ARMY CO-OP.

Here, for the first time in history, an Australian squadron co-operated with Australian artillery in war on Australian territory-dank, dark, jungle-covered territory on the north coast of New Guinea. The 25-pounders of the A.I.F. and several American field guns were assigned the task of battering the enemy positions, and there ensued a period of Army co-operation at its best.

The guns were flown into action; the shells for them to fire were flown in by American transport aircraft in a stream that never ceased while the battle lasted; the guns fired on targets registered by aerial photography and pin-pointed on gridded aerial photographic target maps; the results of the "shoots" were reported by radio telephone from the spotting Wirraways to the operations base and to the troop commanders with their guns; opportunity targets were selected and engaged and barrages laid down on intelligence information brought back by pilots and their observers after reconnaissance flights often at little more than tree-top height, and in addition much extremely valuable intelligence gained from the air was passed on to headquarters by both land and air forces.

Experienced artillery officers engaged in the battle estimated that the air co-operation of No. 4 Squadron reduced the amount of ammunition needed for registering targets and effectively attacking them with artillery fire by about fifty per cent, and quickened the tempo of the battle so that an enemy position could be detected, engaged, and rapidly put out of action by the guns in an incredibly short time.

Fighter patrols of the Allied air forces flew to and fro high above Buna ... so that when the Wirraways flew above the Buna area they, and the hard-working transports, were assured of some protection against the threat of raiding Zeros. From November 27 when the first Wirraway took off. until Buna. Gona and Sanananda had fallen to the Allied land forces, the "Wirras" flew incessantly while daylight lasted and sometimes after. These were their daily tasks: tactical reconnaissance to obtain information about enemy activity; photographic reconnaissance to provide an almost unending series of photographs for larger maps and general intelligence information; contact reconnaissance to check the position of forward enemy troops. Add to these, direction and observation of artillery fire and direct attack--dive-bombing and strafing as opportunity and orders permitted-and a general picture of the work of the squadron is completed. The "Wirraway Boys" also engaged in message dropping; sketched enemy p0sitions from the air; dropped vital supplies where they were most needed; carried important passengers on survey flights over the battle area, and conducted a virtual air taxi service between the temporary runways being used by the Allied forces in the area.

So, from being a "poor view", it became a "good show". Soon the squadron forgot all its early doubts. Their understandable envy of other redoubtable squadrons of the R.A.A.F. faded. Pride in their own job, consciousness of its real worth, and pride in the increasing praise their work was earning from all who knew of it, brought their keenness and daring to a high pitch.

Artillerymen found that the jungle and swamp country in which the battle was being fought made traditional forward ground observation extremely difficult, hazardous, and relatively ineffective. It was true the artillery "0 Pips" (observation posts) were doing a marvellous job, but the higher value of air-to ground artillery observation was being proved beyond doubt. Co-operation from the air was as essential to artillery action as was aerial supply of shells to the guns from dumps many miles away on the other side of the towering Owen Stanley Range.

In individual exploits the Wirraway pilots and observers made history. Their courage and skill earned them the highest praise from the Allied land forces with which they were co-operating.  The blunt-spoken A.I.F. Digger and the American "buck private" cheered them on from the muddy stench in which they were fighting, and Lieutenant-General R. L. Eichelberger, of the United States Army, several times made personal calls on the squadron's advanced headquarters to tell the "Wirraway Boys" how much he appreciated their fine work.  When at his own headquarters in the jungle, he was asked to express this appreciation he replied, "I can't say enough. Their work has been so well and so bravely done that all the praise we have ever expressed rolled into one great tribute is due to them."

These tributes were later expressed more tangibly by awards to a few - inevitably it is the few who are decorated - but each was a tribute to the squadron as a whole.

One of the first officers of the squadron to be honoured was Flying-Officer Elton Murray Ifould who, with Flying-Officer John R. Mowbray and Pilot-Officer John Archer, received the American Silver Star for gallantry in action. Ifould, the citation stated, "repeatedly flew at low altitudes to invite anti-aircraft fire that would reveal the location of the guns and, while exposed to fire, directed our artillery successfully on these enemy weapons". These words are the most formal expression of Ifould's gallantry. His observer, Sergeant P. Lamb, shared in all the risks with Ifould, and with the same enthusiasm for combat. Ifould's work throughout the campaign was stamped by his initiative and courage. On one occasion lie took off in his Wirraway at dusk so that he might observe an enemy gun position from the flashes. Then he directed the fire of the 25-pounders and when the gun had been destroyed, returned to his base and landed safely, using the headlights from two jeeps and the somewhat doubtful assistance of several glimmering hurricane lanterns as a flare path.

The feat that won Mowbray his Silver Star was performed on December 15, when he was fired on from several enemy anti-aircraft positions. Without regard for his own safety, he dived to tree-top height to locate the positions of the guns, although heavy fire from them continued. Having located the gun positions he returned and directed the fire of the artillery against them. During this latter action a large hole was torn in the port wing of his plane by shell fragments. Here again, although he was not included in the citation, the observer, Sergeant N. French, acquitted himself splendidly, accepting all the risks incurred for them both by his pilot as "part of the game".

No details were given in the official citation to the award to Pilot-Officer Archer. but the action which won him the Silver Star will live long in the memories not only of his squadron, but of thousands of troops, R.A.A.F., A.I.F., U.S. Army and U.S. Army Air Corps, as the achievement of the incredible-flying a Wirraway, Archer shot down a Zero, vaunted high-performance Japanese fighter.

The limitations of the Wirraway, excellent aircraft as it is - were learned soon after the war against Japan began. It is no match for first-line Japanese combat aircraft. The story of the fall of Rabaul proved that and there were very good reasons why fighter cover was provided over the Buna area by Allied air forces. The Wirraways were admirable aircraft for the Army co-operation work to which No- 4 Squadron had been assigned, and for which its air crews had been trained; but in terms of combat in the air they just "weren't in it" and the men of the squadron had no illusions about it. This explains why a signal on December 26 left headquarters incredulous.

Sitting in his tent the then commander of the squadron, Wing-Commander Dallas Charlton, reached out automatically for a signal an orderly had brought in. He read it, gave a low whistle, and exclaimed "Well I'll be . . ." The phrase was left unfinished; Charlton had no word equal to the occasion. For this is what the message stated, briefly, emphatically, unbelievably: "Archer has shot down one Zeke repeat one Zeke stop send six bottles beer."

"Zeke" was the code word for Zero. The C.O. acted promptly, still trying hard to believe what he had read. Beer was perhaps the most precious of all canteen commodities in New Guinea at the time, but this was an extraordinary occasion in the squadron's history, so the next "Wirra" that beat its way through the clouds over the Owen Stanleys to the advanced base where Archer was, carried  'precious cargo, and officers and men at the detached flight's base made as merry as six bottles of beer permitted in a toast to Archer and his stout Wirraway.

The story of Archer's incredible exploit is linked with the wreck of a Japanese transport of between nine and ten thousand tons, which lay just off the Gona shore, a ship that had been a unit in the Japanese task force that first invaded Buna. It had foundered on a reef after it had been thoroughly blasted by Allied bombers but the Gona Wreck, as it became known to Allied airmen, still served the enemy as a staging point for supplies and for mounting anti-aircraft guns. For this reason the Wirraway boys kept a sharp eye on it. 

On December 26, Archer and his observer, Flight-Sergeant N. J. Muir, were circling the wreck at a thousand feet, when Archer sighted a Zero about five hundred feet below. Archer didn't think twice, but making the most of his advantage in height, he dived on the Zero in a front quarter attack and opened fire with his Brownings. His first burst entered the Zero's cockpit and the Zero crashed into the sea about a hundred yards from the beach near the mouth of the Amboga River. When Gona had fallen, a salvage party hauled the Zero from its grave in nine feet of water. Inside the cockpit was the body of the Japanese pilot. There was a bullet hole through his brain. Lucky! Yes, but more than that!

In the history of the Allied air forces in the South-west Pacific the Gona Wreck earned a place apart from Archer's exploit. The wreck is notable as one of the symbols of the defeat of the Japanese in Papua and it will be remembered too, for many a day, by pilots and bombardiers of Allied aircraft making initial flights over the coast on which it still lies, and perhaps even more clearly by intelligence officers who received their reports and signals. From high and even from medium altitude the wreck often appeared as a ship under way. The tide, washing round the stranded vessel, frequently gave the appearance of a wake, and many were the reports from unwary air crew of a fresh sighting-"enemy merchant vessel off Gona on course

So frequent were these urgent "sightings" at one stage, that intelligence officers to whom sightings meant much work, composed these verses:

THE UNSINKABLE WRECK

• The boy looked on the Gona Wreck, 
  • Which all but he'd mistaken; 
  • "I reckon it's a wreck," he said, 
  • "As sure as beans and bacon."
• The I.Os read his signal through 
  • And vowed his words were stunners; 
  • "That hulk's been sighted fifteen times 
  • As two ten-thousand-tonners.
• "It's headed east, it's headed west, 
  • It's rapidly rotated, 
  • It's even been seen as a submarine, 
  • (Course and speed not stated)."
• The General puckered up his brow, 
  • And issued this directive:
  • "That wreck's a wreck," he cried, 
  • "by heck!" (And added some invective).
• "If anyone, who to Gona goes, 
  • Says elsewise - on my honour
  • That same goon who's to Gona gone 
  • Is gona be a goner! "

In No. 4 Squadron's contribution to the conquest of the enemy in Papua there were many individual achievements. Two names which appeared in the Commonwealth Gazette of August 19, 1943, recall service which added greatly to the squadron's distinguished record.

"For gallantry and devotion to duty in air operations against the enemy" Flying-Officer Ian Cameron Curtis was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and Flight-Sergeant Alan Ernest Cole the Distinguished Flying Medal. In the same Gazette appeared the name of Flight-Lieutenant James Trevor Alley. the squadron's adjutant during the Battle for Buna, who was commended "to be a Member of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for efficient administration and for setting a high standard of devotion to duty under difficult circumstances". This last honour is a tribute to the ground organization of a combat squadron which, as the air crews readily admit, is vital to the squadron's success.

Curtis, in repeated low-level reconnaissance flights, gave extremely valuable assistance to the artillery. He and his observer, Flight Sergeant Harold Wendell Phillips who lost his life when an aircraft in which he was making a reconnaissance with Warrant-Officer Hart was shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Sanananda, continually set a high standard, putting their own safety last when it came to doing the job, as did in fact all the Wirraway crews.

Cole's decoration was splendid news for the members of the squadron. He had served with consistent courage and efficiency, notably as observer to Mowbray and Ifould.

As they skimmed low over the jungle, the Wirraway crews often sighted Japanese in small groups who, unless deliberately strafed, paid little or no attention to the reconnaissance aircraft. This irritated some of the Wirraway boys almost beyond endurance. As Flying-Officer William Deague, another "veteran" of Buna campaign put it feelingly, "Sometimes the little swine wouldn't even look up, let alone take cover. I used to get incensed and more than once I went down and shot them up."

This war at close quarters had much the same effect on others in the squadron and some of the more adventurous and irrepressible thought of the bright idea of taking hand grenades with them for use in such opportunities as these. Flying low, they would extract the pin with their teeth in true infantryman s style, and toss the grenades among these insolent Japs who showed so little concern for the Wirraways. But, though their enterprise and initiative was to be commended, the practice was quickly stopped by order from headquarters; crews were reminded that the risk of accident was greater than any, results the additional "firepower" justified.

That was just an aside in the war as it was being fought by the Wirraway crews but it expressed the enthusiasm and the keenness with which they were fighting

On December 22, Flying-Officer George Hockings with Major W. F. O'Hara, a senior Army-Air Co-operation officer who had come to the Buna area to survey the position as an artillery expert, was shot down by an enemy ack-ack gun which had been giving trouble not only to the Wirraway crews but to all Allied aircraft flying over the sector on low bombing and strafing missions. Both pilot and passenger were killed. The squadron was determined on revenge. Some time later a shell-burst close to A.I.F. 25-pounders was reported. 

Flying-Officer Neil Hutchinson with Sergeant J. A. J. Caine as his observer was on a sortie and he detected the fire from the enemy gun which, in an effort to shoot him down, was firing almost directly on a trajectory between its own position and that of the 25-pounders. Within a few minutes the fight was on. Hutchinson pin-pointed the target and the gunners, spurred on by his excited encouragement from the cockpit of his Wirraway, made short work of that gun. later found to be a naval-type "pom-pom". It was a fine example of aerial observation and accurate gunnery.

The battle against the jungle itself was something about which the Wirraway air crews had intimate knowledge. Their single engined aircraft might not go so far afield in search of the enemy as the more powerful air-craft, but in the flight between their head-quarters and their advanced bases, there was
always the crossing of the Owen Stanley

Range during which the weather often "closed, down" with almost unbelievable rapidity. Inevitably some aircraft were lost in these mountains.

While the Buna campaign was at its height a flight of Wirraways was on its way over the range by way of the Kokoda Gap-a gateway that saved much climbing for lower-powered aircraft. In this flight were Flying-Officer K. Dineen and his observer Sergeant L. Winter. Dineen had often told his friends in the squadron that if he was caught in the overcast above the Owen Stanleys he would bale out rather than risk a crash. This time he was caught. He pulled the "stick" back and he and Winter baled out. Fortune favoured Dineen but Winter was lost.

Dineen freed himself from his parachute and began to struggle against the jungle that lay between him and his base. He followed a tiny mountain stream down a valley to where it joined a larger stream. Down this second stream he made his way for three days. His only food was the little vegetation offered-a marrow-like wild fruit which made him sick, and such berries as he dared to eat. 

On the third day he saw a duck on the stream. With his revolver at the ready he tried to stalk it. He slipped on a wet rock and the bullet intended for the duck went through his foot. The duck took off in a tight climbing turn and Dineen was left to face the jungle and possible starvation with a seriously damaged foot. He moved slowly and painfully downstream.  On the eighth day, when hope of survival was scarcely a glimmer, he encountered natives. He was taken to a village where a "witch" doctor poulticed his injured foot with leaves, and reduced the pain and inflammation with appropriate magic.

On a native-made stretcher Dineen was borne over a mountain trail to the village of Kokoda, and finally delivered safely into the care of Australian troops.

There was peril in this "Army Co-op." work. Practically every Wirraway that was used over Buna and Sanananda was liberally patched to cover the holes made by small-arms fire from the ground and ack-ack fragments, but the crews continued their work undeterred. The ground staff laboured incessantly to keep the aircraft in fighting trim. That was real labour-long and strenuous hours in steaming heat or pouring rain; or under frequent bombing, dive-bombing or strafing raids. Although these raids were for the most part inaccurate, they tried the nerves of men who were slaving to keep the squadron up to effective fighting strength. Their nights, too, were disturbed by harassing raids. Heavy Kawanisi flying-boats stooged over the area for hours at a time, dropping their bombs haphazardly. Rarely did they do much damage, but they prevented sleep.

Typical of the men who performed this splendid work on the ground were two corporal fitters-"Steve" Mauger, a rigger, and "Syd" McGibbon, an engineer, who tolled uncomplainingly day after day and often far into the night to make damaged aircraft serviceable again so that the "boys in the air" would not be let down. No member of the squadron was more ready to praise the work of these men on the ground, or more conscious of the whole squadron's dependence on it, than Wing-Commander W. F. Allshorn (then a squadron-leader) who succeeded Charlton as commanding officer while the operations were in progress. With a lively memory of the tragic outcome of air operations in Malaya in the opening phases of the war in the Pacific in which he served, Allshorn demanded much of his men, and that he got what he demanded was one reason for the squadron's success.

The story of No- 4 Squadron would be ungenerously and inaccurately told without tribute to the A.I.F., to whom, virtually, it "belonged". The "A.L.Os" as the Army Liaison officers who control the operations of Army Co-operation squadrons in the field are known, briefed and interrogated air crews, maintained communications of Army field headquarters with the battery positions and the aircraft in the air, made the vital decisions when the Wirraways should take off on their sorties, and what type of sorties should be performed, and collated all the intelligence material the air crews brought back to base. It was a difficult and responsible task which they performed with notable efficiency.

In the Buna-Sanananda campaign this burden rested chiefly on the very capable shoulders of three officers-Major D. G. Daniels, Captain R. J. C. O'Loan and Lieutenant D. W. Eaton, all trained A.I.F. Army Air Co-operation officers. From the beginning of the Buna campaign until it was almost over, Captain O'Loan bore the main burden as A.L.O. Seated in a low native hut, he worked surrounded by telephones which seemed to ring simultaneously and with a persistency that caused him one day to exclaim somewhat bitterly, but still with a laugh, "They talk about men being bomb-happy-I'm 'phone happy."

Major Daniels who subsequently relieved Captain O'Loan at this particular post, later gave the same distinguished service when the enemy made his swift but unsuccessful attempt to seize Wau from Allied control. He was landed on the Wau aerodrome just as the battle was at its height. The Wirraways were on the job just as they had been in the Buna campaign only a few weeks before, and Daniels, despite the haste with which he and the detached flight went into action, soon had the information so vital to artillery action flowing from air to ground with the same efficiency as at Buna.