Major General Jeffery delivering his Address
Photographer: T. Edwinsmith
Councillor and Mrs Taylor
Keith Payne, VC, AM and Flo
Distinguished guests
Special friends – Colonel Ron Lange and Mrs Lange;
Major Don Graham and Mrs Graham;
Laurie Stevens – 2 NGIB
Jock Wilkinson – PIB, NGIB
Lt Col Maurie Pears MC – Commanding Officer 1 Battalion Pacific Islands Regiment Papua New Guinea until 1970
Ladies and gentlemen
Thank you for your warm welcome! What a pleasure it is to be with you once again at this wonderful memorial to commemorate specifically the 75th Anniversary of the raising of the Papuan Infantry Battalion (PIB) and also the service of its sister regiments the New Guinea Infantry Battalions amalgamating in 1944 into the Pacific Islands Regiment.
It was my great privilege to serve as company commander of 1 PIR from 1966-69 under Maurie Pears as my CO, and then as the last Australian CO of 2 PIR in Wewak in 1974/5. Some of you may remember that my wife Marlena and I were married in the Haus Lotu of 1 PIR at Taurama Barracks in February 1967. Indeed the Piper who played at our wedding, Corporal Pisa, travelled to Canberra in 2008, to pipe us to our car as we departed Government House, Yarralumla. For my later tour of duty we took our four children to Wewak when I assumed command of 2 PIR from a very fine CO in LTCOL Laurie Lewis. Marlena and I have very fond memories of our time in PNG and for me they were some of the happiest and most rewarding days professionally of my soldiering career.
We are all aware that the ranks of those original members of the PIB, NGIB, and the PIR are thinning out with time. However, we are very privileged to have with us today WOII ‘Jock’ Wilkinson from NSW who, at 94 years of age is one of the last surviving members of the original PIB. To those others who are unable to attend today, you are with us in spirit and we extend our best wishes to you all wherever you may be.
The PIB was formed in June 1940. In this year of the centenary of the landing at Gallipoli, and the 75th anniversary of the formation of the PIB, it is fitting for us to remember those veterans who served with the PIB to protect Australia from the advancing Japanese forces in 1942.
Let us remind ourselves of some of the distinguished history of this Battalion.
In 1942 the Papuan Infantry Battalion was still in its infancy and consisted of three companies made up of volunteers including Australians and some 300 Indigenous Papuans, tasked to patrol the northern coast of Papua and the first to make contact with Imperial Japanese troops near Awala on 23 July 1942 when it mounted a successful ambush. The 13,500 Japanese troops who landed by surprise at Gona two days before and fought the Kokoda campaign were well trained, fit and battle-hardened, as most had been in action since 1937 and were expert in jungle warfare. Importantly they were equipped with mobile mountain artillery, to which the Australians had no adequate counter.
The Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur knew that if Kokoda was seized by the enemy, then Port Moresby would be under direct threat, along with his future plans for an offensive against the major Japanese base in Rabaul.
MacArthur ordered immediate action from the Commander Allied Land Forces, General Sir Thomas Blamey, who in turn directed Major General Basil Morris, the local commander in New Guinea, to prevent Japanese access across the Track.
To do so, Morris rushed a hastily put together Maroubra Force – two largely untrained and ill-equipped militia battalions – the 39th and 53rd – to the Kokoda area, roughly half way between Port Moresby and the northern coastal village of Buna.
These troops had been employed as wharf labourers and on other manual tasks before finding themselves rushed forward, inadequately prepared to meet a tough and battle experienced foe. It was in the early stages of this, the Kokoda campaign, that the PIB of some 300 men fought as part of Maroubra Force. These were the ‘barefoot Papuan and New Guinean soldiers’ who fought ferociously alongside Australian soldiers and helped to eventually drive the Japanese force back up the track and eventually out of New Guinea.
The 39th with the PIB acquitted themselves brilliantly from the first contact with the enemy north of Kokoda village. Skirmishing and several fierce assaults by the Japanese caused the outnumbered Australians to fall back through Kokoda. Even though the 39th re-took the village, a renewed Japanese offensive two days later forced the Australians and PIB to withdraw. Kokoda village was captured by the Japanese on July 29 1942.
At this point I think it is appropriate to remind ourselves of the conditions that all these brave men operated under by quoting Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Honner, Commanding Officer of the 39th Battalion:
“Physically, the pathetically young warriors of the 39th were in poor shape. Worn out by strenuous fighting and exhausting movement, and weakened by lack of food and sleep and shelter, many of them had literally come to a standstill. Practically every day, torrential rains fell all through the afternoon and night, cascading into their cheerless weapon pits and soaking the only clothes they had.”
But although desperate, greatly outnumbered and under-resourced, the resistance was such that, according to captured documents, the Japanese believed they had defeated a force more than 1,200 strong when, in fact, they were facing just a small number of Australian troops.
The decorations awarded to the PIB included a Distinguished Service Order, three Military Crosses, one George Medal, three Distinguished Conduct Medals, 15 Military Medals and three Mentions in Dispatches plus a Foreign Medal.
Some reflections on the Track:
- The danger for a forward scout
- It takes sustained courage to be the point man when visibility to the front is measured in feet, where the enemy is well concealed and where contact invariable leads to the death or wounding of the lead scout.
- The high prevalence of malaria
- More casualties were sustained through sickness, particularly malaria than as battle casualties. It was not until the introduction of anti-malarial tablets that these rates were reduced.
- The difficulties in casualty evacuation
- All casualties on the Track had to be carried out by stretcher over impossibly difficult terrain. It was here that the legend of the “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels” was born.
- Fighting in the jungle
- It is always nerve wracking because contact is invariably close range, assaulting well dug in troops in jungle is the hardest of all military operations, whilst foot rot, beri beri and dysentery were awful and common health problems. Logistic resupply was also very difficult.
As a former combat infantry commander who has exercised his own troops across the Kokoda Track, I remain in awe of what our troops achieved throughout the Kokoda and subsequent campaigns in Papua and New Guinea.
I have also experienced some of the difficulties of command in jungle situations at platoon, company and battalion levels and understand what commanders at Kokoda went through. It is always much more difficult to get information and the feel for a battle situation in jungle; to do the necessary pre assault reconnaissance, to direct the assault and to effect appropriate fire support, casualty evacuation and so on.
But back to 1942. During a particular three-week period in August and September of 1942 and against a superior number of battle-hardened Japanese troops, Brigadier Arnold Potts commanding the 2/14th, 2/16th and the 39th and 53rd Battalions with the PIB, inspired his severely out numbered and poorly supplied militia and AIF soldiers to fight a series of bitterly contested delaying actions down the Kokoda Track to save Port Moresby, and its strategically important airfield and port, the capture of which would have given control of the northern sea and air approaches to Australia to Japan. In large part this situation was forced on him, due to a failure of the higher command to ensure he had adequate food, ammunition and medical supplies pre-positioned by carriers and air resupply at Myola, just south of Kokoda Village.
Fighting in conditions so terrible and beyond the comprehension of higher Headquarters to imagine, Brigadier Arnold Potts came under heavy and I believe unfair criticism by some for conducting a fighting withdrawal. His strategy of a fighting withdrawal over the Kokoda Track has been called by others, “one of the most critical triumphs in Australian military history ….”. He was unfortunately removed, albeit reposted to another active command by General Sir Thomas Blamey and thus not credited with the feat he actually achieved.
We now know the Japanese High Command did not intend to invade Australia, but at the time this seemed an inevitable intention, serious enough for me as a young boy to remember very clearly, our well constructed air raid shelter in our backyard at Cannington in a suburb of Perth.
After Kokoda, the PIB went from strength to strength and took part in the advance to Salamaua, before fighting in New Guinea on the Huon peninsula, along the Markham, Ramu, and Sepik rivers, and in Bougainville.
In late 1943 New Guinea Force Headquarters, noting the success of the PIB, decided to create another battalion of indigenous soldiers. NGIB was formed in March 1944 largely of recruits enlisted at Malahang, near Lae, in the lower Markham valley.
Indigenous New Guineans who had been in the PIB also joined the new battalion. A second NGIB was raised later in the same year. The 1st NGIB served on Bougainville and New Britain, and the 2nd NGIB fought alongside the Australian 6th Division in the Aitape-Wewak campaign.
A third NGIB was forming when the Pacific war ended and a fourth was being planned. By the time it was disbanded in 1946 approximately 3,500 Papuans and New Guineans had served in the battalions of the PIB and NGIB. The PIR was formed in November 1944 from an amalgamation of the PIB and the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the NGIB. It was then reformed in 1951 and consisted of two battalions, one stationed in Papua and the other in New Guinea. The PIR was formally controlled from Australia until Papua New Guinea’s independence in 1975. It was then renamed the Royal Pacific Islands Regiment in 1985.
It was my great privilege to serve as company commander of 1 PIR from 1966-69 and then as the last Australian CO of 2 PIR in Wewak in 1974/5. I was very proud to be in PNG in 1975 at the declaration of Independence and witness the peaceful and respectful transfer of command to PNG.
RECOLLECTIONS:
- LT Geoff Keys and ANTAP LONG AL
- Battalion Border Operations
- The bulldozer at Green River
To conclude: Today we celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the formation of the PIB whilst remembering all who have served and are serving in the PIB, NGIB, PIR and the RPIR, in both peace and war. For me personally and I am sure for all of you it has been a special privilege to have been a part of such a proud history of military achievement.
Thank you.