My war - wartime service of James 1942 - 44

More than sixty years ago, in early March 1942, while I was still a teenager, I marched into an Army camp that, after Pearl Harbour, had been hastily set up on Brisbane’s famous Gabba Cricket Ground. Some weeks later, I was taken by Blitz Buggy from the Gabba to Brisbane's Roma Street Railway Station to squeeze aboard a packed troop train which took three days and more to get us from Brisbane to Townsville. From Townsville, we crossed the Coral Sea, in convoy, to New Guinea in the old MV Taroona. We were within range of Japanese aircraft in the skies above and threatened by Japanese submarines in the waters around us.

Much more dreadful however, was the experience of crossing the often rough Coral Sea in the flat-bottomed Taroona which had, until recently, been a ferry on the route between Port Melbourne and Beauty Point, near Launceston, in Tasmania. Nearly all the troops were sick as dogs - and the Japanese were completely forgotten.

I disembarked in Port Moresby on 6 June, six weeks or so before the unfolding of the crucial campaigns of Kokoda and Milne Bay. Victory in those two campaigns saved Australia from what we had firmly believed was the threat of imminent invasion of mainland Australia.

Later, my experiences at that time became the basis of a novel called Haverleigh, about a group of young Australians in the run-up to war, in the crucible of battle and in the years afterwards. As well as portraying the young soldiers at war, it tells of their families at home, their fumbling romances before and between the battles and their adventures and relationships when peace comes. It is a picture of our society of fifty years ago, as historically accurate as I was able to make it, with plenty of spice and action. It gives some additional perspective too through its portrayal of the Japanese who were, as individuals, often "buffeted" by war as much as we were. Please note that the names in the following sections of my novel are fictitious.

The departure of the troop train from Roma Street Railway Station, as described in Haverleigh, is really my own departure. It reads -

They left late one evening in May, boarding a train drawn up the full length of Roma Street Station. Army trucks had spilled troops and supplies on to the platform through the long afternoon. Peter Brent and the rest, still with the gawkiness of boys in newly-donned uniforms, each carried a newly-issued Lee Enfield .303 rifle, a bayonet at the waist, a tin-hat, a sad-looking gas-mask, a water-bottle and various packs and sleeping gear.

None of it seemed really to belong to them. They'd had to train with borrowed rifles - sharing everything to get everyone quickly through some sort of rough basic training and, as they put it, "ready for action". Before Pearl Harbour, Peter'd used a .22 and a .25/20 in the bush but never a .303 and, even now, he'd fired no more than twenty practice shots from it at a static target. He'd had a few hours' bayonet training and knew roughly how to sling a grenade. That was about all. Most of the others were just as unschooled in the arts of war. Jimmy Griffin was a grade higher. He was a hunter and marksman. With any known weapon, he could hit virtually anything within its range. David Strang wasn't as good a rifleman as Griffin but he was lean and tough, a man who hated his farm but loved the bush as he loved his art. The army hadn't taught him much but, with a rifle in his hands, he'd be a formidable campaigner, able to give as good as he got when the
chips were down.

There wasn't much "security". Everyone knew - or could easily find out - when troop trains were leaving and who'd be on them. For the first time, Australian trains were taking Australian soldiers almost directly into battle. The young warriors were, someone said, like the French poilus of 1915 driving off in their Paris taxis to meet the Germans at the Marne. Crowds came to see them off - mothers and fathers, wives and girlfriends, sisters, young brothers and mates. They crowded the platform, tripped over the piles of gear. Some laughed too much - or cried - in the little hysteria's of parting. Mothers gave their boy-soldiers some last-minute motherly advice. Some mates slipped a last bottle of grog into an already tightly-packed kit-bag. But mostly the farewells were thoughtful, dignified, without extravagant sentiment, a touch of foreshadowed tragedy lurking in their bushman-like brevity and understatement - as though they'd be sorry, if this turned out to be the last farewell, that they hadn't said more, confessed to greater affection.
"Like Christ carrying His Cross," Michael Brent said to his son.
"The young bearing the torment of the battles they have to fight for the old."
"We don't feel like that, Dad." Peter smiled away his embarrassment
"We'll pray for you, Peter darling," his Mother said.
He felt himself reddening. "I'll be all right. Thank you, Mother - Dad."
He kissed her - a little shyly in front of his mates - shook his father's hand and was gone, grabbing his gear, fleeing from an emotion that was too much for him, seeking the sanctuary of his fellow soldiers, the rough refuge of the crowded carriage.

Then, quite suddenly in the end, the train began pulling out of the station, the momentum slowly building with the weight of the tightly-packed carriages and goods-wagons. Brownley held the slim fingers of Jilly Sorell as long as he could, reluctantly letting them slip as the train gathered speed. She stood silent, tears streaming down her rather too bony, but sensitive face. She waved an arm large in proportion to her meagre body until, grown graceless with despair, it fell to her side as Brownley disappeared from view. Peter waved to his Mother and Father until he could see them no more. They were standing close together, almost like young lovers, his Mother waving a little white handkerchief, not - Peter couldn't help smiling at the thought - not in surrender but so he could identify her better and see her longer. Suddenly he felt very proud to belong to them and - something he'd rarely articulated to himself before - understood with a stab of pain just how deeply they felt about him.

For most soldiers, the return from the war was emotionally as understated - and as typically Australian - as the departure. My homecoming in July 1943 was described in Haverleigh as follows -

Brent heard the music of his mother playing the piano as he crossed the paddock to the gate - heard it as, it seemed to him, he had so many times before, so many centuries ago. He climbed the front steps quietly and, at the top, met his father. They shook hands: strange, Peter thought, after all this time, that's all we do - shake hands. Then, together, they walked down the short corridor to the living-room and stood listening silently as his mother played. He looked at his father and threw an arm around his shoulders. He held back the tears. There was something so invincibly good about this house, about these two people.

She knew, before she stopped playing, that he was there. Then she turned, ran and threw her arms around him. They all hugged one another and his mother cried and smiled and couldn't stop saying, "It's so good...oh, my dear, dear Peter, it's so good, so wonderful...to have you back..." Then they sat down to talk about all the things they'd been doing. His mother wanted to feed him: "You must be awfully hungry". She would always think of him as a nestling who had to have food shoved down his throat whether he opened his mouth and yelled for it or not.

In those days after he came back, he saw their value more clearly than he'd ever done. He had wanted to survive - he'd always seen himself as dutiful rather than heroic - but now he saw how much they alone had been worth surviving for. He tried to envisage how this house would have been if they'd had to bear the news that he would not be coming back. Their God would have given them support; but even He couldn't have shielded them from the terrible agony of their loss.

My return in 1943 was only an interim respite. After leave, I went back to north Queensland for a while. Then, before 1943 was over, I was flown over to Merauke, at the south-east tip of what was then Dutch New Guinea. Half-immersed in a vast swampland, Merauke must have been one of the least attractive spots that the good God’s Earth has to offer. However, I stayed there only a little more than three months. Then I was flown down to Townsville to be interviewed for appointment as a Diplomatic Staff Cadet with the Australian Department of External Affairs.

On 25 April 1944, a despatch rider brought instructions that I was to proceed to Redbank, near Brisbane, for discharge. I was then to report for duty in Canberra - no later than 1 May 1944.

I was 21. My war was over. My career as a diplomat was about to begin. That career was to have its lows as well as its highs; but, as the attached poster shows, it offered a good deal more glitz and glamour than life in Papua and Dutch New Guinea was ever able to do between 1942 and 1944.

James, Vienna, Austria

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