the force had suffered slightly-one ship hit by a plane and set dangerously afire. We had two casualties. The after starboard Oerlikon gunner had his overalls blown off by the blast of our Y turret and one of the upper-deck party dropped a box of ammunition on his arm, breaking it! On the credit side we counted at least ten shattered torpedo bombers scattered about the bay in various stages of dismemberment - at least two had met their doom at the hands of our fighters, and we felt sure that many more would fail to reach their base. At a rough estimate it was thought that the low-level force had numbered between twenty-five and thirty planes. 

The composition of the high level force was not assessed, nor were we able to ascertain whether it contained fighters as well. However, the entire force had numbered nearly fifty planes. They had lost thirty per cent of this number at the hands of naval gunners, a very excellent performance in the light of previous air-sea encounters. Their torpedo bombing tactics badly needed revising. The Coral Sea affair was the same. Out of eleven torpedo planes which attacked the detached force under Admiral Crutchley, six were destroyed and the damage suffered by our force was nil, although planes succeeded in dropping their torpedoes.

With the first major retaliatory action by the Japanese in the Guadalcanal area successfully withstood, Admiral Ghormley was naturally a very happy man and his spirits were reflected in the brief but all embracing signal, addressed to the company, which flew from his flagship-

"Well done." 

Tulagi and Guadalcanal were in our hands and the events of the day were touched off by the final signal of the Commanding Officer of the landing operations-

"Guadalcanal is ours; we have no prisoners! "

P. BURING, R.A.N.

"What's the vinegar situation , Chief ?"

TRANSIT FLIGHT

Hours passed, then at last the dawn. But no rosy dawn this-instead a gradual lightening, until through breaks in the low cloud the dull grey-white mottled Atlantic appeared. Not a cheering sight.

The crew began scanning through the murk for the convoy, but it was still too dark to see very far. A square search was begun, and suddenly it happened! A U-boat appeared on the surface half a mile away on the port bow and crash-dived with a swirl of water. The gunners blazed away but the U-boat had the advantage-guns were of no use. What was wanted was a stick of depth charges laid across the swirl. But there, hanging under the wings, mocking the crew, were the two 45o-lb. depth charge containers, full of squadron kit! 

As lethal to the U-boat as a couple of down cushions! Q circled around for some time but nothing further was seen of the U-boat. However, not very far away in the growing light we saw a corvette, and by Aldis lamp he reported Q's discovery. As if a flight to Gibraltar was not a big enough thrill in itself to the new second pilot, he also saw a sub on his first operational trip.

Yet one unlucky flying-boat captain flew almost 2,000 hours-three months in the air without seeing an undersea raider. Another found and attacked two in a week. That was the luck of the Battle of the Atlantic.

Someone who has seen many convoys in the early dawn has described the scene in these words: "The ships in their neat formation have a sort of waking-up appearance to them -rather like the feel of some tiny little village you come across at dawn, having driven along darkened roads all night. You have the feeling that the convoy is stretching itself-shaking its shoulders and preparing, for another day." That's what ours looked like when we met up with it in the early sunlight and commenced to patrol.

As Q flew some ten miles behind the convoy, we saw a small vessel plodding along. What was she doing? Was she friend or foe?

We informed the senior naval officer and he despatched a corvette to investigate; it turned out to be just a straggler, for later both the small vessel and the corvette rejoined the convoy.

Q stayed with the convoy until 1030 hours and then set course for Gibraltar. At 1745 hours we sighted Cape St Vincent - our first view of Spain. The weather had cleared by now and we were flying along in a cloud-less blue sky. The country behind Cape St Vincent looked very brown and bare. We left the coastline and after an hour sighted Cape Trafalgar. The coast of Africa came into view and we were soon able to see Tangier off the starboard bow-through binoculars it looked a most attractive place with the setting sun gleaming on the white buildings. And at last we saw the famous Rock. We continually flashed the recognition signal by Aldis lamp, and for good measure fired off a couple of Very cartridges to make sure we were identified as a friendly aircraft. 

Our landing was very bouncy for, as we later discovered, quite a swell was running though it was not visible from the air. We were led into the harbour by a R.A.F. pinnace-quite a procedure this for the boom gates had to be opened-and at last we were moored up, some twenty and a half hours after taking off from Pembroke Dock.

(You'll have to stay locked up in that tunnel compartment while we're at Gib. - that's if you want to come along for the rest of the trip. It's a little cramped, but you'll survive. However, we'll tell you all about the place.)

First of all, that beer in the mess was like nectar. Despite our weariness, we wandered around the town for some time - there was no blackout, and this was a welcome change after England. And to see the lights of Algeciras twinkling across the bay reminded us very much of night scenes on Sydney Harbour. However, our sight-seeing was cut short as there was a curfew on the Rock and all were supposed to be off the streets by 2300 hours.

Minor unserviceability prevented our departure for a couple of days and thus enabled us to have a look around this Eighth Wonder of the World. Gibraltar stands as one of the most gigantic mining feats in the world's history and certainly the greatest in the last century. In 1942 it was true to say that the Rock was a fortress as impregnable as man's ingenuity could make it. The whole of the honeycomb of tunnels-scores of miles of them -had been completed and it could house a tremendous force against a siege lasting years. (Whether all this applies in the present atomic age is not our problem.)

Imagine, if you can, five-storeyed hospitals, complete down to the last bandage, built deep into the heart of a mountain, with almost a quarter of a mile of solid rock above. Then think of two-way motor roads, brilliantly lit by day or night, with traffic signs to direct the vehicles; of great power plants for supplying constant lighting, heating and all electric power; in fact think of everything your own town or city has-and try and picture all that city dug into a mountain 1,300 feet high and a mile across. Then you will be picturing Gibraltar. Food supplies sufficient for many divisions of troops were there. So much ammunition was stored that it was doubtful if all of it could be used. Fresh water is there in abundance, together with purifiers. And of course guns of every size point their grim muzzles from the countless openings in the Rock face. A never-to-be-forgotten spectacle.

Eventually, at 1400 hours on ig June, we took off in perfect weather from Gib for Alexandria and settled down for a long flight. An hour and a half later we came across two hospital ships sailing eastwards in line astern. A grand sight they looked, those white ships, set in the calm blue Mediterranean Sea. They had left Gibraltar that morning, repatriating Italian prisoners.

We flew very slowly, doing only about eighty-five knots, for we did not want to get too near Malta before nightfall as it was at the period of the war when that famous island was being bombed incessantly. We passed it about thirty miles to port but all was quiet. One of the squadron aircraft, we heard later, had passed by while an air-raid was in progress and had a grandstand view of the whole affair.

Something went wrong with the navigation during the night for when dawn came we made a landfall at Sidi Barrani, which was much farther west than proposed. However. it turned out to be a fortunate mistake for we were treated to an hour and a half's bird's-eye view of the desert army. There were literally thousands of transport vehicles. We could not fly for five miles without seeing them. Bug Bug and Mersa Matruh fell away under the wings. The desert looked very forbidding, brown and bare and, surprisingly, somewhat hilly in parts. We felt, as we were to feel many times later in the war, a great respect for the men whose job it was to do their fighting in such unpleasant places. And a pretty general Air Force sentiment that was too, we also discovered.

Following our briefing instructions we cut inland and flew five miles south of the railway line from Daba Station and Burgh el Arab. We passed numerous aerodromes in the desert, the exact location of many being given away by great plumes of dust rising from aircraft taking off or landing. Approaching the end of this leg of the flight we crossed the fertile Nile Delta. The dividing line between the fields (which seemed as green as those of England) and the desert was so sharp that one would swear it had been cut with a knife.

Aboukir Bay, some seventeen miles from Alexandria, was our landing area. And so ashore and to bed, for we were more than ready for some sleep. First impressions? why, the foul smell and filth of the local village near the hotel which served for a mess.

We were chased out of Alexandria by an invasion scare and flew down the Nile past Cairo to Wadi Halfa. Then on to Khartoum, Kisumu on Lake Victoria, and finally to Mombasa.

Sorry to have to offload you here.

Hope you enjoyed the trip despite that dreadful Catalina tunnel compartment.

"MIGHT AND MAIN", R.A.A.F.

FIGHTING LADY (Owen Machine Carbine, OMC, Owen Gun)

Evelyn Owen died on I April '49 in the Wollongong District Hospital after a short illness. He was thirty-five years of age.

W. ETHERIDGE, SECOND A.I.F.

WITHDRAWAL TO OLYMPUS

Mountains rose behind the chosen line. 

All weapons and ammunition had to be carried by the men, as well as a reduced quantity of food and blankets. The country was mountainous and a great part of the march was carried out in bitterly cold weather with snow on the upper levels. The distances covered were from fifty to seventy miles. Although there was no pressure by the enemy this movement must rank high as a feat of disciplined endurance.

The picture opposite shows men of the brigade moving along the mountain tracks. It is based on sketches made on the spot by the artist when he visited Greece in March-April '45, to traverse again, at the same time of the year, the routes by which the Australians had fallen back four years before from the passes in the north to the embarkation beaches in the south, and to make pictorial records for the Australian War Memorial.

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