Forbidden News; To the beach at dawn; Wadi Auda Blues; Dinghy adrift...

Near Jesselton, North Borneo by James Flett

FORBIDDEN NEWS

Furthermore, as a warning to all against radio activity, the Japanese, on unearthing a wireless set operated by the civilian internees during their incarceration in the gaol, had brutally murdered an innocent woman.

Nevertheless the problem of radio reception was solved by the prisoners in various ways. One set was concealed in the head of a stiff gardening broom, a second in the hollowed-out support of a makeshift shed, and the owner of a third, acting upon the principle that the most obvious is the least suspicious, simply hung his up on the wall in his kit-bag.

The broom set had an interesting history. It was operated every night for nine months in a hut where sixty men slept, without any of them ever being aware of its existence. Its owner simply leaned the broom, which was used every day to sweep out the hut, against the wall by his bed. Then, when the lights went out (which they always did most conveniently just as a B.B.C. session commenced) he inserted the current lead and aerial, used a stethoscope as earphone and, lying blissfully on his side so that the earphone was concealed, listened in. Next morning he would pass on his information to headquarters and then, when it was officially released that afternoon, would regularly be seen, eagerly and with an ingenuous air, drinking in the reader's every word. Changi operators were staggeringly thorough.

Yet another set was operated right in the heart of the gaol, underneath the boiler room. The boiler room provided the steam necessary to do all the cooking for five to six thousand men; it burnt tons of wood a day. Underneath the boiler room it was very hot indeed. Here three Australians and one Canadian had themselves locked in every night; and then, lying on their stomachs-there wasn't room for any other posture-with only a pin's point of light to assist them, they worked their set. The boiler room, like all the rest of the hide-outs inside the gaol, had this serious drawback there was no way out except the way they came in. To be discovered was to be captured; to be captured was to be shot. The wireless, nevertheless, continued to function.

It functioned until one disastrous night, a hot one but one which the roaring furnaces overhead now made unbearable. A stream of sweat, falling from the barely visible head of the man who leaned over it, dropped through the gloom into the heart of the set. The machine flared savagely, spat and then blew out. Their wireless was gone.

How to replace it - that was the problem. One might as well say replace the crown jewels of England; wirelesses in Changi in 1944 could not be replaced. That night, however, two dim figures slid into a drain which led out of the gaol underneath the outer wall, cut through with a hack-saw the iron bars which blocked it, and emerged into forbidden country.

Silently they made their way towards the barbed wire surrounding the camp, dropping motionless to the ground at the smallest sound, moving slowly but steadily. There was the wire. They moved swiftly: to be caught now would be fatal. Through the first apron, under the centre fence and "Christ, what's that?" came a gasp. Both men froze. There they stood, black shadowy figures trapped by the fence and the second apron of wire. 

Towards them, with bayoneted rifle held grimly and purposefully, came a guard. Trapped without a hope of escape, the words seemed to repeat themselves sickeningly as the Jap came straight towards them. Trapped, trapped, trapped, they said to themselves. Still he came, neared them and passed right on!

"My God," the syllables were scarcely breathed, "blind as a bat. Let's go." Like two ghosts they faded swiftly through the second apron out into the no-man's land which lay between the gaol and the aerodrome as the guard, singing quietly to himself the sugary refrain of "Ramona", proceeded steadily on his beat.

They walked swiftly now through the bush, across the wreckage of what had once been the camp's most profitable vegetable garden (taken away without warning or explanation just as it reached its prime) and then, crossing a road, entered the aerodrome. Changi Gaol lay miles behind them. Without faltering they made their way down the landing strips and towards the Japanese barracks. These gained, they had arrived at the most difficult part of their task. However, they did not hesitate. 

Easily eluding sentries they marched boldly into the buildings, walked straight past long rooms full of sleeping Japanese, and walked quietly up the corridors towards the storeroom. There was not a second to be lost; this was the door and, with a muffled curse, the leading figure announced that the door was locked. This was a nuisance because it meant delay, but it caused the visitors no panic. Methodically and silently they unscrewed the hinges of the door and, lifting it out of its place, leaned it against the wall. Both men vanished inside.

They worked confidently according to a long prepared and carefully rehearsed plan. Each knew what he had to get and in a matter of seconds there lay in the sugar bag they carried with them two wireless sets, one hundred odd valves and innumerable spare parts. They were ready to leave: nothing remained to be done except to cover their tracks when, without a second's warning, the sound of footsteps hit their ears. With desperate speed they seized the door and replaced it. There was no time for escape, they must wait inside the store and hope for the best.

It seemed impossible that the approaching sentry could have failed to see their movement and, leaning against the door, they waited now in desperate anxiety. The footsteps came closer and closer, then halted: next second there was a mutter from the passage-way outside and the door shook slightly as the guard gave it a tentative prod with his rifle butt. This was followed by a more determined shove with his shoulder. The two men inside returned the pressure with enthusiasm and the door remained firm. An animal grunt of extreme Japanese displeasure next greeted their straining ears and then, blessed sound, the crunch of retreating boots. Now was their chance - out and home.

But it was at this point that they were to show their greatest courage and resource. To leave the door as it was, unhinged and leaning against the wall, was to leave unmistakable evidence of their presence and of their theft. Therefore, in spite of the fact that it was obvious that the guard who had just left them had gone for help, they calmly dropped their bag, replaced the door and screwed it up again! Then, with a last look round to see that all was as it had been when they arrived, they returned down the corridors past the sleeping Japs and out into the concealing blanket of the night.

Theirs had been a desperate venture: to have been captured at any time would have meant certain execution. It meant that they would not even have had the assistance of our own headquarters, because if it acknowledged any complicity in their action it would inevitably bring upon the whole camp the most savage of repercussions. Therefore, without hope of reward if they succeeded, or sympathy if they failed, they were alone in the world. Alone and two miles away from the gaol, with wire and sentries between them and it.

They made their way quickly through the last patch of scrub and prepared for a final rush which would take them through the wire. But not ten yards had they advanced before that most terrifying of all sounds-the smack of a rifle bolt being shot home-told them all too clearly that they had been seen. The last stage, after all, was to be the most difficult.

Crouching low they ran and reached the wire; wire which seemed to be possessed of seventeen thousand devils, all of them Japanese. It clung passionately to their clothes, bit into their legs and arms with all the venom of an adder, clawed greedily at their bag and its precious contents and then suddenly grew vibrant with hisses and angry flashes-the guards were firing. Under this fusillade the two men worked desperately but systematically; each held up strands of wire for the other; the bag was passed to and fro, they moved on, inch by inch. Another few feet, one foot more, one more layer of wire, and at last, miraculously, they were through. Dashing across the vegetable garden they rounded the corner of the gaol wall to reach at last safety from those vicious bullets.

But they must move fast. An alarm might bee raised at any moment and, when it was, they must be in their beds. And so up the drain they crawled and under the walls. They were back and once again the men inside Changi Gaol had their wireless.

With the two sets thus recklessly acquired and all their spare parts the small band, now four Australians and a Canadian, quickly built themselves a magnificent set. Gone were the days of earphones made out of stethoscopes and bits stolen out of Japanese trucks and even General Saito's telephone. The time was past when they were compelled to magnetize their own steel and improvise their own parts. Now they had a radio which would pick up not only all the major stations of England, Europe, India, America and Australia, but even a local mission station in South America magniloquently named "The Voice of the Andes". The day of the complete and minutely detailed news screed had come: had come to stay.

Prisoners of war in Changi now became a unique type of "listener-in". Being in constant receipt of Japanese propaganda as well as their own news they developed a nicely balanced sense of cynicism which enabled 'them very accurately to discriminate between the truth and the propaganda content of allied communiqués. Realizing that the end of the Japanese war depended ultimately upon the end of the European war they followed the progress of the latter village by village from Novorossisk on the one side, and Bordeaux on the other, to Berlin. And finally, valuing accuracy above all else, the majority of them became extremely accurate raconteurs of the news. It was nothing in the last days to hear a man informing a group of attentive listeners that there were five items from Poland, four from France, one from London, two from Washing-ton, one from India, four from Australia and thirteen from the Pacific, plus an additional eleven miscellaneous odds and ends, and then reel them off, exact to the last detail.

Australians, moreover, were accustomed and expected to know which reading any new bill had reached in the House just as much as what offensives had commenced in Europe or how plane production had increased in America. It will be a very well-informed community indeed which, man for man, can, in a test of general information as to world affairs from 1942 to 1945, compete with the prisoners of war from Malaya.

News at this time was received at all hours of the night and was passed on in typewritten screeds to all parts of the camp the following morning. These screeds were read, memorized and quickly handed on. In this way the camp knew at all times, within a few hours of its happening, the exact details of any important event. 

From the days when Lieutenant Takahashi had been pleased to tell his camp that Australians and Americans were starving and that the war would last for twenty years, Changi had passed to a period which was to culminate in their receipt of the Japanese Emperor's decision to surrender six minutes after it was broadcast to the world.

At that time, and for many months before, whenever anyone asked, "What's the weather?" he expected the lot - and got it.

But the boiler room was too hot. It was too hot both literally and metaphorically. Literally the men who operated under it were losing weight and becoming nervy because of the impossible temperature. They had had several extremely narrow escapes from detection in the very recent past. They decided, therefore, firstly that they would work elsewhere, and secondly that they would replace the officially-provided protection squad with a privately organized and highly efficient "cockatoo" system of their own.

Having made their decision they acted upon it swiftly. Without further ado they moved their set, their gear, their beds and themselves into an old abandoned tool shed constructed since their arrival in the gaol for the accommodation of bore-hole digging equipment. This shed had a roof which leaked badly and was supported by four posts. They plugged up the holes in the roof and removed one of the posts: this post was to be the new home of their wireless. 

Laboriously they hollowed it out and inserted their set. Holes were made through the shell of wood into the cavity through which control knobs and wiring could be connected to the set; and these holes were themselves concealed during the day by two nails and a spike which were driven into them. From outside the post seemed merely to be nailed to a support, whilst from the spike there hung a hat. As a hiding place it was effective and safe.

The "cockatoos" were well trained. Whenever the set was functioning they were at their posts. One stood at the main gate and passed word of any Japs approaching the gaol to another fifty yards away at the entrance of a corridor. This corridor led down past the cookhouse and at the bottom of it was an electric light switch controlling the current in that particular area. By this switch stood a third "cockatoo" who, on the sign from his colleague at the entrance, flicked off and on the switch, thereby cutting off the current from the set for a second or two and those listening in at once knew that Japanese were in the area. Everything was quickly hidden and to hostile eyes the entire camp appeared to sleep.

In this way they made themselves completely safe; but they nevertheless adopted two further precautions. First of all they appointed a fourth "cockatoo" in their own courtyard and he, in the event of a surprise raid of which no warning had been received, was simply to start a fight to delay the Japs, if necessary with the Japs themselves. The second was to make their set as portable as possible so that, if their own area became the centre of too much attention, they could easily move it.

This precaution was fortunate because the Japanese demand for all timber in the camp for use in tunnels seemed to threaten the existence of their own particular "post". Consequently they sought another hiding place and eventually found it outside their shed. Here a hole was dug four feet deep and a sack full of dirt (three feet long) and the same shape as the hole was prepared. The remaining foot was taken up by a waterproof, rubber-lined, steel case some eleven inches high and one inch of dirt and gravel spread over the top. 

A drill was evolved for the five men. They could dismantle the set, put it in its waterproof case, drop the case in the hole, place the dirt-filled sack on top of the case and cover the lot with its layer of camouflage in two minutes from the time of the alarm being given at the main gaol gate. Since the walk from the gate to their shed took almost twice as long as that they felt themselves, at last, reasonably safe.

Two more moves, however, were to take place. Driven almost frantic by false alarms and nervous strain, the small band of men felt that they must move elsewhere. The Japanese were extremely active and persistent, the more so as the news improved; yet the demand for news from the entire camp was more insistent than ever. They resorted finally to an old cellar underneath the gaol four hundred yards from the main gate. 

Here, working in a corner behind a rubbish heap of old boxes and back cloths, relics of the now idle Playhouse, they worked every night, crouching over their set barely visible in the gloom-only a finger nail here, a lock of hair there, catching a stray gleam of light from the valves or the pin's point of light as they listened. Listened and passed on what they heard and listened again, always half-expecting the sudden harsh bellow of an invading patrol of Japanese, never wholly at ease.

Listened until one night they heard that the war was over and, after a moment's stupefied delight, realized that the news which they had obtained for so long at the risk of their lives was now theirs for the asking.

"EIGHTH DIVVY"

TO THE BEACH AT DAWN

We kept above the clouds as much as possible, so as to get them as they came up wiping the mist out of their slit eyes, but that couldn't go on for ever - they nearly got us one day in a dry watercourse and, although we slipped away, we knew that when finally they got us cornered somewhere, with our backs to the sea, we wouldn't be able to bash our way through a couple of hundred miles of ocean the way we did through the cactus that day.

It was stinking hot in the watercourse, and its sides jumped and wavered in the silky ripples of heat shimmering into the air from the baking stones along it. God only knows how long it was since water had run there now it just stretched back between the bunched shoulders of the hills in glaring bands of sand and dirty green cactus, with a few stunted trees and occasional boulders, floaters from the slopes that reared away from its sides until they sort of melted into the sky.

We were patrolling along it, twelve of us, a big patrol too, when the usual was only four or five. And what a scarecrow crew, hard brown skins and matted beards, knees and elbows like an old goat's, remnants of clothes, remnants of boots, remnants of men almost, each hugging a Tommy gun or a rifle that fitted into his body like some curious third limb. Men reduced to the barest fundamentals of living, for time was nothing but the difference between day and night, and life was only the difference between the stench of live sweat and decay; the only experience was patrol or not-patrol, the only thoughts those of an animal, of food and survival, the only instinct for safety or for danger . . . Mechanically we altered our formation into line and swung around a few yards apart. Gordon had signalled it from up front. Something doing-Japs, of course.

Slowly, systematically, by bribing the natives and intimidating the Portuguese, by cutting us off here and bottling us up there, they got on to everything. Once we had the whole of the south of the island practically to ourselves; soon there'd be nowhere for us to go....

They were coming down the watercourse towards us, flat brown faces rippling strangely behind the heat-waves, three abreast and nicely bunched. They just never learned, and it was pretty the way they toppled when Gordon opened on them with the Bren, just like swaths of long grass before a scythe. You know the curious swishing sigh cut grass makes when it falls? You could almost hear that as they folded up and sank on to the hot sand.

A little kuda burst from amongst them with a light mountain gun strapped to his back. They were really something those little ponies, Shetland size, lion heart and Percheron strength, proud, cobby little stallions and mares; they never gelded a horse in Timor - with one of those fiery little brutes it would have been like hacking the wings off a wedge-tailed eagle.  He bounded away over the stones, and every gun in the patrol spat at him-why, we'd never know. He moves, he lives, he's running away, he's enemy.

While we were peppering him the Japs put in with their little mortars, so we made off up the watercourse, every man for himself - that's the way it had to be. Run, stumble, stop. No salt in the sweat that dripped into our eyes and across our panting lips - no sweat much, we're wrung dry like kippers. Hot

loose sand underfoot and around us, thickening into a forest almost, the giant cactus, eight feet high, tough as leather, spines like darning needles, hard, sharp, three inches long.

They drove us up that gully like a mob of brumbies, those damned yellow-bellies, riding hard on us with their spitting little mortars -that filled our tails with chips every time we stopped for a breath. Owen went down, shot through the head, but no one stopped; we just kept on running, dodging, hazing from clump to clump of the cactus, always with the thin crump, of the mortars just behind us to keep us on the move. And in the end a corral hedged in on every side by a wall of spiked green.

"Where do we go from here?" Bagga panted, standing there in his ragged shirt and shorts and the shreds of his boots, his chest heaving and his teeth bared. As he spoke his eyes flickered around the trap, looking for some way out, but he spoke casually enough, as though he was asking the way to a pub.

"Through the cactus!" Gordon grunted grimly. The nagging little mortars started to seek us out again so he just dashed into that wall of spines and we followed, in all directions. Like a fox will gnaw off its own leg to get out of a trap.

We all met up again some days later. Most of us looked like porcupines, with spikes sticking out at all angles, although poor old Gordon's were the worst; he fell backwards into a clump and he could hardly walk. We got him down, one on his head, two on his arms and two on his legs and cut them out with a katana. Two inches in we had to go for some of them, and God only knows what the Japs thought was going on in the hills that day, the way he bellowed and blasphemed - not that he wasn't entitled to either. When we finished with him Chesty, who had been sitting on his head, looked down at that lacerated tail and grinned.

"You'll have to keep that covered when you get home, boss! No sun-baking In the nuddy for you, out French's Forest !"

And no sun-baking, I thought, nor anything, for the blokes we've left in Dilli, and on the Saddle, and on the mountains and in the swamps; nor for Owen, lying in the glaring sand of the watercourse with a hole in his forehead.

Always we were thinking of home. One day we'd get the signal. They could only take us off by boat of some sort, and it would be during darkness, around about dawn to get the tide. From all over the island, from Mananui and Aileu and Fatu Maquerec, from the hills and the jungles and the swamps, we'd converge in fours and fives until we were a Company again, and we'd go down to the beach at dawn....

* * * * *

For five hours at the fag-end of a three day forced march they bashed their way across the coastal swamps in the stinking dark, neck-deep in water and amongst crocodiles thick as fleas on a bandicoot, loaded down with gear and hampered by the Portuguese women and children who, God knows how, made the trip with them to get away from the Japanese. For now the 2/2 Independent Company was going home.

They lurched out of the swamps and into the, cool, wind-swept darkness of the beach, white and dully gleaming, air vibrant with the thunder of a tremendous surf. Somewhere offshore in the well of the night, Arunta nosed in close as she dared to the treacherous shore that had claimed Voyager when she brought these men into Timor months ago. Carefully guarded blue lights flickered from shore to ship, ship to shore, and she lowered her brood of eight collapsible boats, each manned with a special crew who had been trained for the job in Darwin.

On the beach hundreds of eyes strained into the darkness, trying to penetrate beyond the cresting line of luminous combers that rushed into the shore; eager eyes, triumphant eyes and excited eyes, eyes that held a shadow of doubt and apprehension. After so long, after all that had happened, could this be it? Going home had been so long a dream that a man was almost frightened to grasp it for fear of shattering the flimsy substance and waking to find himself curled for warmth alongside his shivering creado on a bamboo stretcher somewhere above the cloud-line of the hills that even now were beginning to take shape in the thinning darkness.

One by one the eight craft appeared, entered the surf, were picked up and tossed into the shore like match-boxes. There was no lack of hands there to refloat them but time and time again boats loaded with troops capsized in the mountainous surf and were swept back to the beach. The embarkation had to be completed before dawn to give Arunta time to escape the prying eyes of Japanese aircraft in the daylight, and already the pale east quickened above the horizon. All the men remaining on the beach were ordered to strip and swim through the surf to where the boats would be waiting for them; to leave everything, weapons, packs and clothes behind them.

In the remaining hours of darkness the beach slowly emptied, and when finally the light sifted in to disclose the last of the canvas boats battling out to the destroyer, the rain fell to hide them once more. Soon the sea was as empty as the sky, but in that immense loneliness twenty-five men stood on the beach and watched the void that had swallowed Arunta. They had volunteered to stay behind and destroy the gear left by the Company, so that the Japanese would not find it and use it, laughing amongst themselves to know that at last they had driven the Australians, naked and weaponless, from another island - an island they had roved so long and so tenaciously for so little result.

A simply courageous band, this, who could elect to burst the dream of months and wake up still under the shadow of Timor's frowning hills while their comrades of a hundred skirmishes, of ambush and raid and midnight escape, crossed the heaving seas to home. Mercifully they could not see the weeks that lay ahead of them before they would be taken off by submarine, did not know that even as they stood there in the fresh morning they had been betrayed already by the Portuguese whom they had been unable to bring away; that within a couple hours Japanese bombs would burst amongst the heaps of equipment now lying around, them, veiled in the flying sand.

They could only dimly sense the starvation they would all endure, because the had endured it before; the desperation of hide-and-seek in the swamps and hill weaponless, foodless, naked amongst a fanatical enemy and treacherous natives; the scattering and coming together, the breathless doubling and covering of tracks, the furtive meetings of small parties, by plan and by miraculous accident, and finally, when the land offered them nowhere to hide nor stand, the ridiculous, heroic armada of rubber floats that would set off from the shore all roped together so that if one went, they would all go, who had always stood together.

It was all hidden from them as they stood in the rain stripped of everything but the unassailable courage that had brought them to the edge of endurance and then bade them go still further, there on the beach, at dawn.

T. G. HUNGERFORD, SECOND A.I.F.

WADI AUDA BLUES

J. D. RUTHERFORD, SECOND A.I.F.

KICK THAT BOUGHT RESULTS

A Jap General in his posh bungalow lulled into a false sense of security woke in a bad skin one morning and, just for the hell of it, stuck the toe of his well-polished jackboot into the tail of a native youth whose name was Jimmy. Jimmy took umbrage.

Later that day when the general was out, Jimmy entered his room in high dudgeon, crammed his pockets with as much of the General's paper money as he could find, and decamped, making his way to Manado. Here he embarked in a small native craft and, still very angry, put out to sea not caring much where he finished up.

A patrolling R.A.A.F. Catalina spotted the tiny craft off the northern end of the Celebes, headed for nowhere in particular and the Equator in general. Jimmy was picked up and brought back Morotai.

Jimmy was a bright boy and knew all the answers to the questions fired at him by R.A.A.F. Intelligence officers. Yes, he had come from the Northern Celebes, and there was quite a big Japanese army there. Yes, it was well hidden in a valley beside the little native village of Tomohon.

With Jimmy aboard, one lone R.A.A.F. aircraft made a trip over Tomohon to identify the target and take a few pictures. Before expert eyes the jungle gave up its secrets. A study of the high altitude photographs revealed that there had been quite a bit of activity around Tomohon.

While waiting for that essential break in the weather, when the valley hiding the Japanese concentration should be free of cloud, a lot of planning went into what was destined to be the biggest mass attack by the R.A.A.F. in the Pacific theatre. It was probably the biggest all-R.A.A.F. show put on anywhere during the war, because the whole of the all-Australian First Tactical Air Force was thrown into the show.

The break came one January morning. First to take off were thirty-plus Beaufighters, and slung under the belly of each was a 325-lb. naval depth charge -a new kind of aircraft weapon for a land operation in the Pacific. Then followed sixty-plus Kittyhawks, with incendiaries and full belts for all guns.

The Japanese must have wondered what struck them when the Beaufighters peeled off from 10,000 feet and dropped their depth charges, which flattened the encampment and surrounding jungle like a giant scythe, and the Kitties followed up with their fire bombs, and then, just for good measure, the fighters returned and emptied their guns with some very effective strafing.

The R.A.A.F., using smaller concentrations, returned to the target area on succeeding days, and proof of the effectiveness of the attacks was obtained from other natives who put to sea from Menado, and were picked up.

Historical events often hinge on trivial happenings and, had an ill-tempered Japanese general not seen fit to launch an unprovoked attack on a harmless native boy, he and his army might have lived the life of the lotus eater until war's end.

Bernard Gordon RAAF

DINGHY ADRIFT

"One still hanging on the starboard side, Captain. Shall I try to knock it off?"

"Don't bother. Bring it in! Engineer, I'm going to jettison petrol. Will you extend the pipes? "

"Understood, sir."

"Navigator to Captain. Shall I send the signal to Base in clear or coded?"

"Haven't the time. Send it off as it is."

Halliday dived low over the dinghy. The second pilot, at the galley hatch, took his photographs.

"Engineer here. Petrol pipes extended, sir, and ready for jettisoning."

Halliday opened the cocks and five hundred gallons of fuel sprayed down into the sea and the aircraft at last was ready to alight.

"Replace the pipes please, Engineer. Everyone stand by for landing."

The navigator, a Sydney-sider named Watson, found that half the crew was missing. He hurried them on to the bridge, but the second pilot was still in the galley replacing the camera in its case. He hastily checked the safety equipment, discovered that the second pilot, when he came up from below, was without a Mae West. There were only ten on the aircraft.

"Navigator to Captain. O.K. for landing. One Mae West short."

"Good enough! I hope we won't need it."

The navigator unfastened two clips on the overhead escape hatch, then stood up to watch proceedings through the dome.

Halliday prepared to touch down along the swell. He closed the throttles and lost height rapidly in a gliding approach. The ocean below was broken and rough. Dark green water churned. White horses rode twelve feet high, heaved and toppled. The Sunderland flattened out very low to the surface, glided, and hit the top of the rising swell.

The flying-boat broke its step and rebounded from the crest. Halliday pushed the throttles wide and hurtled five hundred yards. He lifted the nose, but the Sunderland hit again. The bow compartment cracked with an explosive report. The aircraft lurched into the air, hanging on its props, and stalled on the third wave.

It settled quickly. Metal sheets were rent apart and ground together. A cross wave struck the starboard bow, tore away the starboard float and dragged the wing under water. Tail up, the stricken aircraft spun 240 degrees to starboard and rolled over on to its port engine. The starboard engines lifted high out of the water, revealing a torn wing tip. A starboard propeller then flew off. The engine
screamed and burst into flames. The aircraft nosed into the sea until it was one third submerged. The tail was high, at an angle of thirty degrees to the surface.

The crew had been thrown from one side to other, half stunned. The navigator came to life and dashed for the escape hatch. He wrenched off the two remaining clips and pushed downward. It wouldn't move. The frame had warped with the impact. Water urged up on to the bridge and ran about the feet of the crew.

Three men combined their strength against the hatch and crashed it down on its hinges. The crew scrambled out, grabbing safety equipment from the navigator's hands as they went. Green water flooded around his thighs. He heard voices urging him to hurry. He gripped the rim of the hatch, then remembered the Very pistol and the distress cartridges. He turned back for them but was caught in the rising flood and jammed against the hull. He struggled desperately and saw the outward pressure thrust the astro-dome shut. The navigator lost consciousness with water above his head.

On the main-plane six men were standing beside a slowly inflating dinghy. Halliday was endeavouring to check up on injuries. The majority of the crew members were unhurt. Two were scratched across the face and one NCO was badly shaken.

The aircraft threatened to break up; the sea pounded across the wings. The tail-plane and the fin were now partly submerged. Waves towered ten feet above them and crashed over the hull. Somewhere beneath a depth charge still clung to the rack.

Three men went overboard, smothered by a wall of water. They bobbed to the surface yards away, their life-jackets safely supporting them. Suddenly Halliday missed his navigator.

The second pilot, still without a Mae West, sprang for the astro-dome. He could see the navigator below, jammed against the astrograph. With an incredible feat of strength the pilot forced the dome open and lowered himself into the sinking aircraft. He freed the navigator, dragged him clear, and revived him.

"Are you OK? "

The half-drowned man vomited water; he could hardly see or breathe but he nodded his head.

The Sunderland's dinghy now floated beside the main-plane. Four men sat in it, waiting. The others, who had been washed away, were treading water about one hundred yards to the south and west of the aircraft. Two N.C.0's were not to be seen.

The navigator was assisted to the dinghy and laid across it. Gradually he regained his wind, vomited again, and sat up. The exposed parts of his body were scratched and chafed. He looked at the captain. "Has anyone been hurt?"

'Not that I know of."

'We'd better get away from here. The depth charge! "

The second pilot was looking along the submerged fuselage. He had one hand on the dinghy and the other on the main-plane. "She can't hang on for long."

He was right.

"God," said a startled voice, "the dinghy!"

On the nose of the overloaded dinghy a small bulge, the result of a flaw, had appeared. Rapidly it increased in size. The flaw spread, the orange-coloured rubber went taut, filmy, then burst like a pricked balloon.

The survivors scattered and trod water.

The dinghy drooped, but remained afloat. They found that it still held sufficient air to support them and the five men clung to it, spitting brine.

After a while Halliday said: "I'm awfully sorry about this, chaps."

No one knew what reply to make.

"Our only hope is to get the empty dinghy. The one we sighted from the air. Does anyone feel he could swim for it? 

Again no one answered, but the navigator had been a member of the Manly Surf Life Saving Club. He said, "I can swim it all right."

He slipped back into the water but a hand restrained him. "Wait a while. You're not fit for it."

The navigator knew he wasn't.

Halliday edged around the dinghy and grasped it by the nose. "We can go this way. Hang on to the sides and paddle. We can't miss the other dinghy. It's downwind from here."

suddenly the navigator released his hold and am clear. "I'll get it," he yelled. "Just follow me. "

The navigator struck out, carried forward with the swell. Immediately he discovered he had over-estimated his strength. He was weak, his lungs were full of water and his flying clothing weighed like lead. Heavy seas broke over him. He dropped into troughs, soared on crests, beaten almost to insensibility. He swam sidestroke, fighting for breath and energy; aware of the futility of his hopes, but knowing that the instant he faltered the end would come.

Once, for a brief moment, he saw the yellow dinghy four hundred yards ahead of him-one quarter of a mile away through the raging sea. Time lost its quality. It might have been half an hour, it might have been an hour, before his trembling hands grasped the rope ladder which draped the side of the dinghy. The navigator tried to climb into it, but his strength had gone. He hung there, sick and exhausted, vaguely hoping to act as anchor until the others arrived.

His limp body was buffeted by the sea and his tightly clenched hands began to slide; he renewed his grip. Again his fingers gave way. He locked his jaws and made a supreme and agonizing effort. Slowly he forced himself over the buoyancy ring and collapsed face downward on the bottom of the dinghy....

The first stars were shining when he struggled to a sitting position. He crawled around the sides groping for a paddle, but was unable to find one. For a few moments he managed to stand. Away to his right he saw the full Wellington dinghy, but the Sunderland and the rest of its crew had disappeared.

The navigator lost consciousness.

When he could see and hear again it was totally dark. Spray and rain poured into his dinghy. He shivered in several inches of water with his clothing stuck to his body.

It must have been midnight when he heard a Whitley approaching. It came directly towards him and passed overhead. He had no means of attracting its attention. He began wondering whether this was the night of the crash -or the following day- or the day after!

The Whitley flew on into the darkness. The sound of the engines died.

The navigator remained still for a time, then took stock of his surroundings. He found a knife, a distress mast and the valise container for the dinghy.

He had no plan. He was too weak for constructive thought, too weak, even, to bail out the dinghy. He leaned against the side and tried to sleep through the eternity of night. But the chilling rain beat down upon him and the dinghy lurched and spun.

At last the sky turned grey in the east and the rain stopped. As dawn spread and lightened, he saw the water in the dinghy. A graduated beaker, riding on the swill, rolled towards him. He recovered it and used it for bailing.

Now he was becoming accustomed to the unusual motion of his flimsy craft. He felt stronger. Probably the daylight brought confidence. Shortly afterwards he untangled the telescopic mast, erected it, and flew the red pennant. He checked his dinghy. It was in perfect condition and rode buoyantly. He found fourteen tins of water but no food. He resolved not to touch the water for twenty four hours, longer if he could.

When he reckoned the time at eight o'clock the light was better, although the sky remained overcast. He stood and steadied himself against the mast. As he rose on the swell, he sighted the Wellington's dinghy about six miles away, stark against the white clouds shielding the sun. He waved but they failed to see him.

Of the Sunderland or its unfortunate crew there was no sign. He thought about that for a long while.... The sole survivor of an aircraft crew is an unhappy man.

During the morning he exercised himself vigorously in an attempt to restore the circulation and dry his clothes. The weather improved, the clouds lifted and dispersed to scattered layers on the horizon. The sun warmed him and cheered him a little. Much of the remaining moisture on the inside of the dinghy evaporated. He dried out an envelope in the sunshine and to pass the time pencilled in his observations of position and approximate course.

Shortly after midday a powerful aircraft came from the clouds. In the distance it looked like a Ju88, but he saw that it was a Beaufighter when it turned steeply overhead.

The navigator's heart leapt. He waved and the pilot dipped his wings, then turned away in the direction of the Wellington survivors, circled them also and climbed to several thousand feet. Obviously the tragic effort of the Sunderland was not stopping the Air-Sea Rescue forces.

Hardly an hour had passed before another Beaufighter arrived. It joined the first and both aircraft circled the Wellington crew and there they remained. The navigator experienced a rowing fear that they believed him to be German and might let him drift. He lifted his handkerchief and signalled in Morse that he as an Australian. They did not acknowledge. He repeated the signal in semaphore, then watched them turn on to a northerly course for home.

After that time dragged. Despair and hunger became stronger forces. Soon he was lying down, on his back, learning to understand solitude. He was helpless.

He realized that he heard engines again, sat up, and saw two Whitleys several miles away flying at three thousand feet. One was camouflaged white, the other black. While still in the distance they separated and to his joy one turned in his direction.

The white aircraft banked overhead and slowly circled. The throb of its engines was the friendliest sound the navigator ever had heard. He waited for the supplies, but none were dropped. The aircraft shadowed the dinghies for an hour, then the black Whitley left the Wellington survivors and made off towards Britain.

It was then that the remaining Whitley's engines roared. It began to climb and turned for the nearest cloud.

Three enemy Arado float-planes appeared over the northern horizon, stepped up from the surface of the water to a height of two hundred feet. Still the Whitley climbed, reached four thousand feet and headed flat out toward cloud.

German fighters swept up and attacked simultaneously; one from port, one from the rear and the other from ahead. The navigator heard savage and prolonged gun-fire, and found himself cheering as the tailing Arado turned steeply, almost on its back, and dived vertically for the water.

The Whitley stabbed cloud and the guns followed, chattering, and then there was quiet. The brief silence ended with an explosion. A five-hundred-foot high column of black smoke and spray shot up from the sea and spread slowly.

The white Whitley did not return to Base.

Seven more men were dead. And now the enemy had sighted the dinghies. The rescue would probably be a race between friend and foe. That possibility had not occurred to the navigator before. His thoughts were strangely mixed.

His first day was ending. The sun had gone down. The sea was still rough, but his clothes were almost dry, a contrast to his earlier experience.

In the last two or three hours he had lost sight of the Wellington crew. He stood again to fix their position for the night. Instead of the dinghy he saw smoke! The superstructure of a fishing vessel or a destroyer was visible in the fading light. It was steaming directly towards him.

But the light was quickly turned to darkness and several miles still separated them. The weather deteriorated. The wind increased in velocity from a southerly direction and the dinghy again pitched badly.

The navigator waited for the rescue ship, expecting it to come up through the darkness, even if not close by, at least within hailing distance. He waited for flares, but none came. He heard neither engines nor voices. The vessel had vanished.

He tried to sleep.

At first light he was roused by aero-engines. He saw a Junkers 88 flying at fifteen hundred feet, skipping through the clouds. His only hope was that he had not been seen.

His body was chilled and stiff, but after exercising his limbs he felt a degree better. In his mind was still imprinted the picture of the rescue boat, but visibility was bad. He knew he would not see the ship again-fog had formed with the dawn. Even the other dinghy was lost to view.

When the fog dispersed, the wind rose again and the sea increased to new fury. The sky blackened with heavy clouds rolling in from the south-west. It was Friday, 14 August.

That day he saw a shark's fin. It appeared only a few feet from the side of his dinghy and leisurely circled him! He grabbed the valise and beat the water. The fin dipped but reappeared on the other side. Again the excited man thrashed the water and the shark was frightened off.

Still he drifted north. He wondered whether he would make the Scilly Isles - if his water lasted that long and he lived that long. He took his first drink. He moistened his cracked lips and let the pure water settle in his mouth, soothing his tongue. With effort he swallowed and felt the cold stream trickle deep into his body.

Later in the morning he sighted six fishing vessels about eight miles away. For a while he was jubilant, then doubtful. If he were found by the enemy or by Frenchmen, it would be not rescue, but capture. The British were on the job. Already they had sent six aircraft, lost two, but more would be coming. Reluctantly he took down his red pennant and watched the little vessels sail on.

During the rest of the day he saw nothing. He slept between exercising and bailing out the dinghy. The weather did not improve and at dusk it was worse. Before he finally settled down to sleep he drank half a tin of water.

Next morning he woke sick with hunger in a world of raging seas and wind. A forbidding sky pressed down to a few hundred feet from the surface. Periodically he was drenched with spray and passing showers. The dinghy revolved and he was forced to keep moving around in an endeavour to protect himself from the wind. Later he rigged the valise on the mast to increase his speed northwards; he put out the sea-anchor, hoping it would stop the craft from slewing about.

That day was his worst. Never dry, buffeted and bruised, and sometimes afraid that the dinghy, when it hung perilously from the waves, would capsize. Vainly he searched the sky for relief. In that weather an aircraft would have to pass directly overhead to see him. He had lost touch with the Wellington survivors and had no idea of their relative position.

Towards evening a small fish came from under the dinghy. Raw fish meant food. Innocently he leaned over the side and watched it. It ventured closer and the navigator allowed his hands to stray near the water. He grabbed. The fish darted clear and in an instant was back beneath him. A few seconds later it reappeared, flirted again, but once more evaded him. He gave up.

Heavy rain settled in before dusk and reduced him to a state of misery. For two days he had not seen a friendly aircraft. His hunger acute! he drank a little water and chewed his leather watch-strap. Sunday, his fifth day adrift, brought better weather. The rain cleared and the sun broke through early, bringing warmth and optimism.

He watched the clouds melt away. The waves subsided and he discovered that his friend the fish was still with him. Ever hopeful  he snatched at it, but his prey was too swift.

Later he stripped and draped his dripping clothes over the mast to dry in the sunshine. The air quickly warmed, and he was able to dress again before midday.

Then he heard engines. Far away, only a few hundred feet above the water, was a swiftly moving aircraft. Allied or German? With a leap of his heart, he recognized the jutting engines of a Beaufighter, jumped to his feet and waved madly.

The Beau altered course in his direction and the navigator was almost crazy with relief.

The aircraft circled while he signalled "FOOD" with his handkerchief. Food was his only thought. He received no reply to his plea, so repeated the word. A white Aldis lamp flashed from the cockpit and spelt out the letters "S5".

"S5?"

The navigator knew every code, but he could not understand that. He was not interested in operational procedure. Codes were not for starving men. He was about to query the signal when another Beaufighter arrived. At that instant a two-star distress cartridge went up from the sea on the eastern horizon and the second aircraft turned off towards it.

His own escort made a run three hundred yards to one side and dropped a packet into the sea, but it was too far away for him to reach. His eyes followed the aircraft as it made a second run. This time another packet dropped one hundred yards upwind. It burst and floated, showing red.

The navigator made a great effort to recover it, but the wind blew him further away. The pilot should have dropped it downwind, not upwind. Watson dared not swim. He paddled frantically with his hands while his strength lasted, but the distance between the dinghy and the food grew greater and greater. He fell back against the buoyancy ring, weakened and despairing. The Beaufighter did not drop any more. The pilot dived at the dinghy, climbed away steeply and set course for Base.

The lonely man was beginning to fear that his end was coming. The emotional excitement had made him sick and feeble. A mouthful of water every twenty-four hours was not enough; he could not exist much longer without nourishment.

The roar of engines again!

Two Hudsons came out of the sun. Hudsons meant food. Each aircraft took a dinghy. A marine marker landed near the navigator and the long smoke trail indicated the direction of the wind to the aviators above. They knew the game. They made a wide circuit and came again on the downwind side; then dived on the sea with bomb doors open. A long string of precious packages joined by ropes dropped like a stick of bombs one hundred yards from the dinghy. The food packs immediately disappeared from view but the navigator had seen the splashes and was drifting towards them.

The Hudson circled at a range of half a mile and signalled "DROPPED FOOD". The aircraft then broadened its circuit, formated on its companion and finally made off.

The navigator commenced his search for the food. The packs would be spread over a wide area and joined by buoyant rope. Once he found one unit he could retrieve the lot. He drifted over the area but saw no sign.

He could not believe that they had sunk. To again have life in his grasp and to lose it! The law of averages could not allow that! He searched everywhere, straining his eyes, sickened with a haunting fear. Every food pack had sunk.

Then he saw the Wellington dinghy. The crowded yellow craft was hardly a mile away, and the crew had seen him! It was with a growing hope that he rigged a sail from his clothing. It was with a growing fear that he realized half an hour later that the other dinghy was not fifty yards nearer.

He looked around for a paddle; he removed a section of the mast and gouged some holes in an empty water tin with his knife. He jammed the can over the end of the mast and flattened it out between his knees. Primitive.....but a paddle.

Five long hours later he was close enough to hail the Wellington survivors. "I'm all for the open air life," he yelled hoarsely. "How about you? "

A familiar accent came back over the sea. "You're not an Australian?"

"You bet. From the Sunderland. Have you seen any of the others?"

"No! We thought you were a Jerry!"

Now he was close enough to recognize the R.A.F. uniforms. Close enough, too, to realize he was talking to another Australian. "Have you got any food over there?"

"Enough, I guess. Are you hungry?"

The dinghies slowly made towards each other, and the navigator's relief was beyond expression. The little boats bumped together and tied up. He was helped over into the big dinghy.

"Here I am," he said, breathlessly. "This is my great moment."

They made room for him and helped him remove his clothes. "You're in a deuce of a mess, pal, but we'll soon have you right. Where are you from?"

"Sydney. My name's Watson."

"I'm Triggs, from Melbourne."

The Wellington lads rubbed the navigator down; painted his scratches and cuts with antiseptic and wrapped him in a waterproof sleeping-suit which had been dropped to them that morning.

"How do you feel?"

"Much better, but still hungry."

"What'll you have? We can recommend our malted milk tablets."

"Just give me one."

So he sucked a tablet and washed it down with tomato juice. "Great," he sighed, "never tasted better."

Triggs grinned and produced a piece of chocolate and a few biscuits. "Make yourself at home. It's tea-time, so I guess we'll celebrate."

They celebrated ... and swapped stories. Watson was offered a cigarette. Contentment of a sort was his - food, warmth, companionship! He had forgotten that they were still to be rescued. Rudely he was reminded.

Four single-engined fighters screamed down upon them. They held formation at six hundred feet, and the black cross insignia glared from the wings. Germany's number one combat plane, the Focke-Wulf 190, had arrived. The enemy aircraft dived past the dinghies at fifty feet, then made a climbing turn to five hundred feet. Suddenly they peeled off, and still in line astern, dived steeply on the survivors.

The 190's bored down. The drifting airmen, defenceless, watched with frightened fascination.

But the Germans did not open fire. At three hundred feet the leading aircraft swung a little off line and passed to port thirty feet above the water. The survivors waved, and the enemy planes waggled their wings and disappeared in the east.

The game was on again. The race between Allies and Axis had reopened. The survivors calculated that they were within eighty to one hundred miles of the French coast. The range of the FW190 would not allow the distance to be much greater.

Fifteen minutes later a Beaufighter approached from the north-west, and while still distant, turned eastwards, apparently searching. In view of the proximity of the enemy aircraft the survivors did not fire their Very pistol. No sooner had the Beaufighter disappeared than two more FW190's dropped from the clouds. These followed the previous four and soon were lost to sight.

Now the sun had gone and darkness was gathering. At last light a Sunderland flew directly overhead at eight hundred feet. Again they decided to let it go.

It was a night of expectation. No one slept. They felt that rescue was near, but the question was, how soon? And by whom?

At daybreak a Hudson appeared, and it was Sunday, 17 August, the sixth day adrift.

Soon the aircraft was swinging north, beginning  to circle, flying towards them, flying away again. Triggs, standing in the dinghy, suddenly ed: "A SHIP! There's one coming!" The craft threatened to capsize in the rush. Sure enough, there were the masts and superstructure of a small ship.

"Oh boy, I can't believe it".

And it WAS hard to believe.

They all shook hands, cheered, and sang.

"What are you going to do first?"

"Get drunk. Forget everything. Stinkin'...for a week" .

"What if the ship is German?"

"Bag you head"

"I want a cup of tea. Just a nice big cup of tea, with lots of sugar."

The ship came up swiftly. There were three more about a quarter of a mile astern. Soon the first launch was almost alongside. Grinning men lined the rails.

"How ya feelin' boys?"

Great. Got any steak?"

"Cocoa! Bags of eggs!"

"Stand clear. We're coming straight through."

'You don't look sick, and you ruddy well should." 

"Sick! Give me a razor and I'll take on the world.

"Have you seen any of the Sunderland boys? "

"We've got one here. The navigator. He's alone! "

"Oh ... And the Whitley?"

"No hope. Straight in."

The dinghies bumped alongside and the airmen went up the rope ladders and on to the ship. The captain of the launch greeted them and offered his congratulations. "Thanks," said Triggs. "Thanks." Then he looked at the sky and thought of something. "FW109's are on the scent, skipper.
We saw six last night!"

"Six! "

The survivors were fed and supplied with cigarettes and then the alarm was blasting through their peace. Two FW109's were coming fast from the east. On the horizon a German motor vessel had been sighted. The British ships had beaten them by minutes only. The German fighters attacked. The launches replied with every gun they had. Triggs and his Australian navigator, Badham, despite their fatigue, manned the three-pounder cannon.

The 190's were driven off, but were reinforced by two more Focke-Wulfs, two Junkers 88's, and three Arado float-planes. Nine hostile aircraft circled menacingly at a range of four miles. A lone British Beaufighter joined the scene and defiantly placed itself between the ships and the enemy. The Germans did not accept the challenge.

The launches plunged on at full speed and the enemy, still hesitant, continued to-circle. They lost their opportunity. Seven more Beaufighters arrived and formed a barrier along the approaches. Suddenly a venturesome 88 peeled off and committed itself to attack. Two Beaus swung in for head-on combat.
The German pilot reefed back the stick, climbed giddily and retreated to the safety of his own ranks.

That was their last attempt. The British air escort was strengthened by Hurricanes and the little ships arrived safely in Penzance Harbour at five o'clock in the afternoon of 17 August.

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IVAN SOUTHALL RAAF

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