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2/20th Battalion A.I.F. |
Speedily and happily settling in to work at "A" Company, our first job was cutting logs out of the jungle along Endau Road for construction of weapon pits. We also soon became busy laying a large anti-personnel mine-field.
I had one leave to Singapore during this period, before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and bombed Singapore on the night of 6th and 7th December, 1941 (we being on a different side of date-line).
We immediately struck camp and manned battle stations, our weapon-pit being just along the beach from the camp, back towards town. This site was quite close to a Malay Kampong (village). It was quite intriguing watching Malay girls bathing from wells in full view, but quite modest and correct by reason of the fact they bathed wearing a full-length sarong, neatly loosening the sarong and washing thoroughly behind its completely encompassing folds. They had no need to dry, the brilliant sun and heat did that in no time and they were refreshingly cool meantime.
After few days we were engaged in laying thousands of anti-personnel mines in the area, between the sea and the road running north to Endau, about 17 miles north of Mersing, a port at the mouth of large and deep Endau River, the largest on the east coast and navigable for ocean-going vessels for some 60 miles. There was a Japanese iron mine well up this river so it was suspected they had good knowledge of the area.
Mines were laid in mathematical order and to a strict plan, rows of mines 50 yards apart had fine trip-wires running from each mine back to a peg in the ground between each mine in the previous row. There were 15 in a section, of agricultural pipe, set vertically in the ground, flush with ground level. A mine was carefully placed in the pipe, a trip-wire attached and, when disturbed, it pulled the trigger which allowed the mine to rise to about waist level; the mine then exploded and was quite deadly to anyone within a 50 yard radius. All mined areas were indicated by a single wire attached to supporting posts and made visible by coloured rags tied to the wire every few yards, according to international law and agreement. Because of monsoon rains and flooding minefields, they didn't prove very effective. Wandering animals such as goats, monkeys, etc. set many off prematurely. As we eventually surrendered unconditionally, we had the extremely unpleasant task of relocating, taking up, and handing over to the Japanese, all mines laid. Sam Gilmore, Sergeant, and Frank Gavin, Captain of the de-mining party went up from Changi after surrender to de-mine; quite a few men lost lives doing this extremely unpleasant and highly dangerous task. They were well treated, fed and equipped by the Japanese who obviously realised what a highly dangerous task it was. To learn more, see the account in "Singapore and Beyond". When laying mines we attached trip wires. Removal of trigger control-pins was John Rowe's responsibility. One day, whilst running and setting rows of anti-personnel mines near northern approaches to Mersing bridge, we encountered a couple of engineers who were removing springs from a ring of anti-tank mines, set in semi-circle around northern bridge approach. As they removed the ring they pulled out pegs indicating the mine site. John Rowe enquired from engineer what he was doing and if we could lay our line of mines through theirs. As Johnny left to inform us, the engineer bent down and heaved on the peg to remove it, forgetting he had already removed the spring from the tank mine, and without a spring, it only required a slight weight to trigger the mine. He apparently was standing on the mine and up she went blowing him to pieces. We had to pick him up on ground-sheet for burial. We jacked up on laying any more mines and I suggested we spend the rest of the day shooting a flock of roaming goats before they hit trip wires and blew us up. I remember that I shot quite a few, on one occasion getting three goats with one shot. They were standing one behind the other. This indicates the deadliness of a .303 rifle.
Sometime after the outbreak of the war, and after the attack on Pearl Harbour, bombing of Singapore, and invasion of Malaya at Kota-Bahru north of us, on the border of Malaya and Thailand, the Japanese were also landing in Thailand, the Thais offering little, if any, resistance and cooperating to a large extent with Japanese Army.
Before Xmas 1941, we struck camp at our beach site, a lovely spot under coconut palms and moved back into Mersing town.
My platoon (John Rowe's) occupied a riverside garden of an Indian doctor's home about 300 yards upstream from Mersing Bridge. All civilians had been removed from the entire area (by buses) to Singapore - about 18,000 all told from the area; we had to root them out. One day while on this job north of river, one big native took off. As I raised my rifle to put a bullet over his head an elderly woman (possibly his mother) flung her arms around my legs and begged piteously for me not to shoot him. Still think I should have - he looked very much like a Japanese or one of the 5th Column (of which the entire country was riddled).
Our action station or weapon-pit was on a bank of the river in front of the doctor's residence and consisted of a pole floor on mangrove mud and roots, a sand-bagged wall in front. The area was about 2 feet high and 2 feet wide. We could only get in dry-footed at low tide, and at high-water the floor flooded. We had to maintain a constant lookout, sleeping for four hours and on guard for two hours. Moreover, we had to sleep on top of sandbags and hope crocodiles, of which there were plenty 12-15ft long, didn't get hungry at night. I had a sniper's rifle at this stage and gave it to Johnny Rowe to shoot an 8 foot croc I spotted lying in the mud across river, 50 yards away. It was a perfect shot, the croc never moved after its initial reaction.
8 Platoon (30 odd men) under Lieutenant John Brookes, a medical doctor (later a Macquarie Street Eye Specialist), was located about three miles up river, about two miles across country (the river winding erratically). We had to line the river-bank on the northern side with Dannet barbed wire, located between high and low water mark. The barbed wire was in the form of a spiral. If you tread on it to cross, spirals close on your leg and trap you. This was placed to make a river crossing assault by the Japanese as difficult as possible. The only craft we had for use to erect wire were long, narrow dugout canoes which we soon learnt to handle efficiently.
One day, finishing work, returning up river, with canoes towed by launch, two men in the back canoe, with rolls of wire in front of them across their canoe, suddenly disappeared. Despite diving for about an hour, we didn't find them. Bodies were recovered several days later when they floated to the surface, apparently ignored by the crocodiles.
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Copyright © 2002, Elliott McMaster, "Glen Ora", Nabiac, New South Wales, Australia, 2428. Original content in these Web pages is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be produced by any process or any other exclusive right exercised without written permission from the copyright holder. This Web was prepared by the Great Lakes Historical Society Ltd, C/- Great Lakes Museum, Capel Street, (P.O. Box 23), Tuncurry, New South Wales, Australia, 2428. |
