Bravest - How Some of Australia's Greatest War Heroes Won Their Medals

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ROBERT MACKLIN is one of Australia’s most exciting and wide-ranging authors, with novels (Fire in the Blood, The Queenslander, Juryman, The Paper Castle) and non-fiction works (100 Great Australians, The Secret Life of Jesus, War Babies and Kevin Rudd: The Biography) to his credit. With co-author Peter Thompson he wrote The Battle of Brisbane, Kill the Tiger, Keep Off the Skyline and Morrison of China, recently translated for publication in China. He lives in Canberra, where he divides his time between books, plays and screenwriting.

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The Victoria Cross and the George Cross

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First published in 2008 Copyright © Robert Macklin 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Macklin, Robert, 1941Bravest : how some of Australia’s greatest war heroes won their medals. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 978 1 74114 882 4 (pbk.). Australia. Army—Medals, badges, decorations, etc. George Cross—Biography. Victoria Cross—Biography. Decorations of honor—Australia. Military decorations—Australia. 355.1342 Set in 12/16 pt Adobe Garamond by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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For Anthony Keeper of the flame

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Contents

Introduction: Shades of valour 1 ‘One miserable scribbler’ and a little bit of ribbon 2 ‘A matter of chance’ 3 Bullets ‘thick as hail’ 4 ‘I begin to hate the damned country where I was born’ 5 ‘An ardent Australian patriot’ 6 ‘I managed to get the buggers, Sir’ 7 ‘The bravest man in the Aussie Army’ 8 ‘Tell Dad I’m still fighting’ 9 ‘A compelling, ubiquitous figure’ 10 An ideal leader 11 ‘I wasn’t mad’ 12 ‘Hit with a sledge hammer’ 13 A paradoxical attitude to heroes 14 ‘To live and learn and see much’ vii

1 5 12 19 26 32 39 48 57 61 67 77 84 94 100

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BRAVEST 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Cross purposes Down to the wire The endless day The larrikin One of our very best One among many ‘Guest of the Emperor’ That moment of decision Courage beyond compare ‘That’s what I’m here for, Sir’ ‘His crew before himself ’ ‘One’s nerves suffer a bit’ A wall of fire A war of nerves ‘Indomitable’ ‘We went and had a beer’ Anomalies

Afterword Acknowledgements List of VC winners Notes Bibliography Index

112 117 125 133 144 150 158 164 174 185 195 203 209 218 229 235 245 252 256 258 261 265 268

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Introduction Shades of valour The battlefield touches the deepest part of us. It is in our bones. For as long as we have had campfires we have been recounting tales of struggle against the odds. Australia’s most highly decorated soldier of the First World War, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Murray, wrote: ‘Surely there is something about that terrible thing called War which manages to call forth all that is best and most unselfish in men. Is it not a fact that at the bottom of our hearts, we all love it, and love the men who fought and bled with us, and afterwards even the men we have fought against?’1 Murray was writing in the late 1930s, looking back to what had become known as the Great War and looking ahead to what would be a war for civilisation. He knew, because he had seen it, that we are all pacifists until the bugles call. But once that first note signals the coming storm of battle, a new code of 1

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BRAVEST conduct imposes itself. Ideals of gallantry and honour, selflessness and sacrifice are burnished to a military sheen. Murray’s sentiments strike hard against the ear in the 21st century. The terrible contagion of world war is inconceivable today, not least because of the development of nuclear weapons, with their power to obliterate life on earth. The ‘total war’ among the world’s most powerful nations that twice ravaged the 20th century could not be repeated without risking the destruction of our species. War may never be eliminated. But its form has already changed. The set-piece battlefield of old has disappeared, and few will mourn its passing. Today, charismatic religious fanatics seek to destroy their perceived enemies with the weapons of terror. Skirmishes tend to be localised—and all the more vicious and unforgiving because they are based on ethnic and religious hatreds. And from time to time, Imperial leaders will continue to seek, usually unsuccessfully, to impose their will from afar. These new conflicts will produce heroes, but their valour will usually be of a different order from those seen in the great and terrible conflicts of the past. Theirs will be a moral courage to resist the rise of the dictator or the dictates of the religious fanatic. Theirs is the struggle for decency and fair dealing, for moderation and open-mindedness in a world of bewildering change, great challenge and vast potential. However, that world, that prospect, would not have been available today had it not been for the soldiers who gave their lives in the stinking trenches of Gallipoli, in the vile sludge of Flanders and the Somme, at the siege of Tobruk and in the fetid jungles of New Guinea. And the same goes for their comrades at arms in the air and on the sea. 2

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Introduction: Shades of valour All deserve our honour and our gratitude. But some among them performed acts of magnificent courage that rose above the dreadful obscenity of their milieu. By their example they inspired their mates; and by their actions they gave notice that the human spirit would never be crushed by the tyrant or the fanatic. We will forever tell their tales around our campfires. We honour them, the most outstanding of our heroes, with the Victoria Cross and its simple inscription: ‘For Valour’. The VC has a particular appeal to the egalitarian streak in the Australian character. The warrant states: ‘Neither rank nor long service nor wounds nor any other circumstance save the merit of conspicuous bravery shall establish a sufficient claim for the honour.’ And of the 1353 recipients since the medal’s inception 150 years ago, 96 have been Australian servicemen. They have added lustre to the award, which in turn has immortalised their memories. The VC itself has become ever more prized, its story ever more gloriously arrayed with myth and legend. According to the director of the Australian War Memorial, General Steve Gower, there is a ‘fascination’ among visitors to the Memorial’s Hall of Valour, where the stories and medals of VC winners are displayed. ‘It shows acts of extraordinary courage at the highest level from, in most cases, ordinary Australians,’ Gower says. ‘It’s uplifting to see these stories of ordinary people who found themselves in these circumstances and then overcame their fears to do something quite outstanding. And most of them were very humble about it subsequently.’2 But just as tales around the campfire develop a life of their own and with time can drift away from the truth, so it is with the VC’s history. As the mythmakers would have it, the award 3

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BRAVEST was instituted by Queen Victoria in a spontaneous act of noblesse oblige following the Crimean War of the 1850s, and all the medals have been struck from Russian artillery pieces captured in that conflict. The reality is more complex and interesting. And so it is with the Australians who, in their extraordinarily disparate backgrounds, found within themselves the courage to dare, to endure, and to prevail, even at the cost of their lives. All were worthy winners of the VC or its fraternal decoration, the George Cross. But some stood out even among that glorious company. These were the bravest of the brave. Wherever possible, I have explored their lives well beyond the action that catapulted them into the ranks of the immortals. In so doing I have attempted to understand the whole man, before and after that fateful moment. In this way, perhaps, we can throw a light on that indefinable quality that separates them from the rest. I am deeply conscious that the servicemen celebrated within these pages found greatness within violent confrontation. There is a paradox in discovering the sublime in such close company with the obscenity of war. It is, perhaps, both the curse and the glory of our species. Robert Macklin Canberra, 2008 [email protected]

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1 ‘One miserable scribbler’ and a little bit of ribbon The Victoria Cross had its genesis in the Crimean War, but its original conception had little to do with that sovereign’s concern for her soldiery. Rather, it was a reaction to the changing conditions of war, as journalists began reporting on the horrors of battle and the appalling incompetence of some military commanders almost as they occurred. The war itself was an exercise in Imperial hubris. It began in the early 1850s in a dispute between Russia and France over which nation should have ‘sovereign authority’ over the Christian churches within Palestine. The Ottoman Turks under Sultan Abdulmecid—who occupied Palestine at the time—sided with the French. In response, Tsar Nicholas I mobilised his armies in Europe and began a diplomatic offensive in Constantinople. The French sent a naval task force through the Dardanelles to support the Ottomans; Russia increased its military pressure in Europe, 5

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BRAVEST and the sultan made a pre-emptive attack on the Russian Army near the Danube. Beneath the politico-religious manoeuvrings an Imperial power play was at work. The Russians sought an unencumbered route through the Dardanelles to and from their Black Sea ports, while the French and British resisted any perceived Russian ‘expansionism’. Wise heads such as the leader of the Conservatives in the House of Commons, Benjamin Disraeli, were aghast at the violent turn of events, as the Russians inflicted heavy casualties on the Ottoman troops in Europe, then destroyed a large part of their navy. Despite his vigorous advocacy, Britain joined with France to ‘defend’ the Ottoman Empire, and in March 1854 both declared war on Russia. The commander of the British forces was Lord Raglan, a crusty, wilful aristocrat who had lost an arm at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 while serving as aide-de-camp to Lord Wellington. He had seen no action since then, having been Wellington’s military secretary until the great man’s death in 1852. Nonetheless, at the outbreak of hostilities Raglan was promoted to full general and given charge of 27,000 troops sent to join 30,000 from France and 7000 from Turkey. Raglan was also accompanied (despite his vehement protests) by a contingent of war correspondents who would transmit their battlefield reports by the new electric telegraph. Chief among them was William Howard Russell, the Irish-born correspondent for The Times. Though educated at Trinity College and Cambridge, Russell’s sympathies were with the junior officers and the other ranks, who bore the brunt of Raglan’s mismanagement. As thousands of young men were sacrificed to his stupidity and incompetence on the battlefield 6

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‘One miserable scribbler’ and a little bit of ribbon and to disease and starvation behind the lines, Russell took up their cause. The front-line soldiers called the reporter ‘a vulgar low Irishman who sings a good song, drinks anyone’s brandy and water and smokes as many cigars as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters.’1 Indeed, so graphic were his despatches that they inspired Florence Nightingale to set out for the Crimea with 38 newly trained young women volunteers to begin her legendary nursing career. Russell’s account of the disastrous charge of the Light Brigade was a classic of its kind. But his reporting did not find favour with Queen Victoria, who described his reports as ‘infamous attacks against the army which have disgraced our newspapers’.2 Similarly, her consort, Prince Albert, complained that ‘the pen and ink of one miserable scribbler is despoiling the country’.3 The House of Commons became restive. The Liberal MP for Bath, John Roebuck, led the attack on the Conservative government, and when his call for an inquiry into the condition of the British Army won majority support, the prime minister, Lord Aberdeen, resigned. Roebuck’s associate in the same constituency, Captain George Treweeke Scobell, began pressing for an ‘Order of Merit’ for ‘persons serving in the Army or Navy for distinguished and prominent personal gallantry during the present war and to which every grade and individual . . . may be admissible’.4 At the time there was no award for conspicuous courage in the British Army, and certainly none for the private soldier, who was regarded as little more than the sweepings of the gutter. The official attitude was that the troops would ‘do their duty’ for queen and country and that this should be reward enough. 7

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BRAVEST For officers above field rank—majors in the army and captains in the navy—there had been an attempt to reward acts of valour after Waterloo with the Order of the Bath. But it lost much of its distinction in the Crimea, when Raglan recommended its award to entire general staffs. In response to Russell’s vivid descriptions of the battlefield— and with the parliament anxious to placate public opinion—the army hastily introduced the Distinguished Conduct Medal for sergeants and lower ranks in December 1854; the navy followed suit with the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for petty officers and seamen. But when Scobell persisted with his demands for an honour that recognised supreme courage without reference to rank or class, the new prime minister, Lord Newcastle, felt obliged to raise the issue with Prince Albert. Newcastle cast his appeal in the most pragmatic terms. ‘The value attached by soldiers to a little bit of ribbon is such as to render any danger insignificant and any privation light, if it can be attained,’ he wrote. ‘I believe that great indeed would be the stimulus and deeply prized the reward of a Cross of Merit.’ Such an award should be ‘within the reach of every Private soldier and yet to be coveted by any General at the head of an Army’.5 Prince Albert could see the value in this and raised the matter with Victoria. It has been suggested that Queen Victoria was deeply affected at this time by a visit to a Southampton hospital, where she was confronted by the dreadful wounds of Corporal Charles Byrne, blinded and with much of his jaw shot away.6 Certainly she ordered that a special decoration be struck for him—one that incorporated the bullet that took his sight. 8

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‘One miserable scribbler’ and a little bit of ribbon In his official response to Lord Newcastle, the Prince Consort said the sovereign favoured ‘a small cross of merit’ for personal deeds of valour. It should be open to all ranks. And in Victoria’s practical way, she suggested that it carry a small annual pension of £5. Albert himself felt that a number of the crosses should be given to individual regiments, with the bulk earmarked for officers, a smaller proportion for sergeants, and one—just one— for private soldiers. Winners would be selected by a panel of the same rank as the person to be awarded.7 However, when Lord Newcastle put the matter to the House of Lords he was on the brink of political perdition. The following day his government fell, a victim of the carnage of Crimea. His place at the War Office was taken by Lord Panmure, whose nickname—the Bison—reflected his ‘crash through or crash’ attitude to public policy. He took up the challenge of drawing up the warrant that would set out all the conditions for eligibility for the new award. At this stage Victoria took an increasing interest. It was she, it is said, who suggested the inscription ‘For Valour’ rather than the proposed ‘For the Brave’, which implied that the winner’s comrades-in-arms were deficient in courage. Hancocks & Co of New Bond Street provided the design* and sent samples to the palace. Victoria made some further sensible suggestions, including that the medal be manufactured from ‘real bronze’, with a ‘greenish varnish’ to protect it. Nonetheless, it still took a full year to negotiate the warrant, which was finally signed at Buckingham Palace on 29 January 1856.† * The actual designer was probably 27-year-old Henry Armstead. † See Afterword

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BRAVEST It was a wordy and windy document. The VC could be conferred ‘on the spot’, it said, if the act of merit was witnessed by an admiral or a general; a recommendation could be made to staff commanders by a witnessing ship’s captain or a regimental commander. If these superior officers were not present, reports of the valorous deed must rise through the ranks and contain ‘conclusive proof ’ that it took place. Later it became generally accepted that this required three eyewitnesses. The warrant incorporated Prince Albert’s concept of ‘ballots’ for award winners when a unit of more than 50 men was deemed to have performed some outstanding act of bravery in the field. The officers would select one of their own, as would the petty officers or non-commissioned officers. The more numerous privates or seamen would elect two of their number for the honour. In practice, this procedure would soon fall from favour, the last such awards being approved in the First World War, though it would be provided for in the various rewritings of the Imperial warrant until the 1960s. By the time the original warrant was promulgated, the Crimean War was drawing to a close. The Allies had won the siege of Sebastopol in September 1855 and the new tsar, Alexander II, agreed to abandon plans to establish military or naval fortifications on the Black Sea coast. The queen then had the idea that the ‘bronze’ to be used in the medal’s manufacture should be taken from Russian cannon captured in the war. Her ministers passed the royal wish down the line and, while the record is distinctly murky, it appears that one cannon was obtained. However, recent investigations by the Australian War Memorial reveal that from 1914 VCs were actually cast from two Chinese cannons. 10

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‘One miserable scribbler’ and a little bit of ribbon According to John Ashton, who as senior conservator of objects in 1995 analysed 54 VCs held by the AWM and compared his results with a similar analysis by the British Royal Armouries, the composition of the metal and the method of casting the guns leave no doubt about their Chinese origin. There is a slight possibility that they might have been used by the Russians in the Crimean siege of Sebastopol, but this is drawing a very long bow. The Russians manufactured their own armament, and there is no evidence that early Chinese cannon made their way to the Black Sea port. As we will see, the origin of the metal is only one of the intriguing twists in the history of the medals—the first of which would be won before the Crimean War was over.

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2 ‘A matter of chance’

The Crimean War was not fought exclusively in the Crimea. There were naval engagements in the Far East, off the Kamchatka Peninsula, and in the Baltic Sea. They had little impact on the outcome of the war and would be all but forgotten had not a twenty-year-old midshipman, Charles Lucas, thrown caution to the wind to save himself and many of his fellow sailors from death or serious injury on 21 June 1854. An Anglo-French fleet had been sent to the northern Russian port of Kronstadt to destroy the Russian fleet there. Faced with superior firepower, the Russians chose to remain at anchor, so the Allies attacked the shore defences on the mainland and on the nearby Aland Islands. Lucas was serving on the eight-gun paddle sloop Hecla, which was bombarding the Aland fortress of Bomasund when a heavy Russian shell smashed into its open gun deck with its fuse 12

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‘A matter of chance’ still burning. According to his captain’s report, ‘Ignoring shouted warnings, Lucas ran at the smoking missile, whose fuse had been cut to length by its gunners to explode close on impact.’ As a gunner himself, Lucas well knew the explosive power of the shell. But gathering it in his arms, he ran to the ship’s rail and heaved it overboard. Just as it struck the water the shell exploded. Two crewmen were injured, but without Lucas’s action many of the ship’s company would have been killed. His commanding officer, Captain William Hall, immediately promoted the young Irishman to lieutenant and sent a despatch recording his brave and selfless action to the Admiralty. At the inception of the VC two years later, Lucas became the first to have earned it, though a more senior officer, Commander Henry James Raby, of the Naval Brigade, took precedence at the investiture in Hyde Park on 26 June 1857.* Queen Victoria sat astride her favourite horse through the event and in short order invested some 62 recipients. Raby’s primacy had its disadvantages. Victoria’s aim for the specially sewn loop on his tunic was a little off, and she pinned the medal directly on his chest. The commander barely flinched beneath his beard. Like Lucas, Raby was honoured for having saved his comrades-in-arms when he braved enemy fire—in his case at Sebastopol—to carry a wounded man to safety. The Australian * Charles Lucas would marry Captain Hall’s daughter and end his career as a rear admiral. He inadvertently left his medals on a railway carriage. They were never recovered. Coincidentally, Hall served in the Opium War aboard the HMS Nemesis—which the Chinese called ‘the devil ship’. It is not impossible that the Nemesis brought the captured ‘VC cannon’ back to England. 13

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BRAVEST military historian Bill Gammage says: ‘The kinds of things for which you got VCs changed over the years. Rescuing a friend earned you a VC up to the South African War. Occasionally this applied in the First World War, especially to airmen who had been forced down.’ Gammage’s view of the way in which the honour developed is borne out by the VC tally in the first great conflict that followed its inception, the Indian Mutiny of 1857. In only fourteen months, no fewer than 182 VCs were awarded, the same number as for the entire Second World War. Most of the feats in question were efforts to save British lives as the mutineers sought to wipe out the colonial forces. In a single day—16 November 1857—the siege of Lucknow resulted in 23 VCs; and 30 crosses were gained in the retaking of Delhi. Because of the nature of the conflict, the warrant was extended to cover civilians fighting under a regular officer; four such awards were made. On eight occasions, units conducted ballots to select VC nominees. The issue of posthumous awards arose, but Lord Panmure’s War Office adamantly opposed them. The palace was more accommodating, and while the cross was not officially awarded posthumously until 1902, on at least five occasions during the mutiny, those who had earned it—all had it conferred ‘on the spot’—died before the medal arrived. Panmure sought to cancel the honours, but Victoria intervened and the winners’ families received the medal, though not the annuity that usually accompanied it. The War Office struck back; ‘on-the-spot’ awards were eliminated, but the issue persisted. In the Boer War, when soldiers were killed after being recommended but before their investiture, 14

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‘A matter of chance’ the War Office, under great pressure from relatives, approved the awards. From 1907 posthumous awards were officially accepted, and in 1920 the warrant was amended to reflect the new reality. In the meantime, Australia had its first brush with the VC when, on 20 June 1861, the wife of Victorian Governor Sir Henry Barkly presented the medal to Private Frederick Whirlpool. Actually, ‘Whirlpool’ was an alias; he was born Fred Conker in London and was also known as Humphrey James. But whatever his name at the time, ‘Whirlpool’ had distinguished himself at Jhansi during the Indian Mutiny by carrying wounded soldiers to safety despite seventeen severe wounds, one of which, according to the citation, ‘nearly severed his head from his body’. Thirteen years later, another VC winner, Private Timothy O’Hea, arrived in New South Wales. As a member of the 1st Battalion of the Prince Consort’s Own Rifle Brigade, he had been travelling from Montreal to Quebec in 1866 in a train carrying munitions and explosives destined for the forces opposing Fenian raiders crossing the border from America.* When the train stopped at Danville, smoke was seen billowing from the side of a car that held 2000 lb of explosives. Sparks from the wood-burning engine had set the roof of the carriage alight, and the fire was spreading down one side. The troops uncoupled the car, and the driver began to pull the rest of the train clear. But the town would have been devastated in the explosion. Tim O’Hea grabbed the carriage keys from his sergeant and ran to the locked door with a ladder. Once inside, * The Fenians opposed British rule in Ireland and were composed of Irish migrants to the US, among whom many had been trained as soldiers in the American Civil War. They made a series of raids across the Canadian border from 1866 to 1870, when they were defeated and disbanded.

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BRAVEST he dragged the explosives clear of the flames. When water buckets arrived, he single-handedly extinguished the fire. This was the only VC earned on Canadian soil, and in no sense was it ‘in the presence of the enemy’. The War Office had approved awards for incidents not ‘in the presence of the enemy’ in 1858, but this was the first use of the amended warrant. Such awards ceased when it was rewritten in 1881. O’Hea’s triumph was short-lived. Acclaimed as a hero on his arrival in Australia, he joined an expedition in 1869 to search for the remains of the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt and perished in the Queensland Outback. After 1881 gallant deeds in both peace and war were recognised by the Albert Medal and, from 1922, by the Empire Gallantry Medal. However, it took until September 1940 to properly resolve the situation. During the height of the Blitz, King George VI instituted two awards—the George Cross and the George Medal—to recognise ‘acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger’. The George Medal was primarily a civilian award, but the George Cross could be awarded to military personnel for gallant conduct which was not in the face of the enemy. As we will see, some recipients of the GC—including four remarkable Australians—undertook perhaps the most harrowing and demanding tasks in the history of warfare. Their sustained courage in defusing German mines in the Second World War was beyond compare. The valour of all who have received the VC and the GC is unquestioned. But as the stories of their lives leading to those crucial moments demonstrate, it flows from many sources and takes many forms. There is the impulsive act in disregard of 16

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‘A matter of chance’ personal safety when a mate is in peril; there is the almost superhuman strength of will and courage that sustains a man over days or weeks; and there is a calculated readiness to face almost certain death so that others may live. Military historians, psychologists and philosophers have debated the relative merits of the different brands of courage since Aristotle praised it as a virtue in his Ethics. Perhaps Mark Twain touched the heart of the issue when he said, ‘Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it.’ There is an everlasting debate about the relative worth of the ‘instinctive’ reaction that impels a man to a remarkable deed and the considered and thoughtful act in the face of terrible danger. Historian Gammage says: ‘Looking at it from outside, both sides have to be rewarded for the honours system to make sense. You want soldiers of both types. You want them to do things to increase their side’s chances of winning. Some people say that the thoughtful and frightened man is the one who really deserves a VC. Whereas with somebody who’s inherently brave, what’s he done that’s unusual from his point of view? I disagree with that.’2 But of course we cannot know the measure of fear each man has overcome in taking his extraordinary actions. There are numberless men who struggled against every instinct of flight simply to stay the course. Their courage was of a different order, but of no less worth. The process leading to the award of the VC is fallible. It depends on the act being appropriately witnessed, on the capacity of the commanding officer to convey what happened in an engaging manner, and even on the outcome of the battle during which the deed was performed. In 1948, Australia’s official historian of the First World War, Charles Bean, wrote to the then 17

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BRAVEST director of the Australian War Memorial, John Treloar. ‘Very often,’ he said, ‘the award of a VC was a matter of chance according to how the incident was written up or regarded by certain commanding officers, some of whom could have had much higher standards than others.’3 It was a valid observation. All students of wartime history can point to examples of such anomalies. In the early days of the Gallipoli landing, for example, British soldiers won many VCs; no Australians were among them despite some outstanding acts of courage under fire. However, by then six Australians had earned the supreme accolade—all in the Boer War. And the first of them—Neville Howse—was in the thick of the landing at Anzac Cove.

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3 Bullets ‘thick as hail’

Neville Howse was born in 1863 at Stogursey, in Somerset, the son of a doctor. He followed the family tradition, studied medicine in London and graduated in 1886. But the English weather aggravated a chronic chest complaint, and in 1889 he sailed to Australia in quest of a sunnier climate. The journey was debilitating and he was actually carried off the steamer at the NSW coastal town of Wingham by an uncle who lived in nearby Taree. There he recovered and set up a general surgery. As his health became more robust, he involved himself in the community as a member of the Agricultural Society, the School of Arts and the Jockey Club. He took to swimming in the Manning River and riding horses long distances to treat his patients. He encouraged his brother Oswald, also a doctor, to emigrate, and when he arrived in 1894 they shared an expanding practice. Howse returned to London in 1895 for postgraduate study 19

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BRAVEST in surgery and finally settled in Orange in 1899. He quickly built an excellent reputation and enjoyed a hectic social life. According to his biographer Michael Tyquin, ‘he had also begun to develop something of a cavalier style, evident both in his feats of horsemanship and in his surgery. This would translate into a predilection for the bigger picture, a disdain for bureaucracy and a constant search for challenge.’1 Just such an opportunity presented itself in October 1899, when hostilities broke out in South Africa. NSW sent the 2nd Contingent and its Army Medical Corps (NSWAMC), under Colonel W.D.C. Williams, which arrived at the Orange River in December. Howse joined up in January 1900 and, with the rank of lieutenant, sailed with fellow medicos to reinforce Williams’ by then hard-pressed unit. On arrival he was struck down by typhoid fever. When he recovered, in May, he rejoined Williams, whose NSWAMC worked within the 12,000-strong force of the man who would later command the Gallipoli expedition, General Ian Hamilton. The British were advancing on Pretoria but meeting stiff opposition on the way. After a bayonet charge in which 180 Imperial troops were killed or wounded, Howse and another medico spent the night searching for wounded men, dressing, operating and caring for the casualties before returning to their own camp at 4 a.m. Pretoria fell on 5 June, and Hamilton’s mounted infantry division—with Howse and other members of the NSWAMC in support—beat the Boer Army at the Battle of Diamond Hill. Then the chase was on for the Boer General Christian de Wet, who left a terrible trail of casualties in his wake to be treated by Howse and two other NSW surgeons. 20

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Bullets ‘thick as hail’ On 24 July news reached the pursuers that De Wet was approaching the village of Vredefort and a group of horsemen, including the Imperial Bushmen of Western Australia and the NSW Mounted Rifles, dashed forward. The opposing forces clashed in furious combat. De Wet had more than 4000 men in his irregulars, most of them expert marksmen. Howse soon found himself treating the wounded at a farm called Stinkhoutboom. Suddenly a Boer bullet struck a young trumpeter who was riding near the road some 200 m away. He cried out, clutched his stomach and fell from his horse. As he lay writhing in agony, Howse ran to a horse and spurred it towards the stricken man through ‘bullets flying thick as hail in a summer thunderstorm’.2 As he galloped across the paddock a Boer rifle shot struck his horse, which went down, throwing him clear. He struggled on towards the wounded trumpeter as the bullets slashed the ground around him. When he reached the man he was still alive and, despite the continued firing from the Boer lines, Howse staunched the flow of blood and lifted him onto his shoulders. Then in a series of short rushes he brought the young man to cover, treated him further and carried him safely back to the farm. There he discovered that the trumpeter had a perforated bladder. Undeterred, he operated immediately. The patient survived. Howse’s action attracted immediate recommendations for the Victoria Cross from his commanding officers. And on his return to Australia the young doctor, now promoted to captain, was given a hero’s welcome by the people of Orange. When the Sydney train drew into the station, the local brass band played ‘There’s No Place Like Home’, and the hero of the hour declared himself prouder of his adopted country than of that of his birth. 21

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BRAVEST On 4 December 1901, at Victoria Barracks, Paddington, the lieutenant governor of NSW, Sir Frederick Darley, invested him with the VC. Howse was modest to a fault. Indeed, he gave his sense of humour an outing when a journalist asked him to describe the action ‘in his own words’. Howse responded, ‘It appears that a shell had fallen close to me. My horse reared, and I was thrown on my head. Suffering from concussion, and knowing not what I was doing . . . I had performed this tremendous deed of valour while suffering from temporary insanity.’3 But the instinct to volunteer saw him again in action against the Boers the following year, when, as acting major, he commanded the stretcher-bearer company of the Australian medical contingent. It worked with a mounted infantry column and remained with the British force until the Treaty of Vereeniging ended hostilities in May 1902. By then five other Australians had been awarded the VC— including the first Australian-born recipient, Trooper John Bisdee—and all for actions involving their rescue of wounded comrades shot from their horses. All volunteered to serve in the First World War and one of them—Guy Wylly from Hobart— rose to become a staff officer, added a Distinguished Service Order to his decorations and was later created a Companion of the Order of the Bath. When Howse returned to Australia he resumed his practice in Orange and fell in love with Evelyn Pilcher, the daughter of a prominent solicitor. In February 1905 they married. They would raise two sons and three daughters. Howse’s brother Oswald had remained in Taree, and now Neville persuaded another brother, Cyril, who had recently graduated as a doctor, to join him in the 22

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Bullets ‘thick as hail’ Orange practice. Cyril would spend the next 39 years as a respected doctor in the town. In 1913, Howse bought Suma Park, a 1200-ha property outside the town. He became increasingly involved in local politics and in 1914 became mayor of Orange. When the First World War broke out he immediately volunteered for the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force and was appointed principal medical officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel. The force was ordered to seize control of German New Guinea, whose administrative headquarters was in Rabaul. Howse threw himself into the task. At 51, he was an erect 178 cm and 76 kg, and brimming with the adventurous spirit of a man half his age. He took charge of screening the recruits; under the leadership of Colonel William Holmes—a friend from the Boer War—they sailed from Sydney in the P&O liner Berrima on 19 August. On arrival in Rabaul they quickly overwhelmed the small German force with the loss of two Australian officers and four men. Howse’s actions inspired a rousing report in the Sydney Sun from a journalist accompanying the expedition: ‘Colonel Howse . . . is a most extraordinary character. He is not content unless he is where the fight is thickest. His dodges to get up to the firing line are many and numerous. And he always gets there . . . he is an absolute glutton for a fight and he hides it under a quiet manner . . . he is the best loved officer in the expedition.’4 However, not content with the ‘side show’ in New Guinea, Howse arranged for another medical officer to join the expedition so he could transfer back to Australia and join the 1st Division heading for Egypt. ‘It was one of the critical actions for myself,’ he wrote later. ‘I should have been left in the shallows if I hadn’t.’5 23

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BRAVEST By the time he reached Sydney the medical contingent was fully manned, but he drew on old friendships from the Boer War and was accepted as supernumerary medical officer when the division sailed for Egypt on 21 October. His old commander from the NSW Army Medical Corps, Colonel W.D.C. Williams, was aboard as director general of medical services for the AIF, and during the voyage Howse impressed the 1st Division’s commanding officer, General William Bridges. Both would be valuable allies. However, Williams went on to Britain in the mistaken belief that the troops would be trained there before being deployed to the Western Front. The change of plans that led to the Gallipoli expedition caused confusion among the medical planners. But Howse’s capacity for hard work and good results were rewarded by his December appointment as assistant director of medical services for the 1st Division. Australia was then attempting to develop an independent medical facility and to establish a casualty evacuation system for its own wounded. The core unit, the 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station (1ACCS), had been raised in Tasmania and consisted of 93 personnel, only seven of whom were doctors. Some 67 were private soldiers, and only one of them (a medical student) had any medical or first-aid training. They would be deployed principally as stretcher bearers. On 4 December 1914 the unit embarked on the SS Kyarra for Egypt and, in a ‘milk run’ of the Australian capitals, collected personnel for five military hospitals that would be established in the Middle East. In Egypt, the administrative confusion at the top only worsened when Bridges refused to become involved and Williams found himself opposed at every turn by the British 24

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Bullets ‘thick as hail’ medical establishment. By April 1915 the upper ranks of the Australian Army Medical Corps were in disarray. And such was British hubris that the senior officers under Hamilton believed that the entire invasion by 75,000 men would produce only 3000 Allied casualties.6 Nine days before the landing, they issued orders that the medical team landing on the beach with the Australians on 25 April would consist of only five officers (doctors) and 60 other ranks to act as stretcher bearers and to establish a casualty clearing station. In Cairo, British Surgeon General Sir Richard Ford waited until 21 April before he began to prepare emergency hospital accommodation there and in nearby Alexandria. He too believed the landing would be largely unopposed. How wrong they were. Anzac Day was hell on earth. And Howse was in the thick of it.

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4 ‘I begin to hate the damned country where I was born’ On 25 April, Howse landed with his divisional headquarters towards the northern end of the beach, since to the south the troops were under a murderous hail of Turkish machine-gun fire and shrapnel. The landing itself was at least a kilometre further north than planned, and the Anzacs found themselves confronting sheer cliffs, gullies and wild scrub, with the Turkish riflemen perfectly positioned to snipe from above. The medical plans, already confused, quickly descended into chaos. The 1st Casualty Clearing Station had been set up in a tiny, relatively sheltered area. It was impossible to create a decent treatment facility, and none of the medical units could bring its vehicles ashore. Bearers set off to bring the wounded back to the beach, and soon the flood of casualties overwhelmed both the medical staff and the flotilla of small boats ferrying them to the ships and the hospital hastily erected on nearby Imbros island. 26

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‘I begin to hate the dammed country where I was born’ For a week Howse and his colleagues were hard at it for twenty hours a day. By the end of the first day, every available ship was filled to capacity with wounded soldiers. Conditions were impossible. One doctor was treating a man when the soldier was hit by another bullet in the knee. ‘I’ve been hit once, damn you Turks,’ he cried, ‘Can’t you leave a chap alone?’1 Australian and New Zealand casualties between 25 and 30 April were 1240 killed in action and 4812 wounded. Howse was appalled. As he said later, ‘There was a great deal of feeling against the Imperial authorities. I have heard officers of some rank and connection with the AIF say they considered it was murder, and I have heard them say—with which I entirely agree—that such a catastrophe as occurred on this occasion would lead them to report to their Government that under no conceivable conditions would they advise the Commonwealth of Australia to enter again upon any war where they were entirely placed under the authority of the British Headquarters.’2 Before the landing Howse had understood that the Royal Navy would provide 200 stretcher bearers, but they never arrived. In the difficult terrain the Australian bearers found it hard to reach—or even to find—many of the wounded. By the end of the second week of the campaign the stench from decomposing corpses and body parts was overwhelming; the flies were thick and the first signs of diarrhoea and dysentery were spreading through the troops. Howse appealed to General Bridges for a twelve-hour armistice to find and collect the dead from both sides, but without success. So he assumed control of sanitation and hygiene, incinerating latrine refuse and instructing the troops. 27

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BRAVEST On 15 May, Bridges was hit by a sniper’s bullet and Howse rushed to his side. There was little he could do; Howse accompanied him to the hospital ship Gascon, but he died soon after. Howse travelled with the general’s body to Egypt and stayed on for a few days to help sort out the bureaucratic confusion there. On his return he was confronted by two major problems— the spread of dysentery and other infectious diseases and the poor calibre of many of the reinforcements, large numbers of whom were shipped home. Among the stricken troops, the medical staff was also falling prey to exhaustion and disease. Howse suffered severely from dysentery but stubbornly resisted going to hospital. He eventually succumbed and was evacuated from Anzac Cove at the beginning of July. This gave him the opportunity to see the chaos and confusion from a patient’s viewpoint, and on his return he did what he could to remedy them. Hamilton was now organising a major offensive to break through the Turkish ring. Fearing a repetition of the 25 April debacle, Howse demanded another 100 stretcher bearers and a contingent of doctors from Egypt. He got most of them, but when the operation began he and his staff were again inundated with wounded. Many came from the ‘diversion’ at Lone Pine, a feint designed to draw off the Turkish forces from the main area of advance but which became a bloodbath for the Australians. Casualties were so heavy that again Howse joined with his colleagues and worked a twelve-hour shift, treating more than 700 wounded who had streamed down to the beach. The following day he was struck in the shoulder by shrapnel. He was subsequently mentioned in despatches. With his nominal commander Williams out of favour and confined to administrative duties in London, Howse sought a 28

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‘I begin to hate the dammed country where I was born’ position with the authority to make a difference to a system that was falling apart. After a spate of military politicking he was appointed director of medical services for the whole of the AIF in November 1915. By now it was clear that the Gallipoli expedition had been a terrible failure, and plans were under way to withdraw from the peninsula in December. The great fear was that the Turks would find out and turn the evacuation into a massacre. Howse was drawn into the organising and worked round the clock to prepare for all eventualities. There would be no repeat of 25 April. A colleague wrote: ‘Innumerable details have to be dealt with. Howse does this wonderfully well.’3 He was one of the last to leave. He was deeply disillusioned. Appearing before the Dardanelles Commission in 1917, he said, ‘I personally will recommend to my Government when this war is over that under no conceivable conditions ought they ever to trust to the medical arrangements that may be made by Imperial authorities for the care of their sick and wounded.’4 Howse’s war was just beginning. He had unfinished business with the ‘Imperial authorities’ in Egypt under Surgeon General Ford, who had attempted to retain administrative control over the Anzac medical corps. Howse threw himself into the bureaucratic battle with the same energy and single-mindedness he had applied to his front-line work at Gallipoli. Ford’s men tried to overwhelm his office with pettifogging details. ‘They are raining wires, telegram messages and special messengers on this office all day, as they think this will be the best means of destroying us,’ he wrote to the AIF’s assistant adjutant-general, Brigadier Tom Griffiths. ‘Curse them, we will beat them. I begin to hate the damned country where I was born.’5 29

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BRAVEST Nothing had prepared him for the nightmare of suffering that he and his team would confront in the months ahead. In so doing, they would become the symbol of Australian mateship under fire. And one of their number—Private James Simpson Kirkpatrick, with his donkeys—would become the most powerful iconic figure of Anzac. Howse later wrote a letter to the Orange Leader: ‘The work of my men and the stretcher bearers of regiments was absolutely heroic. Picture bringing wounded men such as bad compound fracture of the thigh, over the worst side of [Mt] Canobalas. I can assure you that you could only slide them down, falling down, and occasionally they would fall out of the stretchers. But the wounded never murmured—they were splendid.’6 Simpson, of course, was mentioned in despatches, but debate continues over whether he—and others—should be awarded the VC. Supporters include the director of the Australian War Memorial, Steve Gower. ‘I wouldn’t object to it,’ he said. ‘I think there’s nothing worse than having a situation perpetuated that is demonstrably unacceptable or wrongful. It causes great antagonism and upset and disquiet, and if the matter could be resolved by a review, then it’s worthwhile as a community and a nation.’7 Among the many heroes of the Anzac landing, not one received the VC, though many were awarded to British troops further down the peninsula. Bill Gammage believes one important reason was that Australian commanders lacked the skill (or perhaps the opportunity) to write recommendations that would attract the award. Major-General Sir William Bridges, the 1st AIF commander, ‘may have thought that knowledge was there,’ Gammage said, ‘[as] Australians had won VCs in South Africa after all. But if [he 30

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‘I begin to hate the dammed country where I was born’ thought] so he was wrong. There were clearly some who should have won a VC at the landing but didn’t, so that was one of the many things that weren’t attended to at the landing. That was a terrible story. People won Distinguished Conduct Medals, Military Crosses and DSOs at the landing. It’s not as though there were no medals, just [that] none were written [up] well enough to prompt the thought of a VC.’8 By then the VC had attained high status, but not the glory that would suffuse it by the end of the so-called Great War. The conflict in Europe, where armies of millions confronted each other over vast areas, produced a human tragedy of catastrophic proportions. In this war of attrition the rationale for awarding the VC changed. Where once it was earned by the rescue of a comrade in peril, now it was an individual’s impact on the outcome of engagements that brought the accolade. According to Gammage, ‘The most common thing in the First World War was charging machine guns; that’s what won you a VC.’9

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5 ‘An ardent Australian patriot’

By April 1916, the AIF’s medical services were securely in Howse’s hands and he was ready to work with the commander of the Anzac Corps, General Birdwood, to refashion them to better serve the troops in the field, the medical staff and the priorities of the Australian government. However, on the Western Front the AIF was a junior partner in a massive military complex. Howse transferred his operations to London, where his early mentor Colonel Williams was about to return—unwillingly—to Australia. Williams was a victim of military politics and his fondness for hard liquor. But he had left behind a sound administrative structure which Howse quickly peopled with his own enthusiastic team. He soon decided that to obtain the best possible service for Australian casualties without overwhelming the Australian Treasury, he should coordinate with the British, who had estab32

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‘An ardent Australian patriot’ lished a good working system, and provide additional services to the Anzac Corps as needed. Australian expenditure was running at about £3 million a week, a massive drain on resources. Nevertheless, there was an acute need for an Australian Dental Corps. And there was the continuing problem of unfit reinforcements. Howse was uncompromising when it came to ‘Cook’s tourists’, the term he coined for unfit slackers who used the war to get a free trip to Europe. When Prime Minister Billy Hughes wrote urging him to put every available man in the firing line, he responded: ‘Many of them are absolute rotters who have never done an hour’s work since they signed on . . . Many of them should be shot; nothing short of this punishment would be of any use since you cannot make them work.’1 The Little Digger’s reaction is not recorded. In July, I Anzac Corps went into battle on the Continent; in July it suffered a terrible baptism of fire at Fromelles, in which the 5th Division lost almost a third of its number to the German guns. In only five weeks on the Somme, Australia and New Zealand suffered 23,000 killed and wounded. Howse continually toured the battlefields of France to ensure that soldiers were getting the best possible treatment. After heavy losses at Pozières in July and August, he was engulfed by the controversy over whether conscription should be used to maintain the flow of reinforcements. Howse was a fierce supporter of Prime Minister Hughes’s campaign, provided it was allied with a screening process to weed out the unfit. And when voters rejected conscription, he continued to oppose lowering fitness standards to keep the numbers up. On 1 January 1917 he was knighted and promoted to majorgeneral, but while he appreciated the honours, his overwhelming 33

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BRAVEST concern was for the Australians who had become recognised as the most effective shock troops in the Allied battle plan. This all too often meant that they were thrown into the most hazardous operations, with casualties to match. And when aligned with the incompetence of British commanders like General Hubert de la Poer Gough at Bullecourt,* the result was catastrophic. In the Passchendaele offensive, the AIF sustained an appalling 55,000 battle casualties in its five infantry divisions. The second referendum on conscription, in December 1917, produced an even more decisive rejection of Hughes’s proposal, and Howse was ‘devastated’. He blamed ‘lamentable’ staff work by the prime minister, who had lost touch with Australian attitudes. After the Allied forces held off the final German offensive in 1918, General Sir John Monash began his advance through Hamel towards Germany. Howse underlined his credo in a letter to the Australian commander: ‘For four years I have set my face and every portion of machinery behind me to see that only men physically and morally fit should be sent to the front line.’2 Shortly after he wrote the letter he received one from home to say that twelve-year-old Everil, his eldest daughter, had polio. This, combined with the need to ‘thrash out’ the policy on recruiting standards with the Australian Ministry of Defence, provided an opportunity for Howse to return home for ‘consultations’. However, it was understood in the upper echelons that he would not be coming back. Major-General Brudenell White * Largely because of Gough’s ‘inspiration’ to use the experimental tank without an accompanying artillery barrage at Bullecourt, more than 60 per cent of the Australian troops were killed or wounded. The AIF 4th Brigade was essentially wiped out as a fighting force for months.

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‘An ardent Australian patriot’ wrote to him: ‘Your labours for the AIF are too great to need any reference . . . a fuller and more complete recognition will come in time and the name of Neville Howse will be properly honoured in Australian history.’3 Fortunately, Everil recovered with only a ‘slight drop of the left foot’, and when Howse returned to Orange on 20 November she was waiting with the rest of the family and a crowd of more than 1000 people to welcome him home. Armistice had been declared and the mood was euphoric. For Howse, it was short-lived. The demobilisation of the AIF demanded his presence, and just before Christmas he left for London on the Wyreema. The one consolation was that he was able to take his family with him. After months working closely with Monash to repatriate the troops, he departed for home in November covered with Imperial honours and with an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. For many VC winners, the return to civilian life was traumatic; many were never able to adjust. Some were haunted by the horrors of war; some found it hard to acquire the skills necessary for success in business, farming or other jobs. Though still young men, they felt their best years were suddenly behind them. Some found it impossible to navigate a path through the indiscipline of peacetime society, and sought the company of their comrades-in-arms and the expansive illusions of alcohol. Howse was not so burdened. Though the horrors of combat would never leave him, he resumed his practice in Orange and was again elected mayor in December 1919. But having tasted high authority, he welcomed overtures from politicians, and in November 1922 stood as the Nationalist Party (later Country Party) candidate for the federal seat of Calare. 35

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BRAVEST Elected in a landslide, Howse spent only a few days in parliament before he was sent to Geneva to represent Australia at the League of Nations. He was not appointed to the ministry until 1925, but thereafter he remained a highly influential cabinet minister. His first portfolio was the Ministry of Health. At the time, the Commonwealth’s control did not extend much beyond quarantine, the states being responsible for all other medical services. In characteristic style Howse set about expanding his bailiwick, proposing federal initiatives in cancer research, a food and drugs standards committee, and a school of public health and tropical medicine. He was able to import radium for cancer treatment, but otherwise his proposals were blocked by the state premiers. However, he also had joint responsibility—with Country Party leader Dr Earle Page—for repatriation, a massive task in the 1920s. In this role he pushed through increases in war pensions. His next promotion added the Ministry of Defence to his workload. He took the prescient view that Australia’s next enemy would most likely be Japan, and argued for modern coastal gun emplacements and secure fuel dumps to be built in Darwin. He was also determined that never again would Australian forces be controlled by ‘Imperial authorities’. The Royal Australian Air Force had been formed in 1921, and as minister, Howse resisted moves by the navy to incorporate it into a fleet air arm. In 1926, after travelling to the Imperial Conference in London with Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, he fell ill with pneumonia and had to be hospitalised in Port Said. When he reached Australia he relinquished the Health portfolio, but when his own health worsened he also parted from Defence 36

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‘An ardent Australian patriot’ and in 1927 accepted the less demanding Ministry for Home and Territories. He was now responsible for the Commonwealth Electoral Office, census and statistics, the federal lands and survey department, as well as the administration of the Federal Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, Norfolk Island, and Papua and New Guinea. In 1928 he helped create the Australian War Memorial and the National Institute of Anatomy and oversaw the establishment of government administration in Canberra, the infant national capital. Though he maintained his vote much better than most incumbents in the 1929 election, Howse lost narrowly to the Labor candidate, G.A. Gibbons. It was a fierce blow, but in February 1930, he and most of the family left for London, where he planned to revive his surgical skills by observing the latest techniques. He worked briefly at some of the leading hospitals— and enjoyed watching Don Bradman bat at Lords. Then he fell ill with gallstones, and during an operation surgeons discovered a cancer in his pancreas. He deteriorated rapidly and died on 19 September. He was buried next to his father in Kensal Green cemetery. Howse was the first of the great figures of the AIF to die. Monash would follow the next year; the legendary Albert Jacka, VC, the year after. According to Howse’s biographer, Stuart Braga: ‘The deed for which Howse won his Victoria Cross . . . was wholly in character. So too was his second tour of duty in South Africa, answering the Empire’s call when there was nothing personally to be gained by it. A little more than a decade later we see in Howse not only the servant of the British Empire but also an ardent Australian patriot.’4 37

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BRAVEST The Australian General Sir Cyril Brudenell White wrote an appreciation of Howse in October 1930. ‘The beach at Anzac looked a holocaust,’ he said. Then it was that Howse became a giant. He took the whole matter into his hands, giving and disregarding orders in a manner quite shocking but strangely and rapidly productive of results. Shells and bullets he completely disregarded. To the wounded he was gentleness itself. His capable hands eased many a patient, while his cheery voice and bearing brought comfort and consolation. April 25th 1915 was a black day on the beach but it produced many heroes. Could they now be asked to name the greatest, the palm would go to Neville Howse by unanimous vote.5

However, when it came to Australia’s greatest fighting soldier, another name would soon be on everyone’s lips: Albert Jacka, a young man from country Victoria.

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6 ‘I managed to get the buggers, Sir’

Albert Jacka was awarded one Victoria Cross; many, among them Charles Bean, believe he earned three.1 Jacka was a hero even to the heroes. And no other Australian soldier caught the public imagination as he did. He was raised in the small town of Wedderburn, 60 km north of Bendigo. His grandparents had migrated from Cornwall in the 1850s and settled in the former gold-rush district as small farmers. His parents, Nathaniel Jacka and Elizabeth Kettle, were married there in 1885. For a time they went farming in the Winchelsea district near Geelong, where Albert was born in 1894; but they returned to Wedderburn when he was six and there raised a family of four boys and three girls. Albert was right in the middle, and quickly developed a fiercely protective attitude towards his siblings in the rough and tumble of country life. 39

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BRAVEST ‘We always felt safe when Albert was around,’ said his brother Bill.2 And while in later years their father mellowed, Nathaniel ruled his family with the proverbial rod of iron. Albert was his favourite, but Albert was the only one who stood up to him. It was a character trait that would grow and flower. Nathaniel had leased a few acres outside Wedderburn but supported the family by carting goods to and from Bendigo and the big properties of the district. At thirteen, Albert joined his father on the big dray and for the next four years they worked together, carting goods and mending roads and fences, while the family maintained their small property. Albert and his father formed a tight bond, but both were strong willed, and the young man soon felt the need to strike out on his own. At seventeen he applied for a traineeship in the Victorian Forestry Department, and the following year took up the task of restoring forests despoiled by miners during the feverish gold-rush years. For three years he moved around the area alone, boarding with local families while reforesting, fencing and tending the new plantings. There was little opportunity to join in team sports, so he concentrated on individual ones like cycling and boxing. He was strong and very fit. As a teenager he had joined the Rechabites, an order of teetotallers, and he would rarely, if ever, touch alcohol throughout his life. He had been a regular churchgoer at home and had sung in the Methodist choir, though according to brother Bill that had more to do with his attraction to Elsie Raff, the young organist, than any particular religious zeal. But while he had a fine tenor voice, he was far too shy to reveal his yearnings to the prim daughter of the Reverend Raff. 40

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‘I managed to get the buggers, Sir’ By 21 he was at a dead end. His lack of formal education hindered his progress at work; his vague ambitions to become a professional cyclist seemed unlikely to be fulfilled; his shyness with women and the peripatetic nature of his work made it hard for him to develop lasting relationships. Then came the war. The recruiting ads in the papers were offering six shillings a day—a big jump from his modest wage— and the prospect of adventure in the great, wide world. The papers told of the threat to the Empire from the mad ambitions of the German Kaiser, and of Australia’s fearful isolation among the yellow hordes should the Empire be crippled. But most of all, they issued a call to arms for a young nation that until recently had been no more than a collection of colonies whose roots lay in the shame of penal settlement and a sharp division between privilege and poverty. For Albert Jacka, the timing was perfect. Britain declared war on 4 August 1914, and before the month was out Jacka had applied for leave for the duration. On 8 September he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. Wedderburn gave him a great send-off (at the railway station, Elsie Raff kissed him and he blushed to his bootstraps) as he joined many hundreds of young men making their way to the training camp at Broadmeadows, outside Melbourne. There he was assigned to the unit that would become his second family until his death: the 14th Battalion. Within three years, its 1000 fighting men would proudly call themselves ‘Jacka’s Mob’ as they strode across the byways and battlefields of France. It was an extraordinary relationship. As they shared the wild thrill, the fierce comradeship and the unspeakable horror of the battlefield, Jacka would bring to his mates the same sense 41

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BRAVEST of protective responsibility he had shown his brothers and sisters. And they would respond in kind. Their basic training complete, the 14th was combined with the 13th, 15th and 16th battalions to become the 4th Brigade under Colonel John Monash. With great ceremony they marched through the cheering streets of Melbourne in December to begin the great adventure. By then Jacka was known as ‘Bert’ to his mates and was already studying to become an NCO. As the unit’s ship steamed in convoy towards the Old World, he took part in many of the activities Monash had designed to keep the men occupied. He quickly made a name for himself in the boxing ring, where at 169 cm and 75 kg he was a formidable opponent. In Alexandria, the Australians joined up with newly arrived New Zealanders for training in the desert and shenanigans among the fleshpots of Cairo. However, after one clash with authority Jacka withdrew to his NCO studies; by the time training was complete he was acting lance-corporal in D Company. Rumours were rife that they were about to be deployed against the Turks, who had joined the war on the side of Germany. On 18 March 1915, a task force of Allied battleships attacked the Dardanelles. The plan, conceived and promoted by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, was for the Mediterranean fleet to break through the Turkish naval defences and sail up the Sea of Marmara to Constantinople, where, after disposing of a pair of German destroyers, they would force the Turks to capitulate. A British, French, Australian and New Zealand force would travel overland and mop up any resistance on the way to the Turkish capital. 42

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‘I managed to get the buggers, Sir’ Alas, Churchill’s plan fell at the first hurdle. Turkish mines, torpedoes and artillery took out four battleships—three British and one French—under the command of Admiral de Robeck, who withdrew in confusion. The same day saw the arrival of General Sir Ian Hamilton—Neville Howse’s commander in the Boer War—and after consultation with de Robeck, Hamilton proposed a new strategy: a landing at Gallipoli with 75,000 men backed by naval artillery to overwhelm the 65,000 Turkish defenders. Hamilton’s plan was doomed from the beginning. The Turks were waiting. They commanded the heights. And they were defending their homeland. Jacka was among the first party from the 14th Battalion to go ashore at about 10 a.m. on 25 April 1915. It was a baptism of literal fire, since the scrubland on the slopes of the peninsula was ablaze and the Turkish gunners had found their range. He could do little but help the wounded on the beach and prepare the way for the arrival of Monash and the rest of the 14th the following day. Jacka was among those who relieved the Anzacs on the front line at Quinn’s Post, the most hazardous of the positions held by the invaders, and there they stayed for three days and nights before being rested and assigned to Courtney’s Post, on a ridge above Monash’s headquarters. Finally, on 19 May the Turkish commanders mounted an allout counterattack. By 3 a.m., all along the line the Turks were charging into a fusillade of machine-gun fire, but as they fell their compatriots ran over the bodies and hurled themselves at the Australian trenches. Now it was hand-to-hand combat, both sides firing at point-blank range. A dozen yards to Jacka’s right, 43

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BRAVEST in the trench line ahead of his, the Turks broke through, tossing bombs and killing two Australians, wounding two more and driving out six others. They ran to Jacka’s right and into the intersecting communications trench. Jacka had been protected from the bomb blasts by his firestep, which was dug into the front of the trench, and from there he fired into the milling Turks, who took cover and held on. As more enemy soldiers rushed to join the attackers, Jacka shouted, ‘Turks in the trench!’ and loaded another magazine into his Lee Enfield .303. ‘Officer wanted,’ he called. Below, in Monash’s HQ, Major ‘Bobby’ Rankine ordered Lieutenant Keith Wallace Crabbe up into the communications trench. Jacka heard him coming and stopped him with a shout. ‘Look out. Turks in there!’ Crabbe: ‘What’s the situation?’ Jacka told him. Crabbe: ‘If I get men to back you up, can you charge them?’ Jacka: ‘Yes. I want two or three.’

Crabbe disappeared. Jacka moved about the trench, firing at an angle, using other men’s rifles and reloading as he went. Whenever a Turkish rifle appeared around the corner he fired. Again and again he ducked bullets and retreated to his firestep. Crabbe gathered three volunteers from A Company, and when they reached the communications trench near Jacka’s line, Jacka slung his rifle over the top of his trench and followed it, landing in the communications trench with them. They would fight their way up this trench to the new front line and meet the Turks head on. 44

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‘I managed to get the buggers, Sir’ Jacka turned to the privates. ‘Fix bayonets,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first. Follow me.’ Jacka dashed across the exposed area of the communications trench and back to his firestep in the line. His mates followed, but one was hit by three Turkish bullets. Jacka dragged him out of the firing line and warned the others to stay where they were. Bending low and carrying his rifle with the bayonet fixed, Jacka hurried left, up the slight rise and through the darkened trench. Then, out of sight of the Turks, he climbed over the parapet into no man’s land. Wallace Crabbe and his men kept firing up the communications trench to hold back the enemy. The Turks responded with rifle and revolver. Suddenly Jacka loomed above them. As he leapt into the trench he began firing. Five Turks fell before his ammunition ran out, and he used the bayonet to despatch two more. Three surrendered, others fled. Turks from further down the line saw the panic and joined in a wild retreat. The action was over. The line was restored. Lieutenant Wallace Crabbe cautiously rounded the corner of the trench where he had glimpsed Jacka jumping down. The officer said, ‘All right, Corporal?’ Jacka nodded. ‘Well, I managed to get the buggers, Sir.’ Word of Jacka’s deeds sped through the Anzac ranks. Wallace Crabbe reported the event to the battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Courtney, after whom the post was named. But Courtney was in no condition to process the recommendation and was evacuated. He would die in Melbourne, of illness attributed to Gallipoli, in 1919. Jacka’s own diary entry that day said simply, ‘Great battle at 3 a.m. Turks captured large portion of our trench. D Coy called 45

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BRAVEST into the front line. I led a section of men and recaptured the trench. I bayoneted two Turks, shot five, took three prisoners and cleared the whole trench. I held the trench alone for 15 minutes. Lieut. Crabbe informed me that I would be recommended.’ In fact, the recommendation would have been lost in the confusion of war had not the men of the line spread the word all the way to the ears of Monash and then the division commander, Major-General Alexander Godley. When Monash dined a week later with General Hamilton, they agreed that Jacka had earned the Victoria Cross, the first to be awarded an Australian in the Great War. If he had done no more in that conflict, Jacka would have secured a place in history. But his feats at Anzac Cove were merely the first of many that raised him to the front rank of military heroes. At home he was the centre of a recruiting campaign, to ‘join Jacka in the Sportsmen’s 1000’, and the response was immediate.

But while Jacka’s VC was a valuable tool for recruitment, it was at this time, unknown to almost everyone, that the crosses began to be derived from one of the most disgraceful episodes in British history. By 1914, metal from the original gun had been used up. The War Office ordered a replacement from the massive official gunstore. According to historian John Glanfield, the order went down the chain of command ‘only to be ignored by the fitters, who entered a crowded gunstore and headed for the nearest and least challenging’ armaments.3 As it happened, they chose two Chinese artillery pieces captured in the Second Opium War. 46

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‘I managed to get the buggers, Sir’ In 1856, Chinese government officials had boarded the Arrow, a Chinese-owned ship registered in Hong Kong that was suspected of piracy and smuggling. Twelve Chinese sailors were arrested and imprisoned. British officials in Guangzhou demanded their release, claiming that because the ship had recently been British-registered, it was protected under the Treaty of Nanking. In fact, the British were spoiling for a fight. The First Opium War of 1842 had opened five ports to British traders; now they sought to force the Chinese to bow to further demands. At the time the Chinese government was struggling to quell the Taiping Rebellion and was in no position to resist a British attack on Guangzhou from the Pearl River. Then France, prompted by the execution of a French missionary in Guangxi province, joined the British action. The Allies attacked and occupied Guangzhou in late 1857, then cruised north to briefly capture the Taku Forts near Tianjin in May 1858. Soon afterward the Chinese capitulated and two of the Taku Fort cannons were taken back to England aboard a British ship. Glanfield says the VC guns ‘were almost certainly among the many shipped from China aboard the transport Chersonese’ in 1861. He quotes the London Illustrated News of the day, which reported that ‘none of these cannon appear[s] to have been used. During bombardment of the North Fort . . . a chance shot had blown the Chinese magazine leaving its artillery without ammunition.’4 Unaware of the guns’ provenance, the army fitters extracted two cascabels (the bulbous projection behind the breech of the cannon) and conveyed them to Hancocks, which retained the exclusive right to manufacture the crosses. The Chinese cascabels would provide all VCs until 1942 when yet another oddity in Victoria Cross history would occur. 47

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7 ‘The bravest man in the Aussie Army’

Meantime, Jacka’s remarkable military career was just beginning. Following the tragedy of Gallipoli, the Australian infantry was expanded from two to four divisions. Jacka and his beloved 14th Battalion were sent to France, where the German advance had been halted and a terrible war of attrition was being conducted on the muddy Belgian borderland. On 1 July the British launched a major offensive in the area around the Somme, which was churned to slush as the artillery barrages from both sides took a terrible toll of men’s lives and the balance of their minds. On 6 August 1916, Lieutenant Jacka and his men deployed in the front line. He had conducted his own tough campaign against the military old-boy’s network to reach commissioned ranks, though he was still more comfortable with his men than in the company of his fellow officers. But rank counted for little 48

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‘The bravest man in the Aussie Army’ when the Germans launched a massive attack on Pozières on the morning of 7 August, overrunning Jacka’s position. Having secured his men in a deep dugout, he raised himself to the edge and looked out. As far as he could tell in the chaotic fury of the battlefield, the situation was ‘just the same’, he told his troops. But then a German in the second or third line of the advance rolled a bomb into the wide entrance of the dugout. It exploded, severely wounding two men and stunning the rest. Jacka was first to recover. He charged up to the parapet and fired his revolver at an advancing figure, who immediately fled and disappeared in the pitted field. Turning to the rear, he suddenly realised that the first German line had passed over his position and was now almost 100 m behind him. The second line was also between him and the men of the 48th Battalion on the left who, even as he watched, came out of their dugouts with their hands raised in surrender. Two Australian officers and about 40 men threw down their arms as the Germans surrounded them. Now the Germans were beginning to push their captives forward. Only seven of Jacka’s men were unscathed. ‘Stay down,’ he said, and quickly explained the situation. By now there were more than 50 Germans shepherding the Australians back to captivity. ‘This is no good, boys,’ Jacka said. There was no way they were going to let their mates be taken. He held the men until the Germans were about 30 m away, then, brandishing a rifle, leapt onto the parapet with a guttural cry: ‘Charge. Charge the bastards.’1 Jacka rushed at the leading officers, firing as he went. For a moment the Germans were nonplussed. Then they fired back at the Australians charging at them from their own lines. Two of 49

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BRAVEST Jacka’s men were immediately hit by a bomb and fell back into the trench. Each of the other five was hit by rifle fire, but most kept going. Some of the Germans dropped their guns, fearing that they had fallen into a trap; others fired their rifles at the Australians’ leader, who seemed unstoppable. Four Germans had found a foxhole from which they began shooting at him. Jacka said later: ‘They hit me three times and each time the terrific impact of bullets fired at such close range swung me off my feet. But each time I sprang up like a prize fighter, and kept getting closer. When I got up to them I shot three through the head and put a bayonet through the fourth. I had to do it—they would have killed me the moment I turned my back.’2 He rejoined the charge, taking out at least a dozen men before he went down again. The men of the 48th, taking advantage of the Germans’ confusion, had by then turned on their captors and wrestled their rifles from them. From other parts of the battlefield Australians were drawn to the struggle in defence of their mates. Jacka went down for the last time. He had been wounded no fewer than seven times, one bullet passing right through his body beneath the right shoulder. A stretcher bearer found him, ripped off his tunic and dressed the worst of his wounds. Then he went to fetch a stretcher but was killed before he could return. Jacka lay on the battlefield until some of his men found him. As the stretcher bearers carried him and the other wounded to safety, a man called, ‘Who’ve you got there?’ One bearer replied: ‘I don’t know who I’ve got, but the bravest man in the Aussie Army is on that stretcher just ahead. It’s Bert Jacka, and I wouldn’t give a Gyppo piastre for him; he is knocked about dreadfully.’3 50

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‘The bravest man in the Aussie Army’ Jacka had single-handedly turned a battlefield defeat into a rout for the enemy. War historian Charles Bean later wrote: ‘Jacka’s counter-attack . . . stands as the most dramatic and effective act of individual audacity in the history of the AIF.’4 Though grievously wounded, he rallied when he reached the 4th Australian Field Hospital in a village school behind the lines, and three days later he was sent to England, to the 3rd General Hospital in Wandsworth, South London. Almost immediately, word of his feat swept through his unit. All agreed that Jacka had earned a second VC. And by any comparison with other deeds that were so honoured—including his own at Gallipoli—he had. However, the top brass were not comfortable with a man who was so willing to question orders when they put his troops in unnecessary danger. He was clearly not ‘one of us’. Instead they gave him a Military Cross, a high honour but still far less than he deserved. Jacka’s wounds healed quickly, and in three months he was back with his beloved 14th. In the spring offensive of April 1917, the commander of Allied forces, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, hoped to ‘roll up’ the German forces in the north. It was a dangerous fancy. So too was his colleague General Gough’s ‘inspiration’ to lead the charge with the tanks that had only recently reached the battlefield—and, on the front line at Bullecourt, where the thrust would begin, to forgo a protective artillery barrage lest it forewarn the German defenders. It was a disaster. The twelve tanks were late; most broke down; the crews were untrained and outside the infantry chain of command. Jacka, now a captain, struggled to bring order. He positioned the tanks personally. He alternately cajoled and threatened the crews. At last they were in place. But when the 51

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BRAVEST attack began, the tanks were worse than useless. The battalion sustained fearful casualties on the German wire entanglements that would have been broken up by an artillery barrage. It did drive the enemy back, but when it called for the big guns to forestall a counterattack, the plea went unanswered. The artillery commanders had confused Germans with their own soldiers and refused to fire. The result was another tragedy. In a report on the tank fiasco, an angry Jacka accused the tank crew of incompetence bordering on cowardice and strongly implied that the High Command was guilty of dereliction of duty. The report was pigeonholed. Its author was now a marked man. Throughout the battle Jacka had seemed to be everywhere he was needed. For two days he had exposed himself constantly to enemy fire in his self-imposed endeavour to make the tanks effective. He had led his troops through and beyond the wire and when the odds were overwhelming he had protected their withdrawal. His fellow officer Edward J. Rule wrote: ‘He received a bar to his M.C. Most of us considered that it should have been a bar to his V.C.’5 Orders to attack at Polygon Wood reached the 14th Battalion on 24 September 1917: The 4th Brigade will assume offensive operations in two stages. 1st stage (red line), 2nd stage (blue line). 16th Battalion will secure the red line. 15th and 14th Battalions on a frontage of about 500 yards will secure the blue line. 13th Battalion will be in reserve in position now occupied. The barrage will be put down 150 yards in front of our forming up line at zero. It will begin to advance at zero plus three minutes at the rate of 52

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‘The bravest man in the Aussie Army’ 100 yards in four minutes for 200 yards; thereafter and up to the red line, the rate will be 100 yards in six minutes. Just prior to movement from red line it will increase in intensity and troops will move up close under it.

Jacka was in command of D Company. At 12.15 a.m., they and A, B and C companies made their way forward towards the jumping-off point, with D Company in the lead. Jacka later wrote: ‘The going was very heavy in the advance as the terrain was a mass of shell holes filled with water.’6 Almost immediately, there was a change in procedure that would have a profound effect on the action. Jacka said: The original arrangement was that Battalion Headquarters was to move forward behind it. For some reason they made a change and moved around to a very safe dugout behind the 15th Battalion, and remained there. Either no notice was sent to the front line of the new situation of HQrs or if it was sent, the runners became casualties and no effort was apparently made to ascertain if the messages reached their destination.7

With company runners searching fruitlessly for battalion headquarters, company commanders were forced to send their messages all the way to brigade headquarters. According to Jacka, ‘Battalion headquarters was not heard of at the front line till the end of the 2nd day of battle.’8 The apparent dereliction of duty by the battalion commander left Jacka the de facto leader of the battalion in the field, and he grasped the opportunity with both hands. His friends had known that he longed to lead D Company into the attack, but it 53

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BRAVEST is unlikely he ever dreamed of seeing the whole battalion at his heels. At last they truly were ‘Jacka’s Mob’. Now, according to Lieutenant Rule, ‘He set out to lift the men of the battalion up to his own standard.’9 They reached their jumping-off point shortly before zero hour, 5.50 a.m. All talk ceased and then, with a stupendous roar, the artillery barrage fell upon no man’s land, a gigantic thunderstorm of bursting steel hurled from a thousand guns. Jacka rose from a shell hole and waved the men forward through the slippery mud and water-filled craters towards their first objective, the ‘blue line’, about 300 m ahead. His way was relatively clear, but he quickly saw that to his left fire from German pillboxes was taking a toll on the 16th Battalion. Some officers and men were turning back. Immediately, he called his men and led them towards the concrete bunkers. When the retreating soldiers saw him, they turned back. In short order the pillboxes were taken, their occupants killed or sent back as prisoners. General Monash’s biographer Roland Perry later wrote: ‘The attack ran into trouble as much from the Germans as from shells of their own artillery, and looked like failing until cool Albert Jacka steadied them.’10 Again the 14th forged ahead, reaching the blue line at 8 a.m. The line coincided with a road that could serve as a range finder for enemy artillery, so Jacka called a quick meeting of company commanders and proposed that they advance another 50 m. Their own barrage might come uncomfortably close, but he reckoned the risk was worth taking. The others signalled their agreement. Jacka gave the order. When the German barrage opened up later in preparation for a counterattack, it passed harmlessly overhead—and pulverised the blue line. 54

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‘The bravest man in the Aussie Army’ Now Jacka needed signal rockets to call down his own big guns. But he had entrusted them to his batman, who was nowhere to be found. So Jacka doubled back some 400 m to get the needed flares. He was sniped at for much of the journey, one bullet passing through his tunic, another grazing his hand. But he kept going, made it back, waited until the Germans had formed up 300 m away, and then called in the artillery. Only one German managed to come within 75 m of the Allied line. The German stretcher bearers were busy for hours. A second German counterattack was preceded by a barrage that played havoc with the 15th Battalion. The men of the 15th feared this heralded an all-out frontal attack on their position, and there were indications that the barrage had sapped their morale. Jacka sent a message down the line by word of mouth: ‘If the Hun attacks the 15th we shall hop out and meet the blighters.’11 The 15th steadied. The attack never came. Having made an unprecedented advance into heavily fortified German territory, the 14th held their position—under almost constant fire—for three days, until they were relieved on 28 September. Throughout, Jacka had called the shots and deployed his forces with tactical guile and sureness of purpose. His determination and confidence lifted the whole unit. ‘At Polygon Wood Jacka’s handling of the fighting men astonished even his greatest admirers,’ Rule wrote; ‘it was a demonstration by a master for the benefit of his pupils.’12 Newton Wanliss, the official historian of the 14th Battalion, who had lost a son in the battle, was even more generous: His personal achievements in previous battles had been the admiration of his countrymen, but at Polygon Wood when 55

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BRAVEST the opportunity came, he displayed in addition a power of leadership, a grasp of tactics, and a military intuition that many had not given him credit for. It is impossible to over-estimate the value of his services during those three days in the line. He carried the left wing of the Battalion forward with a magnificent dash to the second objective and there took practical control of the unit and was thereafter the guiding spirit of the storm of battle. His reckless valour, his excellent judgement, his skilful tactics, his prompt anticipation of the enemy’s movements, and the force and vigour of his battle strokes gained the admiration of all ranks, and inspired everyone with the greatest confidence. Throughout the whole engagement he was an ubiquitous and fearless figure, the very incarnation of a great fighting soldier and a born leader of men. No more fearless or gallant soldier took part in the Great War.13

But Jacka’s prodigious feats at Polygon Wood won no official recognition. Soon after he was so badly gassed that he had to be evacuated to England. There he recovered in the dappled lanes and meadows of Sutton Veny in Wiltshire, where the AIF had a base and a hospital.

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8 ‘Tell Dad I’m still fighting’

When he left Britain late in 1919, Jacka was back to his old form. He acted as ship’s adjutant on the voyage home, organising activities for his fellow troops and helping them prepare for civilian life. With two fellow officers of the 14th, Reg Roxburgh and Ernie Edmonds, he also hashed out plans for a business. Roxburgh’s father was the senior partner in a shipping and wheat brokerage, so Reg would supply the capital and the contacts. Edmonds had been a commercial traveller before the war; he would provide the salesmanship. As for Jacka, he had the ability to organise men on the battlefield, but whether that would translate into the world of business was a moot point. In Adelaide a reporter came aboard, and soon the news reached Melbourne that the great Jacka was heading home. When the ship docked, tens of thousands turned out to cheer their hero. Unbeknown to him—or indeed to the authorities— 57

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BRAVEST ordinary Australians had taken Jacka’s feats to heart and followed them like no one else’s in that terrible war. To them, he was indomitable. Jacka saw things through; he not only survived, he conquered. And he never let ‘the heads’ get the better of him. The Allies had won the war. Here at last was an opportunity to revel in the victory and pay tribute to the very epitome of the Australian fighting man. The Melbourne Herald described the scene: Surging, jostling and shouting, taking all the buffeting in the best of spirits, they sought a glance of the soldier, an opportunity to pat him on the back, shake his hand or in some other way express their feelings. The humble people who merely wanted to look upon him and the ambitious souls who sought to lay their hands upon him, met with an equal lack of success owing to those clustered on the car and who held on as though their lives depended on it.1

Up in Wedderburn they held a street parade and presented him with copies of his medals forged in gold. And when the shouting finally died away, Jacka and his mates set up an electrical goods business in central Melbourne. They were backed by the bookmaker and businessman John Wren, and within a couple of years they were prospering. On 17 January 1920 Jacka married a rather forward young woman, Vera Carey, despite his family’s opposition (she was a Catholic). It was not a happy match. They came from different worlds. Vera would never be able to fully understand the terrible experiences Jacka had been through. Moreover, she liked a drink, while Jacka kept faith with his teenage pledge. They were never 58

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‘Tell Dad I’m still fighting’ really comfortable together, and Vera was unable to have children. However, in 1927 they adopted a six-month-old girl, and for a time little Betty provided their union with an even keel. Jacka threw himself into his business. He joined the Masons, was active in the Returned Soldiers League, and in September 1929 he was elected to the St Kilda City Council. The following month came the Wall Street Crash, and soon Australia was plunged into the Depression. Again Jacka found himself in the front line, but this time the war had no rules of engagement and the victims were helpless to fight back. He battled for funds from state and federal governments to start relief programs for his constituents. He led fund-raising campaigns for the unemployed and the destitute. He accepted the position of mayor of St Kilda and worked himself to the bone on behalf of his compatriots. But the struggle played havoc with his business, his health and his home life. In 1931 Vera walked out, taking Betty with her. By then Jacka had been forced to close the electrical business and, after a year of unemployment, had found a job selling soap. Soon his health gave way. He collapsed and was diagnosed with kidney disease, which his many injuries had weakened his will to resist. A message emerged from his bedside: ‘Tell Dad I’m still fighting’, but on 17 January 1932, aged only 39, he died. More than 60,000 Melburnians turned out to salute his cortege as it wound through the city streets to the St Kilda cemetery. To this day, on each anniversary of his death, a group of admirers gathers at the graveside to remember him and to celebrate his indomitable spirit. For his bravery encompassed both the hot blood of battle and the long, hard hours of service to his fellows when all the odds were against him and the goal seemed forever out of reach. 59

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BRAVEST A St Kilda boulevard is named in Jacka’s honour, and in 2009 a new suburb in Canberra will also bear his name. But many believe that he is yet to find his proper place on the Australian roll of honour. The Australian War Memorial’s Steve Gower is one who thinks more should be done to acknowledge the nation’s most outstanding soldiers. ‘I don’t think the Australian people recognise sufficiently people such as Jacka, [Tom] ‘Diver’ Derrick and others,’ he says. The AWM has a statue of Dr Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop on one side and one of John Simpson and his donkey on the other. ‘No statue of Jacka or any of the others,’ Gower says. ‘Dunlop and Simpson were worthy of recognition. But we seem not to want brought to our attention the feats of a Jacka, a Derrick or a [Harry] Murray.’2

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9 ‘A compelling, ubiquitous figure’

Nearly 50,000 Australian soldiers served on Gallipoli. They won nine VCs, no fewer than seven of which came from a single action: Lone Pine.* Conceived as a feint to divert Turkish forces from the main point of attack in the planned ‘breakout’ from the Anzac positions on the north flank, it resulted in a terrible carnage in which more than 2200 Australians were killed or wounded and at least 4000 Turkish defenders were killed. In the result, the breakout was unsuccessful but this was no fault of the men of Lone Pine. Indeed, according to Wigmore and Harding, ‘In Australian military history, Lone Pine must rank as a peak of valour.’1 * The VCs at Lone Pine went to Leonard Keysor, William Symons, John Hamilton, Frederick Tubb, Alexander Burton, Bill Dunstan and Alfred Shout. The other two went to Hugo Throssell, severely wounded in the battle for Hill 60, and Albert Jacka. 61

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BRAVEST It took place during the second week of August 1915, in an area roughly the size of two football fields, and much of the fighting was hand-to-hand. Nevertheless, the awarding of seven VCs is difficult to justify when not a single award was made for the remarkable acts of valour that took place during the landing and in the breakout itself. There have even been suggestions that the multiple awards were made to forestall accusations of a scandalous mismanagement of Australian forces in the engagement. Bill Gammage agrees that Lone Pine is a special case. ‘I suspect there was an awareness that the Australians had received fewer VCs than they should have by that time,’ he says. ‘Secondly, it really was very intense hand-to-hand fighting— Bean says the toughest hand-to-hand fighting of the war, and by that he means bombs and bayonets. So deeds of great courage are measurable in that kind of circumstance. ‘I’ve heard it suggested that it was a diversion for a scandalous piece of military mismanagement, but not by any contemporary. At the time of those recommendations and awards the Australians and British as a whole couldn’t have been too clear about how successful Lone Pine was as a feint. The basic objective was to draw Turkish reserves from further north into the fight there as a “mincing ground” in the same way that [German Chief of Staff Erich von] Falkenhayn had done at Verdun in 1916, and we know that it worked. A lot of Turkish reserves were pulled away for three or four nights to Lone Pine. ‘It’s still a very fair question whether even a successful diversion was worth that many lives, but in terms of Australian intention it did succeed. On the other hand people could say there were so many VCs not because it was a failure but because it was a success. You can’t win on that sort of speculation.’2 62

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‘A compelling, ubiquitous figure’ One man who did distinguish himself in the ‘breakout’ was Harry Murray, who would become Australia’s most highly decorated soldier of the First World War. However, he would have to wait until action on the Western Front before he received the VC. ‘Mad Harry’ called himself a bushman when he enlisted in the AIF on 30 September 1914. It was a fair description. By then he had worked on the family farm at Evandale, Tasmania, carried mail on horseback around the goldfields of Western Australia, and run a gang cutting timber sleepers for the WA railways. But there was another side to Murray. His father, Edward Kennedy Murray, the grandson of a convict, was a stern disciplinarian. There was no love lost between them, particularly after Harry was withdrawn from school at fourteen to work on the farm. His elder brothers had gone to the prestigious Launceston Church Grammar School, and he never quite overcame the sense of having been cheated of an education. Nevertheless, he had a lifelong passion for reading that would be reflected in the vivid and erudite articles and memoirs he penned in later life. From his early teens he had been an active member of the local militia, travelling into Launceston for drill and exercises with the Australian Field Artillery unit there. He became a crack rifle shot. After he parted company with his father, he worked first on his brother Charles’s wheat farm for board and keep before heading west at only eighteen. When he volunteered for the AIF he was 33, a tall, good-looking man with the easy assurance of a natural leader. He regarded himself as ‘nervy and highly strung’ and found that the discipline of the military regime helped focus his mind on the job. His best mate, Percy Black, joined up at the same time and they constituted one of the two machine-gun crews of 63

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BRAVEST the 16th Battalion when they landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Percy was a powerfully built man with a heavy moustache. He had tried gold prospecting without notable success and was at least as old as Murray. He too was an expert marksman, and had phenomenal skill with a machine-gun. According to Charles Bean, he could assemble his Maxim gun faster than anyone else in the AIF.3 The machine-gun section was one of the first of the 16th to hit the beach and soon they had climbed the slopes to Pope’s Hill, named for the battalion commander, where the fighting was the heaviest. There they set up their machine-gun with Percy at the trigger and Harry passing the ammunition. Almost immediately they distinguished themselves. Bean called them ‘men of no ordinary determination’ and said Murray was ‘cool and competent’ as they held off the Turkish counterattacks. Both men were wounded but refused to leave their guns. But then Percy’s weapon was smashed by a bullet. Murray later wrote: ‘He just put it on his shoulder and walked back to the beach to see if it could be repaired by a ship’s armourer, but had the great good luck to exchange it for another one instead. The new gun was all brass and shiny—and what a picture of a returning warrior Percy made as he came up the hill . . . although his arm was in a sling and his head swathed in bandages, his eyes were beaming with joy at the success of his quest; now he could carry on with the good work and we needed him badly.’4 It was only when Murray took a Turkish bullet in the right knee on 30 May that he was forced from the front line and evacuated to nearby Imbros. There he was loaded onto the Franconia with 1850 other casualties. ‘Most of them [were] more badly 64

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‘A compelling, ubiquitous figure’ wounded than I was,’ he wrote. ‘We had only seven doctors on board going night and day, trying to save life on the operating table. Slight wounds had perforce to go unattended. I lost all count of days . . . finally Egypt and hospital, clean at last.’5 His knee stiffened and he was posted to a hospital ship for return to Australia. However, he had other ideas. Making his own way to the wharf at Alexandria, he boarded the transport Scotian bound for Gallipoli. The knee would regain some flexibility but would trouble him for the rest of his life. He rejoined his unit at the beginning of July and was immediately back in the thick of it. Then came news that he had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for ‘exceptional courage, energy and skill between 9–31 May’. He was wounded again on 8 August, when the 4th Brigade under Colonel John Monash attempted to break out from the Turkish defences encircling them from the heights. Their objective was Hill 971, but the attack went badly wrong when the advancing forces lost their way in the gullies and ridges. Murray’s unit covered the withdrawal of the troops, earning rare praise from Bean as ‘possibly the finest unit that ever existed in the AIF’.6 On 13 August he was promoted to sergeant and transferred to the 13th Battalion. Later the same day he was commissioned a second lieutenant, one of the speediest elevations from the ranks imaginable. His mate Percy had beaten him to the punch, receiving his commission in May. But Murray quickly made his mark on the 13th. A week after joining it he took part in the assault on Hill 60. The battalion diary records: ‘Lt Harry Murray looked thin and ill, but he remained full of spirits, watching and sniping all day with his Maxim. He worried the Turks tremendously and they 65

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BRAVEST retaliated but could never find his skilfully hidden gun. How he enjoyed it!’7 Bean called him ‘a compelling, ubiquitous figure on Gallipoli’.8 However, on 26 September he was stricken with dysentery and evacuated to Egypt for two months, returning just in time for the ignominious withdrawal from the peninsula. He had spent 131 days on Gallipoli, all of them under fire. After a subdued Christmas on Imbros, the Anzacs returned to Egypt, where they were reorganised and trained for the Western Front. On 20 January 1916 Murray was promoted to lieutenant; less than three months later he was a captain.

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10 An ideal leader

In the reorganised AIF, Murray joined the 4th Machine-Gun Company of the 4th Brigade and after special training travelled through France to the front, where he rejoined the 13th Battalion. By now the war had killed tens of thousands of young men on both sides. The battalion was trained in trench warfare, and Murray later recalled his initiation. ‘Soon after getting into the trenches in France I encountered the first German I had seen,’ he wrote. ‘I was unarmed—someone had “half-inched” my revolver—[but] I was determined to take him prisoner. ‘He had a rifle slung from one shoulder. I felt about and picked up a piece of black mud that had dried very hard. I intended to bash him in the face with it and take his rifle from him. When about six feet from him and on his right side, I said in a savage voice, “Hands up!” He dropped his rifle and put up 67

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BRAVEST his hands. What a wonderful feeling of relief it was to get it. I prodded him back to my outpost.’1 His first major confrontation with the enemy was at Mouquet Farm in August 1916, in the wake of the battle of Pozières. Having taken the main objective, the unit found the farm directly in its line of advance. Murray stormed the remains of the farm with fewer than 100 men. He took the objective but after beating off four German counterattacks ordered his men to withdraw. The 13th Battalion historian, Thomas White, wrote: ‘He seemed to sense the dangerous points and got there always in time to help save or regain them. He was already the 13th’s hero, the one spontaneously regarded as the ideal leader in actions requiring coolness, thought, initiative, personality and gallantry. So quiet and unassuming too, but always there.’2 Murray’s A Company had gone into the fight with five officers and 180 men. It came out with one officer, Murray, and 60 men. The farm was eventually recaptured by 3000 men. Murray received the Distinguished Service Order. The citation read: ‘Although twice wounded, he commanded his company with the greatest courage and initiative, beating off four enemy attacks. Later, when an enemy bullet started a man’s equipment exploding, he tore the man’s equipment off at great personal risk. He set a splendid example throughout.’ Evacuated to England, Murray shared a hospital ward with Bert Jacka and Percy Black. He rejoined his battalion on 19 October. In early February 1917, Murray led his company in an attack on Stormy Trench, near Gueudecourt. Orders had come down from High Command for I Anzac Corps to adopt a more offensive attitude in order to keep the Germans under strain. This 68

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An ideal leader suited Murray’s temperament well. The 13th relieved the 15th Battalion, which had launched the Stormy Trench attack the day before but been forced back by a German counterattack from three sides. Years later, Murray captured the scene in an article for Reveille:3 ‘The night was one of austere beauty. A mantle of frozen snow flooded by rich moonlight had removed all the ugly scars of previous battles and everything showed out with startling clarity against that illumined sheeting . . . Unfortunately, the stillness of the night was rudely broken by bellowing guns, bursting shells and the sight of men struggling like wild animals.’ The artillery had tried to blast gaps in the barbed wire protecting the German trenches. They succeeded on the left, but the wire remained intact along the greater portion of the front. Murray decided to pass around to the left of the wire and bomb down the trench until the Germans were forced out. ‘Moonlight on snow makes men very conspicuous,’ Murray wrote, ‘and we naturally did not want the enemy to spot any unusual movement. The cold was intense, lying in that trench, but it gave us enough cover.’ A whisper reached him for permission to smoke—there were nearly twenty minutes to go; minutes of acute tension and suspense. ‘Many would never see tomorrow’s sunrise, but a cigarette would be a wonderful comfort.’ He gave permission. One cigarette had to be lighted from another, as any sudden illumination would have betrayed their whereabouts. Seconds dragged by. Now and again the boom of a heavy gun would sound, a shell whine overhead, then a scarcely 69

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BRAVEST noticeable increase came from our own field as gunners warmed them up, preparatory to the barrage, and watches showed now but three minutes to go! The order ‘Smokes out’ was whispered along; our pulses began to beat faster as the crucial moment approached . . . an unbuttoning of pockets holding grenades, and 15—10—5 seconds! We were now breathlessly watching, not the front, but our own artillery, when the horizon leapt into quick stabbing flashes and the sweep of steel overhead, like the wings of a million eagles rushing towards their prey, made us jump. About 200 yards [183 m] ahead we could see the reddish twinkle and pop of our bursting shrapnel and ‘Hurrah, we’re off ’, under the swiftly moving steel roof of our barrage. And what a barrage! Almost it seemed as if the shells were striking an invisible straight edge and bursting, so true and exactly were the fuses set. No fear of rifle or of machine-guns. No one could show out on that parapet and hope to live. We had two minutes to get where that Niagara of steel was falling, all eager and cool, in perfect lines showing in the clear moonlight. It was hardly safe to stand upright—so close overhead sounded the river of sweeping steel. Better crawling—we must get as close as possible. A glance at my luminous watch dial showed 20 seconds to go before the barrage lifted. Now we were lying prone just ahead of the straight edge, shrapnel shrieking overhead, shells bursting just behind. The air was full of whining nose caps, while empty shell cases hummed as they bounced off the frozen parapet ahead. As we looked, the barrage, perfectly timed, lifted. Then with a steady, silent, irresistible rush the men poured round the 70

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An ideal leader wire and into the trench. This was how it should be done. The trench was deep and wide and the garrison crouching at the bottom had no option but to surrender. No time to waste now. Seconds were most valuable. The selected bombing sections swung along the trench to the right; no resistance yet; then a bomb or two started to burst around. Traverse after traverse was rushed by those quick, determined men. One dugout was passed and then we were across the valley and commencing to ascend the hill. Still some hundred yards or more to go, but we were doing well.

They came to an enemy dugout and a shot struck one of his men. The wounded soldier retaliated with two grenades. Of the eight men in the dugout, seven were killed outright. The only survivor, an officer, staggered out. Little was left of the original man who stood upright facing us save the undaunted spirit that still animated his shattered body. Nothing more terrible have I ever heard than the indistinguishable growl that issued from that spouting and fearful wound that had been his mouth. We interpreted it as surrender and he was given such attention as was possible, but it would have been a kindness to have shot him. He died that night, having given everything for his country, and surely he met a brave gathering of the very best on the other side. No time for sentiment, though. Holding the trench where we were would have given the Germans downhill throwing in a grenade fight. It was too far to go to the top, for there we would have exceeded our objective and would come under our own barrage, and barrages are no respecter of persons. So we 71

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BRAVEST decided to hold on at the bottom of the hill, leaving about 60 yards [54 m] of flat ground between.

The captured trench was about two metres deep and four wide. It was quite undamaged, and a bomb barricade was speedily built on the right. No one was cold now, and casualties had been light. At Murray’s order machine-guns were set up and a section started to enfilade the German trench with rifle grenades. The 4th Machine-Gun Company posted their Vickers about our centre and we were all set and ready for the inevitable counterattack 20 minutes after the taking of the trench. . . . First there opened on us the most severe high explosive and trench mortar fire we had ever experienced—and it was frightfully accurate. It was concentrated particularly on our right. Suddenly it ceased and movement was noticed on our right rear. This was thought to be a patrol of Australians, but movement on our right front and a hail of bombs enlightened us. The 2nd bombing section raced up and a bomb fight of the first magnitude developed. The heavy losses sustained by No. 1 bombing section enabled the Germans to approach and a deadly hail of grenades from front, flank and rear took heavy toll.

Murray called in the artillery with SOS flares, and the next instant the Australian artillery opened up. ‘It came with a crash, making the earth tremble, as a torrent of lethal steel raced overhead, falling between us and the enemy—no chance of reinforcements reaching them now; even the mighty son 72

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An ideal leader of Thetis would have hesitated before entering that wall of screaming, plunging, bursting steel.’ The attacking Germans, however, did not wait for reinforcements but charged ‘like infuriated tigers, determined to drive us from the position’. Murray responded by calling for his men to go ‘over the top’, hurling their grenades into the German lines. The two sides clashed hand-to-hand. ‘The fight was now being carried to the Germans with a vengeance. A German bombing section was crouching so close that our grenades were going over their heads. Three were taken prisoner; the others weren’t!’ The attack began to waver and break. Many Germans fled; others were bayoneted or shot, but a few escaped. And so the fight went on all along the trench. Nearly all Murray’s officers and NCOs were either killed or wounded, but the German casualties were also heavy: We were making [the enemy] pay heavily for every man he killed or wounded. The night was still young, and when the Germans realised that their counterattack had failed, they poured in a smashing shellfire, which again was diabolically accurate. The trench sides were torn off in huge frozen boulders of black earth; it was hard to save men from being squashed to death under them; harder still to find temporary havens for our wounded, getting more numerous every minute. Yet all around, the Digger was cool, cheerful and determined. Men were terribly thirsty. We had plenty of water, but it was all frozen and there was neither time nor opportunity to melt it with Tommy cookers. It hurt to see some of the lads trying to get a bit of ice out of their bottles with a pocket knife to quench their thirst. 73

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BRAVEST Another problem was supply. The German artillery inflicted heavy casualties on the teams ferrying grenades to the front lines. Then it found Murray’s trenches. ‘The men were marvellous,’ he wrote, ‘despite being blown about and hurled time and time again against the frozen sides of the trench. Not one man was shell-shocked, and although, as I have said before, many of the boys were raw reinforcements, they behaved one and all like veterans.’ The shell fire increased, then suddenly stopped. In an instant German bombs rained on them in another fierce counterattack. He sent up another flare. The prompt and savage artillery response isolated the attack. Once more Murray’s men rushed the attackers, repulsing them more quickly this time. But hardly had the Australians regained the trench when the Germans struck again. ‘Those children of Odin certainly fought well,’ Murray wrote. ‘Three times they renewed their efforts, though bloodily repulsed each time. German infantry has no superior in such cases. Finally, they gave it up and reverted to the machine war. Bitterly accurate shelling took toll of our diminishing numbers. Men were often hit squarely, passing at once out of the story; at other times hurled off their feet, often buried, but the lads took what was coming and kept a close watch for any movement over the top, while others kept rebuilding and improving the fire-steps, heaving boulders of frozen earth out of the trench.’ All the while, Murray moved ceaselessly among them, encouraging and challenging as required. At about 2.30 a.m., the enemy opened up again: ‘It seemed as if no one could survive that deluge of bursting shells which swept the ground like a watering pot, hurling men to and fro like ninepins, but the boys 74

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An ideal leader had no thought of anything save holding their ground, and just waited grimly for the counterattack that must follow, and once again it came.’ When the artillery broke off, German bombers made the most determined attempt of the night to capture the position, but they were facing men as determined as themselves. Some moved out to meet the enemy on the right, while Murray’s riflemen on the left opened a continuous and heavy fire. ‘Our gunners did their part well and faithfully,’ he wrote. ‘Shrapnel was bursting beautifully overhead, giving enemy reinforcements no chance at all of moving up in support. No troops, however, could daunt that stubborn Company of Diggers. They might all be killed, but they would never admit defeat. And at last even our great foes had to admit that the task was too great, the losses too heavy.’ The German guns continued to roar death and defiance until the dawn. Then a count of fit men revealed that only 40 were available to repulse yet another counterattack. Fortunately, none came. ‘Stormy Trench . . . was ours for keeps, and keep it we did,’ Murray recalled. He counted 61 dead Germans and twenty Australians, as well as many wounded on both sides. Gone was the beautiful white mantle of snow: for hundreds of metres, both front and rear, it had been obliterated by shells. Murray’s company was relieved by his old unit, the 16th. ‘We were treated as only those big-hearted West Australians could treat tired, shell-shaken men,’ he wrote. Even now, after the lapse of twenty years, my heart beats more quickly when I recall the behaviour of our boys—and many of 75

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BRAVEST them were mere boys—during those hot and strenuous moments when men were falling all around them. Heavy, accurate shellfire, bitter bombing attacks, and hand-to-hand fighting only made the Digger hang on more grimly and tenaciously. There was no quitting; no thought of it. After repulsing each fresh attack, the survivors would grin feelingly at each other, then prepare for the next, and so it went on till finally the Germans had to confess themselves beaten. Retaking the trench was beyond them.

Murray’s Victoria Cross citation read: For most conspicuous bravery when in command of the right flank company in attack. He led his company to the assault with great skill and courage and the position was quickly captured. Fighting of a very severe nature followed and three heavy counter-attacks were beaten back, these successes being due to Captain Murray’s wonderful work. Throughout the night his company suffered heavy casualties through concentrated shellfire, and on one occasion gave ground for a short way. This gallant officer rallied his command and saved the situation by sheer valour. He made his presence felt throughout the line, encouraging his men, leading bombing parties, leading bayonet charges and carrying wounded to places of safety. His magnificent example inspired his men throughout.

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11 ‘I wasn’t mad’

Only two months after Stormy Trench, seven battalions of the 4th Australian Division, including the 13th Battalion, attacked the Hindenburg Line near Bullecourt. This was the infamous occasion when the British General Gough, an unreconstructed cavalry officer, decided to use the still-experimental tank to lead an infantry charge. Murray’s unit, following the 16th Battalion, saw them caught against the wire in a torrent of machine-gun fire. ‘Come on, men,’ he shouted, ‘the 16th are getting unshirted hell.’1 His mate, the gallant Major Percy Black, who led the 16th, was killed trying to find a gap in the wire. Murray was devastated. He later wrote: ‘Black knew Bullecourt was to be his last fight. Two days before the battle he said to me, “Well, Harry, we have been in a few stunts together but this is my last,” and added, “I’ll have that Hun in the front line first.” And so he did.’2 77

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BRAVEST Murray got through to the German trenches and sent a message that with proper artillery support and more ammunition he could hold the position ‘till the cows come home’. The troops in the newly won trenches were quickly isolated, and although Murray was not the senior officer forward, many sought him out for direction. He and Jacka called in the artillery, but the gunnery officers behind the line believed that the Australians had broken through and that the barrage would fall on their own men. So they ignored the call. Murray and the survivors of four battalions were now in danger of becoming cut off and captured. Someone in the line raised a white flag; Murray ordered that it be shot down. For seven hours they fought on; finally there was no choice left, and under a heavy German barrage Murray withdrew his men. ‘The whole battle was as hopeless as the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava,’ he wrote, ‘and the effort was sustained far beyond the limits usually assigned to human endurance . . . it is only necessary to mention that in our Company alone there were 17 unwounded survivors; this will give you an idea of the losses as a whole . . . the High Command had blundered, and men had to pay the price.’3 The 4th Division lost 2339 of about 3000 men engaged, including 1170 taken prisoner. For his part in the battle Murray received a bar to his DSO. On 11 April 1917, the day of the battle, he was promoted to temporary major (confirmed on 12 July) and towards the end of the year he briefly commanded his battalion. But after Bullecourt the remnants of the 4th Brigade were withdrawn from the line. They had earned their rest. On 2 June, at a large ceremony in London’s Hyde Park, Murray was invested with his Victoria Cross and his two DSOs by King George V. 78

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‘I wasn’t mad’ Since 1916 the machine-gun had been greatly improved and its tactical applications refined. The heavy Vickers guns were increasingly used as long-range support for infantry attacks, while the lighter Lewis guns were valuable in close combat. In early 1918, each division’s four machine-gun companies were consolidated into a machine-gun battalion, commanded by a lieutenant colonel who reported directly to the divisional commander. Harry Murray was selected to lead the 4th Division’s new battalion on 15 March, becoming one of a handful of Australians to have risen from private to lieutenant colonel. He later wrote that ‘as new battalions, the MG companies were not easy to weld together’. But, no one was better suited for the task, since he was universally respected by his comrades-inarms. And almost immediately he was drawn into the planning by General Monash for an all-out attack on the German lines at Hamel in which, for the first time, infantry, artillery, aircraft, machine-guns and tanks would work together in a fully coordinated operation. Supporting fire for the infantry attack included a large number of machine-guns, control of which would be the responsibility of Murray’s 4th Division. By the evening of 30 June, Murray had had 32 gun positions prepared, with a total 500,000 rounds of ammunition, camouflage equipment and a reserve of water to cool the guns. They would give covering fire from the existing front-line positions, and more would advance with the infantry units to provide direct support. Altogether, Murray would have 112 machine-guns and their crews under his command. Monash briefed him personally, and Murray visited his companies in the line to pass on the battle plans. He made his final 79

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BRAVEST rounds on the evening of 3 July, making sure all was in readiness for ‘zero’—3.10 on the following morning. The opening barrage began exactly on schedule. The Australian infantry, with a sprinkling of American troops, advanced behind the latest generation of tanks. Murray’s machine-guns provided support and low-flying aircraft dropped ammunition to the troops and the machine-gunners. The Germans were overwhelmed by the rapid, coordinated advance and the Australians captured all of their objectives within 93 minutes and with fewer than 1000 casualties. More than 1600 German troops surrendered. When the battle was won and the captured ground consolidated, Murray counted only five of his men killed and 28 wounded. He remained as battalion commander until the war ended, improving efficiency and morale with each action as Monash pursued the retreating German forces. He was mentioned in despatches and in 1919 was awarded the French Croix de Guerre and made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. While awaiting repatriation, Murray and William Donovan Joynt, VC, were given charge of parties of farmers in the AIF who elected, under a government education scheme, to tour farming districts in Britain and Denmark to study agricultural methods. It was a valuable experience for the ‘bushman’, who on his return to Australia would look for a sheep-farming property. He sailed home on the same transport as Generals Monash and Birdwood. But at Fremantle he was the centre of attention, and former colleagues of the 16th Battalion carried him shoulder high to the town hall. In Melbourne he ducked the crowds and headed for Launceston, where his mother waited. After his 80

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‘I wasn’t mad’ discharge from the AIF he moved to Queensland and became a grazier at Muckadilla, near Roma. On 13 October 1921, at nearby Bollon, he married an estate agent, Constance Sophia Cameron. They were not well matched: Murray was reclusive while Constance sought the limelight. After they separated in 1925, Murray went to New Zealand. Two years later he married Ellen Purdon Cameron, a niece of his former wife, in Auckland. They returned to Queensland and settled on a 30,000-ha grazing property near Richmond. Despite a 24-year gap in their ages, this was a happy union and they had a son, Douglas, and daughter, Clementine. In the Second World War Murray commanded the 26th Battalion in North Queensland until April 1942; in August he became lieutenant colonel of his local battalion of the Volunteer Defence Corps. In February 1944, aged 64 and badly crippled in both knees, he retired from the service. Nevertheless, he led a mounted regiment of the Volunteer Defence Corps in North Queensland whose task it was to train rural workers in guerrilla warfare should the Japanese invade. They quickly became known as ‘Murray’s Marauders’. After the war he prospered, particularly when the Korean War sent the wool price soaring in the 1950s. Although a shy man who shunned publicity, he attended the VC centenary celebrations in London in 1956. And at a rare attendance at a 13th Battalion reunion he said, ‘They called me “Mad Harry” but I wasn’t mad. Whatever I did, I did to justify something in me which made me feel humble in the face of the great deeds of my fellow Australians. ‘When I got the DCM I wondered why I had been awarded the decoration because I had seen so many others so much braver 81

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BRAVEST than I. And because of this I felt from the moment I received the decoration I would have to justify the award in their eyes . . . and that is why, perhaps, I did the things I did.’ He died on 7 January 1966 in Miles District Hospital, Queensland, after a car accident. He was given a full military funeral in Brisbane. The historian of the 16th Battalion, Charles Longmore, wrote of him: ‘To Murray belongs the honour of rising from a machine-gun private to the command of a machine-gun battalion of 64 guns, and of receiving more fighting decorations than any other infantry soldier in the British Army in the Great War.’4 The 13th Battalion historian, Thomas White, noted: ‘Not only was the 13th proud of him but the whole brigade was, from general to Digger. His unconscious modesty won him still greater admiration. Bean called him “the most distinguished fighting officer in the AIF”.’5

Murray and Jacka were clearly stamped from the warrior mould, and both seemed destined for high honour almost from the time they enlisted. Moreover, both had the steadiness of purpose to handle the attention and expectations that came with the VC. This too was unusual. In the First World War 66 Australians would win the award, almost a quarter posthumously, but of those who survived the war a goodly number found it difficult to keep their heads. John Hamilton, from Sydney, was one of the seven VCs from Lone Pine. A well-built young man, he was lionised in London and ‘took to the grog’. His subsequent descent into alcoholism was not unusual. And at the time little thought was given to assisting veterans back into civilian life. According to Bill 82

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‘I wasn’t mad’ Gammage, ‘When it came to ceremonial occasions like Anzac Day or the 1956 [VC centenary] celebrations, then the VC winners would be trotted out, but in normal day-to-day civilian life they were left to battle.’6

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12 ‘Hit with a sledge hammer’

When warfare took to the air, Australians were at the head of the pack. The flyers were the knights errant of the skies. In their flimsy craft the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps duelled with the enemy in a boundless arena while the Diggers in the muddy trenches of the Western Front and the desert sands of Palestine watched with envy. Both Albert Jacka and Harry Murray applied to transfer to the Australian Flying Corps, but were passed over. Only one Australian earned the Empire’s highest award while in the air service and in so doing he raised the knightly tradition to new heights. Francis Hubert McNamara was born in 1894 in the small northern Victorian town of Rushworth, near Bendigo, which came to life in the 1850s gold rush, grew as a timber town, matured as a dairying centre and is now rich with wine and 84

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‘Hit with a sledge hammer’ history. His father William, a forester, had married Rosanna O’Meara in Bendigo in 1892 and Frank, their first child, was soon joined by five brothers and two sisters. As a youngster Frank was wrestled into his Sunday best for Mass at the local Catholic church, an activity thoroughly foreign to his lively nature. He would get other small friends in the front row to join him in calling ‘Amen’ even before the priest had finished. The result—no doubt anticipated—was that they were sent outside to play. One Sunday morning Frank and his brother Leo pleaded illness, and when the family returned with guests to share a customary glass of port and biscuits they found the provender gone and the two miscreants passed out from overindulgence. He had fun in the railway yards removing brake chocks and watching the loaded timber wagons backing into each other. He and a team of other ten-year-olds got lost bushwalking, but by the time they were found, at midnight, Frank had placed himself in charge, lit a fire and even trapped a small rabbit. Despite the mischief he was a gifted student who frequently topped his year and went on to win a scholarship to the Shepparton Agricultural High School. Then in 1910 his father was made his company’s deputy chief land valuer, and the family moved to an imposing house in one of the better suburbs of Melbourne. While Frank was at teachers’ college, war broke out in Europe. He joined the local militia, the Brighton Rifles, becoming a lieutenant on 1 July 1915. He immediately applied to attend a course in ‘military aeronautics’ and was accepted at the Point Cook Central Flying School the following month. He was instantly captivated. He made his first solo flight—in a primitive Bristol Boxkite aircraft—on 18 September and had his first ‘forced 85

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BRAVEST landing’ three weeks later. After he got his pilot’s certificate he graduated to the (slightly) more sophisticated BE2a aircraft in January 1916. However, he was still raw and inexperienced when his No. 1 Squadron embarked on the liner Orsova for the Middle East. Arriving at Suez, they were attached to the Royal Flying Corps stationed in Egypt and were sent to Heliopolis for further training on Avro 504A biplanes. The authorities were not particularly impressed with the colonials’ expertise, and Frank McNamara was among those sent on to England for some serious instruction. When he returned to Heliopolis on 24 August he was dismayed to find that his squadron was equipped only with the notorious BE2c, best known to the Germans as ‘Fokker fodder’. But after a brief illness—a dose of ‘pharaoh’s revenge’—he made his first operational sortie in October, carrying out a reconnaissance of the Sinai. His aircraft was hit by ground fire, but McNamara was unaware of it and landed just as the last of his oil was running out. His commanding officer was impressed. ‘You must have the luck of a Chinaman,’ he said.1 In the next two months the British and Australian units gradually moved closer to Palestine, where the Ottoman Turks had large forces in Gaza and the surrounding area. By now the Anzacs had been forced off Gallipoli and had made their way through France to the Western Front. This left the Turks free to extend their control in the region and even to threaten British power in nominally neutral Egypt. They had lost a great number of men in the defence of Gallipoli but were well supported by German commanders and morale was high. Advised by Chief of Staff Colonel Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, the Turks 86

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‘Hit with a sledge hammer’ attacked across the Sinai desert in hopes of closing Britain’s vital supply route, the Suez Canal. The British, with Australian support, had defended the canal in 1915 and for a year had been content to guard it while the Turks were busy fighting the Russians in the Caucasus. Now the Turks attacked again in strength—twice, before they were decisively repulsed. These attacks convinced the British they must push their canal defences further up the Mediterranean coast, so starting in October, the Allies began preparing for an attack across the Sinai towards Gaza. After capturing El Arish and Magdhaba, they were ordered to go on the offensive against the Turks in the heart of Palestine. Their first objective would be the fortified town of Rafa. As the troops moved forward, No. 1 Squadron moved up along Sinai’s coastal plain and at dawn on 9 January McNamara took off with Ross Smith* as observer to provide aerial support for the attack. They reported on enemy troop deployments and the success of the Australian light horsemen, who were able to encircle the Turkish defenders. Rafa was overrun later that day and the way was now clear for a further advance towards Gaza and Beersheba, the terminus of the Damascus railway. The air reconnaissance was proving a tremendous asset to the field commanders and this led inevitably to the development of anti-aircraft gunnery on both sides. The Turks were aware of the importance of the flyers and peppered the aircraft with rifle fire. When the pilots landed they would find patterns of bullet holes in the wings. The German anti-aircraft artillery was becoming increasingly effective. * Smith and his brother Keith would later become famous for making the first flight from England to Australia in 1919.

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BRAVEST However, McNamara’s principal concern on his next flight was with his observer, Captain T.C. Macaulay, a staff officer from headquarters who somehow managed to jam the dual controls fitted in his forward cockpit and throw the aircraft into a flat spin. In his battle to regain control McNamara sustained a crack across the bridge of the nose that bled profusely, but at least he was able to resume flying. And the experience did nothing to blunt his sense of humour. He noted, ‘Macaulay had numerous coloured pencils, maps, various instruments, notebooks and a pocket altimeter strapped across his knees and chest so that he looked like a Christmas tree.’2 Three days later he went on a bombing raid on the German air base at Ramleh—the 20-lb bombs being strapped beneath the Martinsyde aircraft and released by a lever within the cockpit— and cheekily dropped a note in French attached to a metal spanner suggesting they shift to a better-concealed location. Now the Turks pulled back to consolidate their supply lines and the British commanders decided the time was right for an assault on Gaza. However, McNamara found himself with a sixday leave pass and spent it with a mate and fellow pilot, Peter Drummond, in Cairo. There they squired the young daughters of Baron Rodolph Bluntschli, a Swiss official working with the Egyptian government, on sight-seeing expeditions around the city. There was no romance involved—Helene and Gisele were in their early teens—but the meeting was a memorable one for Frank. By now the Germans had upgraded their air force in the area with the Rumpler, whose machine-gun could fire through the aircraft’s propeller. With the new planes came a fresh contingent of pilots who had been blooded on both the Eastern and Western 88

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‘Hit with a sledge hammer’ Fronts. They brought a new spirit of aggression and ruthlessness to the air war but without sacrificing the sense of chivalry that had characterised the pilots of both sides from the earliest days. On 20 March, McNamara was in a group of flyers piloting one of two Martinsydes—the other flown by Lieutenant Alfred Ellis—with two BE2cs flown by Peter Drummond and Captain D.W. Rutherford. The Martinsydes carried Howitzer shells in place of bombs, which were in short supply. The shells were timed to explode 40 seconds after release. However, when McNamara released his load over Ramleh, one shell caught in the release mechanism and exploded only 9 m below the aircraft. Shrapnel burst upward and hit McNamara in the legs and buttocks. ‘I felt as if I’d been hit with a sledge hammer,’ he said later.3 When he recovered he turned immediately for base. He was bleeding profusely and fighting to stay in control. But as he turned he saw that one of his squadron’s aircraft had come down near a railway line. The pilot had detonated a smoke bomb as a distress signal, and McNamara could see that a body of Turkish cavalry had spotted the downed plane and was heading in his direction. He didn’t hesitate. He put his aircraft into a steep dive through enemy ground fire and made for the level area near the railway. He could see that the downed pilot was Captain Rutherford, a Queenslander who had previously served with the Light Horse at Gallipoli. He had transferred to the Flying Corps only after the Gallipoli withdrawal in December 1915 and undertaken his first mission as a pilot only in March 1917. In fact, this was only his second sortie against hostile forces. Standing orders were for downed pilots to burn their aircraft to prevent them falling into enemy hands, but Rutherford had 89

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BRAVEST not set the fire when McNamara landed and when he saw that his rescuer was not getting out of his plane he ran towards the single-seated Martinsyde. At first he asked if McNamara could help him restart the BE2c. That at least had a second seat for a passenger. ‘No time,’ McNamara replied. The Turkish cavalry was coming on apace and McNamara wasn’t sure whether he could climb out of the aircraft with his wounds anyway. So Rutherford climbed onto the lower wing of the biplane and sprawled across the cowling of the engine to grab a strut on the other side. McNamara opened the throttle to full power, pumped the rudder and skidded around to face the wind for take-off. However, with Rutherford’s weight unbalancing the frail craft and McNamara unable to work one leg properly, the plane veered and began heading for a gully at about 50 km/h. McNamara struggled with the controls and throttled back, but too late; the Martinsyde skidded into the gully, whose rocks ripped into the lower left wing and tore away the undercarriage. The one mercy was that neither man was injured in the crash; moreover, their wild ride had taken them closer to Rutherford’s BE2c. It had lost a tyre in the forced landing but otherwise appeared airworthy. And it boasted an automatic Lewis gun for self-defence. By now the Turks were within rifle range, and bullets began to spatter around the two Australians as Rutherford helped McNamara out of the Martinsyde. No sooner were they out than a bullet struck the remaining bomb beneath the fuselage and the plane exploded. They staggered on towards the BE2c. Then, above them, Drummond and Ellis, who had seen something of the action on the ground, began to dive towards the Turkish 90

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‘Hit with a sledge hammer’ horsemen, firing as they went. This slowed the cavalry just enough for Frank and his mate to reach the plane. Now they were surrounded. Rutherford helped McNamara into the cockpit, where he tried to use the Lewis gun against the cavalry. Finding his field of fire too restricted, he drew his revolver and as Rutherford took position by the heavy, fourbladed propeller he fired half-a-dozen rounds at the marauders. Then on signal the Queenslander gave a mighty heave on the prop. Remarkably, it fired immediately and the pilot coaxed the engine into a throaty roar. Rutherford scrambled onto the lower wing, then struggled into the forward observer’s seat as McNamara set off with one broken wheel towards the strip of bare earth he had chosen for take-off. By now the Turks were ignoring the incoming aircraft and galloping for their quarry in the staggering biplane. Bullets swished around them. Drummond said later, ‘The enemy was firing point blank at the machine.’4 But the wounded man at the controls was not to be denied. Frank McNamara held his course, opened the throttle and eased the plane into the air. That was just the beginning of his ordeal. They were still almost 120 km from base, and as the natural adrenaline faded from McNamara’s system the waves of pain arrived. He was still losing blood and his legs were stiffening. Time and again he felt on the verge of fainting and forced himself to put his head out into the ice-cold slipstream. The journey seemed endless. Rutherford tried to encourage him, but it was really McNamara’s own unquenchable spirit of adventure and joie de vivre that kept him going. When he finally put the plane down at home base he was utterly spent. He passed out and the ground crew had to carry him 91

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BRAVEST from the aircraft, which still had three unexploded shells attached beneath its wings, a cracked fuselage, and bullet holes everywhere. McNamara was taken by ambulance to a base hospital at Kantara, where he was given a standard anti-tetanus injection. But unbeknown to the medical staff, he was violently allergic to the drug and shortly after he received it he collapsed. His medico, Captain W.J. Macdonald, was working on another patient when an orderly appeared shouting that Frank was ‘dead’. Macdonald later wrote: ‘I rushed in. He was absolutely blue and cold, no pulse at all. I started on artificial respiration and after half an hour he gave a tiny breath. I gave him ether and an adrenaline shot with the hypodermic needle. We had his mouth held open with a gag and wagged the tongue to and fro. About an hour later all the blue had vanished and he was breathing slowly; two hours later he had almost recovered and was breathing quietly and even talking . . . Last night he was eating a plate of chicken and drinking champagne.’5 During the ordeal the medical staff had tried to warm him up with metal hot-water bottles and one had badly burned his right heel. The next day he was evacuated to Cairo, where all his wounds were treated. Ironically, the most lasting damage was to his heel, which required skin grafts. Douglas Rutherford returned to combat and was involved in a similar incident shortly afterward. On this occasion he and his rescuers were captured by the Turks and held in POW camps. Meanwhile, on 20 April McNamara was promoted to captain and assigned as flight commander to No. 4 Squadron, based in England. The damaged heel meant he would have to return to Australia for treatment, but before he left came news—on 8 June 92

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‘Hit with a sledge hammer’ 1917—of his Victoria Cross, the only one awarded to an Australian in the Palestine campaign. His colleagues in No. 1 Squadron were both delighted and surprised. Mechanic Joe Bull wrote in his diary: ‘He is very popular and we were glad to hear of his good fortune. Although he was recommended at the time, we scarcely expected that he would receive the VC.’6 A fellow officer wrote, ‘Quiet, scholarly, loyal and beloved by all, McNamara was the last officer for whom that high honour would have been predicted.’7

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13 A paradoxical attitude to heroes

When Frank McNamara reached Melbourne on the Boorara in August 1917 he was given a hero’s welcome and was soon swept up in public engagements. The joy was not unalloyed, however, since both his parents soon fell seriously ill. And an army medical board reported that his injuries made him unfit for active service. He was saved from discharge by the sudden arrival in Australian waters of the German raider Wolf. The enemy incursion panicked the government, which put McNamara in command of a new air reconnaissance unit in Victoria. He was pleased to be back in service, though as it happened there were no more enemy sightings. When the scare passed, he was posted to Point Cook as a flying instructor. He remained in the Australian Flying Corps until the end of the war. Then, after a series of reorganisations, on 1 April 1920 McNamara was appointed to the Australian Air Corps. 94

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A paradoxical attitude to heroes Shortly afterward, the Prince of Wales toured Australia, and on 26 May, during the Melbourne leg of his visit, he invested McNamara with his VC at Government House. By then a revised warrant for award of the medal had been promulgated over the signature of the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill. King George V, like his grandmother, took a personal interest in the VC. In addition to recognising the posthumous award of a VC, the new warrant for the first time included ‘matrons, sisters, nurses’ and other hospital staff serving in the forces as eligible for the decoration. The provision for awarding VCs to units that would then— within their specified ranks—choose the recipients by ballot was retained, but it would never be used again. The famous raid on the German U-boat base near Zeebrugge, in Belgium, two years previously, in which eight VCs were awarded, was the last time such polls took place. The new warrant did not raise the annual pension, which would stay at £10 until the 1950s, but it provided an extra £5 for each additional bar. However, the pension was paid only to other ranks and the only three men awarded a bar to their VC were officers: Surgeon Captain A. Martin Leake, who’d been recognised as a member of the South African Constabulary in the Boer War of 1902, and as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Belgium in November 1914, in both cases rescuing men under fire; Captain N.G. Chavasse, also a medico, who won his first VC at Ypres in 1916 when he rescued at least twenty wounded men while under fire, and at Passchendaele the following year when he performed a similar feat despite serious wounds from which he died; and New Zealander Captain Charles Upham, who in Crete in 1941 and Egypt in 1942, had 95

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BRAVEST inflicted heavy damage on the enemy at close range and contributed powerfully to his men’s survival. Originally the VC ribbon was differentiated by colour according to the branch of service: red for the army, dark blue for the navy. But with the arrival of the Air Arm the ribbon became a standard red for all services. It was this red ribbon that held McNamara’s cross.

When the Royal Australian Air Force was inaugurated in March 1921, McNamara transferred to it. He had finally resigned from the Education Department the previous month. He stayed at Point Cook except for a brief posting—from November 1921 to July 1922—as Staff Officer (Operations and Intelligence) at RAAF headquarters in Melbourne. He became Officer Commanding No. 1 Flying Training School, Point Cook, in January 1923. He had been promoted to flight lieutenant in September 1921 and was made honorary squadron leader in March 1924. That second promotion came at an opportune time. In 1923, the young woman he had squired around Cairo in 1916, Helene Bluntschli, arrived in Australia with her family and they soon became engaged. They were married at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, on 29 April 1924. Helene quickly became a popular figure at Point Cook. One of the young cadets at the time wrote later, ‘She really was a beautiful lady. I’d go up to their quarters to clean up the yard for her and she always brought out coffee and cake.’1 The following year McNamara went to England on exchange duty with the RAF, acting as squadron leader in the Directorate 96

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A paradoxical attitude to heroes of Training. After he and Helene returned home, he moved steadily up the ranks to become, first, commanding officer at Point Cook, then group captain, and finally Australian Air Liaison Officer at the British Air Ministry in London. By now he and Helene had an eleven-year-old son, Robert, who boarded at Geelong Grammar and joined his parents for the holidays. When the Second World War broke out, he was asked to stay on and promoted to air commodore—a post in which he liaised with visiting Australian politicians and officials. In 1942 he was appointed air vice-marshal and air officer commanding RAAF headquarters in London, then seconded to the RAF as AOC British Forces in Aden until 1945. It was a frustrating and enervating experience. The Middle East was an operational backwater, where the air force was mainly concerned with convoy escort and anti-submarine patrols. He took every opportunity to fly in operational sorties— usually as an observer—but for the most part he was tied to his desk, where he tried, with reasonable success, to ensure that the men under his command were well supplied. He was made a Companion of the Bath. But this was no compensation for the damage to his health from the fine airborne dust of the desert. He developed ‘Aden asthma’, and when he arrived back in England in March 1945 he was so thin and gaunt his family barely recognised him. By September he was well enough to take up his duties as the RAAF representative at the Ministry of Defence. The highlight of this posting came early in 1946, when he was invited to be the reviewing officer for the graduation parade at the RAF College at Cranwell. His son Robert was among the young men who received their wings from the VC winner. 97

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BRAVEST McNamara was 52, and now that the war had ended he was among those senior officers ordered to retire. The niggardly compensation he was offered resulted in an acrimonious exchange of correspondence with the bureaucracy. The VC pension was of little assistance, and McNamara joined the ranks of VC winners who became severely disillusioned with their treatment by government. Bill Gammage says, ‘VC winners have privileges that other people don’t.’ Among them is the tradition that they receive a salute from all ranks, irrespective of their own. ‘On the other hand,’ he says, ‘one of them was court martialled in World War I, for indiscipline.’ This was Sergeant John Woods Whittle of Tasmania, who won his VC in April 1917 when he ran across open territory to knock out a machine-gun crew setting up to enfilade his platoon. Shortly afterward he was among a group of Australian soldiers being taken to task by a British officer as ‘a lot of undisciplined so-and-sos’. In a break in the tirade, a voice was heard from the back: ‘But we’re good soldiers, though.’ As a result, Whittle VC was dropped a rank (to corporal). But he was used to that. In McNamara’s case, the evidence suggests that he may well have been a victim of resentment from above. But VC winners not infrequently compound the problem. The same qualities of will that allowed them to endure and prevail in battle can become impediments to promotion in peacetime. McNamara accepted a position with the British government and from May 1946 until October 1947 served with the Allied Control Commission for Germany, first as senior education control officer for Westphalia and later as deputy director of education for the entire British zone of occupation. When that 98

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A paradoxical attitude to heroes appointment expired he was nominated to the British National Coal Board, where he served with distinction until 1959, when his health began to fray. He became deeply resentful of his treatment by the RAAF and the Australian government, and this exacerbated his hypertension and chronic asthma. He ordered that on his death his VC not be returned to Australia, and when the end came on 2 November 1961 his family donated it to the RAF Museum in London. His son Robert later wrote: ‘Had he received his full recognition for his RAAF career, he would probably have had a longer life and been less inclined to recall with bitterness the tragic circumstances of Albert Jacka VC’s untimely death after World War I.’2

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14 ‘To live and learn and see much’

On the eve of the first Anzac Day, Australian and New Zealand troops had gathered on the deck of the New Zealand troop ship Ionus, moored at Lemnos, to prepare for their landing at dawn. Just after midnight the interminable wait was punctuated by a sudden, unexpected fall into the harbour by an Australian soldier, Lance-Corporal Ted Lewis. He was a strong swimmer and was quickly rescued by a small boat that put out from the ship. But as he returned up the gangway his mates ribbed him: ‘Why didn’t you wait till tomorrow and earn a VC for it?’1 It was a minor incident, but it is indicative of the regard the Anzacs already had for the honour, and their belief that one or other of them might earn it in the coming battle. Indeed, the evidence suggests that some soldiers actively sought a VC. The Briton turned New Zealander Bernard Cyril Freyberg is often 100

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‘To live and learn and see much’ regarded as the best case in point. An extraordinary character, Freyberg was the son of an English surveyor who migrated to New Zealand in 1981. He attended Wellington College, which in later years, as a dedicated social climber, he happily confused with the prestigious Berkshire school of the same name. A New Zealand swimming champion in his youth, he dropped out of medical school but graduated as a dentist. In 1912 he joined the New Zealand Territorial Force and served briefly as a lieutenant before leaving home to become a ship’s stoker on the Australian run. On the outbreak of war, he went to England and, in an act that was both outlandish and typical, physically accosted First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill in the street, demanding a commission in a theatre of war that would test his metal. Astonished but impressed by the man’s cheek, Churchill made him an officer in the Royal Naval Division, which was soon to be involved in the doomed defence of Antwerp. Later, at Gallipoli, Freyberg volunteered to swim ashore to light diversionary flares at Bulair in the early hours of the landing. He was wounded in the action but rose to command the Hood Battalion before being transferred to the British Army in 1916. He won his VC on the Somme as a lieutenant colonel in command of an attack on the German trenches. Indefatigable VC hunter he might be, but there was no doubting the man’s bravery. By the end of the war, he had also been awarded the DSO three times. After the war Freyberg married into the minor aristocracy but remained a serving officer. In 1925 he attempted to swim the English Channel. He started from the French coast at 8 p.m. and by 11.30 next morning was 2 km from Dover. His trainer in the 101

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BRAVEST accompanying tug said, ‘If he can get over the next 200 yards in 15 minutes, he’ll make it.’ An hour later he was very little closer. The tide turned and exhaustion followed. He rested and then began to stroke feebly, but he was heading back to France. His trainer lifted him into the tug. In the Second World War Freyberg commanded the 2nd New Zealand Division and served in Egypt and Greece. In 1942 he was promoted to lieutenant general and knighted. On retirement in 1946 he was made governor-general of New Zealand for six years. Elevated to the peerage as Baron Freyberg of Wellington, he frequently sat in the House of Lords and became lieutenant governor of Windsor Castle. He died in 1963 from a rupture of one of his Gallipoli wounds. The Australian VC winner who readily declared that he’d sought out the honour was Joe Maxwell. In combat he and Freyberg were similarly courageous. Maxwell was awarded two Military Crosses and the Distinguished Conduct Medal in addition to the VC. By the end of the war he was the second most highly decorated Australian fighting soldier. But his life in peacetime was a study in contrast to that of the socially ambitious Freyberg. He could never adjust. He drank during and after the war; he loved not wisely and far too frequently; but while he hated war and all it stood for, in the end it was all he had. He was born in Forest Lodge, Sydney, on 10 February 1896, the son of a labourer. He joined the military cadets, then— having left school at thirteen—the local militia. When war broke out in 1914 he was just eighteen, still living with his parents in West Maitland and yet to finish his apprenticeship as a boilermaker. His mother urged him to complete his training, but as he 102

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‘To live and learn and see much’ wrote later, ‘As an apprentice I earned the munificent sum of eight shillings a week. Behind all the glamour and the hysteria of those days, one of the big lures the war held out to me was the six shillings a day paid to the Diggers. I confess candidly that this pay, which to my youthful mind represented “the wealth of the Indies” prompted me a little more than motives of patriotism.’2 On 6 February 1915 he was posted to the 18th Battalion and sent to camp at Liverpool. ‘It was a group that seemed to include all the dead-beats, out-of-works, and hard citizens of Sydney,’ he wrote. ‘What delicacy some of us had in those remote days was quickly changed, by a succession of what might be termed progressive discomforts, into a blasé nonchalance.’3 After basic training he embarked with his unit for Alexandria, where by now the Australian camp was well established, with both training facilities and hospitals for the wounded pouring in from Gallipoli. Between marches in the desert soldiers would take leave in Cairo; Maxwell was there to witness the notorious ‘battle of the Wazir’, when the Diggers tore up the red-light district. ‘In those halcyon days I did not touch liquor, nor did I relish brawling,’ he wrote.4 ‘At the height of the battle a piano which, if endowed with speech, could tell a few torrid stories, tumbled from a high window into the street. I lost no time in getting out of the racket and missed many of the highlights in the episode that were discussed excitedly for weeks.’ In August he went with his unit to Gallipoli. By now General Hamilton’s plan for the Anzacs to break out of the Turkish defences had failed and the battle had degenerated into a stalemate of trench warfare. Nonetheless, there was plenty of action and on 22 August Maxwell fired his first shots in anger as his 103

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BRAVEST unit made an assault on the Turkish lines. ‘Rockets of dust burst and flew. Turkish machine-gun bullets pelted us. Men fell into gullies and pockets. There were groans and thuds to right and left. You just held your breath and stumbled or crawled on.’5 He was detailed as a stretcher bearer for a week and survived unscathed. But like so many others, he was almost overwhelmed by the flies, the dysentery and the terrible stench of death. In September he moved with his unit to Courtney’s Post, where Albert Jacka had won the first Australian VC of the war. ‘Here the trenches were only twenty odd yards apart and the bitter attacks [of Jacka’s time] had been supplanted by trench warfare— an occasional mine explosion, post duty, and four months on hard biscuits and bully beef with an appalling shortage of water.’6 Maxwell remained there until the withdrawal in December 1915. It was an experience that ‘shattered my last lingering illusion about the colour, the pomp and the glory of war.’7 Back in Alexandria, ‘there were lights dripping like diamonds, riotous colour, sunsets not besmirched by the smoke and dust of war, bright becoming eyes, drinks, songs, laughter’.8 The women entranced him. ‘Hard bitten and raucous, silky voiced and seductive, languorous as a purring cat, deceptive, powdered, dissipated, decked out in blazonries like some lithe tiger moving in the gloom,’ he wrote. ‘Not a single English or American girl gave you that knowing glance of the lady who seems to have known you for an age. I was young. I was destined to live and learn and see much.’9 On St Patrick’s Day 1916, Joe and his unit went to France. ‘We had come from months of the coppery sheen of the desert, from the land of soggy heat, flies and dust. Now we glided past French villages, bright and glowing like those we recalled in our 104

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‘To live and learn and see much’ long-past nights of musical comedy; bubbling wine at every station, decent French bread and generous welcomes from French villagers.’10 Joe’s No. 8 Platoon was billeted in a barn and on 10 April the 18th Battalion took over the front line from the British. ‘Our first casualty was a signaller who went down with a bullet through the nose. Little happened during our opening term of fourteen days in the line,’ he recalled. ‘The sector lived up to its reputation for tranquillity.’11 He was soon back in action in a more hazardous area and was twice wounded. Evacuated to the 3rd Canadian General Hospital in Bologne, he ‘fell in love’ with a Canadian nurse with ‘eyes of a goddess, hair of spun gold, and a smile that was a dream and a delight’. Soon she was sharing his bed: ‘I said good night to her in the morning.’12 But after this brief romance he was soon back in battle, where his courage and leadership were rewarded with a promotion to sergeant. While at officer training school, he became involved in a brawl with police in London. He’d been told of ‘a little place where we could sup and wine till midnight in the heart of London overlooking Piccadilly’. When he got there he was enraptured. ‘A jostling pack of party girls, a gust of assorted talcum and heated flesh, a whirl of wet, scarlet lips, a flash of white teeth and lecherous smiles that held the promise of devilry before dawn.’13 However, the cabaret was thrown into chaos by the arrival of a Military Police unit. Maxwell had left his pass and paybook with his hotel manager, and when the MPs told him they had heard that one before, he threw some punches and broke for freedom. ‘An hour later I found myself in a cell at Bow Street with a black eye and a bruised and battered face.’14 105

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BRAVEST He was fined and returned to his unit, but the incident did little to tarnish his military reputation. He was promoted to warrant officer in August and appointed company sergeant major. By now, it seems, he realised that he had a flair for combat; this was coupled with an intense desire for recognition. ‘At the moment I was known only to the military police and my associates in the battalion,’ he later wrote, ‘while Colonel Harry Murray and Captain Bert Jacka, both of whom held the Victoria Cross among other decorations, were known to every Australian at home or abroad.’15 Maxwell wanted that. He volunteered for action. On 20 September 1917 in an attack near Westhoek, during the battle of Menin Road, he took command of a platoon whose officer had been killed and led it throughout the action. In his memoirs, he downplays the bravery he showed throughout the attack, but it was an inspiration to his men. Towards the end of the clash, when he noticed one of the newly captured positions under heavy fire, he dashed to it and led the men to a more secure position, thus saving many lives. ‘To a village near Poperinghe was the next move,’ he wrote. It was now 29 September. ‘It was here I was notified that I had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and a few days later received a commission [as second lieutenant]. Of my fine for the disastrous London exploit, £15 was refunded and as the D.C.M. carried with it a grant of £20 I came out on the right side of the ledger.’16 The DCM is regarded by most as the second most important award after the VC. But Maxwell still yearned for the real thing. Shortly afterward he was given charge of a platoon of men who, he said, ‘just before a stunt, developed a violent dislike to 106

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‘To live and learn and see much’ front-line warfare’.17 This was a polite way of describing a bunch of misfits and malingerers. But he whipped them into shape, and over the next three months they performed creditably under his command. On 1 January 1918 he was promoted to lieutenant and permitted a rest behind the lines, where he managed another series of amorous adventures. Then, in early March 1918, he was given command of a scouting patrol near Ploegsteert, on the Ypres Salient. The Russian Front had collapsed in the wake of the October 1917 Revolution, and the Germans were able to transfer massive reinforcements to the west. ‘Everyone talked German offensive,’ Maxwell wrote. ‘Everyone thought German offensive. Everyone dreamed German offensive.’ This made intelligence gathering vital. ‘Reports fluttered along the line of the presence of German patrols on our side of the river. For several nights with my patrol I failed to confirm this.’18 But he wouldn’t give up and finally, on the night of 8 March, he encountered an enemy patrol advancing towards the Allied lines. ‘We staged a little war of our own out there among the shell craters,’ he wrote. ‘My patrol fortunately did not suffer a casualty.’19 In fact, Joe and three of his men were covering the withdrawal of the main body to their lines when he noticed a party of about 30 Germans. He recalled his patrol and attacked the enemy with rifles and bombs; the Germans quickly withdrew, leaving three dead and one wounded. ‘We returned with a prisoner,’ he wrote.20 The intelligence he provided was immensely valuable. Maxwell was awarded the Military Cross. On 9 August 1918, the second day of the battle of Amiens, the 18th prepared to attack near Rainecourt. In the initial 107

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BRAVEST moments of the battle an artillery barrage struck, killing or wounding all the company’s officers save Maxwell. He stepped into the breach and under his leadership the company attacked on time, though still under heavy fire. A tank ahead of the Australian advance was hit by a 77-mm shell. Maxwell rushed over to the stricken vehicle and opened the hatch, freeing the men inside just before it burst into flames. After escorting the tank commander to comparative safety, he went forward, led the company in the attack, and succeeded in reaching and consolidating the objective. For this he earned a bar to his Military Cross. But still the VC eluded him. Then, early in October, Maxwell’s unit faced the Hindenburg Line. They had been joined by the Americans and it was time for a decisive advance. ‘I had misgivings about our next attack,’ he wrote, ‘as the artillery was to fire from a map. I did not relish the idea of advancing under a barrage from guns that had no chance to register and correct errors. My fears were well founded, for the next day many of our casualties were caused by our own shell-fire.’21 By contrast, the answering German artillery on the morning of 3 October proved deadly accurate. Maxwell’s company commander was severely wounded. Again Joe took charge. When the company reached the enemy wire, they found it almost impenetrable and well covered by machine-gun fire. Maxwell single-handedly found a way through the wire, captured the most dangerous gun, killed three of the enemy, and took another four prisoner. This feat—passed over in his memoir in a few anodyne phrases—enabled his company to move through the wire and take the objective. Later he again singlehandedly silenced a gun that was holding up a flank company. 108

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‘To live and learn and see much’ Then he learned from an English-speaking prisoner that some Germans in the next post wished to surrender. Taking two men with him, he went to the position, where the trio was immediately surrounded by about twenty Germans, who seized their weapons. Maxwell and his comrades themselves seemed set to become prisoners when suddenly shells landed on the position. Taking instant advantage of the confusion, he pulled out a concealed revolver, shot two of the enemy, then escaped with his two companions. ‘Two months later,’ he wrote, ‘I was advised that for my part in the scrimmage I was awarded the Victoria Cross. Often then, and since, I have reflected that if I was the bravest man during that day, then God help the man who was most afraid.’22 The citation read: ‘For most conspicuous bravery and leadership in attack on the Beaurevoir-Fonsomme Line near Estrées, north of St Quentin, on the 3rd October, 1918. . . . Throughout the day Lieutenant Maxwell set a high example of personal bravery, coupled with excellent judgment and quick decision.’ His great ambition was achieved. He was now the second most highly decorated soldier in the Australian Army. Only Harry Murray had received more awards. And that was the way it would end, for the war was at last drawing to a close. He was on leave in Paris when the armistice was declared. ‘What a day! The city blazed with light and rocked to the sound of delirious rejoicing. Rockets flared; bands crashed; scores of thousands sang in unison; scores of thousands danced in streets, on café tables, anywhere; scores of thousands of war-weary men grabbed bright-eyed mademoiselles in the endless whirl of gaiety that surged through the city from end to end.’23 Maxwell was among them. 109

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BRAVEST On 18 March 1919 he was decorated by the king at Buckingham Palace. On his way out he passed the Prince of Wales and Lord Louis Mountbatten. Both royals snapped a salute to the Victoria Cross winner. ‘I felt horribly embarrassed but managed to return the salute,’ he wrote.24 He had won his four major combat decorations in just over twelve months. Maxwell returned to Australia in May 1919. The wild alcoholic celebrations that had begun on Armistice Day never really ended, but their character changed as he became ever more dependent on the drink. After his demobilisation on 8 August, he worked as a gardener in Sydney, Canberra, Moree, and back in the Maitland district, where his mother still lived. In 1921, he married nineteen-year-old seamstress Mabel Maxwell (not a relative), at Bellevue Hill, Sydney. They had a daughter, Jean, but Mabel divorced him in 1926. His war memoir, Hells Bells and Mademoiselles, written in collaboration with a journalist, was a hit in the 1930s, but he quickly spent the money he made from it. Though his health was deteriorating, when the Second World War broke out he made several attempts to enlist. He eventually went to Queensland and joined up under an alias. His real identity was quickly discovered and he was given a position in a training battalion. In 1953 he joined the contingent of VCs invited to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, and in his later years he often recounted the battles that made him famous. In 1956 he married a widow, Anne Martin, in Sydney. In 1964, they attended the opening of VC Corner in the Australian War Memorial. He was adamant that his VC would not end up there, as he took the view that ‘lumping’ all the VCs together cheapened the award. 110

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‘To live and learn and see much’ By now the excesses of his early life and the effects of prolonged drinking were taking their toll. Indeed, for some time he had been receiving an invalid pension. On 6 July 1967 Maxwell collapsed and died of a heart attack in a street near his home in Matraville, Sydney. He was cremated after a service with military honours at St Matthias Anglican Church, Paddington. His widow donated his medals to the Army Museum, Victoria Barracks, Paddington. However, they have since found their way on permanent loan to the War Memorial.

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15 Cross purposes

No Australian units were involved in the British conflicts between the two world wars—the intervention in Russia against the Bolsheviks; the insurrections on India’s Northwest Frontier; and the Arab revolt in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). However, two Australians serving with British forces in northern Russia won the VC* and the public activities of men like Albert Jacka and Neville Howse ensured that the honour would continue to grow in popular esteem. Its Second World War recipients would only add to its lustre. But early in the war the source of metal for the VC underwent a mysterious change. A total of 632 VCs (and two bars) had been awarded between the outbreak of war in August 1914 and the return of the * Samuel Pearse and Arthur Sullivan 112

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Cross purposes Russian Relief Force in late 1919, of which Australians accounted for 66. While this made some inroads into the supply from the Chinese cannon at Woolwich, it was by no means exhausted. But in his 1995 X-ray fluorescence analysis of 54 Victoria Crosses, the AWM’s Dr John Ashton discovered something odd about the medals struck for New Zealand’s only winner of two VCs, Charles Upham. Upham won his first VC in Crete in May 1941. Later that year a medal was prepared and sent to New Zealand, but before it could be presented Upham had been captured by the Germans and was a POW in the notorious Colditz prison. After his release in 1945, he was invested with a duplicate by King George VI. The original was returned to the War Office shortly afterward. Returning to New Zealand, Upham learned that he had won a second VC, which is designated by a bar worn on the ribbon of the original cross. The War Office sent another medal, with a bar, to New Zealand. It was duly presented to Upham, who transferred the bar to the cross he had received from the king and returned the cross the War Office had sent. In his report, Ashton wrote: ‘Study of the Upham VC and bar proved most worthwhile. The metallurgical differences between the medal and the bar point to the casting of the two items at different times. The bar contains similar metal to that used in 1917–18 while the medal has similar composition to others from late 1943.’ Yet medals cast after Upham’s came—like the older ones— from the Chinese cannon. The explanation for the temporary change, only now revealed, is that early in the Second World War, as the Luftwaffe blitzed London and military targets such as the Woolwich arsenal, a ‘rogue batch’ of metal arrived at Hancocks. 113

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BRAVEST According to historian John Glanfield: ‘The mother block went missing in February/March 1942. The resulting hiatus caught the War Office unawares. The press was told that the supply had merely run out and had been routinely replaced. Official silence ensured that the loss remained concealed until now.’1 In fact, it now seems clear that wartime censorship was employed to deny the Luftwaffe a propaganda victory from having disrupted the process. When Hancocks told the War Office that supplies were running out they contacted the Ministry of Supply, which produced an ‘emergency’ stock of gunmetal, the source of which remains unknown. Glanfield says the emergency block was used for at least a year, until another 53-lb chunk of the Chinese metal was discovered by ‘an alert stores officer’ and sent to Hancocks. ‘That drama ties in with Dr Ashton’s discovery of a fourth and completely unknown source of VC metal dating to the mother block’s “gap year”,’ he says.2 Australians in the Second World War would win only twenty of a total of 182 VCs bestowed. Both that total and the Australian tally were less than a third of those awarded in the First World War, despite a huge increase in troop numbers. Bill Gammage says: ‘That puzzles me. It’s a more mobile war, and so the requirements for observing [actions leading to VC recommendations] might have been harder to meet. It’s almost certainly true that with airmen, the crew wouldn’t qualify to recommend one of their crew members for a VC because there’s not enough independent witnesses. And that may also have applied to [other] small units, whereas an entrenched front line allows observation up and down the line. In 1914–18 you’ve got the kind of concentration of forces that provide the witnesses comparatively easily.’3 114

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Cross purposes This is certainly part of the explanation. However, according to Anthony Staunton, author of Victoria Cross—Australia’s Finest and the Battles They Fought, there were other factors at play. ‘The quick answer,’ he says, ‘is few big battles and fewer troops engaged. In World War I most troops went overseas and saw front-line service. In World War II only about 60 per cent of enlistments served overseas and a greater proportion were support troops. There is more opportunity for army personnel to distinguish themselves, and seventeen of nineteen VCs to Australian forces in World War II [went] to the army.’4 A comparison between army death tolls and awards for the two world wars is instructive. In the First World War 58,000 were killed for 63 VCs (excluding the three Australians with the Royal Fusiliers); in the Second World War 10,694 were killed for seventeen VCs. ‘On that comparison,’ Staunton says, ‘more VCs were awarded per head in World War II. However, the fraction of all VCs that went to Australians—20 out of 182 for World War II and 66 of 634 for The Great War—is almost identical.’5 He also notes that among the various service arms the army received the lion’s share of VCs, but the navy was awarded more decorations per head. In the air force, flying crews scored most of the decorations but also took the greatest percentage of casualties. There was also a qualitative difference between the two conflicts—and the VCs won in them. For Australians, the First World War began as a great adventure. The volunteers were rallying to the defence of Empire, but beneath the Imperial flag waving they were just as concerned to ‘give a good account of themselves’ and to assert the claims of nationhood. The authorities 115

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BRAVEST reflected this attitude in their call to ‘Join the Sportsmen’s 1000’ in support of the great Jacka VC. War was the ultimate sports arena. It was only in the disgracefully mismanaged Gallipoli campaign and in the horror of the Somme that the reality of war struck home. The ‘nationhood’ the troops sought might well have been achieved, but it came at a terrible price. The Second World War began with some superficial similarities to its predecessor—Germany resurgent and on the march against Australia’s European allies, with Britain itself endangered and calling for help. But Hitler’s campaign for domination was much more than a scramble for territory; it was an assault on the foundations of scientific and social enlightenment, the territory of the mind, the very essence of western civilisation. And when Japan entered the war it became, for Australia, a struggle for survival. Governments make no calls for ‘sportsmen’ to defend their homeland. The bravery that wins medals in conflicts where national survival is at stake springs from a much deeper level of patriotism. This is reflected in the changing nature of the actions that have been recognised by the VC. The daring rescues of the Boer War, the gallant dash into overwhelming machine-gun fire of the First World War would give way to acts of valour of a different order in the Second World War. And no soldier epitomised the new reality better than a young man who would become one of Australia’s most distinguished sons: Arthur Roden Cutler.

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16 Down to the wire

When Sir Roden Cutler, VC, AK, KCMG, KCVO, CBE, died in 2002 aged 85, Australia mourned his loss. Rarely has one man combined the great qualities that distinguished the tall, handsome Cutler—grace, dignity, courage and immense compassion. He epitomised all that was best in his nation. Yet his life could so easily have been snuffed out in his prime when, left to die by comrades-in-arms, he lay exposed to enemy fire for more than 26 hours. His lower leg shot to pieces, he hovered between life and death. He fought agony and despair. And when all seemed lost, his men found him and brought him back to the lines. Then the enemy artillery struck again . . . He had begun his journey on 24 May 1916, as a storm lashed the family home in the Sydney beachside suburb of Manly. His mother, Ruby, was tended by the family doctor, who pressed the housemaids into service. She was 32 and young 117

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BRAVEST Arthur Roden—‘Laddie’—was her first child. His father, after whom the baby was named, was on one of his country journeys on behalf of the Remington Arms Company, selling firearms and ammunition to gun shops throughout the inland. He was good at his job. The Cutlers had been on the land for two generations and Arthur, Sr, had grown up with firearms, becoming one of the finest shots in the country and a champion of the Bathurst rifle team. When he and his brother George sold their Blayney property, Arthur bought a produce store in Bathurst and moved into the town. There he met Ruby, who had trained as a milliner and whose father had been a prison superintendent. Her mother was descended from the Roden family who had pioneered the settlement of Sydney’s Rocks area. Arthur was 41, a decade older than his wife, when they married and moved to Manly, where her parents lived. There they built a solid family home—they would have three sons and a daughter—and Arthur began work as Remington’s sales rep. Young Roden, as he was known, went to school at Manly, sailed on the harbour and surfed. In school holidays he took the train to Bathurst and stayed with Cutler relatives. It was an idyllic time. But when he was thirteen the Great Depression struck. Arthur was thrown out of work and Roden was sent to Sydney Boys’ High rather than a private school. He was forced to repeat a year in 1932 and this seems to have had the intended salutary effect on the sixteen-year-old. Thereafter he buckled down and easily matriculated to Sydney University, studying economics while holding down a job with the Texas Company Australasia (later Texaco). By now his father had a salesman’s job with a firm of ships’ chandlers, but money 118

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Down to the wire was still tight at home and Roden would walk for miles to save threepence on a bus fare. When Arthur was killed in a car crash, the family was left with only a tiny workers’ compensation payment; real penury loomed. Ruby and Roden’s little sister moved to Albury for a year to stay with relatives, leaving Roden to take care of his younger brothers in Manly. By then he had become a surf lifesaver, and shown precocious heroism when he swam out alone to rescue a surfer from the menaces of a large shark. Continuing his studies, he joined the Sydney University Regiment and won prizes for marksmanship. And when the regiment acquired an 18-pounder field gun, Roden became sergeant of the gun detachment. He also played rugby for the university and won a blue for swimming. After several months in the Citizens Military Forces (today the Army Reserve), the 23-year-old Lieutenant Cutler transferred to the AIF in April 1940 and was posted to the 7th Division’s 2/5th Field Regiment. After artillery training with First World War–vintage 18-pounders, the division embarked in October for the Middle East. In Alexandria, Egypt, they boarded trains to Gaza. There, for the first time, they began to exercise with modern artillery—until all 25-pounders were taken off to the front line in North Africa, leaving Roden and his regiment again plugging away on their ancient 18s. Finally, in February 1941, they took possession of twelve 25-pounders, which they divided between the regiment’s two batteries. Each gun detachment consisted of six soldiers—the gun sergeant, a bombardier as second in command, the loader, the layer and two ammunition assistants. They loaded the projectile first, rammed it home and then inserted the cartridge 119

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BRAVEST case with the required propellant charge bags in the breech that sent it hurtling out of the gun barrel. The shell was timed to explode either on touchdown or as it approached ground level. Cutler drilled his men hard and mastered the art and science of artillery. He was less adroit at the art of diplomacy and, like other VCs before him, was unimpressed by those less competent than he was. He quickly gained a reputation as a hard taskmaster and a ‘prickly character’ if crossed. By now Rommel and his Afrika Corps were in full advance along the North African coast, and Cutler’s 2/5th was among the forces sent to the great fortress of Mersa Matruh in an attempt to stop them. They saw very little action, other than air raids from Italian bombers. Most of the fighting was concentrated around Tobruk. Meanwhile, Syria was held by the Vichy French, who British High Command feared—rightly as it turned out—would soon invite the Germans to use their bases and airfields. In June 1941, under the overall command of a Churchill favourite, General Henry ‘Jumbo’ Wilson, the Allies invaded. The Australians were led by Major-General John Lavarack, who would later become a long-serving governor of Queensland. The Vichy French, under General Henri Dentz, were waiting and well supplied. The topography ranged from river flats to mountainous slopes, jagged gullies, bare hills and dense groves of subtropical foliage. Manoeuvring and aiming the big guns tested the artillerymen’s skills to the limit. The initial clash was the Battle of Litani, named after the river that ran down from the Lebanese hills to Tyre, on the Mediterranean. The first town upriver was Merdjayoun (Marjayoun), and to reach it Cutler and his unit had to batter down the 120

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Down to the wire defenses at Khirbe and Qleaa, which stood in the way of the advance. On 8 June the regiment fired its first full-scale barrage against Khirbe, then pushed forward over appallingly rough terrain. The defenders fought back, but Lavarack’s men renewed their efforts and reduced first Khirbe and then Qleaa. The road to Merdjayoun was open. Vichy fighter planes harried the Australians, but on the ground, the enemy appeared to have withdrawn and on 11 June the Allies occupied the town. General Wilson then ordered Cutler’s 9th Battery to move forward to Jezzine, the next fortified town on the road to Damascus. As they approached it there was a sudden change of plans. The French had moved in behind them and on 15 June they retook Merdjayoun. Cutler’s unit was ordered to return to the town as quickly as possible. The narrow roads and rough terrain made it difficult to move the heavy guns, and the chaos only grew when British units, unaware of the change of plans, continued heading to Jezzine. The tall, formidable Cutler had to assert himself beyond his rank to persuade them to turn around. The Vichy French had not only reoccupied Merdjayoun but drawn in reinforcements. The 9th Battery, taking up position on the approaches to the town, could see that the enemy artillery— mainly 75-mm anti-tank weapons—had a clear line of fire onto the advancing Australians. Just as worrying, their own primitive wireless sets would not operate in the river gorges and broken ground. The only way observers could call in targets and ranges was by telephone, and signal parties laboured furiously to string it as they worked their way forward. The Australian 2/25th Battalion was given the task of leading the attack on the ground, but to do so they had to ford the 121

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BRAVEST rushing Litani River and traverse the precipitous slopes and gullies ahead of the town. Cutler and his artillerymen poured more than 80 rounds into the French barracks and were rewarded when they hit a hidden ammunition magazine. When the forward observation officer, Captain Charles ‘Joe’ Clark, went off the air, Cutler and two signallers went forward to see what had occurred. Suspecting the cable had been destroyed, they took another line with them and paid it out as they went. Command HQ heard nothing from them for the next twelve hours. However, Cutler and his men found Clark in rough country not far from the Vichy guns, which were hidden in a copse of pines. Once they had a fix on the copse, they called in the artillery, and within minutes the enemy emplacements were shattered by a well-aimed barrage. The four men camped overnight and next morning—19 June—Clark took his wire forward while Cutler moved to join the attacking troops ahead of the post. In mid-morning they came together again when the advance was stopped by a series of machine-gun nests near an important feature, Castle Hill. As they dashed forward, machine-gun bullets cut the fieldtelephone wire, and Cutler returned under fire to repair it. Then they raced to an abandoned hut. Again the Vichy guns cut communications with the artillery unit, and two of Cutler’s men went out to check the wire before following it all the way back to headquarters. Just then two French tanks arrived on the scene, followed by fifteen infantrymen. Cutler and the others fought them with Bren guns and anti-tank rifles, but the odds were against them, particularly when the tanks began to fire their turret guns at the hut. One of the Bren gunners, Lance-Corporal Vic 122

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Down to the wire Pratt, was killed instantly, and Clark was seriously wounded by shrapnel that sliced into his lower abdomen. Cutler redoubled his efforts with the anti-tank gun, firing round after round at the French tank treads. Finally, both tanks left, taking the infantry with them. Of the three in the hut, only Roden Cutler was unwounded and by now the 2/25th Battalion was about 200 m behind them. He decided to make a break back to the lines with his wounded and meet the battalion as it came forward. Clark in particular was in a bad way, and Cutler heaved him across his shoulders as the party struggled back to the lines. Clark was still alive when they reached the medical aid post, but his wounds would prove fatal. Cutler then realised he had left his watch—a gift from his mother—behind in the hut so ran back to retrieve it. Convinced the enemy was confused about Allied strength, Culter strongly recommended that the Australians press on to the town. Brigadier Frank Berryman, who was commanding the Merdjayoun action, decided to send Cutler himself into the town but to hold the troops until he reported back on the conditions he found there. Taking five volunteers, Cutler moved cautiously into the outskirts of Merdjayoun. Patrols from the 2/25th had already made contact at Castle Hill. Cutler called Berryman on the field telephone and urged him to attack immediately. It was now midafternoon and Cutler found an excellent observation post in a cemetery. Carrying the telephone and the heavy roll of cable that allowed them to stay in touch with HQ, he and a lance-corporal from the 2/25th moved close enough for Cutler to take the coordinates of the main intersection the enemy tanks would have to traverse in and out of the town. 123

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BRAVEST They were about to pull out when two Vichy tanks appeared, heading in their direction. They were almost discovered when the telephone suddenly rang but Cutler dealt with the caller and the French troops settled down for a rest. As darkness gathered, the pair quietly made their way back to the Australian lines, narrowly avoiding being shot by friendly fire. The battle for Merdjayoun continued, with artillery on both sides exchanging fire while the troops clashed in the jagged hills and gullies between them. At times Cutler moved forward with a single 25-pounder and fired through open sights, securing at least two tank ‘kills’. Implacably the Australians advanced, and by 28 June Merdjayoun was again secured. Now General Wilson turned his attention to Damour, on the coast, and by early July Cutler’s 2/5th had moved to join two Australian infantry brigades, the 17th and the 21st, in an attack on the main Vichy force there. The terrain was just as rough as that which Cutler had negotiated around Merdjayoun—a wide river bed, precipitous banks, towering escarpments and deep gullies. Once again radio communication would have to be replaced by the cumbersome field telephone, with its cables linking the forward observer to command HQ. The formal battle plan called for a naval bombardment and an artillery barrage, with the Australian troops moving in behind them through the Damour wadi to the town itself. But because of the terrain the land guns were often firing ‘blind’, and the key to the battle was the effectiveness of the forward observer. Cutler was selected as principal observer attached to the strike force, the 2/16th Battalion. He would be accompanied by Lieutenant Trevor Macmeikan as his ‘junior’ and they would report back to the 2/5th’s second-in-command, Major Bruce Watchorn.1 124

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17 The endless day

Cutler said later that before the battle he had been plagued by a premonition that he would not return. Such hunches are not uncommon among frontline soldiers, and all too often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. On this occasion, Cutler was so affected that he sought out his cousin in the 2/5th, Bob Milligan, and asked him to see to his personal affairs should he not return. Knowing how self-sufficient and controlled Cutler always was, Milligan was unnerved. However, when it came time to set out there was nothing in Cutler’s demeanor that suggested fear or even fatalism. He had always been a positive thinker and he easily took charge. Armed only with pistols, he led his fellow officer out towards the planned rendezvous with Captain Harry Probin, who was on the same mission for the 2/6th artillery regiment. They carried only 125

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BRAVEST portable radios for close communication; a cable and field telephone awaited them at the rendezvous. That is where things began to go very wrong. Probin had changed his position, but his message to HQ giving his new location failed to get through. As they hunted for him, with growing unease, they came upon a detachment from the 2/16th under Major Alan Caro, who insisted that Cutler come forward with his unit in case the Allied shelling began to fall on his troops so he could radio for answering fire. Cutler followed orders but sent Macmeikan to search for Probin. Some time in the early hours of 6 July, Macmeikan encountered a gunner from another battery who told him Probin had moved forward about 2 km from his original position. Macmeikan returned to 2/5th HQ and started the process of stringing cable out to Cutler, but by dawn they had not yet reached the Damour wadi and the infantry assault had begun again. Meanwhile Cutler, embedded with the 2/16th, found himself under mortar fire from the Vichy troops. This was followed in short order by the naval barrage crashing into the wadi and both the 2/5th and 2/6th batteries pouring their 25-lb shells into the area. When the firing ended, the Australians plunged forward, waded through the knee-deep water and made for the north bank. As expected, Cutler’s radio was useless in his attempts to reach headquarters and so he joined in the rush forward with his revolver drawn. Perhaps because he was less encumbered than his comrades, he was the first to spot movement ahead at a machine-gun nest. He raced up and leapt into the dugout, where he crashed into three French soldiers. The 25-year-old Australian had by now reached his full, muscular height of 190 cm, and 126

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The endless day they decided discretion was the order of the day. They surrendered instantly. Cutler’s blood was up. Spotting another nest nearby, he repeated the process and took three more French prisoners. Then another nest opened fire. Cutler and the others took cover; then he grabbed a grenade and threw it into the nest. When it exploded, the five injured machine-gunners threw up their arms and joined their colleagues. As the prisoners gathered, Cutler noticed that they were without water. He unhooked his water bottle from his webbing belt and handed it to one of them. The gesture would return to haunt him a thousand times over the next 26 hours. By now the unit he had joined was hemmed in on three sides by Vichy forces. Cutler decided the best way out was to call down an artillery barrage to clear a path, but to do that he needed to make contact with his battery. The way back to HQ led through a banana plantation, and having told the 2/16th troops of his plan he started out for the grove. It was 11 a.m. He was instantly out of sight of his fellow Australians. As gunfire clattered around the area, he had almost reached the grove when a burst of fire from within it sent him sprawling. ‘My God, they’ve got me,’ he cried, as much in surprise as from the burst of pain. Like most of his compatriots, Cutler was wearing shorts with his socks down round the tops of his army boots. One bullet from a light machine-gun had smashed into his right leg just below the knee, shattering the bone. Blood filled the gaping wound. He almost lost consciousness; he was just aware of the two men coming out of the grove towards him to deliver the coup de grâce. 127

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BRAVEST But then they saw his mangled leg and the blood gushing out. There was little point in delivering the coup, and no joy to be had in killing a man who faced you. They spoke some French and left him. As soon as they were gone, Cutler roused himself and ripped the lanyard from his revolver. He wrapped it around the leg above the wound, then twisted it into a tourniquet. He struggled out of his shirt and tore it into strips to provide a bandage over the wound. The sun beat down. He reached for his water bottle; and that’s when he remembered the gesture he had made to the prisoners. Then, as the shock wore off, came pain—in waves of agony so all-embracing that he almost fainted. It was unbearable, but there was no choice so he bore it. He tried to think of other things—home, family—but the pain was relentless and the hours passed like days. He remembered his premonition. He fought against it. He worked the tourniquet as his leg blackened. Half conscious, he became aware that men had gathered around him. They lifted him, carried him, then put him down again when his groans risked attracting the attention of the enemy. His pleas for water went unanswered. The men went away. Sunrise found him immobilised by the banana grove, the agony unremitting. However, word had reached the 2/5th late the night before that Cutler had been hit, and at first light the unit’s medico, Dr Adrian Johnson, organised a search party. A close friend of the Cutler family, he was determined to comb the area until he found Roden. But wherever he went there were more casualties to treat, and it was not until about 1 p.m. that, with the help of the captured Frenchmen, he finally discovered the fearfully wounded Australian. 128

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The endless day Johnson gave him water and applied a field dressing and splint to the shattered leg. Then he pressed the captives into service carrying the wounded man back to the small village of Yerate. There in a mud brick hut Johnson began to treat his friend, but as he began a French shell exploded nearby, throwing Johnson over the body of his patient. When the dust cleared, Cutler was evacuated on a flat-bed back to regimental headquarters. There doctors amputated his leg and as soon as possible loaded him into the ambulance for the journey to Haifa, where he slowly began to recover. Offered the choice of hospitals, he opted for Gaza and by the time he arrived, news of his feats in the battles of Medjayoun and Damour had sped through the ranks. The most expert of Australia’s medical men volunteered to treat him, and he was cheered by a visit from Bob Milligan. However, he had also received a shrapnel wound to his chest from the exploding shell, and this led to a lung infection that threatened his recovery. It would take until November—almost five months—before he was well enough to make the journey home on a Dutch hospital ship. It was during the voyage that news arrived of his Victoria Cross. He was—and remains—the only Australian artilleryman ever to have won the VC.

Manly welcomed its hero home in fine style, but his fighting days were over. So in May 1942, he applied for the post of secretary of the NSW headquarters of the Returned Servicemen’s League (RSL); he took up his appointment the following month. Almost immediately he was approached by the federal government to 129

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BRAVEST undertake a series of jobs behind the scenes, leading to his appointment as NSW’s deputy director of Security, the forerunner to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation but with special emphasis on potential fifth-column activities. He declined invitations (from all major parties) to enter politics and towards the end of 1943 accepted the role of assistant commissioner of the Repatriation Department in Melbourne. In 1946 he married Helen Morris in Sydney; they would have four sons and enjoy a very close relationship until her death in 1990. But even before they married Roden Cutler had been approached by Foreign Minister ‘Doc’ Evatt to become Australia’s high commissioner to New Zealand. He was only 30. It would become the first of a series of diplomatic postings that would later take the Cutlers to Sri Lanka, and in 1956 to Egypt during the Suez crisis. Back in Australia Cutler played an important role in the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) before taking up the post of high commissioner to Pakistan in 1959. Then in 1961 he was appointed as consul-general in New York, where he brought great distinction to Australia’s representation. Indeed, by now Roden Cutler VC had developed an enviable reputation in government circles. When posts had become run down or ineffective he could be relied upon to raise standards in short order. In 1965, while he was Australia’s ambassador to the Hague, the Liberal premier of NSW, Robert Askin, offered him the governorship of his home state. It was no coincidence, perhaps, that his cousin Charles Cutler was deputy premier and leader of the Country Party in the coalition government. However, such was popular respect for Roden Cutler that the appointment 130

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The endless day attracted not the slightest criticism. On the contrary, he returned home once again—having been knighted by the queen at Buckingham Palace—as one of his country’s favourite sons. His tenure covered fifteen eventful years, but by its nature vice-regal office does not—or should not—lend itself to bold action or memorable speech-making. In retirement, after the death of Helen he married Joan Goodwin, an old family friend. On the day of his state funeral, 28 February 2002, the Sydney Morning Herald reported, ‘When Sir Roden assumed the office of Governor he was the subject of intense media attention. Front-page headlines and congratulatory editorials marked his appointment. Further laudatory sentiments and expressions of thanks on a job well done were voiced on his retirement. ‘By comparison, the publicity surrounding the appointment and subsequent careers of those governors who followed him was distinctly muted. And in a changing world it seems unlikely that any future vice-regal figure will generate the kind of enthusiasm that Sir Roden enjoyed.’1 Cutler was genuinely touched by his popularity and the fact that on public occasions ordinary people would approach in an effort to express goodwill. Yet he was also capable of coping in vastly different situations. He remained unmoved on one notable occasion when pelted with tomatoes as he inspected a guard of honour of the Sydney University Regiment. The time was May, 1969, and a group of students was protesting against the presence of the regiment as ‘an organisation which demands unquestioning obedience’. Sir Roden was struck by several missiles during the uproar in which anti-Vietnam war activists also took part. Although 131

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BRAVEST jostled and pushed, he calmly completed his inspection with no indication of annoyance or even disapproval. Afterwards he declared his belief that there had been ‘nothing personal’ in the incident and played down the violence—‘a few tomatoes hit me, that’s all’.

Certainly Sir Roden Cutler was something of a departure from the traditional pattern of NSW governors—who had mostly been drawn from the British aristocracy or the senior military brass. Indeed, when Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam government in 1975, Cutler was often applauded by passers-by with the cry, ‘Good on you, Governor, you wouldn’t have done it.’ He maintained a diplomatic silence. The truth is that he adorned the office more than the office adorned him. But that was not unusual in the life of Arthur Roden Cutler. He even brought additional lustre to the VC.

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18 The larrikin

The Second World War may have been a fight to the death against the Nazi obscenity in Europe and the imminent threat of invasion at home. But one of the legacies of Anzac that found its form in the national consciousness between the wars was the concept of the larrikin, devil-may-care Aussie Digger. The genesis of the term almost certainly lay in the response of General Hamilton at Gallipoli when his staff officers recommended withdrawal of the Australians and New Zealanders from their impossible position at Anzac Cove less than 24 hours after the landing. Rather than pull out, Hamilton replied, they should ‘Dig, dig, dig.’ And for the next four years, through the mud and slush of trenches from Gallipoli to Flanders they did just that. In the doing, they exhibited a stoicism, an aggressive egalitarianism, a flair for the outrageous victory against the odds and a 133

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BRAVEST dry, irreverent sense of humour that cut pretension to the quick. And if one man epitomised these attributes during the Second World War, it was surely Tom Currie ‘Diver’ Derrick. The Derricks were battlers. Young Tom walked barefoot to his Winkie primary school and left as soon as he was allowed. He had been born in March 1914, as the shot that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and would trigger the First World War was still echoing around the world. Tom may eventually have learned of it at one of the schools he attended as the family moved about in search of work for his father, David. By then he had watched the Diggers return and parade through Adelaide’s streets. He did all right at woodwork and his parents hoped he would be apprenticed as a carpenter. But by 1928 in South Australia the Depression was looming and the building industry was in trouble. The best he could do was a job in a bakery, though he was not the most conscientious of apprentices. His great love was sport—cricket in summer, Australian Rules football in winter; boxing and mischief anytime. His sister Dolly once recalled, ‘Cards, two-up, greyhounds, a racehorse—if there was any mischief around you could bet that [he] was at the bottom of it or had a finger in the pie.’1 He also loved swimming; it was his diving into the Port River that earned him his nickname, Diver. By 1931 thousands in Adelaide were homeless; the banks of the Torrens River were lined with humpies; a shanty town sprang up near the Zoo. Derrick’s boss had to let him go. He took it in his stride. He and a bunch of mates headed off on their bikes towards Berri, the fruit-growing town about 200 km away where as pickers they were sure to earn a few bob. On the way they pooled their funds and had a small win at the local races; at night they camped by creek beds. Derrick and two 134

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The larrikin others lived in a tent on the banks of the Murray for the next few months. When the annual Agricultural Show opened Derrick bowled up to the boxing tent and bet he could stay upright for three rounds against the ‘ex-lightweight champion of Australia’. He was knocked down in the second but stood up again and won the bet at the cost of a black eye and a set of bruised ribs. Boxing was popular between the wars and Derrick had more guts than good sense. Time and again he climbed into a ring against a more expert opponent to earn a quid. But when he met Bill Milde, a fellow itinerant and occasional boxer, they began a powerful mateship that would end only with Derrick’s death. On one of his visits home, Derrick played in the local football team. At a dance after the match he met sixteen-year-old Clarance ‘Beryl’ Leslie. Though they would not marry for seven years, Derrick, at eighteen, had found his one true love. Beryl transformed his life. Overnight, it seemed, he had found a purpose, and while he retained his devil-may-care exterior, he now worked himself to a standstill in an attempt to ‘get ahead’. He found a permanent job in a vineyard at Winkie. And when he married Beryl in May 1939, promising to forsake all others, Thomas Currie Derrick meant every word. While Tom and Beryl were taking their vows, however, Europe was edging ever closer to war. When the German Blitzkrieg began smashing through the Netherlands, young Australians poured into the recruiting offices, more than 50,000 enlisting in June 1940, including three infantry battalions in South Australia. Among them was Derrick, who told Beryl, ‘she’ll be apples’, and headed off to the train with Bill Milde and their mates. Assigned to the 9th Division’s 2/48th Battalion (which proudly retained the designation of the First World War unit) 135

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BRAVEST Derrick and Milde were sent to the Wayville Showgrounds for basic training. Beryl moved back to her family in North Adelaide to be near him. Derrick found army life, with its physical discipline, its camaraderie and its sense of purpose, powerfully appealing. He thrived. And he began to keep a diary that would trace his progress through the war. In October the battalion marched in full regalia through the streets of Adelaide to Mitcham station. However, the voyage overseas was delayed and on 16 November he confided to his diary, ‘Still at Woodside—waiting to go overseas. Wish she’d hurry up.’ That night Derrick sneaked out of camp for another farewell to Beryl. The following day he and his mates walked up the gangway of the SS Stratheden and by nightfall the men of the 2/48th were on their way to war. At El Kantara, in Palestine, they encamped for more training. Derrick threw himself into the regime, taking special pride in his ability to win the cross-country runs. He also took pleasure in seeking out places of historical interest, such as Jericho and the Dead Sea, revealing in his diaries a questing mind that he disguised in the rough and tumble of military life. With the minimum of fuss, he made a religious decision. ‘Changed my church today,’ he wrote. ‘Went to Catholic parade—doubt if I’m improved any.’2 His service record suggested not. He became best known for his ‘extended leaves’, his remarkable luck at two-up and the book he ran on battalion athletic contests. But no one doubted that when the bullets started flying Derrick would be a good man to have at your side. ‘You always knew where you were with Tom,’ a comrade-in-arms, Clem Billing, said later. ‘He’s the first bloke you’d pick to help you in a stoush.’3 136

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The larrikin In early March 1941 the 2/48th were taken by train and truck to Alexandria, in Egypt, and along the North African coast through Tobruk to Gazala. There battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Victor Windeyer received orders to prepare for an advance towards General Erwin Rommel’s 5th Light Division, whose powerful Panzer force was streaming westward. Word filtered down to Derrick, who wrote on 6 April, ‘Heard we are holding Jerry at Benghazi. Can’t make out the idea of letting Jerry advance so easy, guess the trumps must have something up their sleeve.’4 Not so, unfortunately. As Rommel advanced, Windeyer’s men dug in at Maddalena Pass but then abruptly withdrew under orders to Tmimi and then back to Tobruk. The only deepwater port on the coast, Tobruk was strongly fortified around a 56-km perimeter, but its defenders were perilously outnumbered—three to one in manpower, ten to one in tanks and hundreds to one in aircraft—by Rommel’s forces. However, they were well supplied with food, water and materiel and at the beginning morale among the troops was high. Derrick had secured a German Breda machine-gun and he haunted the front lines of the fortress, leading patrols against both German and Italian units. On 1 May, Rommel made a massive assault on the surrounding sector and by midday had been halted only 2 km from the perimeter wire. The Germans dug in to protect their gains and in some areas the forward trenches of the defenders were only 60 m from the enemy. Windeyer’s battalion was ordered to retake the salient; Derrick’s section was on the extreme left flank of the attack. It was, he wrote, ‘a bobby dazzler of a fire fight’. Derrick was a constant presence supporting his mates. Rommel’s forward 137

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BRAVEST units sent up a hail of mortar shells, and casualties were heavy. Finally, with the platoons separated and in danger of being overwhelmed by enemy fire, they were ordered to withdraw. Derrick’s leadership was immediately recognised by a promotion to corporal. He was described as ‘resourceful, brave, aware, humane, forever bending over backwards for his men’.5 He was also recommended for a Military Medal, but for unknown reasons it was not awarded. Later that month Derrick’s perspicacity was rewarded when he uncovered a spy in the ranks—a German posing as a British tank officer—reported him to company headquarters and saw him taken into custody. Then for several weeks there developed a routine of trench warfare, night patrols and small-scale ‘stunts’ to unsettle the enemy. In mid-June General Archibald Wavell mounted a full-scale counterattack on Rommel’s force, but after twelve days it petered out and Wavell found himself withdrawn by Churchill. Nevertheless, Tobruk remained firmly in the Australians’ hands and soon the international press was praising their ‘epic resistance’.6 Even Rommel was impressed. He wrote to his wife, ‘The Australian troops are fighting magnificently and their training is far superior to ours.’7 The 2/48th went into reserve for a few days in July but after a rest they returned to the salient. The Germans were waiting. Derrick wrote, ‘Practically in the same positions as we were May 4–13. Cannot put your head up two inches during the day.’8 The siege dragged on, but by August reinforcements were arriving from Britain and the Polish Carpathian Brigade. In September Derrick was promoted to platoon sergeant. Finally, on 22 October 1941, the battalion embarked on HMS 138

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The larrikin Kingston. Their job was done; Tobruk remained—for now—in Allied hands. They returned to Palestine, where Derrick’s platoon was given three days’ leave in Tel Aviv before starting a training regime designed to restore their fitness after the confinement of Tobruk. Colonel Windeyer was promoted to brigadier and replaced as battalion commander in the new year by Lieutenant Colonel ‘Tack’ Hammer. Training intensified. By then the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and soon they threatened Singapore. Their next stop seemed to be Australia itself. In his diary, Derrick wrote, ‘Dying to get back to Aussie.’9 By February he was even more concerned. ‘The war getting ever closer to Australia and am not in a position to do anything about it—the whole of the 9th Division are most desirous to return home and fight for, and in, their own country.’10 However, before that could happen the 2/48th had to finish the job in the North African desert. In their absence Rommel had taken Tobruk and planned to be in Cairo itself by June 1942. In fact, by the end of June he was well on the way. And the Eighth Army, including the Australian 9th, was heading out to meet him at El Alamein. On the way they found an enemy force entrenched at Tel el Eisa, and on 10–11 July 1942 Derrick ran forward through a barrage of grenades, destroyed three machinegun posts and captured over a hundred prisoners. The roar of enemy guns and mortars in the counterattack was ear splitting. Just before dark the Panzers overran the Australian trenches and the situation became critical. Derrick’s A Company charged the German infantry following the tanks and won the battle at bayonet point. 139

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BRAVEST Tank hunting is fraught with danger. But Derrick revelled in it. He could stalk the armoured vehicles, move under the sights of their machine-guns, plant ‘sticky’ grenades on their sides and race off at the correct angle to avoid the blast, flinging himself into a depression in the ground. On this occasion he accounted for two tanks with sticky grenades. Awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, he was promoted to full sergeant on 28 July. Then in August Churchill placed General Bernard Montgomery at the head of the Eighth Army in North Africa. The men in the Allied forces respected ‘Monty’, though some described him as ‘quick as a ferret and about as likeable’.11 Montgomery put a great deal of emphasis on organisation and morale. He visited the troops to bolster their confidence. El Alamein, he told them, was the key to the battle; it must be held at all costs. Rommel planned to hit the Allies in the south. British Intelligence had secured a copy of Rommel’s battle plan and had deciphered it. Monty also knew the route of Rommel’s supply lines and knew that only a third of what he needed was getting through to him. The Allies by contrast still controlled the Suez Canal and were very well supplied. Rommel decided to attack quickly. By the end of August, Montgomery was ready for him. Indeed, Rommel’s attack started badly and it seemed his Afrika Korps might be wiped out. The Allies had placed a huge number of land mines south of El Alamein. These destroyed many tanks and held up the rest, which became sitting targets for Allied fighter planes. Rommel ordered his tanks north, and a sandstorm gave them brief cover. However, when it died down Allied bombers pounded the Afrika Corps tanks. Rommel had no choice but to retreat. He fully expected Montgomery’s Eighth 140

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The larrikin Army to follow. But Monty was not ready for an offensive. Instead, he ordered his troops to hold a strong defensive line. The 2/48th Battalion, which would become the most decorated Australian unit of the war, excelled itself in the action. Colonel Hammer drove his men relentlessly—digging, mining, exercising and harrying the German lines. Derrick wrote, ‘Artillery duels continue and we collect a good deal of Jerries’ 25-pounders, formerly British, and we are all now convinced they are by far the worst of all.’12 That was the good news. Leading a patrol of a corporal and five privates on 3 October, Derrick pinpointed the German machine-gun positions and strongholds—vital intelligence for the battle about to be joined. Montgomery was waiting for the arrival of 300 American Sherman tanks. Their 75-mm gun shot a 6-lb shell that could penetrate a Panzer at 2000 m. The Germans had 110,000 men and 500 fuel-starved tanks. The Allies had more than 200,000 men, more than 1000 tanks, and powerful field guns. Between the two armies was the ‘Devil’s Garden’, a 7-km-wide minefield laid by the Germans. Crossing it would prove to be a nightmare for the Allies. Montgomery launched Operation Bertram to dupe Rommel into believing that the full might of the Eighth Army would be used in the south. Dummy tanks were erected; a dummy pipeline was built—slowly—to convince Rommel that the Allies were in no hurry to attack. In the north, tanks were camouflaged. The ruse worked; Rommel moved the bulk of his forces south. At the start of the real attack—Operation Lightfoot—Montgomery sent a message to all the men in the Eighth Army: ‘Everyone must be imbued with the desire to kill Germans, even 141

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BRAVEST the padres—one for weekdays, two for Sundays.’ He was determined, he said, to ‘hit the enemy for six out of Africa’.13 As the infantry attacked, engineers had to clear a path for the tanks to travel in single file through the ‘Devil’s Garden’. More than 800 artillery guns fired at the German lines, but the minefields were more extensive than expected and the plan to get the tanks through in one night failed. The infantry had to dig in. The second night of the attack was also unsuccessful. Montgomery withdrew his tanks. However, Rommel and the Afrika Korps had also been suffering. He only had 300 tanks left to the Allies’ 900. Montgomery now realised the attack had failed. He needed time to remount the battle and in the following eight days the 9th Australian Division bought him that time. The Australian units switched the axis of the attack from the west to the north towards the coast to cut off the Germans beside the Mediterranean. Rommel had to move his tanks north to prevent this. The Australians took many casualties but their attack was to change the course of the battle. Derrick and the 2/48th were in the thick of it, responsible for taking the final 4 km. Derrick wrote, ‘This is a moment in history.’14 In the battle Derrick was tireless, checking here, encouraging there, constantly cajoling his men and pressing home the advantage. A gun carrier roared through the Allied lines, heading for the Germans. His mate, Joe Ralla, later recalled, ‘We could see Diver standing in the carrier, Tommy gun in hand, the top half of his body exposed. It was like a chap riding a horse into a hail of fire. You could hear the bullets splattering off the metal sides of the carrier. I thought, “God, he’ll never come out of that.” ’15 142

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The larrikin A Very light illuminated the scene. Derrick knocked out three machine-gun posts, then had his driver reverse the carrier up to each one to make sure they were silenced. Next morning his platoon occupied all three positions. Ralla and his other comrades were sure he would be awarded the VC. By 2 November 1942 Rommel knew he was beaten. Hitler ordered the Afrika Korps to fight to the last but Rommel refused. On 4 November, he started his retreat—25,000 Germans and Italians had been killed or wounded in the battle, compared with 13,000 Allied troops. Derrick and his mates were exhausted but exhilarated. They had lost more than 200 men. But they had won the day, and Derrick had received a Distinguished Conduct Medal. It was not quite the VC that many believe he deserved, but by now it seemed inevitable that he would win that, too . . . provided he survived. The 9th Division had fought its last battle in North Africa. But not its last battle of the war. In January 1943 it embarked for Australia, which was increasingly threatened by the advance of the Japanese.

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19 One of our very best

The troops were crowded into their transports. Derrick’s ship, the giant Nieuw Amsterdam, had been a luxury liner, as had the other vessels—the Queen Mary, Aquitania, Queen of Bermuda and Ile de France. However, they were only lightly guarded by two destroyers and later a lone cruiser. Despite some anxious moments the convoy made the journey unscathed, and when the Nieuw Amsterdam docked at Port Melbourne, Derrick took the train home to Adelaide on leave. He and Beryl spent their treasured time together at Murray Bridge, though Derrick refused to talk about his experiences in the Middle East. The interlude passed all too quickly. The 2/48th Battalion reassembled in the last days of February 1943, and marched through cheering crowds to their camp on the outskirts of Adelaide. There they assembled their kit for the long rail journey 144

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One of our very best to the Atherton Tableland, where they would train for the jungle warfare that awaited them. Derrick wrote in his diary, ‘Seen the most beautiful country in Australia . . . the camp is well into the bush and a short distance from the Barron River.’1 By the end of April the 2/48th was again at full strength and as well prepared as it could be for the ordeal ahead. By now the Japanese had been stopped in the Solomon Islands and driven back at Kokoda. However, they still had control of a great arc of territory to Australia’s north and a massive stronghold at Rabaul that posed a threat to any Allied advance. The battalion topped off its training with landing-craft exercises near Cairns. Then, on 5 August, the troops embarked for Milne Bay. Their first mission was to land at a strip of black sand designated Red Beach. From there they would fight their way about 30 km west to the town of Lae. On 4 September, American destroyers bombarded the beach, and the Australians landed as the barrage ended. Derrick wrote, ‘Assault troops landed without opposition . . . the fifth wave, carrying the 2/23rd Battalion was attacked by 3 Jap bombers from a force of 24 which came over . . . resulting in approx. 50 casualties, 7 of which were fatal, including the C.O. Our wave landed okay.’2 The terrain provided a greater obstacle than the Japanese, and on 15 September, A Company, with Derrick’s platoon leading, took Malahang airport unopposed. Two days later Lae was in Australian hands. Derrick wrote, ‘The place was deserted except for a few dead, in a filthy condition and bomb craters filled with water after heavy rains were everywhere. Not a building was left standing. The Jap is far dirtier than the Palestinian. Their weapons are definitely inferior to ours, being old 145

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BRAVEST and crude yet effective. I cannot possibly see how they have a chance at all—the enemy strength has been greatly overestimated I think and most of them escaped.’3 For the next month Derrick was acting company sergeantmajor as the troops plied between Finschhafen and Buna with supplies for the next big push. Now, however, the Australians began to meet stubborn resistance. The dominant feature in the area was Sattelberg, a densely timbered hill that rose 1000 m to provide a magnificent observation site for the Japanese 20th Division, which had taken over the Lutheran mission on the peak and had been ordered to hold it ‘at all cost’. The Australian attack on Sattelberg began in mid-November and from the beginning Derrick was at the fore. His 9 Platoon engaged the enemy time and again as the Japanese slowly gave ground and withdrew up the precipitous slopes. On 20 November he wrote, ‘Fighting was hard and bitter with casualties mounting up.’ The next day he noted, ‘I am sent for by the Colonel and placed in command of 11 platoon B Company, they having lost all but one of their leaders—was immediately given a patrol which occupied six hours. Although no enemy was encountered information obtained was valuable—the platoon worked marvellously; they impress me as a very capable crew.’4 Disaster struck on the afternoon of 23 November when Japanese mountain guns crashed shell after shell into the battalion command post, killing two senior officers. Next morning Derrick confronted the almost sheer jungle-clad slopes that led towards the summit. ‘First look at the ground made the task a suicide one,’ he wrote. ‘Jap bunkers on top could fire down on us and drop grenades down, a very sticky position indeed. Decided to give it a go using 4 and 5 sections. 146

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One of our very best The move off required great courage and nerve and not a single man hesitated.’5 In a forward foxhole, two Japanese gunners stood up; Derrick dispatched them. His men moved ahead, Bren guns taking further positions. They were making good progress. Then came an unexpected order to withdraw. Derrick would have none of it. ‘Bugger the C.O.,’ he said. ‘Just give me twenty minutes and we’ll have this place.’6 With his sections providing covering fire he clung to the cliff face with one hand and threw grenades from his pouches with the other. Then he would straighten and fire his rifle at selected targets. His determination was remorseless. He was constantly fired on and grenaded, but luck stayed with him as he led his men towards the peak. Finally he climbed over the edge and into the tall, sharp kunai grass. Ahead were the battered buildings of Sattelberg; the remaining Japanese defenders ran for them. Derrick’s platoon held their position that night and the following morning they occupied the settlement. He wrote, ‘The colonel insisted that I hoist the flag on the hard-fought-for town.’7 Derrick’s Victoria Cross for his amazing feat was never in doubt. The unit remained on Sattelberg until the end of December, when they returned to the coast to regroup. On 7 February 1944 the 2/48th returned to Australia. Again Derrick and Beryl enjoyed an all-too-brief reunion. In August Derrick was sent to officer-training school—an opportunity he accepted only on the proviso that—unusually in the AIF—he be allowed to stay with his old battalion. In April 1945 he said farewell to his wife again—for the last time. On 1 May, the 2/48th took part in the landing on the tiny 147

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BRAVEST island of Tarakan, by far the most bitter and costly struggle of the Borneo campaign. Indeed, there is a continuing controversy over the decision to engage the Japanese outposts, which some argue would have fallen anyway once General Douglas MacArthur’s island-hopping campaign starved them of supplies. Under cover of an Allied naval and air bombardment, the landing went smoothly and the 2/48th soon pushed inland. Day after day, strong patrols struck at enemy positions. The Japanese were well dug in, and fought ferociously. On 22 May Derrick led his platoon against a small cluster of hills, code-named Freda, that was thick with enemy defences. His skill and courage that day might easily have won him another VC, but by nightfall the enemy still held the highest knoll. Derrick spread out his men, then lay down on the jungle track to rest. At about 3 a.m., Derrick’s luck ran out. It had taken him through the toughest situations because those were the ones he sought. Some inner voice, some soldierly instinct, had invariably directed him to the crucial point of enemy contact. He had been brave but never foolish. He knew all the tricks of a frontline soldier because he’d trained hard to learn them and put them into practice. But in the tropical darkness a Japanese light machine-gun fired a burst down the track. Diver sat up to see that his men were all right. The gun fired again, and five bullets struck him across his chest and abdomen. Despite his wounds, he continued to give orders as the platoon beat back the Japanese. According to historian Michael McKernan, he had arguably deserved ‘a VC and two bars; that is, three times the highest bravery award: at El Alamein, at Sattelberg and now at Tarakan.’8 148

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One of our very best However, the Japanese bullets had penetrated vital organs, and he began to lose consciousness as the fighting continued around him. He roused himself and said to a mate, ‘I’ve had it. That’s that. Write to Beryl.’ Then they carried him to the field ambulance, his grin and his courage never deserting him.9 His brigadier, ‘Torpy’ Whitehead, hurried to see him. After they had spoken for a few minutes Derrick said, ‘Excuse me, sir. I appreciate you coming up to see me but I don’t think I have that long to go, and I’m sure you won’t mind if I have some time with my padre.’ Whitehead stepped back and saluted. Someone fetched Father Arch Bryson. Derrick said, ‘Give me the works, father, I think I’ve had it.’10 He died on 24 May 1945 and was buried in Labuan war cemetery. McKernan writes, ‘Regardless . . . of speculation about possible gallantry awards, surely Diver Derrick was one of the bravest Australian soldiers ever.’ It is a judgement with which few will disagree.11 Beryl was ill for months afterward. According to friends, she never really recovered.

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20 One among many

During the Second World War, the VC warrant still provided for awards to be made to a unit rather than an individual (with members of the unit deciding among themselves who the recipients should be), though by now this never happened. However, there is a widespread belief that on one occasion a particular individual was honoured as a salute to the achievements of his comradesin-arms. Charles Anderson’s Victoria Cross was unquestionably well deserved. He takes his place very comfortably among the bravest of the brave. But the circumstances surrounding the action in which he won the award were unusual, and over the years it has stirred the occasional ripple of controversy. His unit was the 2/19th Battalion, which had the unenviable record of losing more of its members than any other army unit raised during the entire conflict—some 738 soldiers, almost an 150

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One among many entire battalion at full strength. It was part of the 8th Division, recruited in NSW and trained to fight the Germans in the Middle East. In December 1940, its 24th Brigade was sent to North Africa, where it became part of the 9th Division. As the possibility of war with Japan loomed, elements of the division were posted to various strategic areas in the Asia–Pacific region, but they were unprepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The Japanese invasion of Malaya began shortly after midnight the following day. On 10 December, HMAS Vampire became the first Australian ship to go into action against the Japanese when HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were sunk off the east coast of Malaya by enemy aircraft. Vampire and the three other escorting destroyers were able to rescue over 2000 survivors from the two British ships. The 8th Division was sent to aid an Indian Corps that had been unable to stop the Japanese advance through Malaya. It was under the command of the controversial Australian MajorGeneral Gordon Bennett, whose ‘Westforce’, which also contained Indian and British units, was stationed across the central trunk road and along the Muar River at the northwestern border of the state of Johore, the last province to stand between the invaders and Singapore. The first major Australian battle occurred on 14–15 January 1942 when a company of the 2/30th Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Galleghan, mounted an ambush which routed hundreds of Japanese soldiers riding bicycles through a cutting and over a bridge on the Gemencheh river. As the ambush party withdrew, they found themselves surrounded by Japanese patrols, though most found a way through. The battle for Gemas raged that night and next day and 151

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BRAVEST on the afternoon of 15 January the Japanese called in aircraft and tanks and the Australians withdrew. The 45th Indian Brigade on the west coast, defending the line of the Muar River, was involved in a battle with the Japanese Imperial Guards Division. Two battalions from the 8th Australian Division were despatched as reinforcements: the 2/29th and the 2/19th battalions. The Indian brigade was pushed back towards Bakri where, north of the village, the 2/29th and some gunners of the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment provided blocking action. Japanese forces penetrated between the 2/29th and the 2/19th at Bakri. The Australians held on to enable the Indian troops of the Jats Battalion to also reach them, but they came under heavy ground and air attacks. On 19 January nearly all staff at the 45th Indian Brigade’s headquarters were wounded or killed when a bomb hit it. That was the situation when Lieutenant Colonel Charles Anderson, commanding officer of the 2/19th Battalion, took command of all remaining troops. Charles Groves Wright Anderson was born at Cape Town, South Africa, on 12 February 1897. His parents were from Scotland and he was educated in Nairobi, Kenya, and Brendon College, England. He did not socialise easily and was extremely short-sighted. He not only wore spectacles—he carried two spare pairs in case of accidents. On 13 October 1916, Anderson was commissioned in Kenya as a lieutenant in the King’s African Rifles. He fought with that regiment’s 3rd Battalion in the East African campaign against German-led Askari tribesmen and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery. After the war he operated as a big-game hunter 152

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One among many in Kenya, where he met and married an Australian, Edith Tout, in 1931. They ran a cattle station in Kenya but after three years Edith grew homesick. They bought a grazing property at Crowther, near Young in the NSW Riverina, and moved there soon afterwards. Anderson joined the Citizens Military Forces in March 1939, and when war broke out he volunteered for the 2nd AIF. Anderson’s 2/19th Battalion sailed to Singapore in early 1941. When the commander of the 2/19th was put in charge of the 27th Brigade, Anderson was given command of the 2/19th. At 44, he was already experienced in jungle warfare and had gained the confidence of his men. But as the Japanese drove forward towards Fortress Singapore, his unit’s situation became increasingly desperate. When the Japanese penetrated the area between the 2/19th and the 2/29th early in 1942, the Australians faced a potential massacre. Anderson’s badly mauled unit was now effectively cut off from the rest of Westforce. There was virtually no air cover and communications with headquarters were intermittent and unreliable. He moved from company to company and briefed the men. ‘There’s been a lot of talk about the fanatical fighting of the Japanese—so fanatical as to render them almost immune from fear and to make them unbeatable,’ he said. ‘This is arrant nonsense. The Japs can be pushed around and made to move in the wrong direction as well as any other troops.’ He assured his men that they were better trained then the Japanese and could handle them ‘easily and roughly’. The response was immediate and positive. Suddenly they were ‘talking and joking’ about the battle ahead.1 153

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BRAVEST One of his problems was the Indian force Jats Battalion, which had been recruited and trained only three months previously. Once their British officers were killed or wounded they were hard to control, and several times panic firing of weaponry brought self-inflicted casualties. And the Jats were having great difficulty joining up with Anderson’s force. As his men approached Bakri village on the Muar Road, an enemy post began firing in ambush. According to a report later compiled by the survivors, Anderson immediately ordered an attack by two platoons of C Company and soon the enemy abandoned the position. ‘This was a good start for the men generally,’ they wrote. ‘The C.O. had told [us] that the Jap was not invincible and here they were proving him to be right.’2 On the night of 17 January Anderson received orders to mount a company attack on the Muar Road at first light ‘to test the strength of the enemy’ and to provide a diversion so the Jats could be brought in. Since the Japanese had tanks, a British antitank section was to assist. However, Japanese shelling kept the Jats away. A platoon under Lieutenant Pat Reynolds made contact with the enemy. Reynolds later wrote, ‘The men advanced, bayoneting a few Japs. A section on my right was pinned down by automatic fire. Lying amongst a heap of apparently dead Japs, I was signalling to the other section when suddenly one of the corpses came to life, holding a grenade in his right hand and raising himself from the ground with his left. ‘I shot at him; the grenade exploded simultaneously and half his head was blown off. Two pieces of the grenade hit me, one under the right arm, the other on the side of the head. The latter, meeting an irresistible force, bounced off. 154

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One among many ‘As I fell I called out to Sergeant Small to “push home the attack” which he evidently did successfully. We had practised this type of movement dozens of times in training . . . This, our first engagement, accounted for fifteen Japs, a machine gun and a small mountain gun, and it all went off as we’d been taught to expect. The boys were in great heart about it all.’3 On 18 January the 2/19th and 2/29th moved into Bakri; next day came the Japanese bombing of brigade headquarters there. ‘Responsibility was thus thrust upon Charles Anderson for a Brigade which, but for the missing Jats, had practically ceased to exist except as a liability.’4 Opposing him was a crack Japanese division making a determined effort to cut off the whole of Westforce. The situation could hardly have been more desperate. On the afternoon of the 18th the enemy attacked in force, but Anderson’s men fought them off. ‘When the enemy withdrew at nightfall, B Company in a rough check reached 300 enemy casualties before the darkness set in. Our own casualties were fifteen killed and 35 wounded.’5 The good news was that during the attack two companies of the missing Jats Battalion arrived. Moreover, the 2/29th was holding its own at Bakri. Contact was also re-established with Westforce, and General Bennett ordered all Allied troops to withdraw south to its new headquarters at Yong Peng, about 120 km from Singapore. ‘For a short period we were able to take stock,’ Anderson wrote. ‘We realised that our casualties were mounting and the loss of so many young officers and senior NCOs was serious. However, the next in line concerned were able to take their places and carry on with the greatest efficiency. Once again our training was paying dividends.’6 155

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BRAVEST Anderson and his staff spent most of the night of the 19th making plans for a withdrawal south, and at a conference of commanders at 4.30 a.m. he gave the order of march. The whole force was now treated as an infantry battalion of five Australian rifle companies with Indian units. The first objective was to cover 8 km in the direction of Parit Sulong village; the wounded would occupy most of the roadworthy vehicles. However, within half an hour the advance guard was held up by strong opposition. The Australians charged the Japanese in a bayonet attack but to no effect. Anderson sent one company around the enemy’s flank, then led another company in a fresh—and successful—attack. Anderson himself hurled grenades at machine-gun posts and shot two Japanese with his revolver. The Colonel [platoon leader] told Cpl Stein that he would move forward and throw some grenades into the Japanese gun positions and that at the same time a vigorous assault must be made. The C.O. always carried a few Mills grenades in his equipment and was a great believer in their efficiency as a result of his 1914–18 war experiences. He was able to creep close enough to put two of the machine-gun posts out of action. Lieut. Pat Reynolds said afterwards that as the explosion of the grenades died away a Jap put his head up from the butt of a tree a few yards away and was immediately shot through the head by the C.O. . . . [Anderson] then led the final assault and the whole Company surged forward and overwhelmed the enemy position and the road block. This was an act of personal bravery and leadership on the part of the commanding officer which was typical of his 156

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One among many courage and fighting ability and which inspired all ranks to give of their best, even when conditions were unbelievably grim.

The men believed it was this heroism that earned Anderson the VC, even though the incident is not mentioned in the official citation. Later, in a moment of inspiration, Anderson suggested the men sing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ as they went into battle. ‘They struck up the well-known tune and the change in bearing was remarkable. They relaxed but did not lose their alertness. The tune had never been sung with more enthusiasm.’7

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21 ‘Guest of the Emperor’

For the next two days Anderson’s column fought a continuous battle against Japanese troops, tanks, aircraft and artillery while desperately trying to conserve their remaining rations and ammunition. Occasionally messages reached them that Bennett was sending assistance from Yong Peng, but it never arrived. On 20 January Anderson and his exhausted column neared Parit Sulong—only to discover that it was now in enemy hands, along with the vital bridge just outside it. After repeated attacks, they managed to take the village, but could not dislodge the Japanese defenders from the bridge. On the 22nd, with no hope of relief, Anderson decided to leave behind 150 severely wounded men and order the able-bodied to wreck their guns and vehicles and try to make their way in small bands through the enemy lines. The Japanese, to his subsequent horror and dismay, massacred all the wounded. 158

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‘Guest of the Emperor’ Later General Bennett wrote, ‘[Anderson] was cool and calm and talked as if the whole battle was merely a training exercise. From this I understand why he was able to keep his men in hand. With such coolness, self control, strength of character, and with such kindly affection and consideration for his men, he could overcome all difficulties.’1 But even as Anderson’s men struggled south through the Malayan jungle, the Japanese were closing their grip. From vantage points beside the Johore Strait, including the sultan’s palace, the Japanese commander, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, directed shelling and air attacks that destroyed all communications between Allied units and their commanders. On 8 February, the first wave of 4000 Japanese troops headed to Singapore Island. Australian machine-gunners opened fire. Fierce fighting raged all next day, but eventually the increasing Japanese numbers, as well as their artillery, planes and military intelligence, began to exploit gaps in the Allied lines. With the Allies steadily losing ground, Bennett and other senior officers advised their commander, General Arthur Percival, to surrender. Percival almost immediately sought authority from his superiors in Britain to do so. It was not forthcoming. But on 15 February, after the Japanese broke through the last line of defence in the north, Percival formally surrendered the Allied forces to Yamashita. Bennett created an enduring controversy when he handed over the 8th Division to a brigade commander, commandeered a boat and managed to escape captivity. Almost 15,000 Australians became prisoners of the Japanese at the fall of Singapore. Anderson, who had fallen back with his unit was among them. As ‘a guest of the Emperor’ he would 159

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BRAVEST endure three years of misery, squalor, hunger, brutality and backbreaking labour on the Burma–Thailand Railway. Even before they joined the war, the Japanese had plans for a rail link from Thailand to Burma that could be used to move troops and supplies into place for an eventual invasion of India. The fall of Malaya, Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) gave them tens of thousands of POWs—a bonanza of slave labour. After four months in Changi prison, in mid-1942 Anderson and his men were loaded on to trucks and driven to northern Thailand. There they entered hell. The Japanese were merciless task masters. They harried and bashed the prisoners during interminable hours of labour in unbearable heat. The prisoners were forever hungry. They subsisted on a meagre ration of rice and little else. Their clothes became rags, their boots rotted from their feet. They were ravaged by malaria, dysentery, tropical ulcers and cholera. Hunger, beatings and illness killed them by the hundreds; one in four of the 60,000 Allied prisoners (and half of the coerced Asian labourers) who worked on the railway perished. Thousands more were walking skeletons. But in this time of terrible suffering, men like Anderson and the legendary Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop provided extraordinary leadership and support. According to former POW, Rod Allanson, While camp conditions proved extremely harsh, the POWs had some courageous, selfless leaders who inspired extraordinary resourcefulness, cooperation and determination among their men. This may explain why the Australians had a higher survival rate than other POW groups, with many even recovering from cholera. 160

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‘Guest of the Emperor’ The disease was so contagious that Weary and the other doctors set up a separate cholera compound . . . Here the medical fraternity worked wonders, setting up stills [to provide medicinal alcohol] in most ingenious fashion . . . cutting up their stethoscopes to provide tubes through which intravenous transfusions of liquid could be administered . . . No account of the cholera days would be complete without reference to the wonderful work carried out in the cholera compound by volunteer medical aides. The doctors pointed out that the cholera sufferers needed constant and unremitting attention . . . Knowing the dangers from contagion, the doctors called for volunteers to help them in this vital and humanitarian work. First to undertake this selfless work were Weary’s own medical orderlies.2

Another POW, Billy Griffiths, had lost his sight and both hands in an explosion. Since he couldn’t work, the Japanese planned to do away with him. Weary stepped in front of the bayonets and refused to move until the man’s life was spared. Despite—or perhaps because of—the terrible suffering, the camaraderie among the prisoners was remarkable. Anderson encouraged mateship among the prisoners. Against the odds he established a high morale among his men who reciprocated with intense personal loyalty. One Australian POW, Bill Haskell, recalled: The stronger men went to great lengths to support their weaker companions. Incidents of sheer courage and compassion abounded daily . . . Even when things seemed at the blackest the prisoners never 161

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BRAVEST wavered in their belief [in] an ultimate Allied victory. The Japanese had deprived them of all of the material things considered necessary in a regularly organised society and demeaned them at every opportunity but they never succeeded in depriving them of their dignity, self respect and sense of humour.3

Unquestionably, it was the courage of men like Anderson and Dunlop that saved the lives of their mates by their actions and their example. They exhibited as prisoners the kind of valour that many believe merited the VC. Yet Anderson’s citation made no mention of his time as a POW, and Dunlop was never considered for the award, nor indeed for the George Cross—though he did receive an OBE in 1947, and was much later knighted and made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, and a member of the Order of Australia. Dunlop and Anderson are but two of many hundreds of service personnel whose courage as prisoners of war has not received the appropriate military recognition. Army nurse Vivian Bullwinkel is in a similar category. She was on the hospital ship Vyner Brooke, which was sunk near Singapore in 1942. After reaching an island in lifeboats, the nurses were marched into the sea and machine-gunned by Japanese soldiers. Bullwinkel was the sole survivor. After several further ordeals, she and a wounded British soldier gave themselves up to the Japanese. He died a few days later; she spent three and a half years in prison camps, steadfastly tending the sick and even helping to cart excrement. She later testified at a War Crimes inquiry. Yet her only awards came in the form of an MBE, an AO and the Florence Nightingale Medal—the Red Cross’s highest distinction for nursing. A George Cross would surely have been more fitting. 162

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‘Guest of the Emperor’ In fact, only two Australian POWs have ever won the George Cross: Captain Lionel Matthews and Private Horace William ‘Slim’ Madden. Matthews’ citation emphasises his military activities in organising local resistance to the Japanese occupation while held prisoner by the Japanese at Sandakan in Borneo. (He was executed when his work was betrayed.) Madden’s is the single case where his courage and selflessness as a prisoner alone earned the medal. Yet the award was not made until four years after his death in the Korean War.

When the war finally ended, Anderson returned home and slowly regained his health on the family farm in the Riverina, supported by his wife and their four children. He was invested with the VC in Sydney on 8 January 1947 by the governor-general, the Duke of Gloucester. The citation read, in part: ‘On 19th January [1942] Lieutenant Colonel Anderson was ordered . . . to make his way as best he could around the enemy position [to the relative safety of HQ]. Throughout the fighting, which lasted for four days, he set a magnificent example of brave leadership, determination and outstanding courage. He not only showed fighting qualities of a very high order but throughout exposed himself to danger without any regard for his own personal safety.’ In 1949 he entered politics, winning the federal seat of Hume for the Country Party. He was by no means an outstanding political orator, but his war record won him universal respect and he served as Hume’s MP until 1961, except for a four-year hiatus (1951–55). He retired to the Canberra suburb of Red Hill, where he lived until his death at 91 on Remembrance Day, 1988. 163

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22 That moment of decision

While men like Derrick, Jacka and Murray seemed destined to win high honour almost from the time they donned the uniform, and others like Anderson, Cutler and Howse grew to extraordinary stature under sustained pressure, there is another group of VC winners who gave little indication of their mettle until the heat of battle presented them with a crucial moment of decision. Ted Kenna, Frank Partidge and Reg Rattey each won VCs in a single action that could never have been predicted from the lives they had led. And they returned to civilian life seemingly untouched by their extraordinary feats. They represent all the VC heroes who rose to the occasion with selfless courage. Reginald Roy Rattey was born in 1918 on the family farm at Barmedman in country NSW. A keen sportsman in his youth, he enlisted in 1941 and served with the 25th Battalion in New 164

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That moment of decision Guinea in the Port Moresby area and later on the island of Bougainville, where the Japanese were deeply entrenched. On 4 March 1945 the 25th began a battle against the invaders that lasted more than three weeks, and on 22 March the opposing forces met in hand-to-hand combat. The Japanese retreated to a well-prepared stronghold and began to stem the Australian advance with increasing casualties. But then Corporal Rattey made his decision. He broke cover and ran towards the Japanese positions firing his Bren gun from the hip until he reached the first Japanese bunker. He flung in a grenade and called his men forward. They over-ran two other entrenched positions and in the face of his implacable advance the Japanese retreated in disarray. Rattey was immediately promoted to sergeant and soon afterwards was awarded the VC. He returned to Australia, where he raised funds for badly wounded soldiers and their families before returning to the farm, his job done. He died there, surrounded by his family, in 1986. Ted Kenna was born in Hamilton, Victoria, on 6 July 1919. He was educated at St Mary’s Convent, Hamilton. ‘I wasn’t much of a scholar,’ he said later, ‘Reading, writing and arithmetic and that was about it.’1 His father worked on the railway and times were tough. Ted and his mates went trapping rabbits after school. ‘We had to keep rabbiting or we wouldn’t have had much on the table. We skinned them, hung them out to dry, then [took] them down to the skin buyer.’2 His first job was as a ‘water boy’ for a plumbing outfit that was putting a sewerage system into the town. As the workers dug trenches—sometimes 5 m deep—he would await the calls for 165

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BRAVEST ‘Water!’ Having filled his bucket at the pump, he would run to the trench, lower the water to the worker, then hare off to the next one. He did pretty well out of it until one day he didn’t arrive fast enough and one of the workers started abusing him. Ted figured he’d done his best and wasn’t about to cop a verbal shellacking from anyone. So he emptied the lot on the digger’s head. That was one job gone. By this time—1933—Frank Partridge was also doing it tough. He had been born in 1924 at Grafton, NSW. His parents had a dairy farm with a small banana plantation, and even while going to school he helped around the farm. The house had a dirt floor and with four children in the family, there was no money for anything but necessities. Partridge left school at thirteen—to work on the farm. But unlike Kenna, he had an extraordinary thirst for knowledge. At every opportunity he would read books borrowed from his mother’s small collection, the neighbours, or the library in town. Kenna enlisted in the newly formed Volunteer Defence Corps on 9 August 1940 and, after being called up for full-time duty in 1943, was posted with the 2/4th Battalion to New Guinea. He and Ted Kenna would not meet during the war, though their units fought in the same theatre and their VCs would be won within three months of each other. Partridge’s thoughts about going into combat are not recorded, but Kenna spoke frankly to an interviewer for the Australians at War film archive in 2005. ‘You kind of want to go very much but then you have your doubts about how you’ll perform. The greatest battle for a soldier is actually waiting to go . . . It always comes back to the night before—the first shot, how will [you] go? Will you stand up or let your mate down or 166

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That moment of decision something? It’s a question every soldier has to answer. He can’t prove himself till the time comes.’3 Kenna’s time came at Wewak in May, 1945. By then the Allied advance was in full swing, but the Japanese were well entrenched and fighting to the death. In the last quarter of 1944, his 6th Division had replaced American units in the Aitape area of northern New Guinea. The division, commanded by Major General J.E.S. Stevens, was to take over the American role of airfield and harbour defence and carry out active patrols. On 3 November the Australians began encountering Japanese fighters, who were in poor condition and having to forage for food. RAAF bombing raids smashed their supply bases and prevented them from using the roads in daylight. Throughout the area, resistance was fading. Controversy has inevitably arisen over the decision by army chief General Thomas Blamey to continue the Australian offensive in the face of eventual Japanese surrender. Blamey’s early biographer, John Hetherington, wrote: ‘It is among war’s tragedies that human courage, tenacity of purpose and military skill are sometimes squandered for a useless end. The Australian Army’s operations in 1944–45 are a saddening example of that truth . . . If these operations were not justified (and it would be hard to find any impartial historian to defend them on military grounds) then Blamey must bear part of the reproach.’4 Despite some grumbling in the chain of command, in early May 1945, Major General Jack Stevens moved the 19th Brigade, including Kenna’s 2/4th Battalion, from Aitape to take over the advance along the coastal strip towards Wewak. The battalion, with three troops of tanks, headed out and reached the town’s outskirts almost unopposed. By 15 May, the coastal plain around 167

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BRAVEST Wewak had been secured. But the Japanese had created a network of tunnels beneath the town, and it was feared that fanatical troops lurked in them, ready to make a last-ditch stand. Kenna’s company was given the task of clearing them out. They soon discovered ‘a fair few Japs’ as well as a general who had committed suicide. But while ‘it wasn’t my idea of cricket’, Kenna later wrote, they were able to secure the tunnels without serious loss.5 As the battalion pressed forward, Kenna joined in a series of firefights with the retreating enemy. He was disgusted when he discovered Japanese soldiers carrying flesh they had cut from an Australian killed in the forward line. They obviously intended to eat it. But 60 years later he was philosophical: ‘When you’re soldiering you’re doing things you shouldn’t be doing in the first place. That’s war.’ On 14 May, his 2/4th Battalion was ordered to attack Wirui Mission, which was on a steep kunai-covered hill about 90 m high that dominated the airfield. Approaching from the east through the tall grass, the leading company, with a troop of tanks, soon took the first objective, about halfway up the slope. Kenna’s company passed through and, with the tanks, whose crews estimated that they killed about 30 Japanese, reached the hilltop. By nightfall the top and the eastern slopes were held but the Japanese were fighting back from bunkers on the northwest slopes. Next day the Australians attacked these remaining bunkers. The lead section was held up by intense fire. Kenna was in the supporting section about 40 m from the bunkers. The Japanese were dug in and a heavy machine-gun halfway up the hill had a clear field of fire. Unless it could be taken out it would not only 168

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That moment of decision halt the advance but decimate Kenna’s platoon. They tried to take cover, but soon his mates were being shot to pieces. The VC citation captures the drama: Private Kenna endeavoured to put his Bren gun into a position where he could engage the bunker but was unable to do so because of the nature of the ground. On his own initiative and without orders Private Kenna stood up in full view of the enemy less than 50 yards away and engaged the bunker, firing his Bren gun from the hip. The enemy machine-gun immediately returned Private Kenna’s fire and with such accuracy that bullets actually passed between his arms and his body. Undeterred, he remained completely exposed and continued to fire at the enemy until his magazine was exhausted. Still making a target of himself, Private Kenna discarded his Bren gun and called for a rifle. Despite intense machinegun fire, he seized the rifle and with amazing coolness killed the gunner with his first round. A second automatic opened fire on Private Kenna from a different position and another of the enemy immediately tried to move into a position behind the first machine-gun, but Private Kenna remained standing and killed him with his next round. The result of Kenna’s magnificent bravery in the face of concentrated fire was that the bunker was captured without further loss. The company attack proceeded to a successful conclusion . . . there is no doubt that the success of the attack would have been seriously endangered and many casualties sustained but for Private Kenna’s magnificent courage and 169

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BRAVEST complete disregard for his own safety. His action was an example of the highest degree of bravery.

Possession of Wirui Mission gave the Australians complete control of the Wewak coastal plain. Kenna’s moment of decision had played a vital part. He escaped that firefight without a scratch, but three weeks after his day of heroism a Japanese bullet smashed into his jaw, and he had to be evacuated to Australia. He would not learn of his VC until many weeks later. By then it was July 1945, and young Frank Partridge was a private in the 8th Battalion’s 23rd Brigade, an original brigade of the ill-fated 8th Division that had been reconstituted with militia battalions. In May 1944, after jungle warfare training on the Atherton Tableland, they embarked for Lae, and then the island of Bougainville. Bougainville had been occupied by the Japanese since 1942, and they were well dug in throughout the island. Though, they were short of food, they had plenty of ammunition. And they were just as inclined to fight to the death as their comrades around Wewak had been. On 1 November 1943, the American 3rd Marine Division landed at Torokina and after fierce fighting established themselves onshore. The Marines expanded their defence perimeter to more than 20 km. The Marines were soon relieved by two US infantry divisions. For three weeks in March 1944, the Japanese attacked the American perimeter, losing 5000 men killed to the Americans 250. Time was now clearly on the Allies’ side, and the Americans handed over the area to four Australian brigades. In June 1945, the 23rd Brigade—having been moved to Bougainville two months before—was ordered to press the 170

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That moment of decision Japanese on a 3-km front around the Buoi plantation. On 23 July, Frank Partridge’s 8th Battalion attacked and took a ridge where the Japanese had been well entrenched. The following afternoon his platoon was one of two given the task of eliminating an enemy post that prevented the Australian advance. The troops reached the first ridge without difficulty, but then came under fierce machine-gun, grenade, and rifle fire. Partridge had been under fire before, but nothing like this. Machine-gun bullets seemed to fill the air around and above him. Yet if they retreated, he and his mates would be exposed to fire from the ridge above. The Japanese were never going to retreat, and unless something was done they would eventually kill every man in the platoon. Partridge himself soon took hits in the left arm and thigh. Ignoring his wounds, he took a Bren gun from a dead gunner, passed it to a mate and told him to cover him. He then rushed an enemy bunker with a grenade and ran into the machine-gun nest, a knife his only remaining weapon. He killed a soldier with the knife, then rushed another bunker, but he was bleeding too heavily to go on. He found cover and called to his mates. His platoon moved forward and brought him back. Then overwhelming enemy fire forced them to retreat. The VC citation concluded: The information gained by both patrols, and particularly from Private Partridge, enabled an attack to be mounted later. This led to the capture of a vital position sited on strong defensive ground and strengthened by 43 bunkers and other dug-in positions from which the enemy fled in panic. 171

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BRAVEST The serious situation during the fight of the two patrols was retrieved only by the outstanding gallantry and devotion to duty displayed by Private Partridge, which inspired his comrades to heroic action, leading to a successful withdrawal which saved the small force from complete annihilation. The subsequent successful capture of the position was due entirely to the incentive derived by his comrades from the outstanding heroism and fortitude displayed by Private Partridge.

He was the war’s youngest VC winner—and the last. Eleven days later, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito told his people they should ‘bear the unbearable’ and give up the fight.

Partridge and Kenna both spent a good deal of time in hospital recovering from their wounds. Kenna fell in love with his nurse, Marjorie Rushberry. After months of painful operations to give him a new jaw, he was in the shower one morning when he was called to the phone. The voice said, ‘Congratulations, Private Kenna, you’ve been awarded the Victoria Cross.’ ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘that’s a strange thing at this time of day.’6 Later he said, ‘I was very happy, of course, but didn’t know what to say. I was engaged to Marj then and we went out to Government House and they presented it out there. That was a big day and a big day for Marj, too.’7 They were married on 2 June 1947.

After visiting London in 1946 for the Victory parade, Partridge returned to live with his father in the dirt-floored farmhouse. 172

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That moment of decision But his love of reading had never deserted him, and he devoted himself to self-education, reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica by kerosene lamp and developing his remarkably retentive memory. Between 1962 and 1963 he appeared as a contestant on the television quiz show Pick-a-Box. His laconic manner appealed strongly to viewers, and Partridge was one of only three contestants to win all 40 boxes; his prizes were valued at more than £12,000. In 1964 he lost a ‘championship’ match to Barry Jones, who was later to become a federal Science minister and Labor Party president. Quizmaster Bob Dyer said of Partridge, ‘He has an amazing mind. There’s something of an Abe Lincoln in him —the rugged individualist, self-taught with a great desire for learning.’ At St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church, Sydney, on 23 February 1963, Partridge married Barbara Dunlop, a 31-year-old nurse. They had a baby son. To supplement his income, Partridge travelled around country areas selling life insurance. On the way to see a potential client, he was killed in a car crash on 23 March 1964, near Bellingen. He was just 39.

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23 Courage beyond compare

The exploits of Hugh Syme and John Mould are the stuff of nightmare. For month after month in 1942–43 they pitted their skill and their nerves against the fiendish creations German engineers had designed to spread havoc across Britain and to blow men like themselves to pieces. These horrific instruments of destruction were delivered like bombs by the Luftwaffe. But they were really mines—bombs with delayed fuses designed to explode long after the aircraft that dropped them had returned to base. Without Syme, Mould and their colleagues, the ports and industrial powerhouses of Britain would have been devastated. Their courage is without parallel in the annals of war. That they only received the George Cross is a travesty. Their case brings into clear focus the limitations of the military mind in adapting to technological advances that changed the nature and geography of 174

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Courage beyond compare war’s front line. Syme and Mould might not have been engaged in hand-to-hand combat, but they were most certainly ‘in the presence of the enemy’ as they manipulated the delicate and complex mines. On the surface they appear to have been unremarkable men, at least in background and upbringing. The Mould family had arrived in Sydney from Britain when John was only two. His father was an architect, and after leaving Sydney Grammar, John was happy to follow in his footsteps. He travelled to England in 1932 as a 22-year-old graduate to complete his studies; then returned to join a big firm back in Sydney. He was a keen sailor and had always spent his weekends on Sydney Harbour. Hugh Syme was born in February 1903, a member of the famous Melbourne newspaper family that had made The Age one of the most respected broadsheets in the world. He was educated at Scotch College and Melbourne University, where he studied engineering. He was destined to join the family business but he too had a passion for yachting, though on a somewhat bigger scale than John Mould. The Syme runabout was the 82-footer Westwind. The two knew nothing of each other until September 1940, when they both sailed on the Strathnaver from Sydney to London as members of the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve to do their bit for a Britain under siege. Also aboard were 22 other Australians destined for various attachments to the Royal Navy. Syme had married in 1931 and become works manager at The Age but was divorced just before leaving Australia. Mould, at 24, was single. Both were tall and thin, with a quiet sense of humour. And on arrival in Britain both accepted the challenge 175

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BRAVEST thrown out for ‘a bit of messing about with mines’ at the shorebased HMS Vernon. But first they underwent basic officer training—a mere 23 days at HMS King Alfred—before being shipped to Vernon and its School of Torpedoes and Mines at Portsmouth. There they rubbed shoulders with scientists working to defeat the enemy’s weaponry and to develop their own. The Germans had introduced the magnetic mine, which caused havoc at sea. Vernon’s principal task was to keep the sea lanes open but according to their CO, Commander Peter Lay, ‘At the same time we are asked to go into the cities and reopen them, too; because when an unexploded mine lies in the main street, a city can close up just as a sea-lane can.’1 He was frank about the task ahead. They would, he said, be ‘working with death’ and the strain would be considerable. ‘It takes us in different ways,’ he said. ‘Some of us are devout and some are profane. Some get drunk and drown their fears. Some have nightmares. Others sleep like the innocent.’2 They would have a dedicated team to back them up but essentially they would be their own masters, unencumbered by too many rules and regulations, and at a bomb or mine site ‘everyone, no matter what his rank or title, will do as you ask; if he refuses, you carry a revolver to add point to your argument’.3 Most of the mines they would deal with would be of the magnetic variety and would contain a bomb fuse. When it was triggered they would have no more than seventeen seconds to get clear. ‘When you hear that fuse run, you go like hell . . . You jump clean over ten-foot walls like they weren’t there. When she goes up you’re 400 yards away or else.’4 176

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Courage beyond compare Much of the next three weeks was spent in lecture halls and then dismantling ‘dead’ mines. Next step was the live variety, and both men passed the test without the instructor having to intervene. However, the most important lesson was that in the battle of the boffins nothing remained static—both sides were continually refining techniques and developing new devices. Syme and Mould would have to be constantly on the lookout for new tricks from the Nazis. When Mould left Portsmouth for his London billet, Syme remained behind. He had met a young lady and was determined to spread a little Australian cheer. However, he had failed to inform the CO. The blast he received would ensure that wouldn’t happen again . . . the notification, that is. Mould’s first mine was in a newly ploughed field in Kent. He was accompanied to the site by a senior officer for the first stage of the process. But having identified it, his mentor took cover and left the Australian to his own devices. Carefully, he laid out his tools. The mine was the latest magnetic type. As he approached it he was sweating. His hands trembled. He forced himself to touch the massive grey shape. He could smell it, too, harsh and pungent. Ever afterward he would think of the odour as the smell of fear. In fact it was a mixture of gas and explosive. As he began to secure a threaded brass tube over the outer ring of the bomb fuse, his hands began trembling again. He waited and breathed deeply, then turned the screw slowly. A rubber bulb filled up with air from the outer end of the tube and after five full revolutions the ring came away. He drew out the fuse, a silvery, shining cylinder with enough high explosive to detonate the mine. 177

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BRAVEST The fuse itself could blow off his arm. With infinite care he unscrewed the tiny detonator on one side and gently shook it out into his hand. This minute object, scarcely larger than the head of a match, could trigger off one ton of TNT packed in the mine casing. Ivan Southall captured the scene in Softly Tread the Brave, based on extensive interviews with the Australians. ‘Mould was very close to nausea,’ he wrote. ‘He realised then that his breathing was long and hard, that he could feel his thundering heartbeat all over his body. He placed the detonator on the hessian [mat] and sat in the mud to calm his nerves.’5 Then he returned to the massive mine and inserted a screwdriver into the aperture left by the removal of the fuse. One wrong step here and he could trigger the explosion himself. The spring-loaded primer needed only a sudden downward push in the wrong spot and death would be instantaneous. He was shaking again. He was terrified. He inserted the head of the specially designed spanner into the aperture, four tongues to fit precisely into four slots in the darkened mouth of the mine. They clicked. Slowly he turned the spanner, and as the casing rose out of the aperture he took it in shaking fingertips and placed it beside the fuse. Then he went to the other side of the mine. One more outer ring to be loosened, and beneath it a two-pronged screw head to be undone with yet another special screwdriver. This time, the primer plug leapt out at him on its spring and he almost cried aloud. His arm muscles had turned to jelly, but there was one more vital action required to finish the job. He had to fish into the mine itself to clasp the primer and draw out the long inner rod with the picric acid pellets in a tin container at the end. 178

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Courage beyond compare Slowly he brought it into the open air. He pulled open the cap of the container and the pellets tumbled on to the hessian cloth. He lit them with a match and once more his nostrils tasted the smell of death. Now there was only the hydrostatic clock beneath, and after another rest he reached inside and cut through the wires—one brown, one blue, two red and two yellow. Only then did he really breathe out. The mine was safe. He was alive. He lit a cigarette and made his way back to his mentor. ‘I’ve done it,’ he said. ‘Well done, Mouldy,’ was the chirpy response. ‘Congratulations.’6 Mould nodded in satisfaction, pleased with himself until the thought struck—‘I’m going to have to do this again . . . and again . . .’ In fact, they had not even returned to barracks when another unexploded mine was reported not far away. The chauffeured Humber drove towards it as the two officers tried to relax in the comfortable back seat. When they reached the site they found the mine lying on its side in the middle of a field. Unfortunately, the opening to the fuse and detonator was beneath it. ‘We’ll have to roll it over,’ Mould said. ‘No, we’ll have to burn it,’ came the reply. This was shorthand for exploding the mine in a manner designed to reduce the power of the blast as much as possible. They set up an earthenware pot beside the mine, resting on it; aluminium powder and a magnesium fuse were arranged to produce sufficient heat to burn through the casing. Once through, it would begin to consume the explosive, but at some stage the forces would coalesce within the mine and detonate the explosion. 179

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BRAVEST Mould lit a match and held it to the magnesium fuse. It caught. ‘Now, run like hell,’ his instructor said. He needed no urging. They tore off towards a haystack 200 m away. By the time they reached it the aluminium powder was burning brightly. Then it hit the TNT and flared brilliantly. Sheltering behind the haystack, Mould suddenly felt the need for a more substantial barrier, but before he could articulate the thought a massive explosion ripped the air. All senses were numbed but then the top of the haystack fell on them and debris from the bomb site pattered around them. On the way back to London, Mould was strangely exhilarated. The fear was gone, at least for the moment, and was replaced by a sense of achievement and of calm. When he reached his bed he fell asleep instantly. It was a pattern that would continue through all the horror: sleep would come easily, a calm lagoon after mountainous emotional seas. Syme’s baptism of fear came on 12 December 1940. The call arrived at 3 a.m. Half an hour later he was picked up from the freezing footpath; inside the Humber his supervisor awaited. Lieutenant Gilbert Stubbs was a veteran in a field where survivors were few and their counsel treasured. Their destination was Birmingham, where a Luftwaffe raid had left mines ‘all over the place’; there was no time to lose. No fewer than eight officers and fourteen men rendezvoused at Birmingham—John Mould among them. After a briefing Syme and Stubbs reached their mine. It was embedded in a footpath outside a local town hall, the entire area having been cleared for at least six blocks. The mine had been released beneath a parachute and the cords and canopy were still entangled around it. 180

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Courage beyond compare Stubbs examined it. ‘The angle’s not good,’ he said. ‘There might be a Zus 40 behind the bomb fuse . . . that fires the mine when you pull the fuse out.’7 The answer was to defuse it by ‘remote control’. And with that Stubbs left to take cover in a dugout some 200 m away. Using his yachting skill with ropes and pulleys, Syme rigged up an arrangement that would allow him to remove the fuse from a shelter around the corner once he’d unscrewed the outer ring. Carefully he fitted the special tool around the ‘gag’ that screwed on over the fuse, released the pressure then knotted it with a bowline and packed his standard hessian cloth beneath it to cushion the fall when he withdrew the fuse. Then he returned to his shelter and slowly drew the cord tight. He felt the fuse come away, and waited for the explosion that never came. Somewhat relieved, he returned to the bomb and picked up the fuse, unscrewed the tiny detonator and tucked it into his wallet. A souvenir of something, he wasn’t sure what. Then he began the dismantling of the delicate machinery within the massive bomb until finally he reached the hydrostatic clock that triggered the explosion in response to the detonator. Once again it was time to rig his pulleys and return to the shelter. He tightened the cord and pulled. He heard the heavy clock clatter to the pavement. He looked at his own watch. He had been at it for two hours! It seemed like no time at all. Then he returned to the mine and to his astonishment two young boys, no more than eight years old, were admiring his bomb. ‘Hello, Mister,’ said one. ‘What did you pull the string for?’8 The tension inside simply imploded. Syme ran at them. They raced away. He followed, almost out of control. They rounded a corner and suddenly he came to his senses. He began 181

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BRAVEST to laugh. He was still laughing when Stubbs arrived. ‘Hughie, are you all right?’ By now, word was out that the bomb had been rendered safe. Officials and neighbours arrived to congratulate and thank him. ‘Jolly good show,’ said Stubbs. The neighbours whisked him off to the nearest pub. Slowly the Australian relaxed. ‘I can handle this,’ he thought. ‘But for how long?’9 Next day he was called to another mine while travelling with a British colleague, an actor named Ronnie Fortt who had been in the defusing game for several weeks. On the way they stopped at Fortt’s mine, which lay in a field. Suddenly the actor confided a premonition. It was not for him. If he touched it, that would be the end. He pleaded with Syme to exchange mines. The Australian agreed. Fortt continued to a nearby paddock. When he approached the mine Syme could see the fuse was frozen. It took some time—and an infusion of salt—to lower the temperature. Otherwise, it seemed fairly straightforward. He set to work and put the ‘gag’ on the keeper ring, but as he worked he suddenly had the feeling that something was wrong. Then he saw that the air pressure on his fuse removal device was falling. Unless it held, the fuse would move and trigger the detonator. He pumped it up quickly. He held his ear close to the fuse and relaxed slightly—at least it wasn’t running. He loosened the keeping ring and gradually began to draw it out, checking the while to see that there was no hidden Zus 40 booby trap. When it was finally in his hand he threw it as far as he could. It landed harmlessly and he turned back to his task. He grabbed his screwdriver and with a practised movement undid the mechanism as quickly as possible. As he released it he tapped out the detonator and relaxed. He was packing his gear when 182

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Courage beyond compare there was a shocking roar from over the hill. Fortt’s mine had exploded but fortunately Fortt was safe.10 As Christmas approached, Mould, Syme and their colleagues took to blowing off steam at the New Yorker Club in Park Lane. However, the Luftwaffe was no respecter of traditional festivities and very early on Christmas Eve they arrived in Manchester, which had taken a terrible pounding. Mould found his mine next to a huge petroleum storage tank. Syme’s had crashed through the roof of a house, still attached to its parachute, but the bomb fuse and primer were held tightly against the wall. If he moved it the thing could explode; if he did nothing it would probably explode anyway. For the moment he was stumped. Mould went to work near the petrol tank and to his surprise and pleasure the task was reasonably straightforward. He defused the mine in good time then moved on to the next, this time in a railway yard that had taken the full force of a bombing raid. Stock trains had been hit and the carcasses of cattle were scattered about. The sight and smell were horrific. Meanwhile, Hugh Syme had figured out how to turn his bomb. He rigged a complicated set of non-magnetic telegraph cables and pulleys around the mine, then attached it to his car, which was parked nearly 200 m away. If all went well, as he slowly moved the car forward the mine would rotate on its axis. His driver insisted on taking the wheel and Syme put a chalk mark on the road at the distance that, according to his calculations, would be sufficient to turn the bomb. Then he slowly waved him forward. With infinite care, the driver let out the clutch and the cable took the strain. The car inched forward smoothly until it reached the mark and Syme held up his hand. Syme crouched beside the 183

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BRAVEST car, waiting for the explosion. When it didn’t come he smiled in relief. ‘Hold it there,’ he told the driver, and made his way back to the house. The mine had hardly moved; the cable had simply stretched with the strain. Back he went to the car and made another chalk mark. Again the car edged forward. Again he returned to the house. Again the mine had barely moved. He doubled back to the car. ‘One more time.’ The car moved forward another metre. Syme squared his shoulders for another trek to the house. Still no luck. By now when he reached the car a growing crowd of residents had arrived and soon discovered what was under way. ‘Good luck, guv,’ he heard as once more he repeated the process. This time it moved. He ran to the corner and signaled his driver with a handkerchief. A small cheer followed him back to the room. And when he began work it almost seemed like an anticlimax. The defusing went like clockwork. The crowd was waiting when he arrived back with his tool case. Now they still had homes to go to.

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24 ‘That’s what I’m here for, Sir’

In January 1943, Mould and Syme were given a special mission in Wales, where Mould found his bomb lying in a schoolyard surrounded by sheets of ice and piles of snow. If it exploded, the school would be destroyed and homes in the area flattened. Police had evacuated the people, but as he bent over it Mould heard the approach of a vehicle. This was a moment of high danger. The vibrations of a vehicle’s engine had detonated mines before, and this one was coming ever closer. Mould ran out to the road brandishing his revolver. A heavy truck trundled towards him and, when he seemed to ignore the Australian’s frantic signals, Mould fired the revolver into a tyre of the oncoming truck. The driver swung the vehicle to the side of the road. Mould jumped on the running board and ordered the driver out. He went reluctantly. Mould returned to the mine and was about to make the first 185

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BRAVEST incursion into the fuse when suddenly a weeping woman appeared. ‘What!?’ She sobbed out her story. Her invalid father was in a house nearby. He couldn’t be moved. ‘I don’t want him to die if the thing blows up.’1 Mould’s natural compassion instantly overcame his anger. He went with her to the home, where the old man sat up in bed. Mould explained the danger. ‘Sonny,’ the old man said, ‘I haven’t long to go. You go right ahead and I’ll wait.’ Meantime, his daughter would wait back behind the barricades. When Mould returned he was again perfectly calm. It often happened that way—an emotional storm followed by an almost unearthly sense of peace when the complex mechanisms beneath his hands gave up their secrets and surrendered their power to harm. However, on this occasion the moment he touched it the fuse clicked and began to run: seventeen seconds and all around him would be obliterated. He raced for cover, slipping on the ice, crashing to the ground, rising and running again till he threw himself behind a stone wall and waited. Nothing. Slowly he returned. It was now utterly unpredictable. He went to the school telephone and called his superior. The instructions were unequivocal. He should ‘burn’ it and hope that the explosion would not take place until a good proportion of the TNT had gone up in smoke. Every instinct rebelled, but there was really no choice. He set up the aluminium powder and the magnesium fuse, lit it and hoped. He was lucky. It burned for 38 minutes before the 186

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‘That’s what I’m here for, Sir’ explosion, and when it came it shattered the school windows but left the buildings—and the old man’s home—standing. Syme’s problem was almost as tantalising. His mine had come down in a well-kept residential street, Prospect Road, and was buried beneath a pile of bricks and rubble. When he cleared them away he saw that the fuse was deeply scored. And when he tried to fit the special spanner over the keeper-ring it would not engage. There was nothing else for it; he’d have to ‘burn’ it. So with his regular naval rating he began to set up the ‘flower pot’ arrangement of the aluminium powder in the earthenware jar with its magnesium fuse stuck down the middle. The best technique for a long burn before explosion was to set the flower pot as far as possible from the mine’s fuse. That gave the best chance that the TNT would burn away first. Syme followed the book to the letter and then lit the magnesium. ‘Probably burn for 40 minutes,’ he said as he and his assistant ran the required 350 m to safety. No sooner had they reached it than the mine emitted a brilliant flash followed by a fierce explosion. Bricks and mortar struck both men and a rolling dust cloud rose ever higher. Syme shook off the effects of the blows and ran back towards Prospect Road. Everywhere was devastation—houses flattened, roofs caved in, gardens torn to shreds. The only saving grace was that all the householders had been evacuated. Syme was shattered, overwhelmed by a terrible sense of failure. And when the people of Cardiff complained to the authorities, that only made it worse. The Australians looked for a pub, then made their way back to London. 187

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BRAVEST Such experiences toughened them, but in any case there was little time to brood. Both men were promoted to lieutenant and given frequent briefings on new developments in the war of wits with the German designers. Indeed, Syme discovered one himself—a mine that could be triggered by sound. It had fallen in a peaty soil near Manchester, and Syme was able to burn it so thoroughly that it didn’t explode. This allowed him to bring back the innards to Vernon for analysis. It revealed an acoustic arrangement of batteries and transformers that could be triggered by the sound of a passing vehicle. New and deadly booby traps were also fitted within the mine with the express purpose of killing the disablers. They were even dropped near to the Portsmouth base to attract the trainees. However, both Syme and Mould were showing tremendous aptitude for the task and earning frequent commendations. In March 1941 Mould volunteered to undertake a new and even more dangerous task—defusing mines under water. It came in response to a German blitz of England’s seaports. The mines couldn’t be detonated in situ; the high explosives would wreck the port facilities. But unless they could be cleared or rendered safe, the flow of essential goods into the country would dry up. He returned to Vernon for specialised training and quickly became an expert diver. However, before he could put his newfound expertise to use he was recalled to London in April—500 German bombers had left behind a trail of devastation and no one knew how many unexploded mines. Syme was already hard at work at Primrose Hill, where a mine had buried itself in the retaining wall of a reservoir. If it exploded it would flood residential streets; if he dug into the 188

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‘That’s what I’m here for, Sir’ retaining wall it could give way with the same result. Finally he conceived a method that would allow him to dig under the mine to reach the fuse, but only if he used non-metallic tools. He found a child’s wooden spade and bucket and returned to the site. He dug for hours, and when night fell he had still not reached his goal. He returned next morning to continue his tunnel. So deep and narrow had it become that he was forced to tie a very long rope to his ankle so that a rating 200 m away could pull him out on signal. However, when he finally reached it at mid-afternoon he discovered to his fierce chagrin that he was on the wrong side of the bomb to reach the fuse. The following day he continued his tunnel around the mine, digging with infinite care to avoid vibrations that might set the fuse going. Finally, at about midday, he reached the fuse cover and wiped away the mud and grit. Then came the real work; but at least he was familiar with the mechanism and no new devilry had been added. He rendered it safe. A few days later the reaction struck and he went down with bronchial influenza. He was still in bed when a package arrived from the grateful residents of Primrose Hill—a beautiful gold cigarette case and lighter. When he recovered, another package arrived—orders from the Admiralty. He was posted to join Mould as a diving mine-recovery officer. In fact, Mould was preoccupied at that time with a mine that had missed the water and stuck in mud in the Thames estuary. Because of its location near a massive petrol storage depot it could not be burned. And there was nothing in its appearance that told him whether it was magnetic or acoustic. The parachute cords were still attached, and that gave him an idea. A train line ran beside the river bank, and if he could attach 189

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BRAVEST the cords to a length of rope and that to a locomotive, he might just pull it gently free. He was planning his next move when the captain of a nearby oil tanker arrived and told him he was going to move his vessel out of range. Mould warned him against it. ‘One doesn’t move ships in the vicinity of a mine,’ he said. ‘The Jerries . . . drop them in pairs these days. Somewhere around here, Captain, my mine has a mate.’2 However, the ship’s master was insistent, and Mould returned to his problem. With a tremendous effort, he and his rating dragged the parachute out of the water and attached it to the locomotive via a long tow rope. Then as Mould dug away with his hands at the base of the mine to provide a smooth exit from the mud, there was an almighty explosion from across the water. The oil tanker had struck the second mine and was a sea of flame. There was nothing he could do, so as rescuers set out to recover any survivors Mould returned to his mine and climbed into the engine cab. He eased the locomotive forward and the mine followed smoothly across the mud flat. When he reached it he was relieved to see it was a standard magnetic. He rendered it safe. As the Blitz continued, the two Australians went from one hazardous job to another. And all the while came news of the swift and terrible deaths of their colleagues. In one shocking week, no fewer than twenty of their comrades at arms fell victim to German mines. Back at Vernon, they were selected for some of the most dangerous operations of the war. However, Syme had trouble diving: invariably his sinuses blocked up and his ear drums almost burst. So he concentrated on mines that had been affected by water but could be dealt with on the surface. He also 190

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‘That’s what I’m here for, Sir’ devised counters to German booby traps and worked closely with his opposite numbers in the RAF. Mould also taught the RAF how to delouse magnetic mines but continued his work in underwater recovery operations. The pair became rivals for speed and precision in delousing and disposing of the worst Hitler could throw at them. By now the Blitz was coming to an end. The Battle of Britain was being won by those precious few in the air and the extraordinary servicemen like the Vernon graduates on ground and sea. But in May 1941 the Germans struck hard at Liverpool and the Mersey, and Mould was called out to deal with a parachute mine that had been seen to fall into the water by the Salthouse Dock. When he arrived he decided to drag for it using a wire rope, noose and marker buoy designed to lasso the mine on the seabed. Once he’d captured it, he would row out and attach a charge to the rope near the mine. When detonated, it should disrupt the mine’s mechanism and render it safe. But he was interrupted by another mine disposal officer, also an Australian, ‘Digger’ Fayne, who was working on his own bombs nearby. Fayne had a problem and wanted Mould’s expertise to solve it. The mine was buried near railway tracks and there were myriad complications. So Mould left the captured mine and walked towards the railway 300 m away. They were halfway there when the petty officer and five ratings working on the weapon saw them and the petty officer waved. Then the mine blew up. Mould and Fayne were knocked over by the blast. The petty officer and his men were killed instantly. Mould returned to his bomb, detonated the charge and rendered it safe. He was about to leave when the dock commander reported another mine. ‘Do you want to have a crack at it?’ 191

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BRAVEST ‘That’s what I’m here for, Sir.’3 It too was submerged and he followed the same procedure, setting and detonating the charge near the mine. When he reached the shore he reported ‘mission accomplished’ to the commander and was taking his leave when the mine exploded in an immense column of water and mud. Suddenly he was concerned about the mine at the Salthouse Dock. Perhaps the technique would not work in some new model from the German arsenal. Perhaps it too would explode. He telephoned Vernon. They suggested he detonate another charge to be sure. But first, there was a more urgent task at Barrow-in-Furness, another mine threatening to destroy dock facilities. Its position had been identified, and when he arrived he commandeered some sailors to assist. They rowed out to the deep water above the mine, caught it in the noose and rowed back to shore, where they began to drag it free from the muddy bottom. At that moment it exploded, throwing up a massive discharge of black mud. They tried to shelter under nearby railway trucks, but then the foundations of the dock gave way and the trucks themselves began to slide downhill towards the water. There was nothing Mould and his men could do to hold them. As they gathered speed they crashed into a grain silo. It cracked open, and the precious wheat poured into the water. A half-built submarine toppled and smashed into the drydock. Mould was mortified. Back at Liverpool, he arrived just in time to see the initial mine explode. The dock was devastated. Astonishingly, Mould himself was unscathed, but for a terrible sense of frustration and 192

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‘That’s what I’m here for, Sir’ failure. He would not learn for several months that it was not his fault—both mines were a new variety that contained timers set well in advance. They exploded just when they were meant to. That revelation came after sailors on the coast of Wales recovered a faulty mine that delivered up its secrets to the boffins at Vernon. It was a vital breakthrough, but it was not the end of the battle. That would not come until the war was over and both men had returned home to Australia. And until that happened they continued to make an unparalleled contribution to the Allied war effort. On 3 March 1943 Syme was awarded the George Cross for carrying out nineteen mine-recovery operations. Though the VC had eluded him, the award of his GC, together with a George Medal and bar, made Syme the most highly decorated officer in the RAN at that time. Following the deaths of his father and of his uncle, Sir Geoffrey Syme, Hugh sailed for Australia in January 1943 and became a trustee of the family company. On 12 March 1943 he married 26year-old Joan McCay. He wanted to return to England, but the RAN persuaded him to establish a bomb-disposal section at HMAS Cerberus, at Westernport, outside Melbourne. In 1946 he was appointed general manager of The Age, a post he held until 1963; he was a director until his death on 7 November 1965. Mould received the George Cross, also in 1943, for ‘the highest form of personal courage’. He’d earlier been awarded the George Medal. But his work on mines came to an end shortly after Syme’s departure. He was promoted to lieutenantcommander and would train parties of divers who would become known as human mine sweepers. 193

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BRAVEST After the collapse of Germany, Mould worked for three years as an architect in that country with the Allied Military government. He married Margaret, whom he had met at the New Yorker Club, and on their return to Australia they had two sons and a daughter. John Mould became chief architect of the NSW Housing Commission and died after a brief illness in August 1957.

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25 ‘His crew before himself’

Two Australian airmen of the Second World War, Flight Lieutenant Bill Newton and Pilot Officer Rawdon Hume Middleton, won posthumous VCs for actions during which they almost certainly knew that death was closing in. There were remarkable similarities in their fighting careers, though they took place on opposite sides of the world. The VC historians Wigmore and Harding say that although the official citation concentrates on Newton’s remarkable final act of 18 March 1943, ‘The award could be fittingly applied to cover the whole of his outstanding service in New Guinea, especially his repeated raids on the isthmus of Salamaua. It was said that even the enemy came to know his aircraft. Because fires were always burning when he left the target area, he was known among his colleagues as “The Firebug”.’1 In fact, there was confusion and false reporting concerning 195

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BRAVEST his fate on that final day. The authorities at first believed he had died when his plane hit the sea and sank. But he almost certainly survived to be executed some weeks later by a sword-wielding Japanese officer. Newton, a Melburnian, was the epitome of the dashing young hero in the mode of an Errol Flynn or a Keith Miller. Indeed, like Miller he was an outstanding sportsman, playing both cricket and Australian Rules football at state level. But on the first day of the war, aged only twenty, he enlisted in the RAAF. In May 1942, as the Japanese advanced towards Australia, he took up duties in New Guinea with 22 Squadron. From the first sortie he was recognised as the most relentless fighter in the group. Over the next ten months he attacked enemy positions in his Boston bomber in 52 sorties, many in the most hazardous circumstances. On 16 March, two days before his last flight, he led a raid on the Japanese stronghold at Salamaua through intense antiaircraft fire. Although his aircraft was repeatedly hit he completed his low-level bombing run, destroying buildings, ammunition stores and a 40,000-gallon fuel dump. His aircraft was ripped to pieces but he managed to coax it back to base. Then on the 18th he took off with Flight Sergeant John Lyon and Sergeant Basil Gilbert Eastwood for a knockout blow on the Japanese base. They were waiting for him. He flew through a barrage of fire and scored a hit, but then his aircraft burst into flames. Newton fought to keep his plane in the air so he could get the crew as far away as possible from the enemy’s positions. With great skill he brought the blazing aircraft down on the water at least 10 km from the base. 196

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‘His crew before himself’ Only two men escaped from the sinking plane, and for some years it was believed Newton went down with his aircraft. But after the war documents were discovered to show that he and Lyon had found their way to shore, where they were captured by Japanese troops. Lyon was executed at Lae on 20 March. Newton was returned to Salamaua, where his captor, a Japanese sublieutenant, was ‘rewarded’ with his beheading. Rawdon Hume Middleton also fought to save his crew from certain death when his plane was badly shot up. His was an epic flight of astonishing courage and endurance that resulted in the saving of two crewmen’s lives. Middleton, the great-nephew of the explorer Hamilton Hume, grew up on sheep and cattle properties in NSW. He gave his occupation as ‘jackeroo’ when he joined the RAAF in 1940 and after training in Australia, Canada and Britain was posted to the RAF’s 149 Squadron in early 1942. He, like Newton, was a handsome young man with an Errol Flynn moustache. For the next few months he acted as second pilot in raids on the Ruhr and in July was given his first command in a sortie over Dusseldorf. By November he was flying his Stirling bomber across the Alps to northern Italy, and on the 20th he took off for a raid on the Royal Arsenal at Turin. Victoria Cross citations are often bloodless accounts written in military officialese, but on this occasion the authors managed to bring the events of that night into dramatic relief. When the air crew reached the Alps they struggled against headwinds to reach 12,000 feet and ‘so dark was the night that the mountain peaks were almost invisible . . . Middleton had to decide whether to proceed or turn back, there being barely sufficient fuel for the return journey.’ 197

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BRAVEST At the crucial moment he saw flares ahead and dived to 2000 feet, making three passes over Turin at low altitude to ensure he identified the target. On the last pass anti-aircraft fire tore a big hole in the fuselage that made it difficult to keep the plane under control. The landing gear was shot away. ‘A shell then burst in the cockpit, shattering the windscreen and wounding both pilots. A splinter tore into the side of Middleton’s face, destroying his right eye and exposing the bone over his eye. He was probably wounded also in the body or legs. The second pilot received wounds in the head and both legs which bled profusely. The wireless operator was also wounded in the leg.’ At this point Middleton blacked out and the plane dived to 800 feet before the co-pilot brought it under control and released the bombs at 1500 feet. Middleton regained consciousness and took command. ‘The captain could see very little and could speak only with loss of blood and great pain. Course was set for base and the crew now faced an Alpine crossing and homeward flight in a damaged aircraft with insufficient fuel.’ There was some discussion about attempting a landing in occupied France, but Middleton decided to make for the English coast, where his crew could bail out. After four hours the French coast was reached and here the aircraft, flying at 6000 feet, was once more hit by intense antiaircraft fire. Middleton was still at the controls and mustered sufficient strength to take evasive action. After crossing the Channel there was only sufficient fuel for five minutes flying. Middleton ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft while he flew parallel to the coast for a 198

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‘His crew before himself’ few miles, after which he intended to head out to sea [to avoid coming down in a populated area]. Five of the crew left the aircraft safely while two remained to assist Middleton. The aircraft crashed in the sea and the bodies of the front gunner and flight engineer were recovered the following day. Their gallant captain was apparently unable to leave the aircraft and his body has not been traced.

Middleton’s ordeal caught the imagination of the British public, and he was universally hailed for his determination and self-sacrifice. One of his crew wrote to Middleton’s father, ‘It is a magnificent story, and an example of the unwritten law of the RAF, that a crew always endeavors to get back . . . and that a pilot must think of his crew before himself.’ Middleton’s body washed ashore at Shakespeare Beach, Dover, in February 1943 and he was buried near the airfield from which he had taken off. The third Australian flyer to be honoured with a VC, Hughie Edwards, could easily have lost his life in similar circumstances. At only 23, the newly minted Flying Officer Edwards almost died in a crash in Scotland that saw him dragged to the ground by his own aircraft after he bailed out. And that was in 1938, before hostilities had even begun. Ironically, the crash that nearly killed him almost certainly saved his life. That he was spared to pursue a highly successful career illustrates the awful randomness of war and underscores what the world lost when his comrades-in-arms were killed—for each of them might well have achieved as much as Edwards did. Born in Fremantle to Welsh migrants on 1 August 1914, Edwards was named Hugh after his father but was always called 199

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BRAVEST Idwal in the family and Hughie by everyone else. He attended Fremantle Boys’ School but left at fourteen to help support his siblings. He worked at a range of short-term jobs, played cricket and football for local teams and at nineteen joined the army. He took to military life and a few months later applied for a pilot officer cadetship in the RAAF. Now a strapping, handsome 185 cm and with an easy, engaging manner, he was immediately accepted and posted to No. 1 Flying School at Point Cook, near Melbourne, in July 1935. He learned to fly on little De Havilland 60 Moth biplanes and was thrilled when one of his commanders turned out to be Frank McNamara, a famous VC winner of the First World War. He proved to be a talented flyer and when he graduated was offered the chance to join the RAF in Britain, where war with Germany seemed to be growing more likely with each passing month. At 22 and filled with the spirit of adventure, Edwards barely hesitated. He arrived in Britain in August 1936 and was commissioned a pilot officer at the RAF depot at Uxbridge, near London. But he had amassed only 95 hours’ flying time in Australia and needed to broaden his experience as quickly as possible. In Germany, the Luftwaffe was growing apace and under Hermann Goering it had abandoned the chivalry of the early days of the First World War. Now it was a creature of the Nazi party, a killing machine in the making. After orientation at Uxbridge, Edwards was posted to Abingdon, near Oxford, the headquarters of the No. 2 Group of Bomber Command. There he trained on light bombers, mainly the Hawker Hind, which carried a crew of two—pilot and combined navigator, bombardier and gunner. Aircraft were in short supply and he could only log about 15 hours’ flying time a 200

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‘His crew before himself’ month. Nevertheless, he was able to wreck one aircraft and damage another—the first of a remarkable number of British planes he was to destroy during his career. The next was nearly his last. By now Edwards had been promoted to flying officer and had graduated to the new twin-engined Blenheim bomber, which, in addition to the pilot, carried a crew of two—a wireless operator and an air gunner. On 30 August 1938 he took off from Bicester on a cross-country flight north over Scotland, with Sergeant Nash and Aircraftsman Theopolis. All went well until they ran into a cumulonimbus cloud. Edwards had trained in ‘blind flying’ and decided to climb through it to the clear air above. As he rose he noticed that ice was seeping through the cracks in the sliding canopy, but the aircraft was behaving perfectly. He pressed on, confident that he and the plane were on course to overcome all obstacles. Then everything went wrong. First there was a distinct shudder in the machine and a moment later the engines stalled. The aircraft began to spin to the left. Edwards pressed down on the right rudder and brought the control column to the centre, but the plane refused to respond. All the instruments died save the altimeter, which was dropping fast. Still the spin continued, and by now they were down to 4000 feet. There was only one thing for it—Edwards had to get the crew out immediately. ‘Bail out!’ he shouted. Nash and Theopolis needed no second invitation. Now alone in the whirling Blenheim, Edwards struggled with all his strength to halt the spin and restart the engines. But the ground was rising too quickly. It was time to get out himself. The problem was that he was in the 201

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BRAVEST left-hand pilot’s seat, and the aircraft’s leftward spin was pinning him to his chair with centrifugal force. Finally, at 1400 feet, with a last desperate effort he struggled out of the window into the dark night air and pulled the rip cord of his parachute. For a split second he was free. But then, astonishingly, the parachute cords became entangled in the aerial mast of the aircraft and he was dragged along behind the plane as it crashed on a high slope in Scotland’s Cheviot Hills. Fortunately, the parachute acted as a slight cushion to his fall and he was not killed outright. Indeed, despite his terrible injuries he barely lost consciousness. He lay in pain for more than an hour before being discovered by a Mrs Morris, whose farm now boasted a burning Blenheim bomber in the hill paddock. Edwards’ first recollection of the crash was of hearing her voice. He could not see her, and there was no way he could get to his feet. However, once she determined that he was alive she ran to the nearest telephone and called the artillery camp at nearby Redesdale, where, as luck would have it, a young army doctor was visiting. Stretcher bearers loaded Edwards into the army ambulance, and then collected Theopolis, who had injured his back but would recover. Nash was unharmed. But Edwards was in a bad way. According to his biographer, Arthur Hoyle, he had smashed his right knee, severing the main nerve; his left arm flapped uselessly at his side. He had cracked his skull and his jaw, had split his tongue and was suffering from severe shock.2 So severe were his injuries that he spent the rest of 1938 and all of 1939 in various hospitals and convalescent homes. It was a painful and desperately depressing time. But in retrospect it almost certainly saved his life. 202

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26 ‘One’s nerves suffer a bit’

As the Germans invaded France in May 1940, Edwards was still struggling to recover from yet another operation on his leg. When the Blenheims went into action on the Continent, the Luftwaffe was waiting for them with the Messerschmitt Me 109 fighter plane, which simply ripped them to pieces. Every one of his friends was killed in those first few months of war, a fate he would almost certainly have shared had he been fit. It was not until 20 February 1941 that he reported for combat duty at No. 139 Squadron, based near Norwich. This was a day bomber squadron, and it suited Edwards well; after his earlier experience, he was nervous about flying at night. On 6 March, Winston Churchill ordered that the Battle of the Atlantic was to have top priority and Bomber Command was to concentrate on naval targets. Edwards’ 139 Squadron would concentrate on the coastal convoys transporting vital minerals 203

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BRAVEST and food from the conquered Scandinavian countries back to Germany. His first action, a raid on Calais in a group of twelve Blenheims escorted by Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, went off without incident. On his return he told friends it had been much easier than he expected. Two days later he was ordered to do a twilight operation on the U-boat base at Dan Helder on the entrance to the Zuider Zee. They would cross the Dutch coast at low level, fly beyond the base and drop their bombs on the return course for England. Once over Holland they took some flak, but Edwards was now travelling at full speed—386 km/h—and outpacing the gunners. He ordered bombs away, then raced for home. The mission was a success, but there was a mix-up with air-traffic control as he came in to land. At the last moment the control tower signalled him to pull up and do another circuit; an earlier flight had bogged at the end of the strip. The flashing red light came too late. Edwards ran his engines full blast, but the aircraft was too close to the ground and it struck so hard the undercarriage collapsed and skidded off the runway. Amazingly, he and his crew escaped unhurt. By the end of March, Edwards had completed twelve sorties but had yet to encounter an enemy fighter. He saw a Messerschmitt Me 109 during a raid on a railway terminal, but surprisingly it did not attack. However, four days later, during a sortie on naval shipping, two twin-engined Me 110s appeared and began to attack the Blenheim formation. They were armed with two 20-mm and two 30-mm cannons in the nose and twin 7.9-mm machine-guns in the rear. Their top speed was at least 120 km/h faster than the Blenheims’. Nevertheless, the British 204

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‘One’s nerves suffer a bit’ bombers responded aggressively and aircraft on both sides had been badly holed before the Germans called off the fight. Edwards’ plane took a number of hits, and when he landed he realised that both tyres had been punctured. Soon after this encounter he was promoted to squadron leader and wrote to his mother, ‘I suppose one’s nerves suffer a bit and one is apt to get irritable . . . I am probably going on leave this week; I need it.’1 During his leave he received news that he was to be appointed to command No. 105 Squadron of Blenheims, then stationed in Scotland. Their CO had been shot down over Norway the previous day. Edwards was just 26. Despite his limp, he had a powerful physique and an inner strength born at least in part from the suffering he had endured. He already had a reputation for aggression in the face of the enemy and despite his several crashes he was regarded as a ‘lucky’ flyer. Before he arrived at base he received a further promotion to acting wing commander. The squadron had been attacking shipping in the North Sea and taking heavy losses. Edwards quickly discovered that morale was low, but instead of sympathising with the men’s complaints he introduced a stricter regime than they were used to. Then he took them on a mission that would begin the transformation of the squadron and of his own reputation. On 16 May he led eight Blenheims towards Norway. They soon spotted a merchant ship, which they dispatched, followed by a big cargo barge, another, smaller merchantman and three converted fishing vessels. Suddenly morale was on the rise. Ten days later the Royal Navy had one of its major triumphs of the war when it sank the German battleship Bismarck. Its 205

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BRAVEST escort, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, escaped to Brest, where it lay alongside the formidable battle cruiser Scharnhorst. In one of the more bizarre decisions of the war, High Command decided to attack the Prinz Eugen from the air with three light bombers. The theory was that each would drop a 500-lb bomb on the ship in broad daylight. It didn’t matter that to reach their target they would have to fly over German vessels whose crews would undoubtedly send out a warning, or that the two battleships would then be waiting with their massed guns trained on the lumbering Blenheims. The result would be certain destruction of the aircraft and death for the crews. Code-named ‘God for Harry’, the operation was the brainchild of one of the most despised men in the British military, Air Vice-Marshal Donald ‘Butcher’ Stevenson. He not only volunteered his men in No. 2 Group of Bomber Command for the most dangerous missions but conceived such missions himself without any real thought to the consequences. He was a throwback to the generals of the First World War, who sent thousands to their deaths on the killing fields of Mons and Passchendaele without turning a hair. On the morning of 7 June, Edwards was summoned to group headquarters and told that his 105 Squadron had been selected for the mission, which was scheduled for the next day. The young Australian was at first taken aback, but when the full magnitude of the task struck home he made his attitude crystal clear. They were asking the men under his command to undertake a suicide mission. And to no good purpose! Stevenson was unmoved, and when Edwards returned to the squadron his briefing was blunt. There was little chance of their 206

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‘One’s nerves suffer a bit’ reaching Brest without being shot down by anti-aircraft batteries, he said, and none at all of their completing their mission unscathed. He had protested with all his might, but the staff officers wouldn’t budge. So they would carry out the mission come what may. And he would lead it himself. The men were horrified, but short of mutiny there was nothing for it but to follow orders and trust to luck. However, that afternoon Edwards’ protests won a concession from headquarters—the mission would not go ahead unless there was 60–70 per cent cloud cover. That at least would provide the bombers with some protection from the shore and ship batteries. It was not much—enemy radar would have picked them up long before their arrival at Brest, and the defences would still be forewarned—but it was something. That night Edwards took the selected crews to dinner at a posh pub. It was the least he could do. ‘It felt like the Last Supper,’ he said later.2 When they returned to base he couldn’t sleep, and in the night came a downpour. This did not bode well. But when they assembled at 4 a.m. for a final briefing, they were delighted to discover that the skies were clear over Germany. For the moment, at least, the mission was off. After a further wait, the mission was turned over to another squadron, then another, but each time the weather conspired to keep them on the ground. Finally the whole foolish enterprise was abandoned. But Edwards’ willingness to put himself in the firing line had won the admiration of all his men. On 15 June, off the Hague, 105 Squadron encountered a convoy of four big German merchantmen in a line, with a destroyer at each end. Edwards instantly signalled his other five aircraft to fly as low as possible to avoid the flak and to select a 207

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BRAVEST target. He himself went for the nearest ship, roaring in just above the waves as the flak stormed above and around him. At the last possible moment, he reefed on the steering column to rise above the ship’s masts and pressed the bomb release. Then he jinked violently to the left as the destroyers’ guns belched out a tattoo in his direction and behind him a massive explosion split the ship asunder. Remarkably, his aircraft was barely scratched, and though his colleagues were not as accurate in the attack, Edwards’ feat earned him an immediate Distinguished Flying Cross, the first of the awards that would eventually make him the most highly decorated Australian of the war. By now he had recovered from the crash in Scotland, though there was still some pain in his left shoulder and right leg. His squadron was stationed at Swanton Morley, a picturesque village in the heart of Norfolk. Edwards joined in the singing at mess parties, but the high attrition rate meant he could not afford to get close to his crews, and he spent a good deal of time alone or with the young ladies he met in the hectic hours snatched between missions. However, he knew his men regarded him highly. Even the staff officers of Bomber Command had forgiven him his reaction to the hare-brained Prinz Eugen fiasco.

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27 A wall of fire

On 22 June 1941 the war took a turn that would change the equation for the men of Bomber Command. Germany invaded Russia with 120 divisions supported by most of the Luftwaffe. Britain was no longer under immediate threat. And when Stalin appealed to his new ally, Churchill, for support, the British leader replied that his RAF would hit the invader at his base—in the great industrial centres of the Rhineland and the ports that were their logistical lifeline. The first target would be Bremen, a port city that straddled the Wesser River about 60 km inland. Group headquarters decided the attack would be carried out in daylight by fifteen Blenheims from 107 Squadron and Edwards’ beloved 105. The problem was that they would have to fly for an extended period over the German mainland, where anti-aircraft defences were thick on the ground. It would be tough to penetrate the 209

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BRAVEST wall of flak and even tougher to survive the batteries over Bremen itself, to say nothing of the run home with fighters on their tails. The commander of 107 Squadron, Edwards’ friend Wing Commander Laurence Petley, would take charge of the operation in the air. Edwards met with him the day before to sort out tactics and returned that evening to brief his crews. Early next morning the men of 105 linked up with Petley’s planes over Britain before heading towards the target. They avoided the main shipping lanes to prevent news of their arrival being radioed ahead. However, as the formation approached the German coast between Cuxhaven and Bremerhaven, ships began to appear, and Petley altered course to avoid them as the bombers skimmed close to the sea beneath the German radar. When still more ships crossed their path, to Edwards’ surprise Petley executed a 180-degree turn and began heading back to Britain. Edwards had not heard a recall signal from headquarters but assumed that Petley had, so he followed the leader back across the North Sea. When they reached England the two squadrons separated and returned to their respective bases. Edwards telephoned Petley to ask why he had turned back. The reason, his friend said, was the heavy shipping: it meant they had lost the element of surprise. There was really no choice but to call it off. While he didn’t fully agree—surprise had never been a possibility, in Edwards’ opinion—he understood Petley’s reasoning. Petley’s commander was much less forgiving, and a full-scale argument resulted in Petley’s squadron being replaced by 21 Squadron and command of the operation being transferred to Edwards. His immediate concern was that the Germans would regard the first operation as a rehearsal for the one he was about to 210

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A wall of fire lead. They would be ready and waiting, perhaps with fighter squadrons to pick the attackers off. And it didn’t help that both the timing and the route were exactly the same as on the previous day. About 140 km from the German coast they ran into fog, and in the lead plane Edwards eased up to about 100 ft above the sea. He wanted to ensure that the formation arrived intact at the coast before beginning the run up the Wesser to their target. But when they broke through the fog and into clear air with the coastline in view, only two other aircraft were anywhere to be seen. Edwards decided to circle in the area in the hope that the other twelve planes would find him, since there was no point trying to make the raid with only three Blenheims. But after stoogeing around for almost fifteen minutes without result he reluctantly decided to return. In fact, the other planes had either gone south and bombed other targets or, when they couldn’t find the leader, made bombing runs on German ships. Only one went on to Bremen, fought off three Me 109s, bombed a timber yard and returned so shot up that the pilot was forced to make a belly landing. Edwards had been so focused on Bremen that he hadn’t bothered to seek out another German target. He prepared himself for the kind of tongue lashing Petley had received, but when he reported in, Group Command simply asked if he’d be prepared to go again. He agreed immediately. Petley, determined to recover his reputation, virtually demanded to be allowed to join the operation. Four days later, the Blenheims took off and made their aerial rendezvous above the green fields of England on a clear bright morning. And as they crossed the sea to Germany the weather 211

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BRAVEST remained fine and cloudless. Approaching the coast, they closed up and made their way over crowded shipping lanes, with as yet no sign of the dreaded fighters. They crossed the coast at 7.40 a.m., with about twenty minutes to go before reaching the target. Bremerhaven passed to starboard and Edwards led his formation up the Wesser. Still no fighters. Now they were following the railway line that would take them direct to Bremen, and still no opposition had materialised. Looking ahead, Edwards could see the barrage balloons protecting the city and he made for a gap in the defences. Once through, he could line up the principal target, the crowded docks on the Wesser. Suddenly a massive barrage of flak opened up all around them, smashing into the fuselage and bucking against the wings. The anti-aircraft guns were stationed on rooftops and in open spaces. The wall of fire was like nothing Edwards or his fellow pilots had previously experienced. It seemed endless, impenetrable. The air was black with shell bursts. Edwards stayed so low that he flew under telegraph lines. Inside the cockpit the smell of cordite was overwhelming, and the plane bucked and shuddered as the explosions jarred pilot and crewmen to the bone. He ordered bombs away, and Pilot Officer Ramsay hit the lever. As the plane roared on the gunner, Sergeant Quinn, reported hits on a railway line, a signal box and a tramway tunnel. However, other members of the formation were not so lucky. Petley’s plane took a shot from a heavy gun and crashed on the outskirts of the city, killing him instantly. Three others were also killed. That left eight still flying. All were buffeted by shell fire as they attempted to unload their bombs. 212

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A wall of fire Edwards reefed on the controls, trying to bring the aircraft around to port as heavy shells exploded around him. His gunner reported another two Blenheims crashing in flames; he could see only four still aloft. But after a while the flak eased and he seemed to be clear of the city defences. Time to head for home. He decided to make for the open sea as quickly as possible and set a heading to the northwest where a cloud bank might provide cover. Edwards put the aircraft into a steady climb and reached the cloud at about 7500 feet. But it was thinner than he expected, and soon he was flying into flak again over the coast. He put the nose down and began a shallow dive that would take the plane down almost to sea level by the time it reached the island of Heligoland, where he planned to turn west for England. His aircraft had been hit many times but he and his crew were unharmed except for Quinn, who’d been hurt by shrapnel but said he’d be ‘O.K. until we reach Blighty.’ So he pushed ahead to get beyond the reach of German fighters as quickly as possible. The engines were unharmed and they carried the battered plane back to England by midday. When they landed, Quinn was lifted out of his turret by crane and Edwards inspected the damage to the aircraft. He was shocked to discover that a large section of the underside of the port wing had been shot away and one aileron badly damaged. The radio rack was shattered and there were bullet and shrapnel holes everywhere. His formation had been torn to pieces—not only had four Blenheims been shot down but crew members in most of the other planes had been severely wounded. However, they had shown the enemy they could raid major cities in daylight and put them on notice that the tide of battle was turning. 213

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BRAVEST The commander-in-chief of Bomber Command, Air Marshal Sir Richard Pierce, cabled, ‘Your attack this morning has been a great contribution to the day offensive now being fought. It will remain an outstanding example of dash and initiative . . .’ Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, wrote, ‘You are doing great work.’ This was followed by announcements of a Distinguished Flying Cross for Pilot Officer Ramsay and a second Distinguished Flying Medal to Sergeant Quinn. Edwards was back in action almost immediately and on 7 July took part in another major daylight raid with 139 Squadron on a convoy off the Dutch coast. The squadron performed well, but its commander was killed in action. On two succeeding missions that month Edwards was denied permission to fly, and at the end of July he received orders to prepare the squadron for departure to Malta. The prospect of warm weather was appealing, and in spite of reports that casualties were heavy and living conditions inferior he was excited by the move. At the end of July he gave a farewell party in the mess, then took the train to London for lunch at the Café Royal with two friends, Peggy Barr-Sim and her husband. The restaurant boasted a news ticker tape, and Peggy glanced at the latest updates as they came off the roll. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s a Wing Commander Edwards has got the Victoria Cross!’1 ‘Has he?’ said Edwards. ‘Yes, he’s an Australian too.’ He was stunned. Next minute the entire restaurant erupted with congratulations and bottles of champagne. Then came messages of commendation from throughout the services, 214

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A wall of fire including one from Field Marshal Lord Birdwood, who had commanded the Anzacs at Gallipoli. Two days later, in a triumphal return to the squadron, he dedicated the award to the officers and men of 105. However, he was not pleased by orders sending him to a training unit instead of the Malta posting. The reason for the change was obvious. Air force VCs were usually awarded posthumously; now the service had a live hero and they wanted to keep him that way. Edwards confronted ‘Butcher’ Stevenson and demanded to remain with his squadron and continue to Malta, where the action was hottest. Reluctantly the air vice-marshal agreed. But when he arrived on the Mediterranean island on 30 July, Edwards was dismayed to discover that Stevenson had given strict orders: he could command the squadron but he could not fly missions. He chafed against the restrictions, but there was no court of appeal. His Blenheims were becoming obsolete and the squadron took a terrible battering. He was pleased when he was ordered back to Britain in October and soon afterward sent on a combined goodwill and fact-finding mission to the US and Canada. After that enjoyable interlude he married 21-year-old Pat Beresford, Peggy Barr-Sim’s daughter. They were still on their honeymoon when Edwards was suddenly ordered to report to Bomber Command. Within two days he was chief flying instructor to the Canadians who were arriving in increasing numbers to fly the heavy Wellington bombers. On 18 February 1942, Edwards and his wife went to London for his investiture by the king at Buckingham Palace. Just over five months later—on his 28th birthday, he returned to his 215

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BRAVEST beloved 105 Squadron, now being equipped with the splendid new Mosquito bomber. He quickly mastered the aircraft and was delighted to welcome Sergeant Quinn back as his navigator and wireless operator. On his first operation—the bombing of a power station— Edwards’ aircraft took a hit from the new German fighter, the FW 190, and smashed into the ground on landing in England. He and his crew were unharmed, and he returned to the air almost immediately. Over the next few months he flew dozens of hazardous missions, adding a Distinguished Service Order to his growing list of decorations. Promoted to group captain, he was given command of Binbook RAF station in Lincolnshire with administrative control of two other stations in the region. His operational flying days were restricted now, but in August 1943 he joined a formation of Lancasters on a bombing raid over Hamburg and then on Berlin itself. He continued to fly missions over Germany in 1944. Then in October he was ordered to take command of a wing at Chittagong in Bengal (now Bangladesh). By now he and Pat had a son, Anthony, and a daughter, Sarah, was on the way, and it was a wrench to leave them. In Bengal he discovered the job had been filled, so he was sent to Kandy, in Sri Lanka, headquarters of Lord Louis Mountbatten’s South East Asia Command, where he remained until the end of the war. After his return to England and a reunion with his family, Edwards attended a series of courses before being posted to command stations around the country at a time when the air force was converting to jets. On 2 September 1963, at the age of 49, he resigned from the RAF and returned to Australia, where he worked for a mining 216

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A wall of fire company during the great nickel boom. In 1966 Pat died of cancer; six years later Edwards remarried and in 1973 he was appointed governor of Western Australia. The following year he was knighted, but in 1975 his health began to falter. He died suddenly in Sydney on 5 August 1982, a respected and even revered figure.

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28 A war of nerves

While no VCs were awarded to Australians in the Korean War, the 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR)— Australia’s principal contribution to the fighting, received a decoration often regarded as an American equivalent of a ‘unit Victoria Cross’. Only two other units, a US tank battalion and a Canadian infantry battalion, received a Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation in that conflict. The Australians earned theirs in one of the most decisive actions of the war: the Battle of Kapyong. And coincidentally, it was a soldier captured at Kapyong who received the highest honour awarded to an individual Australian in Korea; the George Cross. Horace William ‘Slim’ Madden was not a warrior in the traditional sense. Though he fought in two wars—the Second World War and Korea—he barely fired a shot in anger. But he displayed such courage in the face of enemy brutality, and such 218

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A war of nerves compassion for his mates, that they demanded he be honoured. The Australian government responded, but not until four years after the event and in circumstances that must give rise to the suspicion that the highest awards are not immune to politics. Like so many of the bravest of the brave, Madden came from humble stock. His father was a labourer and his mother kept house for a large family. Billy, their eldest child, was born in February 1924, and they lived at Cronulla on Sydney’s northern beaches. Billy’s formal education ended after primary school. When he was mobilised for part-time service in the Militia in May 1942, he gave his occupation as fruiterer’s assistant. A tall, thin eighteen-year-old, he quickly picked up the nickname ‘Slim’ and found himself posted to the 114th Australian General Hospital in Goulburn. It was the first time he had dealt with the sick and wounded, and he found the work suited his temperament. Caring for others became the wellspring of his emotional life, just as the army gave him a sense of belonging to a huge family. When he transferred to the Australian Imperial Force in August 1943, and was posted to New Guinea, he sought transfer to the 8th Field Ambulance, where he gained a reputation for courage under fire and devotion to duty. He went to Bougainville with the 5th Motor Ambulance Convoy Platoon, and when casualties were heavy he worked so hard he had to be ordered to rest. When the war ended he was sent to Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, then honourably discharged in Sydney on 2 June 1947. His compassionate nature led him to a position as a male nurse at Morisset Mental Hospital, which cared for servicemen 219

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BRAVEST from all theatres of war who had suffered debilitating breakdowns. Madden empathised with his patients to such an extent that his family feared his own health was at risk. He was still only 23, and his parents and sister Florence urged him to take a break. So late in 1949 he found a job in the building industry as a moulder. Then war broke out in Korea. In July 1950 Australia announced it would send a contingent to fight with the United Nations force, and within a few weeks Madden had enlisted in 3 RAR. The Korean War had begun two months previously when General Douglas MacArthur, who had been modern-day shogun of Japan since the Allied occupation began, received a phone call from his duty intelligence officer: ‘General, we have received a despatch from Seoul advising that the North Koreans have struck in great strength south across the 38th parallel.’1 Soon after came another call, from South Korean president Syngman Rhee: ‘Had your country been a little more concerned about us, we would not have come to this! We have warned you many times. Now you must save Korea!’ MacArthur had no authority to ‘save Korea’, but he dispatched a squadron of fighter planes from their Japanese base. It was a futile gesture. With Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s tacit approval, a force of 56,000 North Korean soldiers, supported by 400 Soviet-built tanks and 180 combat aircraft, brushed aside the South Korean Army and swept towards Seoul to ‘liberate’ the southern half of the peninsula. When President Harry S. Truman heard the news in Washington he called the attack ‘unwarranted and unjustified’, went straight to the UN and secured a Security Council agreement to 220

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A war of nerves stop the aggression. He then ordered the American occupation army in Japan to repel the North Koreans, and within days part of the 24th Infantry Division landed at Pusan. The tiny American force, along with the surviving remnants of the South Korean Army, was pushed back almost into the sea. The UN called upon all members to assist in driving the North Koreans back to the 38th Parallel, the de facto border, and fifteen other countries—Australia among them—responded. At the time, 3 RAR was serving at Hiro, Japan, as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, but it was at half strength and in no condition to fight. Army service in Japan consisted mainly of ceremonial duties and guarding installations against civil unrest or possible sabotage. The men spent their off-duty hours playing sport, drinking, or fraternising with Japanese women. In Australia, men were transferred to 3 RAR from other units of the regular army and a recruitment drive was launched. Billy Madden was welcomed back, but as yet there were no medical or stretcher-bearing units and he was initially posted as a driver. Soon after he reached Korea he volunteered to become a linesman in the signals platoon, which worked in below-freezing temperatures to maintain communications with forward elements of the battalion. By then MacArthur had shown his worth as a strategist and landed a massive force behind the North Korean lines at Inchon. It had smashed into the invaders’ flanks and thrown them in full retreat back towards the 38th Parallel. Then the Chinese, fearing—with some justice—that MacArthur would press into their territory beyond the Yalu River, entered the battle. Wave upon wave of Chinese infantry backed by light tanks and heavy guns turned the Americans back. 221

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BRAVEST It was into this milieu that 26-year-old Billy Madden was propelled when, on the evening of 23 April 1951, the Chinese attacked 3 RAR’s positions near Kapyong. As the Chinese advanced, thousands of South Korean soldiers and civilians were pushed south in a human tide, mostly on foot but also in trucks, ox carts, and any other vehicle that could be coaxed into life. Many tried to jump aboard Australian and New Zealand gun carriages and had to be beaten off by the British Middlesex Battalion, which was already hitching a ride back to Kapyong after being ordered to withdraw. The 118th Division of the Chinese 40th Army attacked the Australians. Their first move was to surround one company, separating it from the other three. The Australians fought back and, despite repeated human-wave attacks, the Chinese failed to overrun their positions. The Australian resistance under extraordinary pressure was one of the proudest achievements in the nation’s military history. Madden was with the signals unit at headquarters. In the morning, an intensified Chinese attack on the compound’s perimeter made withdrawal the only option. Most of the Australians escaped, but by the end of the battle 32 had been killed and 59 seriously wounded. The shelling of headquarters left Madden suffering from concussion. When his signals platoon was ordered to withdraw, he fell behind, was surrounded by Chinese troops and was forced to surrender. Corporal Bob Parker and Private Keith Gwyther were also captured during the battle, and for the next few days the three of them were forced to recover wounded Chinese soldiers during attacks by American aircraft. 222

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A war of nerves Still mildly concussed, Madden was marched 20 km with the other captives to an unidentified location where they were held for four weeks. Madden recovered slowly in the harsh conditions. Then came a hellish fourteen-day march to the notorious ‘Bean Camp’, named for the staple food served there. In a rough diary Bob Parker wrote, ‘Quite a lot of POWs here. All sorts. (‘Slim’ pretty crook now). Met the other Australian. What a sight! Great big monstrous red beard. Don Buck had been captured prior to Kapyong . . . They kept him and Tom Hollis as they had not been very good boys. Tom had separated from Don somewhere along the line.’2 Despite his illness, Madden went out of his way to assist other POWs, many of whom were wounded. ‘That was just the way he was,’ Keith Gwyther said later, ‘always thinking of others.’ A few days later Parker wrote: My sunstroke and dysentery etc playing up bad now. Meeting Don has brightened me up a bit; he is quite a bloke. One Turk has been shot through the testicles. No treatment but he doesn’t complain. Also a Belgian, he has been shot in the neck and a Korean doctor sort of fixed him up a bit by clamping a medical clamp on the artery. He was staggering around with the clamp sticking out his neck. Eventually one day I heard he died. Then there was the young American; he has both legs cut off. Had frost bite and someone cut them off with an old saw blade. Didn’t do too good a job. Bones still showing. I feel a bit of a fake with my paltry ailments. Am learning a lot and I believe most others are as well. One mustn’t cry or whinge. Eat anything no matter what. Laugh at things not funny etc. Like 223

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BRAVEST the other Yank here. Been shot in the jaw and has a .45 bullet stuck between his upper and lower jaws, with the result he can’t close his mouth—to talk or eat. Very funny!3

By this time Madden was so ill he could not join the other Australians as they were marched off to a new camp. However, he was still treated inhumanely by his North Korean captors. The usual regime was for the prisoners to be forced to sit or stand to attention from 4.30 a.m. until 11 p.m. each day. The short sleeping period was often broken by a vindictive guard, there were no cots or bedding available, and no talking was allowed. Rations were inadequate and the men were only allowed to collect drinking water from the nearby river. Many bodies were buried in shallow graves on the beaches there, and they often washed out of position and floated by. Dysentery was prevalent, but they were permitted to leave their cell only once each day at the whim of the duty guard. Thus they were forced to lie in their own filth, day and night. One Australian used his Chairman Mao cap as his toilet container, then emptied it outside. The activities of the head guard at Pyoktong as recorded by Bob Parker were typical. ‘He amused himself by battering the captives with a club, rifle butt or pistol. Often his treatment left the victim unconscious.’4 On one occasion when Gwyther and Parker were caught talking, they were forced to squat and balance on their toes on the round-stemmed saplings that made up the floor. When they lost their balance and fell they were beaten with rifle butts and clubs. The roof was also fitted with a special cross beam that was used to raise a prisoner by his wrists, which had been tied behind 224

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A war of nerves his back. He was lifted until his toes were just touching the floor, then left hanging. Yet another torture was to tie a prisoner’s hands and feet together, force him to stand on tiptoe and tie a hangman’s noose around his neck. The other end of the rope was attached to his ankles. Madden was among the sick and wounded prisoners moved to ‘the Caves’ at Kangdong, where conditions were primitive in the extreme. Despite his deteriorating condition he continued to help the other prisoners. But in late October all the sick and wounded were collected at Kangdong and forced to march to Pingechong-Ni, a distance of 250 km. Though increasingly weak, Madden refused to be cowed and according to witnesses remained ‘cheerful and optimistic’. His health deteriorated, his condition was exacerbated by his willingness to share the little food he had with men in a worse state than him. Not surprisingly, after a few days Madden collapsed and had to be transported by cart. Although he survived the journey, he died of malnutrition and exhaustion some time between late November and early December 1951. After the war his remains were reburied in the UN memorial cemetery in Pusan. Gwyther said of him: ‘Slim was a real hero—and didn’t know it. He became a sort of legend. He didn’t try to be like that—it was just the way he was made. Nothing could make him cooperate with the enemy.’ Parker and Gwyther had made repeated attempts to escape before their release in August 1953; both were mentioned in despatches. After the war, Australian POWs wrote to the federal government seeking recognition for ‘Slim’ Madden’s selfless actions in the appalling conditions of their confinement. However, several years passed before there was any positive response. It was not until 225

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BRAVEST 1954, as the Cold War spread its tentacles into Australian political life, that the conservative Menzies–Fadden government acted. In March 1955, the minister for the army, Jos Francis, recommended to cabinet that the George Cross be awarded to Madden. The British officer who testified on his behalf said only that he was ‘exceptionally impressed with the example he set as a soldier of the Commonwealth. His loyalty and courage were at all times in keeping with the highest tradition of Australian arms.’ However, he suggested the suitable award would be ‘mentioned in despatches’. Parker wrote that while they were together (until 5 June) Madden’s behaviour was ‘excellent’. He said, ‘We were interrogated several times but Pte Madden acted as he should. That is, during the times we were interrogated together. The other times I cannot vouch for.’ In ‘hearsay’ evidence, Parker wrote, ‘it is said that Pte Madden continuously feigned loss of voice every time the Chinese or Koreans tried to interrogate him’. He concluded, ‘I think that whoever the information came from commending Private Madden’s conduct that it was deserved.’ Lieutenant Colonel Thomas D. Harrison, of the US Air Force, said Madden survived the march to Kangdong: ‘Although very weak, Private Madden did not complain or ask for help. He attempted to trade his watch for food for us, but the Koreans stole the watch as soon as they saw he had it. From some other source he got some Korean money and bought food which he shared with the remainder of the very sick.’ US Major Benjamin F. Yeargin noted, ‘During the time that Private Madden was a prisoner of the Communists, he was very hostile towards them, shouting insults and making threatening 226

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A war of nerves gestures at all enemy soldiers that came near him. As a result of his jeering and antagonistic attitude, he received several beatings by his captors.’ First Lieutenant Jack E. Henderson, who was with him in camp prior to his final march, wrote, ‘I have no knowledge of any meritorious actions on the part of Private Madden.’ Another US serviceman, Robert M. Wilkins, who knew him ‘fairly well’ at Bean Camp and later at an interrogation centre, wrote: As far as any meritorious awards are concerned, I cannot think of any particular reason for decoration. I do think, however, that because of his wonderful spirit, which was at a premium at that time, [he] certainly boosted everyone’s morale and was a source of hope and an example to all of those that came in contact with him. As I remember, Col. Harrison stated that he condemned Communizm [sic] and his captors and spoke out against them right up to the moment he died. He was a grand person and a fine soldier and an example to all of us.

Madden’s George Cross citation states that ‘he openly resisted all enemy efforts to force him to collaborate, to such a degree that his name and example were widely known through the various groups of prisoners. Testimonials have been provided by officers and men from many units of the Commonwealth and Allied Forces which show that the heroism he displayed was quite outstanding.’ Any fair reading of the record—and all the testimonials relied upon are presented above—would indicate that this overstates 227

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BRAVEST the case. This is not to suggest that Slim Madden was unworthy of our highest respect. He had, after all, endured the most shocking privations in captivity for eight months, and these had resulted in his death. But the same could be said of thousands of Australian troops who had perished at the hands of their Japanese captors in the Second World War and whose no less selfless and noble actions had received no official recognition. It is difficult to escape the view that the government was influenced to some degree by the contemporary political scene— both international and domestic—for the award was made on the eve of the Australian Labor Party split and the much vaunted ‘downward thrust of Chinese Communism’. Nevertheless, Horace William ‘Slim’ Madden joins great figures of the Second World War like Charles Anderson and Weary Dunlop as a powerful symbol of decency and dedication to others within the horror of war. The George Cross was presented to Madden’s sister, Florence Regan, by the governor of NSW, Sir John Northcott, in May 1956.

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29 ‘Indomitable’

Politics, both international and domestic, also played an interesting part in the Vietnam War, the next great conflict during which Australians won the Victoria Cross. On the one hand, this was the first war in which the ‘Mother Country’ was absent from the front lines and thereby from the system that awarded the VC. On the other, it was a war that sharply divided Australia against itself. In the First World War the nation had split over the great conscription debate but it remained solidly behind the defence of the Empire. In Vietnam it gradually polarised, until returning servicemen were reviled by some, honoured by others and ignored by elements of their own military associations. The warrant under which the VC was administered had been brought up to date in 1961 over the signature of the British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo. It had always been 229

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BRAVEST assumed that Britain and Australia would be at war together, and there was some resistance in Britain to the award of the premier Imperial honour in Vietnam. However, Clause 6 of the warrant provided that those eligible included ‘Member Countries of the Commonwealth overseas, the Governments whereof have signified their desire that awards of the Cross shall be made . . .’ Despite objections from London, this unquestionably allowed the Australian government a free hand in processing the recommendations and conferring the awards through ‘advice’ to the queen via the governor general. It would be difficult to sustain an accusation that the government used the undoubted prestige of the VC to bolster public support for the military intervention in Vietnam. The four recipients—Kevin ‘Dasher’ Wheatley, Peter Badcoe, Ray Simpson and Keith Payne—all distinguished themselves by acts of extraordinary courage and selflessness. But while the Vietnam War was Australia’s longest conflict to date—from 1962 to 1972—it produced only 520 deaths, while in the Second World War there were 39,000 deaths, for only twenty VCs.* By this measure the Australian authorities were extraordinarily generous. As it happened, all four medals went to members of the Australian Army Training Team who commanded Vietnamese rather than Australian units in action. And while this may be regarded as simply the luck of the draw, it is the source of continuing debate among Vietnam veterans. Their principal concern is that the actions of Australian troops in the Battle of Long Tan have not been given due recognition. General Steve Gower, for example, is unabashed in his agitation for a review of the * AWM figures—other sources separate POW deaths and set the figure at 23,000–29,000.

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‘Indomitable’ decorations awarded and in 2007 the Howard government established a panel to report on whether appropriate recognition had been given. The Battle of Long Tan, which took place on 18 August 1966, was fought between the Australian 6th Battalion (6 RAR) and a much stronger Vietnamese force in the southern Phuoc Tuy province. On the previous night the Viet Cong 275th Regiment fired over 100 mortar rounds into the Australian artillery base and 24 Australian soldiers were wounded, one later dying from his injuries. B Company 6 RAR was sent out early next morning to find the enemy and D Company, commanded by Major Harry Smith, relieved them at midday. They made contact in midafternoon with a small enemy patrol in a rubber plantation and soon afterward came under mortar fire. As the company’s 11 Platoon advanced, they were attacked by heavy machine-gun fire and the commander, 2nd Lieutenant Gordon Sharp, was killed. Sergeant Bob Buick assumed command. During this engagement both platoons’ radios failed and heavy monsoon rain began falling on the battlefield. Soon all units came under attack and the Australians quickly became short of ammunition. An Australian Iroquois helicopter pilot, Flight Lieutenant Bob Grandin, heard a call for help from Smith and, disobeying orders, dropped supplies. Australian artillerymen found their range, but the Vietnamese forces continued their assault. D Company fought doggedly until sundown, when two rifle companies arrived under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Colin Townsend and attacked the Vietnamese flank. Some of the enemy broke away and the fresh reinforcements formed a 231

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BRAVEST perimeter around D Company, allowing them to treat the wounded and rest. There was no further contact. D Company sustained eighteen killed and 21 wounded, but a body count the next day revealed a much bigger enemy loss. Like 3 RAR before it in Korea, D Company 6 RAR received a US Presidential Unit citation for ‘extraordinary bravery’. It read, in part, ‘The conspicuous gallantry, intrepidity and indomitable courage of D Company were in the highest tradition of military valour and reflect great credit upon D Company and the Australian Army.’ However, there are conflicting claims about the decorations awarded—a DSO to Townsend and an MC to Smith. By this time, Warrant Officer Kevin Wheatley, a professional soldier, had been awarded a posthumous VC following an action in which he and Warrant Officer Ron Swanton led an irregular group of Vietnamese and Montagnard soldiers against the Viet Cong. In a firefight on 13 November 1965, Swanton was hit in the chest and Wheatley called in an air strike and a helicopter to evacuate his mate. The medic attached to the unit told him Swanton was dying, but Wheatley refused to leave him. When the local troops scattered, he dragged Swanton into a wooded area and, ignoring the pleas of his Vietnamese friends, pulled the pins from two grenades and waited for the encircling enemy to arrive. Major Peter Badcoe also received posthumous recognition of his outstanding leadership of Vietnamese fighting forces from February to April 1967. In three separate actions Badcoe, a public servant turned regular soldier, intervened in the most hazardous situations to turn the tide of battle. On 23 February, 232

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‘Indomitable’ he ran alone across 600 m of fire-swept ground to attend a wounded American medic, led a platoon in a successful assault on a nearby machine-gun post, then carried the American back over the open ground to the command post. Unfortunately the medic could not be resuscitated. Two weeks later Badcoe thwarted the overthrow of a district headquarters when he led a company in attack over open terrain to capture a heavily defended enemy position. Then on 7 April he led a company of South Vietnamese regulars in action and found himself 50 m ahead of his company under heavy mortar fire. He ran back and rallied his men, who moved forward but were soon stopped by heavy fire. Badcoe rose to throw grenades to clear the area ahead but was cut down by a burst of machinegun bullets. He died instantly. Two years later, Warrant Officer Ray Simpson was attached to Mobile Strike Force Command, operating in the Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian border area, when he went to the rescue of a wounded comrade, Michael Gill. After carrying him to safety under heavy fire, he crawled to within 10 m of the enemy and lobbed grenades into their stronghold. He and five of his Vietnamese troops then covered his company’s withdrawal. A week later, on 11 May 1969, the battalion moved ahead with Australian Warrant Officer Andy Kelly leading 231st Company. A sudden burst of enemy gunfire wounded Kelly, and an American officer was killed when he went to his aid. Many of the company’s Vietnamese troops scattered, but Ray Simpson gathered a small force and raced forward through withering machine-gun fire to protect the wounded until evacuation helicopters arrived. He then positioned himself between the enemy and the helicopter and held off the North Vietnamese regulars until the area was cleared. 233

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BRAVEST Simpson had joined the 2nd AIF in 1944 and been sent to Cowra to reinforce the struggle to contain the Japanese POW ‘breakout’ in August that year. He manned a Vickers machinegun identical to the one overrun by the prisoners when they had killed Privates Hardy and Jones during the initial rampage.* Simpson re-enlisted for service in Korea and in 1953 married a Japanese woman, Shoko Sakai. He served in Malaya and then in the Special Air Service before being selected in the initial group of advisers to the South Vietnamese Army in 1962. He had already won the DCM in 1964 for a similar action to that which secured him the VC. Having left the army, in 1972 he was engaged as an administrative officer with the Australian Embassy in Tokyo. He died there in 1978. One of his closest mates in the army was Keith Payne, Australia’s only living VC winner at the time of writing. He, too, made the army his career, and he in many ways typifies the men we honour as the bravest of the brave.

* Both Hardy and Jones were later awarded posthumous George Crosses.

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30 ‘We went and had a beer’

Keith Payne felt such overwhelming responsibility for the troops under his command in Vietnam that he pushed himself beyond all reasonable limits to protect them. It almost killed him in battle, ruined his health and left him with nightmares. But he fought on and after many years came to see a pattern in his life and the VC that transformed it. That gave him a measure of peace. The citation tells only the barest bones of the story. On 24 May 1969 in Kontum Province, Warrant Officer Keith Payne was commanding the 212th Company of 1st Mobile Strike Force Battalion when the battalion was attacked by a North Vietnamese force of superior strength. The enemy isolated the two leading companies, one of which was Warrant Officer Payne’s, and with heavy mortar and rocket support assaulted their position from three directions simultaneously. 235

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BRAVEST Under this heavy attack the indigenous soldiers began to fall back. Directly exposing himself to the enemy’s fire, Warrant Officer Payne, through his own efforts, temporarily held off the assaults by alternately firing his weapon and running from position to position collecting grenades and throwing them at the assaulting enemy. While doing this he was wounded in the hands and arm . . .

Payne and his Montagnard troops were in desperate trouble. Almost surrounded, they could well have been wiped out if he had lost his head. That was when his childhood among soldiers, his early years of training, his combat experience in Korea and Malaya, and his own instructing of recruits in Australia all kicked in. There was a way out. There had to be. It all went back to the small North Queensland town of Ingham where Payne was born on 30 August 1933. Keith was the fourth child of seven boys and six girls, and money was scarce. His father, Henry, held a variety of jobs, none of which paid very well, and in 1941, when Keith was eight, Henry joined the army as a Japanese invasion loomed. In North Queensland the threat was real. On his father’s instructions, Keith helped to build a hideout up in the hills where they could escape the invaders. They put in stocks of food and acquired a small arsenal of firearms. On the bright side, Keith’s mother, Maria, was of stubborn Italian stock, and when most of the population retreated south she was able to buy a big house at a price they could just afford. Keith and his siblings sold tropical fruit they picked from the trees to the American troops, whose trains usually stopped at Ingham on the way north to Cairns. The children worked as a 236

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‘We went and had a beer’ team, and it was this sense of team spirit that would underpin Payne’s army career. His father came home on leave several times but never spoke of the war. When it ended he never wore his uniform again and never joined the Returned Services League. Only much later did Payne understand why. He left school at fourteen and soon afterward became an apprentice cabinet maker. He joined the Citizens’ Military Forces (CMF), where a helpful commander put his age up three years to eighteen so he would be paid an allowance. And when the Korean War broke out in 1950 he volunteered. He was only seventeen. After training at Enoggera Barracks in Brisbane, he shipped out to Japan and then Korea. By then the conflict had settled into the stalemate of trench warfare, with overtones of the First World War. He soon found himself in the front lines, facing the Chinese Army and under fire. However, like other Australian infantrymen in Korea, he discerned a measure of battlefield honour in the enemy. Each side permitted the other to retrieve bodies in no man’s land. It was at this time that Keith began to transfer the team spirit and sense of personal responsibility he’d felt for his family to his comrades-in-arms. It would become not just his modus operandi but almost an obsession. It led directly to the action in Kontum. Despite his outstanding efforts, the indigenous soldiers gave way under the enemy’s increased pressure and the battalion commander, together with several advisers and a few soldiers, withdrew. Paying no attention to his wounds, and under extremely heavy enemy fire, Warrant Officer Payne covered 237

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BRAVEST this withdrawal by again throwing grenades and firing his own weapon at the enemy who were attempting to follow up . . .

After nine months in the front lines, he returned to Australia and at Townsville army base met Florence Plaw, who was to be his lifetime companion and soul mate. She was in the army herself, a driver on the base, and in 1954 they married. He was promoted to sergeant and assigned to an instructor’s job at Wacol army camp outside Brisbane. It was a good, satisfying time, but when a new call to arms came with the Malayan uprising in 1958, he became part of 3 RAR deployed on the Malayan–Thai border. However, there was little hostile contact and he was soon back in Australia, training national servicemen and trying to build a family. It was difficult. He was often away on missions and the burden of raising their five sons fell on his wife. Next he served two tours of duty with the Pacific Islands Regiment, patrolling the New Guinea border with West Irian. The work was tough but it was meat and drink to the dedicated trainer he had become. Then came Vietnam. As a professional soldier Payne was anxious to be a part of it. Political issues simply didn’t arise. By now—1969—he had been promoted to warrant officer, and he prepared for the new mission with specialised courses in jungle fighting and Vietnamese language. But when he got to Vietnam in February he was assigned to a leadership role with the Montagnard hill people, to whom Vietnamese was a foreign tongue. As a member of the Australian Army Training Team, his first stop was Van Trai Island for a ten-day orientation course with the 238

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‘We went and had a beer’ Americans, practising calling in American aircraft and artillery, and understanding the best use of their helicopters and other specialised equipment. After only two days he was withdrawn on orders to proceed directly to a forward mobile force of Montagnards. Payne’s charge was 212 Company in Pleiku, and almost immediately he was scheduled to begin operations in the field. Indeed, his first mission began the day after his arrival, a searchand-destroy operation with no clear orders or objectives. More by good luck than good management, he completed the quick incursion without serious casualties. His response was to put his men through a rigorous training course, but it would have to be spaced between operations against the North Vietnamese Army. He appointed American staff sergeants to lead the company platoons—Jerry Delrow and Jack Clements—and his group included two American medics and a communications specialist. Payne himself took charge of the heavy weaponry. The first major operation was a raid into suspected enemy territory. They set up an ambush that failed when the Montagnards all shot over the enemy’s heads. So on return he began an intense weapons training course for them. The next operation was in the Thai border area, where his men suffered serious losses. Before leaving, he discovered evidence of enemy tank activity and called in a bomb strike to clear the area. When Payne returned to Pleiku, Warrant Officer Ray Simpson took a force in to assess the effectiveness of the bombing raid—and won his VC. Then, eighteen days later, came Payne’s own critical test. His company was part of an assault mission in mountainous territory at the junction of two rivers, but as soon as they landed 239

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BRAVEST in the big Chinook helicopters they found themselves under fire from the ridge lines. However, by nightfall he had secured the area and moved the company to high ground. The next morning the Allies fed in two additional companies on either side of Payne’s 212 Company. It was now 24 May. Throughout, the battle had been a rifle and machine-gun duel. But now the North Vietnamese called up heavy rocket and mortar fire. Payne’s position soon became untenable. The only option was withdrawal, and that meant fighting all the way back to the base. On his left, the Montagnard company commanded by US Staff Sergeant R.W. Montez started to break up in disorder when Montez was hit in the face and had his jaw blown away. Payne gathered the men and tried to reorganise the force. Alone, he managed to break out on the left rear of the position, but it was now almost dark. The rocket and mortar fire again threatened to scatter his forces, and the wounded desperately needed attention. . . . Still under fire, he then ran across exposed ground to head off his own troops, who were withdrawing in disorder. He successfully stopped them and organised the remnants of his and the second company into a temporary defensive perimeter by nightfall . . .

There was no chance of calling in helicopters until next morning, and there was a clear possibility that the whole force could be wiped out during the night. By now he’d lost all confidence in the American lieutenant who was in command of the battalion. 240

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‘We went and had a beer’ Warrant Officer Payne of his own accord and at great personal risk, moved out of the perimeter into the darkness alone in an attempt to find the wounded and other indigenous soldiers. Some had been left on the position and others were scattered in the area . . .

He found a group about 50 m, another 150 m beyond them and a third nearby. On the way back to the original position, he picked up the people he’d left halfway and brought them in only to discover that everyone had decamped. He followed their trail in the darkness. He then continued to search the area, in which the enemy were also moving and firing, for some three hours. He finally collected forty lost soldiers, some of whom had been wounded, and returned with this group to the temporary defensive perimeter he had left, only to find that the remainder of the battalion had moved back. Undeterred by this setback and personally assisting a seriously wounded American advisor [Montez], he led the group through the enemy to the safety of his battalion base.

From the top of a ridge line Payne could see distant firing from a bigger Allied force—the 5th Battalion—so, leading about 40 men, he made for battalion HQ. They took hours to reach safety but finally made it at about 3 a.m. ‘His sustained and heroic personal efforts in this action were outstanding and undoubtedly saved the lives of a large number of his indigenous soldiers and several of his fellow advisers.’ It was over. He was exhausted. 241

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BRAVEST After a brief home leave Payne returned to the combat zone, but it soon became clear that his mental and physical fatigue had a deeper cause than the single action in the hills. He spent time in the hospital at Vung Tau and while there received a message to report to the Australian commander, General Robert Hay. Payne said later, ‘He just stood up from behind his desk and put out his hand and said, “Allow me to be the first to congratulate you. The Queen has awarded you the Victoria Cross,” I just took a half pace back and said, “Oh, shit, sir.” I really hadn’t known what I was there for.’1 They went together to the press room, where the official announcement was made. Ray Simpson was there; his award had been announced just a fortnight before. ‘So we went and had a beer,’ Payne said. When Payne returned to Australia he was posted to the Royal Military College at Duntroon, instructing army officer candidates. However, it soon became clear that Vietnam and his other experiences under fire were taking a heavy toll on his personal life. He found it difficult to settle. Then in 1972, with the election of the Whitlam Labor government, Australian troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. The cause to which Payne had dedicated himself seemed to evaporate. Many Vietnam veterans were disoriented and dismayed by the turn of events. In part because of his decoration, Payne was more affected than most. Like many of his comrades-in-arms he drank too much, which only compounded the problem. He transferred to the 42nd Battalion at Mackay in Queensland, but in 1975 he elected to take a discharge. Yet soldiering was the only trade he knew, so later that year he accepted a captain’s commission in the army of the sultan of Oman. He 242

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‘We went and had a beer’ actually became involved in a conflict, fighting alongside the British SAS in the so-called Dhofar War. In December 1976, the sultan declared the war won and Payne returned to Australia and his first taste of civilian life in nearly thirty years. But by now his mental and physical troubles had reached crisis point. He took out a professional fishing licence and tried his hand at building renovations, but the pressures became too much. Finally the Department of Veterans’ Affairs registered him as totally and permanently disabled. This should have been the signal for a peaceful retirement but he was haunted by visions and dreams of the terrible things he had seen and done. In 1995 he recounted to author Stan Krasnoff the ultimate moment of personal crisis: He was arguing with Flo—another bitter tirade—and Derek [his youngest son] had attempted to intervene, but he had ignored him, retreating to the lounge room in a state of barely controlled rage. He had put on his glasses and sat in his chair, making a show of reading his book to signal his disdain when something happened . . . Derek had fallen to his knees before Payne, tears streaming down his face. ‘Dad, what is all this . . . why is it that the people that you love, you give such a hard time to?’ It was like a cry in the wilderness, words that were so stunning that they did not impact on Payne at first, but later, alone that night, he pondered over them, feeling the agony of remorse. He had no intention of hurting his family and he ached to show his love and affection, but he could not reach out 243

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BRAVEST to them . . . and here in one fell swoop the truth had been revealed. He loved them dearly but he could remember very few occasions when he had interacted with them on a loving, caring basis. And time was short, he was getting older . . .2

He would change. He had to. And he did. In recent years Payne has taken a public stance on a number of issues, and on one in particular. While he believes it’s appropriate for the Australian War Memorial to be the custodian of the Victoria Cross medals once the recipients have died, he thinks more should be done to take them out to the people, particularly in remote areas. He has suggested a mobile display that tells the story of the Victoria Cross and the Australians who have been blessed—and sometimes cursed—with its award. The idea is a good one, provided always that the presentation tells the whole story and does not play down the agony and the horror of the wars in which the medals were won. In fact, the AWM is planning a travelling exhibition when the Hall of Valour is renovated in the future.

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31 Anomalies

So prized is the Victoria Cross that when apparent anomalies appear in its awarding they stir passionate accusations of injustice or conspiracy. Usually, an explanation can be found in the random nature of fate or the inherent fallibility of the process. However, some puzzles cry out for explanation, notably the absence of any VC awards to either the Royal Australian Navy or the commandos who operated behind enemy lines in the Second World War. A variety of possible explanations have been put for the lack of a single RAN winner. Some have suggested—and others firmly denied—that senior officers of the Royal Navy overseeing the award have taken a superior and condescending attitude towards their ‘colonial cousins’. It has also been asserted that in naval engagements, where men operate as a team, there is simply less opportunity for outstanding individual heroism such as that exhibited by a Ted Kenna or a Frank Partridge. Yet the first ever 245

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BRAVEST VC—as we saw in Chapter 2—went to a naval officer, Lieutenant Charles Lucas. Indeed, there are many examples in the Australian naval record that would appear to contradict that ‘teams’ explanation. One of the better known is the case of Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheehan, who served on the minesweeper, Armidale in the Timor Sea in late 1942. Armidale was one of sixty Corvettes commissioned in the Second World War and used for anti-submarine, escort, and minesweeping duties in the Indian Ocean, Southwest Pacific, and home waters. In November 1942 the navy mounted a rescue mission for the Australians in Timor, who faced a potential massacre by the advancing Japanese. The Corvettes Castlemaine and Armidale, together with HMAS Kuru, a shallow-draft patrol boat that had been requisitioned as a naval tender, were dispatched from Darwin. It was expected that two trips would have to be made to repatriate all personnel. En route to Timor, the two Corvettes were spotted by Japanese aircraft and bombed. They took evasive action and escaped without serious damage, but when they reached the island where the Kuru was scheduled to ferry passengers out to them the patrol boat was missing. The captains decided to return to Darwin and on the way discovered Kuru, crammed with 70 women and children. These were all transferred to Castlemaine, which set course for Darwin. Kuru turned back to Timor, closely followed by Armidale under the captaincy of Lieutenant Commander William Richards, who reported to Darwin headquarters and asked for air support. Soon afterward, five Japanese bombers appeared overhead and attacked Armidale, but all the bombs fell wide of their mark. 246

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Anomalies However, ten hours of daylight were still to be faced and at 2.30 p.m. Richards signalled Darwin, ‘Enemy aircraft bombing, no fighters arrived.’ A second signal twenty minutes later reported, ‘Nine bombers, four fighters, absolutely no fighter support.’ The Japanese force attacked with aerial torpedoes and one struck Armidale’s port side, quickly followed by a second that broke the Corvette’s back. It listed sharply to port and Richards gave the order: ‘Abandon ship!’ The Japanese air crews now attacked survivors in the water. Eighteen-year-old Ordinary Seaman Sheehan, from Latrobe, Tasmania, scrambled back on deck to the 20-mm Oerlikon cannon fitted just aft of the bridge. He strapped himself in and began firing at the strafing fighters in an attempt to save some of his fellow sailors. The Armidale was already sinking. Sheehan shot down one Japanese aircraft and then was hit by the gunfire from an attacking Zero, but he maintained his fire even as the water lapped around his feet. Nothing would move him from the gun. The young sailor kept firing until the sea closed over the Armidale. By any measure, Sheehan’s actions were in the highest tradition of the Australian military and are at least comparable with those of VC recipients like ‘Dasher’ Wheatley in Vietnam. Indeed, the RAN has since recognised him by naming one of its Collins Class submarines the HMAS Sheehan, the first time an Australian warship has been named after a naval rating. But while the RAN has not yet secured a VC winner, it must be noted that naval personnel have received more decorations per head than their army equivalents. Moreover, most of the Australian Navy’s wartime action was in major ships, and of 247

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BRAVEST the twenty VCs awarded to British sailors in the Second World War most went either to submariners or sailors on smaller ships. VC authority Anthony Staunton says: ‘In recent years, about a dozen names have been put forward as candidates who could have been awarded the VC. While all would have been worthy recipients, I can do a similar exercise for the army and come up with 100 equally worthy candidates.’ This is undoubtedly true, but the same cannot be said for some of the men in commando units, who placed themselves in intense danger for extended periods yet never received a VC. Most notable, perhaps, is the team led by Major Ivan Lyon that delivered at least one—and in all probability a second—serious blow against Japanese forces in the Second World War, hundreds of kilometres behind the front line. Code-named Jaywick, the first operation destroyed at least 60,000 tons of Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour. Australia’s wartime prime minister, John Curtin, personally recommended Lyon for the VC, to no avail. A year later Lyon and his team returned for a second blow yet even then the leader was denied what many believe was his just reward. At the outbreak of war Lyon, a regular in the Gordon Highlanders, was attached to the British forces in Singapore but had already anticipated the Japanese invasion and developed contacts in Malaya. He had married Gabrielle Bouvier, the daughter of a French official in Indochina and, just before Singapore fell, she and their baby son, Clive, escaped to Australia. Lyon headed for India and made contact with the Special Operations Executive—the clandestine warfare unit. Gabrielle and Clive boarded a ship in Perth to reunite with him in India but were intercepted by a Japanese warship and would spend the rest of the war as prisoners in Tokyo. 248

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Anomalies The SOE posted Lyon to Australia, and soon he was making plans from the organisation’s new headquarters in Melbourne. Top of the list was a scheme to use an old Japanese fishing boat renamed the Krait to sail from Cairns to the US naval base at Exmouth Gulf, then up through Japanese-controlled shipping lanes in the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore. Once there, Lyon and his hand-picked team of six would deploy in three canoes and attach limpet mines to Japanese ships. The mines would be timed to explode once they were clear. The Krait would then steam all the way back to Exmouth. Lyon was ably assisted by another British officer, Commander Donald Davidson, and Australian Captain Bob Page, the brilliant young nephew of former Prime Minister Sir Earle Page. And after intense training they set out on their epic journey. On 18 September 1943 the Krait dropped off the sabotage team at Panjang Island, 60 km from Singapore Harbour. They had twelve days to get to Singapore, sink as much shipping as possible and rendezvous with the Krait at Pompong Island, 100 km away. Each canoe carried 300 kg of equipment, including mines, food and water for a week. Just before departure, Lyon gave each man a cyanide capsule in case of capture. Just after midnight on 23 September they reached Dongas Island, Lyon’s forward observation post, only 12 km from the target, but bad weather and rip tides delayed them for three days. Then, despite a dozen close shaves, they attached the mines and paddled off undetected. From Dongas they watched the night sky light up with the explosions. But their joy was short-lived: they had to make the rendezvous in almost impossible time, battling rough seas 249

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BRAVEST and utter exhaustion. Finally all three canoes reached Pompong Island and were taken aboard the Krait. On the return journey to Exmouth Gulf they were almost intercepted by a Japanese warship but held their nerve and made it back to base. Their feat was a major blow to the Japanese command’s belief in its own invincibility and a great morale booster for the Allied forces. Page and Davidson were both awarded the DSO, an unusually high honour in Captain Page’s case, since the decoration was usually reserved for staff officers with the rank of Major and above. Lyon, who had planned the mission and participated in the most hazardous element, was recommended for the Victoria Cross by no less a figure than the head of the SOE, Lord Selbourne. When the British War Office cavilled and suggested a DSO, Prime Minister John Curtin wrote personally to the acting governor general, Sir Winston Dugan: ‘I consider that the services rendered by Major Lyon would be more appropriately recognised by the bestowal on him of the Victoria Cross for great valour and devotion to duty in most hazardous undertakings.’ Remarkably, the British authorities chose to ignore Curtin’s recommendation and it is difficult to escape the view that to the London military establishment the ‘ungentlemanly’ actions behind the lines were regarded as not quite befitting the award of ‘their’ VC. However, this was not the end of the matter. In September 1944, Lyon, Page, Davidson and a crew of nineteen officers and men made a second attack on Singapore. On this occasion— Operation Rimau—they were transported to the area in Britain’s biggest submarine. There they captured a Chinese junk, the 250

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Anomalies Mustika and advanced on Singapore, where they planned to deploy a new invention, one-man submarines known as ‘Sleeping Beauties’, to take them into the harbour. But as they sailed close to a nearby island they were spotted by local police who came to investigate. A firefight ensued and they were forced to scuttle the Mustika (together with the topsecret Sleeping Beauties) and flee in the spare kayaks they had brought along. Again, Lyon, Page and Davidson led the way to Singapore, but it is unclear whether they were able to blow up any ships, despite their best efforts. By then the chase was on, with the Japanese military police, the Kempetai, leading the pack. Lyon fought a rearguard action on Soreh Island that permitted some of his men to escape, but he was killed that night by overwhelming fire. The remaining party members under Page made their way to a planned rendezvous on Merapas Island, however, the submarine captain, Commander ‘Rufus’ Mackenzie, ignored the order to rendezvous and instead went hunting targets in the deserted sea lanes. After waiting many days in vain, the Rimau men set out through the islands in an attempt to make their own way back to Australia. Some were killed by their Japanese pursuers, others drowned, and ten—led by Bob Page—were finally captured, tortured and imprisoned in Outram Road jail. After the most appalling privations they were executed only seven weeks before the end of the war. No posthumous awards were bestowed. Lyon’s wife and son survived their Japanese imprisonment and in 2002 Clive told the authors of a book on the Rimau raid, Kill the Tiger, ‘The Prime Minister put him up for the Victoria Cross and, in my opinion, that was a very great honour.’1 251

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Afterword

In 1991 the prime minister’s word in all matters pertaining to the Victoria Cross became law. On 15 January of that year Queen Elizabeth II and then Prime Minister Bob Hawke signed a document that ended an era. The VC ceased to be an Imperial honour. Even the title was changed. It became ‘The Victoria Cross for Australia’ and its new warrant differed starkly from those which had governed it for the previous 135 years. The new arrangement provided no particular process for recommendation and review up the chain of command but made the defence minister the final arbiter. In practice this meant that the former system—within Australia—would usually be adhered to. The minister would almost certainly take the recommendation to cabinet, but at the least it would be ‘signed off ’ by the prime minister of the day. 252

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Afterword The decoration would ‘only be awarded for the most conspicuous gallantry or a daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.’ Those eligible would now include not only members of the Defence Force but ‘other persons determined by the Minister for the purposes of this regulation’. This marks a reversion to the only other time when civilians were permitted to receive the VC: during the Indian Mutiny. But even then they needed to be operating under the command of a military officer. Today not even that condition applies. However, by pure serendipity the change anticipates the era of the so-called ‘war on terror’ which followed al-Qaeda’s attack on the US on 11 September 2001 and the subsequent disastrous invasion of Iraq by the Coalition of the Willing under President George W. Bush. In this conflict, the front lines are cities and towns, public transport and civil facilities, and places of leisure and entertainment, from London to Bali. It may well be that ‘pre-eminent acts of valour’ in such a struggle will be performed by men and women of the police and other civil authorities or indeed by courageous passers-by. There may well be a case for such bravery to be rewarded with the VC, not least because the George Cross has been abandoned. Nevertheless, by widening the field of eligibility and separating the VC from its traditional roots the Hawke government can be accused, with some justice, of devaluing the honour, at least until the new regime develops its own tradition. Anthony Staunton, for example, says the VC for Australia is regarded among many servicemen as the ‘pup’ VC, a reference to 253

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BRAVEST the First World War ‘pup’ battalions, which were created by fusing the Anzac ‘originals’ with untried reinforcements from Australia. At first they were regarded as second-string but in time they developed their own distinguished records and traditions. Some important elements remain. Hancocks will continue to cast and engrave the medals for the Australian authorities; the source of the bronze will in all probability remain the Chinese cannons. But the changes to the award are part of a larger process which includes the other Imperial service awards now abandoned: the DSO, DCM, MC, MM, and M-I-D in the army and their equivalents in the other services: the Distinguished Service Cross in the navy and the air force’s Distinguished Flying Cross. In their place, for all branches of the service, have been substituted (in descending order) the Star of Gallantry, the Medal of Gallantry and the Commendation for Gallantry. The new unit awards are the Unit Citation for Gallantry and the Meritorious Unit Citation. Service personnel are also eligible for the Distinguished Service Cross for distinguished command and leadership in action, followed by the Distinguished Service Medal and the Commendation for Distinguished Service. Then come the Conspicuous Service Cross and the Conspicuous Service Medal for actions in non-war situations as well as long service awards. And finally, servicemen may be honoured within the military list of the Order of Australia. It is a development that does not enjoy universal favour. The War Memorial’s Steve Gower questions the change of designation. ‘I find them very hard to correlate to the former Imperial awards,’ he says. ‘I think it’s important to have our own. But I 254

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Afterword really don’t know why they were not designated the Australian DSO, the Australian MC and MM. ‘There is a feeling now, though, that people want to be recognised for all sorts of things, a tendency for more recognition for people in all sorts of fields. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing. However I do support the removal of rank eligibility for certain awards. I think it’s more egalitarian and a change for the better.’1 Whatever the merits or otherwise of the changes, some universal and immutable truths remain: the best VC is the one that is never awarded, because war is the last—and the worst— resort. Its greatest heroes will always be those who hate it most and wish to end it quickest. And their stories, such as those recounted in these pages, will forever be a treasured part of our national heritage. Lord Newcastle’s comment to Prince Albert that ‘the value attached by soldiers to a little bit of ribbon is such as to render any danger insignificant and any privation light, if it can be obtained’ is as valid today as it was more than 150 years ago . . . provided only that it supports that simple cross inscribed ‘For Valour’.

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Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to Anthony Staunton, a man of unparalleled knowledge in the field of Australian warfare and particularly the military honours system, for his selfless assistance in researching this work. We may disagree on some of the controversial issues raised, but at least Anthony has ensured that all the facts and figures on which they are based are incontrovertible. I am also enormously grateful to my friend Bill Gammage, author of the finest book on Australian participation in the First World War, The Broken Years, for his generous assistance and encouragement; and especially to the director of the Australian War Memorial, General Steve Gower, for his frankness and trust in developing important aspects of the work. He ensured that the material on the AWM’s metallurgical research on VCs was immediately forthcoming, and his opinions on a range of contentious issues were given without qualification. His appointment of the 256

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Acknowledgements patient and immensely knowledgeable Margaret Lewis to assist me to navigate the AWM’s archives was extraordinarily helpful and produced some unexpected results. I am very grateful to my publisher at Allen & Unwin, Ian Bowring, for permitting me additional time—when another publication intervened—to produce the manuscript of Bravest. As it happened, the interval provided me with the opportunity to develop a new and more considered perspective. I am pleased to acknowledge the following authors: Stan Krasnoff, Where to? For Valour: The Keith Payne story; Stuart Braga, Anzac Doctor, The Life of Sir Neville Howse, VC; Arthur Hoyle, Hughie Edwards VC DSO DFC: The fortunate airman; Michael B. Tyquin, Neville Howse; George Franki and Clyde Slatyer, Mad Harry: Australia’s most decorated soldier; Colleen McCullough, Roden Cutler VC: The biography; Ivan Southall, Softly Tread the Brave; Chris Coulthard-Clark, McNamara VC: A hero’s dilemma; John Glanfield, Bravest of the Brave: The story of the Victoria Cross; Murray Farquhar, Derrick VC. Once again, my editor Angela Handley has provided firm and expert support. So too has Pippa Masson, agent extraordinaire. But without my wife Wendy it would, of course, be all for naught. Robert Macklin 2007 [email protected]

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List of VC winners

There have been 96 Australian Victoria Cross recipients: 91 members of the Australian forces and five Australians who were serving with the South African or British forces. For biographical information, see www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/adbonline.htm NAME Bell, Frederick William Bisdee, John Hutton Howse, Sir Neville Maygar, Leslie Cecil Rogers, James Wylly, Guy George Axford, Thomas Leslie Beatham, Robert M. Birks, Frederick Blackburn, Arthur Seaforth Borella, Albert Chalmers Brown, Walter Ernest Buckley, Alexander Henry

UNIT 6th WA Mounted Infantry 1st Tas Imperial Bushmen NSW Medical Corps 5th Vic Mounted Rifles South African Constabulary 1st Tas Imperial Bushmen 16th Battalion 8th Battalion 6th Battalion 10th Battalion 26th Battalion 20th Battalion 54th Battalion

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PLACE South Africa South Africa South Africa South Africa South Africa South Africa France France Belgium France France France France

DATE 16 May 1901 1 Sep 1900 24 Jul 1900 23 Nov 1901 15 Jun 1901 1 Sep 1900 4 Jul 1918 9 Aug 1918 20 Sep 1917 23 Jul 1916 17/18 Jul 1918 6 Jul 1918 1 Sep 1918

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List of VC winners NAME Buckley, Maurice Vincent Bugden, Patrick Joseph Burton, Alexander Stewart Carroll, John Cartwright, George Castleton, Claude Charles Cherry, Percy Herbert Cooke, Thomas Currey, William Matthew Dalziel, Henry Dartnell, Wilbur Taylor Davey, Philip Dunstan, William Dwyer, John James Gaby, Alfred Edward Gordon, Bernard Sidney Grieve, Robert Cuthbert Hall, Arthur Charles Hamilton, John Patrick Howell, George Julian Ingram, George Morby Inwood, Reginald Roy Jacka, Albert Jackson, William Jeffries, Clarence Smith Jensen, Jorgan Christian Joynt, William Donovan Kenny, Thomas J.B. Keysor, Leonard Leak, John Lowerson, Albert David Mactier, Robert Maxwell, Joseph McCarthy, Lawrence Dominic McDougall, Stanley Robert McGee, Lewis McNamara, Frank Hubert Moon, Rupert Vance Murray, Henry William Newland, James Ernest O’Meara, Martin Pearse, Samuel George

UNIT 13th Battalion 31st Battalion 7th Battalion 33rd Battalion 33rd Battalion 5th Machine-Gun Coy 26th Battalion 8th Battalion 53rd Battalion 15th Battalion 25th Bn Royal Fusiliers 10th Battalion 7th Battalion 4th Machine-Gun Coy 28th Battalion 41st Battalion 37th Battalion 54th Battalion 3rd Battalion 1st Battalion 24th Battalion 10th Battalion 14th Battalion 17th Battalion 34th Battalion 50th Battalion 8th Battalion 2nd Battalion 1st Battalion 9th Battalion 21st Battalion 23rd Battalion 18th Battalion 16th Battalion 47th Battalion 40th Battalion 1 Squadron Aust FC 58th Battalion 13th Battalion 12th Battalion 16th Battalion 45th Bn Royal Fusiliers

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PLACE France Belgium Gallipoli Belgium France France France France France France East Africa France Gallipoli Belgium France France Belgium France Gallipoli France France Belgium Gallipoli France Belgium France France France Gallipoli France France France France France France Belgium Palestine France France France France North Russia

DATE 18 Sep 1918 26/28 Sep 1917 9 Aug 1915 7/11 Jun 1917 31 Aug 1918 28 Jul 1916 26 Mar 1917 24/25 Jul 1916 1 Sep 1918 4 Jul 1918 3 Sep 1915 28 Jun 1918 9 Aug 1915 26 Sep 1917 8 Aug 1918 26/27 Jul 1918 7 Jun 1917 1/2 Sep 1918 9 Aug 1915 6 May 1917 5 Oct 1918 22 Sep 1917 19/20 May 1915 25/26 Jun 1916 12 Oct 1917 2 Apr 1917 23 Aug 1918 9 Apr 1917 7/8 Aug 1915 23 Jul 1916 1 Sep 1918 1 Sep 1918 3 Oct 1918 23 Aug 1918 28 Mar 1918 4 Oct 1917 20 Mar 1917 12 May 1917 4/5 Feb 1917 7/15 Apr 1917 9/12 Aug 1916 29 Aug 1919

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BRAVEST NAME Peeler, Walter Pope, Charles Ruthven, William Ryan, John Sadlier, Clifford W.K. Shout, Alfred John Statton, Percy Clyde Storkey, Percy Valentine Sullivan, Arthur Percy Symons, William John Throssell, Hugo V.H. Towner, Edgar Thomas Tubb, Frederick Harold Wark, Blair Anderson

UNIT 3rd Pioneer Battalion 11th Battalion 22nd Battalion 55th Battalion 51st Battalion 1st Battalion 40th Battalion 19th Battalion 45th Bn Royal Fusiliers 7th Battalion 10th Light Horse Regt 2nd Machine-Gun Battalion 7th Battalion 32nd Battalion

PLACE Belgium France France France France Gallipoli France France North Russia Gallipoli Gallipoli France Gallipoli France

Weathers, Lawrence Carthage Whittle, John Woods Woods, James Park Anderson, Charles G.W. Chowne, Albert Cutler, Sir Roden

43rd Battalion 12th Battalion 48th Battalion 2/19th Battalion 2/2nd Battalion 2/5th Field Artillery

France France France Malaya New Guinea Syria

Derrick, Thomas Currie Edmondson, John Hurst Edwards, Sir Hughie French, John Alexander Gordon, James Heather Gratwick, Percival Eric Gurney, Arthur Stanley Kelliher, Richard Kenna, Edward Kibby, William Henry Kingsbury, Bruce Steel Mackey, John Bernard Middleton, Rawdon Hume Newton, William Ellis Partridge, Frank John Rattey, Reginald Roy Starcevich, Leslie Thomas Badcoe, Peter John

2/48th Battalion 2/17th Battalion 105 Squadron RAF 2/9th Battalion 2/31st Battalion 2/48th Battalion 2/48th Battalion 2/25th Battalion 2/4th Battalion 2/48th Battalion 2/14th Battalion 2/3rd Pioneer Battalion RAAF attached 149 Sqn RAF 22 Squadron RAAF 8th Battalion 25th Battalion 2/43rd Battalion Aust Army Training Team

New Guinea Libya Germany Papua Syria Egypt Egypt New Guinea New Guinea Egypt Papua Tarakan Italy New Guinea Bougainville Bougainville North Borneo Vietnam

Payne, Keith Simpson, Rayene Stewart Wheatley, Kevin Arthur

Aust Army Training Team Aust Army Training Team Aust Army Training Team

Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam

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DATE 4 Oct 1917 15 Apr 1917 19 May 1918 30 Sep 1918 24/25 Apr 1918 9 Aug 1915 12 Aug 1918 7 Apr 1918 10 Aug 1919 8/9 Aug 1915 29/30 Aug 1915 1 Sep 1918 9 Aug 1915 29 Sep/1 Oct 1918 2 Sep 1918 9 Apr 1917 18 Sep 1918 18/22 Jan 1942 25 Mar 1945 19 Jun/6 Jul 1941 24 Nov 1943 13 Apr 1941 4 Jul 1941 4 Sep 1942 10 Jul 1941 25/26 Oct 1942 22 Jul 1942 13 Sep 1943 15 May 1945 23/31 Oct 1942 29 Aug 1942 12 May 1945 28/29 Nov 1942 16 Mar 1943 24 Jul 1945 22 Mar 1945 28 Jun 1945 23 Feb/7 Apr 1967 24 May 1969 6/11 May 1969 13 Nov 1965

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Notes Introduction: Shades of valour 1. Reveille, April 1937, p. 52 2. Interview with the author, June 2007 1 ‘One miserable scribbler’ and a little bit of ribbon 1. Sweeney, p. 66 2. Arnstein, p. 209 3. Weintraub, p. 113 4. Glanfield, p. 19 5. Glanfield, p. 20 6. Wigmore and Harding, p. 4 2 ‘A matter of chance’ 1. Interview with the author, June 2007 2. Ibid. 3. Bean, Correspondence 3 Bullets ‘thick as hail’ 1. Tyquin, p. 8

2. Braga, p. 66 3. Sydney Mail, 20 December 1901 4. Orange Leader, 10 October 1914 5. Tyquin, p. 37 6. Pearn, p. 614 4 ‘I begin to hate ...’ 1. Braga, p. 143 2. Dardanelles Commission, Question 27672 3. Tyquin, p. 70 4. Dardanelles Commission, Question 27675 5. Tyquin, p. 73 6. Ibid., p. 151 7. Interview with the author, June 2007 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid.

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BRAVEST 5 ‘An ardent Australian patriot’ 1. Tyquin, p. 86 2. Braga, p. 244 3. Ibid., p. 252 4. Ibid., p. 343 5. White, C.B., Melbourne Argus, 4 October 1930 6 ‘I managed to get the buggers, Sir’ 1. Reveille, 31 January 1932 2. Documentary, Jacka VC, 1974 3. Glanfield, VC Journal, March 2006, p. 6 4. Ibid., p. 7 7 ‘The bravest man in the Aussie Army’ 1. Rule, p. 29 2. Ibid., p. 30 3. Ibid., p. 30 4. Reveille, 31 January 1932 5. Rule, p. 30 6. Jacka letter to Charles Bean, 1923, in Bean, Correspondence 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Rule, p. 31 10. Perry, p. 231 11. Rule, p. 48 12. Rule, p. 49 13. Wanliss, p. 245 8 ‘Tell Dad I’m still fighting’ 1. Melbourne Herald, 19 October 1919 2. Interview with author, June 2007

9 ‘A compelling, ubiquitous figure’ 1. Wigmore and Harding, p. 36 2. Interview with author, June 2007 3. Franki and Slayter, p. 10 4. Reveille, 30 April 1939 5. Ibid. 6. Bean, Correspondence, 1919–42 7. 13th Battalion War Diary 8. Bean, Correspondence, 1919–42 10 An ideal leader 1. Murray, in Reveille, 1 December 1937 2. 13th Battalion War Diary 3. Murray, in Reveille, 1 December 1937, pp. 10–11, 62–5 11 ‘I wasn’t mad’ 1. Reveille, 31 December 1936 2. Reveille, 31 December 1929 3. Murray, in Reveille, 1 December 1937, p. 64 4. Longmore, p. 123 5. White, T., p. 94 6. Interview with the author, June 2007 12 ‘Hit with a sledge hammer’ 1. Coulthard-Clark, p. 26 2. Ibid., p. 31 3. Ibid., p. 39 4. Ibid., p. 41 5. Ibid., p. 44 6. Ibid., p. 46 7. Ibid., p. 46

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Notes 13 A paradoxical attitude to heroes 1. Coulthard-Clark, p. 68 2. Ibid., p. 113 14 ‘To live and learn and see much’ 1. Jacka, 24 April 1925 2. Maxwell, p. 3 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid., p. 9 5. Ibid., p. 13 6. Ibid., p. 20 7. Ibid., p. 21 8. Ibid., p. 23 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., p. 26 11. Ibid., p. 27 12. Ibid., p. 38 13. Ibid., p. 87 14. Ibid., p. 88 15. Ibid., p. 110 16. Ibid., p. 130 17. Ibid., p. 131 18. Ibid., p. 168 19. Ibid., p. 172 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., p. 223 22. Ibid., p. 231 23. Ibid., p. 237 24. Ibid., p. 260 15 Cross purposes 1. Glanfield (2006), p. 32 2. Ibid., pp. 33–34 3. Interview with the author, June 2007

4. Staunton, interview with author, July 2007 5. Ibid. 16 Down to the wire 1. McCullough, p. 124 17 The endless day 1. Sydney Morning Herald, 28 February 2002 18 The larrikin 1. Farquhar, p. 11 2. Derrick, January 1941 3. Farquhar, p. 48 4. Ibid., p. 60 5. Ibid., p. 69 6. New York Times, 14 June 1941, p. 1 7. Farquhar, p. 78 8. Derrick, 29 July 1941 9. Ibid., 4 January 1942 10. Ibid., 5 February 1942 11. Farquhar, p. 112 12. Derrick, 5 September 1942 13. Farquhar, p. 112 14. Derrick, 23 October 1942 15. Farquhar, p. 118 19 One of our very best 1. Derrick, 6 March 1943 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Coates, p. 226 7. Derrick, 24 November 1943

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BRAVEST 8. McKernan, p. 381 9. Farquhar, p. 167 10. Farquhar, p. 168 11. McKernan, pp. 381–2 20 One among many 1. Newton, p. 189 2. Ibid., p. 191 3. Ibid., p. 193 4. Ibid., pp. 200–2 5. Ibid., p. 204 6. Newton, p. 209 7. Ibid., p. 210 21 ‘Guest of the Emperor’ 1. Newton, p. 19 2. Allanson, p. 22 3. Haskell, p. 3 22 That moment of decision 1. Caulfield, p. 242 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., p. 245 4. Hetherington, p. 301 5. Ibid., p. 246 6. Ibid., p. 258 7. Ibid., p. 259 23 Courage beyond compare 1. Southall, p. 26 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., p. 27 4. Ibid, p. 29 5. Ibid., p. 53 6. Ibid., p. 61 7. Ibid., p. 69 8. Ibid., p. 71 9. Ibid., p. 74 10. Ibid., p. 77

24 ‘That’s what I’m here for, Sir’ 1. Southall, p. 103 2. Ibid., p. 159 3. Ibid., p. 177 25 ‘His crew before himself ’ 1. Wigmore and Harding, p. 249 2. Hoyle, p. 20 26 ‘One’s nerves suffer a bit’ 1. Hoyle, p. 36 2. Ibid., p. 42 27 A wall of fire 1. Hoyle, p. 56 28 War of nerves 1. Thompson and Macklin (2004), p. 18 2. Parker, p. 2 3. Ibid., p. 5 4. Ibid., p. 7 29 ‘Indomitable’ 1. Compiled primarily from information in Odgers 30 ‘We went and had a beer’ 1. Caulfield, p. 352 2. Krasnoff, p. 242 31 Anomalies 1. Thompson and Macklin (2002), p. 105 Afterword 1. Interview with the author, June 2007 264

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Bibliography

Books Allanson, Rod, The Lost Legion: An account of an Australian prisoner of war in Thailand and Japan and his subsequent involvement in Australian intelligence, AWM, Canberra, c. 1990 Arnstein, Walter L., Queen Victoria, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003 Bean, C.E.W., The Anzac Book, London, 1916 —— Correspondence (1919–42), AWM, 3DRL 7953 Braga, Stuart, Anzac Doctor: The life of Sir Neville Howse, VC, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 2000 Caulfield, M., Voices of War, Stories from the Australians at War Film Archive, Hodder, Sydney, 2006 Coates, J., Bravery Above Blunder: The 9th Australian Division at Finschhafen, Sattelberg and Sio, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1999 Coulthard-Clark, C.D., McNamara VC: A hero’s dilemma, Air Power Studies Centre, Canberra, 1997 Farquhar, M., Derrick VC, Rigby, Adelaide, 1982 Franki, G., and Slayter, C., Mad Harry: Australia’s most decorated soldier, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 2003 265

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BRAVEST Glanfield, John, Bravest of the Brave: The story of the Victoria Cross, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, UK, 2005 —— Victoria Cross Journal, April 2006 Hetherington, J., Blamey: Controversial soldier, AWM and AGPS, Canberra, 1973 Hoyle, A., Hughie Edwards VC DSO DFC: The fortunate airman, selfpublished, Canberra, 1999 Krasnoff, Stan, Where to? For Valour: The Keith Payne Story, Shala Press, Tewantin, Qld, 1995 Longmore, C., The Old Sixteenth: Being a record of the 16th Battalion, AIF, during the Great War, 1914–1918, History Committee of the 16th Battalion Association, Perth, 1929 McCullough, Colleen, Roden Cutler VC: The biography, Random House, Sydney, 1998 McKernan, M., The Strength of a Nation: Six years of Australians fighting for the nation and defending the homefront in WWII, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2006 Macklin, Robert, Jacka, VC: Australian hero, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2006 Maxwell, J., Hells Bells and Mademoiselles, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1936 Murray, H., unpublished memoir —— ‘First Battle of Bullecourt’, Reveille, December 1936 Newton, R.W., et al., The Grim Glory of the 2/19th Battalion, AIF, 2/19th Battalion, AIF Association, Sydney, 1976 Odgers, George, Diggers, Lansdowne Press, Sydney, 1994 Pearn, John, ‘Anzac doctors. The pivot: The First Australian Casualty Clearing Hospital at the Gallipoli beachhead—the first seven days’, Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 153, November 1990, pp. 612–18 Perry, Roland, Monash: The outsider who won a war, Random House, Sydney, 2004 Southall, Ivan, Softly Tread the Brave, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1960 Sweeney, Michael S., From the Front: The story of war, National Geographic Society, Washington, 2002 Thompson, P. and Macklin, R., Keep Off the Skyline: The story of Ron Cashman and the Diggers in Korea, Wylie, Melbourne, 2004 —— Kill the Tiger: The truth about Operation Rimau, Hodder, Sydney, 2002 Tyquin, Michael, Neville Howse: Australia’s first Victoria Cross winner, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2000 266

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Bibliography Wanliss, Newton, History of the 14th Battalion, AIF, Arrow Printery, Melbourne, 1929 Weintraub, Stanley, Uncrowned King: The life of Prince Albert, Free Press, New York, 2000 White, Thomas, The Fighting Thirteenth, Tyrrells, Sydney, 1924 Wigmore, Lionel, and Harding, Bruce, They Dared Mightily, AWM, Canberra, 1963 Diaries, speeches and reports 13th Battalion War Diary, AWM Dardanelles Commission Evidence, 1916, AWM 51 Derrick, T., War Diary, AWM Haskell, Bill, Anzac Day address, 2007 Jacka, Albert, War Diary, AWM Kenna, Ted, interview for Australians at War archive Parker, Robert, diaries, AWM 119/434 Documentary Cooper, R. and Beusst, N., Jacka VC, Monash University, 1974

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Index

References to footnotes are in bold. Abdulmecid, Sultan 5 Aberdeen, Lord 7 air warfare 84–93 Albert, Prince 7, 8–9, 10, 255 Albert Medal 16 Alexander II (Tsar) 10 Allanson, Rod 160–1 Anderson, Lt-Col Charles Groves Wright 150, 152–7, 158–63, 228, 260 Aquitania 144 Armidale 246–7 Armstead, Henry 9 Arrow 47 Ashton, Dr John 11, 113, 114 Aussie Digger 133–4

Australian Air Corps 94 Australian Army Dental Corps 33 Medical Corps 25 Australian Army Training Team 230, 238 1 Anzac Corps 33, 68 3 RAR 218, 220, 221, 222, 238 6 RAR 231 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station (1ACCS) 24, 26 1st Division 23–4 4th Division 77, 78 5th Division 33 8th Division 151, 152, 170 9th Division 135, 139, 142, 143, 151 268

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Index 4th Brigade (AIF) 34, 42, 43, 52, 65, 67, 82 19th Brigade 167 23rd Brigade 170 2/4th Battalion 166, 167, 168 2/16th Battalion 124, 126, 127 2/19th Battalion 150, 152, 153, 155 2/29th Battalion 152, 153, 155 2/25th Battalion 121, 123 2/48th Battalion 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144–5, 147–8 13th Battalion 65, 67, 68, 77 14th Battalion 41–2, 48, 52, 55 15th Battalion 55 16th Battalion 54, 64, 77 18th Battalion 103, 105 26th Battalion 81 48th Battalion 40, 50 Australian Flying Corps 84–9, 94 Australian Imperial Force (AIF) 24, 29, 32, 34–5, 37, 41, 51, 219 awards Albert Medal 16 army/air force/navy 114–15 and army death toll 115 Australian 252–5 civilian 16 civilians awarded VC 14, 253 Commendation for Distinguished Service 254 Commendation for Gallantry 254 Conspicuous Gallantry Medal 8 Conspicuous Service Cross 254 Conspicuous Service Medal 254

Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) 8, 31, 65, 102, 106, 140, 143, 254 Distinguished Flying Cross 208, 214, 254 Distinguished Service Cross 254 Distinguished Service Medal 254 Distinguished Service Order (DSO) 22, 31, 68, 79, 101, 216, 232, 250, 254–5 Empire Gallantry Medal 16 George Cross ii, 4, 16, 163, 174, 193, 218, 226, 227, 228, 234, 253 George Medal 16, 193 Medal of Gallantry 254 Meritorious Unit Citation 254 M-I-D 254 Military Cross (MC) 31, 51, 102, 107, 108, 152, 232, 254–5 Military Medal (MM) 254–5 navy 245–8 and politics 219–28, 229–31, 252–3 Order of Australia 254 Order of the Bath 8 Star of Gallantry 254 Unit Citation for Gallantry 254 ‘Victoria Cross for Australia, The’ 252–4 see also Victoria Cross Axford, Thomas Leslie 258 Badcoe, Major Peter John 230, 232–3, 260

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BRAVEST battles Diamond Hill 20 Litani 120 Lone Pine 28, 61–2 Long Tan 230–2 Polygon Wood 52–6 Bean, Charles 17–18, 39, 51, 62, 64, 65, 66, 82 Beatham, Robert M. 258 Bell, Frederick William 258 Bennett, Maj-Gen Gordon 151, 155, 158, 159 Berrima 23 Berryman, Brig Frank 123 Billing, Clem 136 Birdwood, Field Marshal Lord 215 Birdwood, Gen 32, 80 Birks, Frederick 258 Bisdee, John Hutton 22, 258 Bismarck 205 Black, Maj Percy 63–4, 65, 68, 77 Blackburn, Arthur Seaforth 258 Blamey, Gen Thomas 167 Bluntschli, Helene 88, 96–7 Boer War 14–15, 20–2, 95 Boorara 94 Borella, Albert Chalmers 258 Bouvier, Gabrielle 248, 251 Braga, Stuart 37 Bremen 209–10, 211–12 Bridges, Maj-Gen Sir William 24, 27–8, 30 Brown, Walter Ernest 258 Bruce, Stanley 36 Bryson, Father Arch 149 Buck, Don 223–4 Buckley, Alexander Henry 258

Buckley, Maurice Vincent 259 Bugden, Patrick Joseph 259 Buick, Sgt Bob 231 Bull, Joe 93 Bullecourt 34, 34, 51, 77, 78 Bullwinkel, Vivian 162 Burton, Alexander Stewart 61, 259 Bush, George W. 253 Byrne, Cpl Charles 8 Cameron, Constance Sophia 81 Cameron, Ellen Purdon 81 Carey, Vera 58–9 Caro, Maj Alan 126 Carroll, John 259 Cartwright, George 259 Castlemaine 246 Castleton, Claude Charles 259 Cerberus, HMAS 193 Chavasse, Capt N.G. 95 Chersonese 47 Cherry, Percy Herbert 259 Chowne, Albert 260 Churchill, Winston 42–3, 95, 101, 120, 138, 140, 203, 209 Clark, Capt Charles ‘Joe’ 122–3 Clements, Jack 239 commandos 245 Commendation for Distinguished Service 254 Commendation for Gallantry 254 Conker, Fred 15 Conspicuous Gallantry Medal 8 Conspicuous Service Cross 254 Conspicuous Service Medal 254 Cooke, Thomas 259 270

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Index courage 3–4, 7–8, 9, 16–18, 62, 162, 174 Courtney, Lt-Col Richard 45 Courtney’s Post 43, 104 Cowra breakout 234 Crabbe, Lt Keith Wallace 44–6 Crimean War 4, 5–8, 9, 10–11, 12–13 Currey, William Matthew 259 Curtin, John 248, 250 Cutler, Arthur Sr 118–19 Cutler, Charles 130 Cutler, George 118 Cutler, Lt Sir Arthur Roden 117–24, 125–32, 260 Cutler, Ruby 117–18 Dalziel, Henry 259 Darley, Sir Frederick 22 Dartnell, Wilbur Taylor 259 Davey, Philip 259 Davidson, Commander Donald 249–51 de Robeck, Admiral 43 de Wet, Gen Christian 20–1 Delrow, Jerry 239 Dentz, Gen Henri 120 Derrick, Thomas Currie ‘Diver’ 60, 134–43, 144–9, 260 ‘Devil’s Garden’ 141–2 Diamond Hill 20 Disraeli, Benjamin 6 Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) 8, 31, 65, 102, 106, 140, 143, 254 Distinguished Flying Cross 208, 214, 254

Distinguished Service Cross 254 Distinguished Service Medal 254 Distinguished Service Order (DSO) 22, 31, 68, 79, 101, 216, 232, 250, 254–5 Drummond, Peter 88–9, 90–1 Dugan, Sir Winston 250 Dunlop, Barbara 173 Dunlop, Edward ‘Weary’ 60, 160, 162, 228 Dunstan, William 61, 259 Dwyer, John James 259 Eastwood, Sgt Basil Gilbert 196 Edmonds, Ernie 57 Edmondson, John Hurst 260 Edwards, Anthony 216 Edwards, Sarah 216 Edwards, Wing Commander Sir Hughie 199–202, 203–8, 209–217, 260 Elizabeth I 110 Elizabeth II 252 Ellis, Lt Alfred 89, 90 Empire Gallantry Medal 16 Fayne, ‘Digger’ 191 fear 3, 17, 177, 180 Fenians 15 Ferdinand, Archduke Franz 134 ‘Firebug, The’ 195 Ford, Surgeon Gen Sir Richard 25, 29 Fortt, Ronnie 182–3 France Crimean War 5–6 Opium Wars 47 271

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BRAVEST World War I 33–4, 41, 48, 67–8, 86, 104–9 Francis, Jos 226 Franconia 64 French, John Alexander 260 Freyberg, Bernard Cyril 100–2 Gaby, Alfred Edward 259 Gallipoli 18, 24, 26–31, 38, 43–6, 61–6, 101, 103–4, 116, 133 gallantry/courage 7–8 Galleghan, Lt-Cl Frederick 151 Gammage, Bill 14, 17, 30–1, 62, 82–3, 98, 114 Gascon 28 George V 78, 95 George VI 16, 113 George Cross ii, 4, 16, 193, 218, 253 illustration ii recipeints 4, 16, 163, 174, 226, 227, 228, 234 George Medal 16, 193 Gibbons, G.A. 37 Gill, Michael 233 Glanfield, John 46, 47, 114 Godley, Maj-Gen Alexander 46 Goering, Hermann 200 Goodwin, Joan 131 Gordon, Bernard Sidney 259 Gordon, James Heather 260 Gough, Gen Hubert de la Poer 34, 34, 51, 77 Gower, General Steve 3, 30, 60, 230, 254, 256 Grandin, Flt Lt Bob 231 Gratwick, Percival Eric 260

Grieve, Robert Cuthbert 259 Griffiths, Billy 161 Griffiths, Brig Tom 29 Gurney, Arthur Stanley 260 Gwyther, Pte Keith 222–5 Haig, Field Marshal Douglas 51 Hall, Arthur Charles 259 Hall, Capt William 13 Hamilton, Gen Sir Ian 20, 25, 28, 43, 46, 103, 133 Hamilton, John Patrick 61, 82, 259 Hammer, Lt Col ‘Tack’ 139, 141 Hancocks & Co 9, 47, 113–14, 254 Harding, Bruce 61, 195 Hardy, Pte 234 Harrison, Lt Col Thomas D. 226, 227 Haskell, Bill 161–2 Hawke, Bob 252 Hay, Gen Robert 242 Hecla 12–13 Hells Bells and Mademoiselles 110 Henderson, First Lt Jack E. 227 Hetherington, John 167 Hindenburg Line 77, 108 Hirohito, Emperor 172 Hollis, Tom 223 Holmes, Col William 23 Howell, George Julian 259 Howse, Cyril 22–3 Howse, Everil 34, 35 Howse, Oswald 19, 22 Howse, Col Sir Neville 18, 19–25, 26–30, 32–8, 112, 164, 258 272

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Index Hoyle, Arthur 202 Hughes, Billy 33–4 Ile de France 144 Indian Mutiny (1857) 14, 15, 253 Ingram, George Morby 259 Inwood, Reginald Roy 259 Ionus 100 Iraq 253 Jacka, Betty 59 Jacka, Bill 40 Jacka, Capt Albert ‘Bert’ 37, 39–46, 48–56, 57–60, 61, 68, 78, 82, 84, 99, 104, 106, 112, 116, 164, 259 Jacka, Nathaniel 39–40 ‘Jacka’s Mob’ 41–2, 54 Jackson, William 259 James, Humphrey 15 Jeffries, Clarence Smith 259 Jensen, Jorgan Christian 259 Johnson, Dr Adrian 128–9 Jones, Pte 234 journalists 5, 6–7, 23 Joynt, William Donovan 80, 259 Kapyong 218, 222–3 Kelliher, Richard 260 Kelly, WO Andy 233 Kempetai 251 Kenna, Pte Edward 164, 165–70, 172, 245, 260 Kenny, Thomas J.B. 259 Kerr, Sir John 132 Kettle, Elizabeth 39 Keysor, Leonard 61, 259

Kibby, William Henry 260 Kill the Tiger 251 King Alfred, HMS 176 Kingston, HMS 138–9 Kingsbury, Bruce Steel 260 Kirkpatrick, Pte James Simpson 30 Korean War 218, 220–8 Krait 249, 250 Krasnoff, Stan 243 Kuru, HMAS 246 Kyarra, SS 24 Lavarack, Maj-Gen John 120 Lay, Commander Peter 176 Leak, John 259 Leak, Surgeon Capt A. Martin 95 Leslie, Clarance ‘Beryl’ 135–6, 144, 147, 149 Lewis, L-C Ted 100 Lone Pine 28, 61–3 Longmore, Charles 82 Lowerson, Albert David 259 Lucas, Lt Charles 12–13, 13, 246 Lyon, Clive 248, 251 Lyon, Flight Sgt John 196–7 Lyon, Maj Ivan 248–51 MacArthur, Gen Douglas 148, 220–1 Macaulay, Capt T.C. 88 McCarthy, Lawrence Dominic 259 Macdonald, Capt W.J. 92 McDougall, Stanley Robert 259 McGee, Lewis 259 Mackenzie, Commander ‘Rufus’ 251 273

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BRAVEST McKernan, Michael 148, 149 Mackey, John Bernard 260 Macmeikan, Lt Trevor 124, 126 McNamara, Frank (Francis) Hubert 84–93, 94–9, 200, 259 McNamara, Leo 85 McNamara, Robert 97, 99 McNamara, William 85 machine-guns 79–80 Mactier, Robert 259 Madden, Pte Horace William ‘Slim’ 163, 218–28 Malaya 151–2 Malayan uprising 238 Martin, Anne 110 Matthews, Capt Lionel 163 Maxwell, Jean 110 Maxwell, Lt Joseph 102–11, 259 Maxwell, Mable 110 Maygar, Leslie Cecil 258 Medal of Gallantry 254 Merdjayoun 120–1, 123–4 Meritorious Unit Citation 254 M-I-D 254 Middleton, Pilot Officer Rawdon Hume 195, 197–9, 260 Milde, Bill 135–6 Military Cross (MC) 31, 51, 102, 107, 108, 152, 232, 254–5 Military Medal (MM) 254–5 Milligan, Bob 125, 129 mines 174–94 Monash, Gen Sir John 34, 35, 37, 42, 43–4, 46, 54, 65, 79–80 Montez, Staff Sgt R.W. 240, 241 Montgomery, Gen Bernard ‘Monty’ 140–2

Moon, Rupert Vance 259 Mould, John 174–80, 183, 185–94 Mountbatten, Lord Louis 110, 216 Mouquet Farm 68 Murray, Charles 63 Murray, Clementine 81 Murray, Douglas 81 Murray, Edward Kennedy 63 Murray, Col Harry ‘Mad Harry’ 1–2, 63–6, 67–76, 77–82, 84, 106, 109, 164, 259 Mustika 251 Nash, Sgt 201–2 Nemesis, HMS 13 New Guinea 167–72, 219, 238 Newcastle, Lord 8, 9, 255 Newland, James Ernest 259 Newton, Fl Lt William Ellis 195–7, 260 Nicholas I (Tsar) 5 Nieuw Amsterdam 144 Nightingale, Florence 7, 162 NSW Army Medical Corps (NSWAMC) 20 NSW Mounted Rifles 21 nurses 7, 95, 162, 172, 173, 219 O’Hea, Pte Timothy 15–16 O’Meara, Martin 259 Operation Bertram 141 Operation Jaywick 248 Operation Lightfoot 141 Operation Raimau 250–1 Opium Wars 46–7 Order of Australia 254 274

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Index Order of the Bath 8 Orsova 86 Ottoman Empire 5–6, 86 Page, Capt Bob 249–51 Page, Dr Earle 36 Panmure, Lord 9, 14 Parker, Cpl Bob 222–6 Partridge, Pte Frank John 164, 166, 170, 171–3, 260 Payne, Henry 236–7 Payne, WO Keith 230, 234, 235–44, 260 Pearse, Samuel George 112, 259 Peeler, Walter 260 Percival, Gen Arthur 159 Perry, Roland 54 Petley, Wing Commander Laurence 210–12 Pierce, Air Marshal Sir Richard 214 Pilcher, Evelyn 22 politics and awards 219–28, 229–31 Polygon Wood 52–6 Pope, Charles 64, 260 Pope’s Hill 64 Portal, Sir Charles 214 Pozières 33, 49, 68 Pratt, L-Cpl Vic 122–3 Prince of Wales, HMS 151 Prinz Eugen 206, 208 prisoners of war 162–3, 222–6 Probin, Capt Harry 125–6 Profumo, John 229 Queen Mary 144 Queen of Bermuda 144 Quinn, Sgt 212–14, 216 Quinn’s Post 43

Raby, Commander Henry James 13 Rafa 87 Raff, Elsie 40, 41 Raglan, Lord 6, 8 Ralla, Joe 142–3 Ramsay, Pilot Officer 212, 214 Rankine, Maj ‘Bobby’ 44 Rattey, Sgt Reginald Roy 164–5, 260 recruitment 46 Regan, Florence 220, 228 Repulse, HMS 151 Reynolds, Lt Pat 154, 156 Rhee, Syngman 220 Richards, Lt Commander William 246–7 Roebuck, John 7 Rogers, James 258 Rommel, Field Marshal Erwin 120, 137–43 Roxburgh, Reg 57 Royal Air Force (RAF) 96–7, 99, 191, 197, 199–200, 209, 216 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) 36, 96–7, 99, 167, 196, 197, 200 Royal Australian Navy (RAN) 193, 245–8 Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve 175 Royal Flying Corps 84, 86 Rule, Lt Edward J. 52, 54, 55 Rushberry, Marjorie 172 Russell, William Howard 6–7, 8 Russia 5–6, 10–11, 12, 87, 107, 112–13, 209 Rutherford, Capt D.W. 89–92 275

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BRAVEST Ruthven, William 260 Ryan, John 260 Sadlier, Clifford W.K. 260 Scharnhorst 206 Scobell, Capt George Treweeke 7, 8 Scotian 65 Sebastopol, siege of 10, 11, 13 Selbourne, Lord 250 Sharp, 2nd Lt Gordon 231 Sheehan, Ordinary Seaman Teddy 246–7 Shout, Alfred John 61, 260 Simpson, WO Ray 230, 233–4, 239, 242, 260 Singapore 153–60, 250–1 ‘Sleeping Beauties’ 251 Small, Sgt 155 Smith, Maj Harry 231–2 Smith, Ross 87 Softly Tread the Brave 178 Somme 48, 116 Southall, Ivan 178 Special Operations Executive (SOE) 248–9 Star of Gallantry 254 Starcevich, Leslie Thomas 260 Statton, Percy Clyde 260 Staunton, Anthony 115, 248, 253 Stein, Cpl 156 Stevens, Maj Gen Jack E.S. 167 Stevenson, Air Vice-Marshal Donald ‘Butcher’ 206, 215 Storkey, Percy Valentine 260 Stormy Trench 68–76 Strathnaver 175 Stubbs, Lt Gilbert 180–2

Suez Canal 87, 140 Sullivan, Arthur Percy 112, 260 Swanton, WO Ron 232 Syme, Hugh 174–7, 180–5, 187–91, 193 Symons, William John 61, 260 tanks 34, 51–2, 77, 79, 80, 122–4, 137, 138, 139–42, 152, 154, 167, 168, 220, 221, 239 Tarakan 148 Theopolis, Aircraftsman 201–2 Throssell, Hugo V.H. 61, 260 Timor 246 Tout, Edith 153 Towner, Edgar Thomas 260 Townsend, Lt Colonel Colin 231–2 Truman, Harry S. 220–1 Tubb, Frederick Harold 61, 260 Unit Citation for Gallantry 254 Upham, Capt Charles 95–6, 113 Vampire, HMAS 151 Vernon, HMS 176, 188, 190–3 Victoria, Queen 4, 7, 8–9, 13, 14 Victoria Cross Australian recipients 3, 11, 18, 21–2, 46, 61, 76, 82, 93, 99, 102, 109, 112, 114, 115, 129, 147, 150, 157, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 171, 195, 197, 199, 214, 229–30, 232–3, 234, 235–6, 229, 230, 232–4, 235–6, 239, 240–2, 258–60 and AWM 11, 113, 244

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Index Victoria Cross continued and bar 95, 113 Boer War 14, 21–2, 95 bronze 9, 10–11 Chinese cannon for bronze 10, 11, 13, 46, 47, 113, 114, 254 civilians awarded 14, 253, 253 conception 5, 7–11 Crimean War 4, 5, 11 design 9, 9 first recipient 13 ‘For Valour’ 3, 9, 255 Gallipoli 46, 61, 62, 101 history 3–4, 7–11 illustration ii Indian Mutiny (1857) 14 Lone Pine 61, 62, 82 numbers awarded 3, 14, 230 ‘on-the-spot’ awards 14 origin of metal 4, 10–11, 13, 46, 47, 112–14, 254 myth and legend 3–4 posthumous awards 14–15, 82, 95, 195, 232–3 privileges 98 process leading to the award 17–18, 30–1, 114, 252–4 and Queen Victoria 4, 5, 8–11, 13, 14 reason for award 14, 15–16, 250 recipients 3, 13, 14, 15–16, 18, 35, 82–3, 100–2, 112, 113–15, 245–6 ribbon colour 96 Russian cannon for bronze 10 Vietnam War 229, 230, 232–4, 235–6, 239, 240–2

warrant 3, 9, 10, 15, 16, 95, 150, 229–30, 252 World War I 18, 30–1, 46, 61, 62, 76, 95, 101, 109, 114, 115 World War II 14, 95, 113–14, 115, 129, 147, 150, 157, 163, 164, 245 Victoria Cross for Australia 252–4 Victoria Cross-Australia’s Finest and the Battles They Fought 115 ‘Victoria Cross for Australia, The’ 252–4 Vichy French 120–4 Vietnam War 229–42 Volunteer Defence Corps 81, 166 von Falkenhayn, Erich 62 von Kressenstein, Col Friedrich Kress 86 Vyner Brooke 162 Wales, Prince of 95, 110 Wanliss, Newton 55–6 Wark, Blair Anderson 260 Watchorn, Maj Bruce 124 Waterloo, Battle of 6, 8 Wavell, Gen Archibald 138 Wazir 103 Weathers, Lawrence Carthage 260 Westwind 175 Wheatley, WO Kevin Arthur ‘Dasher’ 230, 232, 247, 260 Whirlpool, Pte Frederick 15 White, Maj-Gen Sir Cyril Brudenell 34–5, 38 White, Thomas 68, 82 Whitehead, ‘Torpy’ 149 277

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BRAVEST Whittle, Cpl John Woods 98, 260 Wigmore, Lionel 61, 195 Wilkins, Robert M. 227 Williams, Col W.D.C. 20, 24, 28, 32 Wilson, Gen Henry ‘Jumbo’ 120, 121, 124 Windeyer, Lt Col Victor 137, 139

Wolf 94 Woods, James Park 260 Wren, John 58 Wylly, Guy George 22, 258 Wyreema 35 Yamashita, General Tomoyuki 159 Yeargin, Major Benjamin F. 226–7 Ypres 95, 107

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