Honour where due (A World War II veteran pays tribute to his old comrades)

The Australian ^ | 25th April 2006 | Peter Ryan

[naturalman1975]

I CAME late to the celebration of Anzac Day; indeed, by 2000, when I first marched in the parade, my war service lay 50 years in the past. But the World War II commandos offered me a place in their ranks, I took it and was hooked. I intend to march every Anzac Day until I can no longer cover the distance.

Anzac Day is the only annual occasion that truly rallies and expresses the spontaneous core of Australia's national spirit. Only a deep-felt sentiment could draw all those thousands from warm beds to stand and shiver in the darkness before the dawn service. Who could question the authenticity of quickly brushed-away tears as the final bugle notes fade away? Does Australia Day have even half such power to move?

The numbers continue to swell for the yearly march on Melbourne's St Kilda Road from the city to the Shrine of Remembrance later in the morning. The ardour of the veterans prompts them to go on defying their arthritis and their dicky tickers; young people march for the pride of pinning on their right breast the medals earned by their dad, grandad or great-grandad.

The hands of thousands who line the roadside barriers wave Australian flags. Among the crowds are many migrants of every race and skin colour, often with little children in strollers or in arms: when those children grow up, an Australian Anzac Day may well be their earliest memory. Every year, on April25, Australians can observe the instinctual and unprompted drawing together of a nation.

Whether I steal a sidelong glance across the ranks of my marching comrades or simply look in my own shaving mirror, I am sharply reminded of the deep untruth of the song Old Soldiers Never Die. The old guard won't vanish overnight but it would be prudent now to plan for its relief.

The central meaning of Anzac Day is commemoration of the service and sacrifice of our warriors over several generations. This is a solemn rite, a time for hushed voices and private thoughts. The Returned and Services League rightly insists that the march be decorous and respectful. But to discourage the participation of veterans' descendants simply guarantees Anzac Day will fade away, and sooner rather than later.

It is a national absurdity that the long-ago, brief and local affray at the Eureka Stockade should loom so large in Australia's taught history while a century of shining achievements by our fighting services remains obscure. Working, perhaps through schools, a sensibly mild dress and behaviour code could become generally accepted before Anzac Day 2007. The enthusiasm of young descendants should be preserved at all costs.

My most memorable Anzac Day must be April 25, 1943, when, on four rafts improvised by natives, I crossed northward over New Guinea's swift and muddy Markham River. The party comprised one other white man, Les Howlett, and six resourceful black policemen. At that stage of World WarII the torrential Markham was an informally agreed boundary: Japan ruled the north bank, Australia held the south.

My orders were to spy on the great Japanese base in the town of Lae and to observe enemy movements in the hinterland (perhaps 100,000sqkm). We were to spend about three months in enemy territory, keeping - if we could - the native population friendly to the Allied cause. Nature's hazards, never mind the Japanese, included malarious, crocodile-infested swamps; hot, mosquito-ridden grasslands devoid of cover; and the Saruwaged Ranges, freezing mountains of unimaginable ruggedness rising to nearly 4500m.

I had previously made three crossings of the Markham and gained some useful intelligence. I had made friends in many native villages and set up a secret camp in the hills looking directly down into Lae. But this fourth patrol opened with disaster and ended in tragedy. Japanese troops were everywhere: ahead, behind and on the flank. Ambushed, hunted, our camp burned, we finally escaped north across the Saruwaged mountains in terrible conditions. By that time I was barefoot. We regained the Markham after nearly two circuitous months on the track - safe, almost - then a burst of enemy fire killed Les and a policeman was captured. Struggling through swamps, I made it to the Markham's edge, swam across the next morning and survived.

Convalescing in Australia, I wrote a rather plain little book about life behind the enemy lines, where my 19th and 20th birthdays had passed unnoticed. It was called Fear Drive My Feet and, when he had finished reading it, Edward ("Weary") Dunlop was moved to quote from Rudyard Kipling: "The lone hand and the rifle, that win where armies fail." After that, it all retreated gradually into the harmless haziness of youthful memories. Until last month.

It was then that I heard for the first time the name of Misamichi Kitamoto and learned the identity of the Japanese lieutenant who had undone me in 1943. A poignant poem by A.E. Housman speaks of "a foeman, a chap that didn't kill me, but he tried". This indeed was Kitamoto, 63 years ago.

He was a long-distance runner who had represented Japan in the 1932 Olympic Games. His physical stamina led the Japanese command to appoint him to lead what they feared might be a suicide mission. As the head of 50 army engineers (the Kitamoto Detachment), he was to land on the north coast of New Guinea, east of Madang, and force a pathway overland to Lae. This route might become the means of reinforcing the Lae garrison or of withdrawing it if Australian and US pressure grew too great. As an incidental job, he was to clean up any cheeky Australian patrols found in his path.

On their barges across the Bismarck Sea, the hearts of the Kitamoto Detachment sank, for the Saruwageds appeared snow-capped, an illusion caused by sunlight reflecting off limestone. Kitamoto had the true leader's spirit and was a polished diplomat towards the native people. They readily supplied him with 100 carriers.

Barely over the ranges, he and his men encountered Les and me on patrol but their shots, fired in many volleys, all missed. Kitamoto found our camp and burned it, in a rage that we should for so long have commanded such a splendid view into Lae.

Cruelty and terror were widely used by the Japanese forces in PNG. All the more credit to Kitamoto that he was a fine and chivalrous human being. He prayed beside the body of a young Australian he had killed and wondered whether he might be able to apologise to the boy's parents. He was disgusted that Japanese military police shot a crash-landed American pilot.

It was Kitamoto's fate to lead the battered Japanese survivors from Lae in retreat northward across the Saruwageds. For years the track was marked by the skeletons of those who died on the way. Kitamoto lived with the horror of seeing three of his men murder a soldier and eat him.

On Anzac Day, at the order "eyes right", with all the other marchers I shall salute the memory of my comrades. But after "eyes front", in the privacy of my thoughts, I shall bow respectfully to the spirit of the "chap that didn't kill me, but he tried": Misamichi Kitamoto.

Peter Ryan won the Military Medal and was mentioned in dispatches for his wartime work in New Guinea.

[Khurkris]

Thank you for posting this.

[sasportas]

Of all WW2 theaters, New Guinea had to be the toughest. Hats off to the Aussies that fought there. The US has never had a better ally.