Commando training
Bernie and I both were in training for engineering in the war, but we were overshadowed by the British 104 mission and they were the original commando people out from England and they were great people and we went down to Wilson's Promontory and went through their training but never put it into action... was tough training and in mountains down Wilson's Promontory and you climbed mountains.
You got into the water. They knew everything. There were 1 2 3 4 5 6 of them. They took me once on a trip to the Middle East... We went there. We were there for a few days then came back to Australia. Then the 1st Independent Company was set up... I made my first parachute jump that was my last parachute jump but they were just a great crowd of wonderful men.
Bernie Callinan
I was academically pretty good but physically I didn't quite get into it and I'm still here today. But when the war, and as I say, we didn't see anything of the European war and in New Guinea it was shambles. There was no other word for it...We were in New Ireland and in those days, there was nothing there.
I set up a branch of engineering over on Manus Island and as history turned, they had the best record of anybody down there. They got tied up with the Americans and they had a very good record. But that's about the only thing. Now the other one was Bernie Callinan. Bernie's my friend and he was a brilliant engineer. He was really a top-grade engineer.
They went to Timor and really got tangled up with the Japanese and eventually they were picked up. They were got out by the navy but they had been there quite a long time and they'd really upset the Japanese but that was a highly successful unit. Bernie was the number two in it, but he was actually the number one.
The Induna Star
We were up in Kavieng and improved the conditions a bit so as we could live in it but we had no knowledge of the islands so we sent, on some of the major islands, a handful of people but they got out is about all I can say.
The New Ireland people, they had this Induna Star and they got the stupid damn thing, but they were caught getting out, about 40 or 50 of them. I wasn't there. They should have shot with all their ammunition, firing power they had but they didn't, and they were hit by the aircraft and forced into Rabaul, prisoners of war. That was the end of No. 1 Company. No. 1 Field Company.
Captured at Kavieng
I wasn't in Kavieng when all this happened. I got there when I got back from Manus. Got back there and there was another two chaps I had with me but we got in late one afternoon... We got there and the Japanese invaded at 2 o'clock that following morning and we were just in bed. We had no knowledge of the Japanese coming. None whatsoever.
That only happened after we were taken prisoners... They came in and found us because, temporary overnight, we were staying in one clubhouse with accommodation so there was no people where we were staying the night and that's where Jim put us, and as I say, there was an invasion. We had no knowledge at all... They allowed me time to put some clothes on and we were tied up and marched off.
There were three of us and that was the start of my prisoner of war... It wasn't a comfortable existence, but I lived to tell the tale. We were closely guarded. I mean really closely. We had no possible chance of escape and we were taken to Rabaul and from Rabaul to Japan... You've heard of the Montevideo Maru. We had another ship. Now we had roughly 50 or 60 of us. Some odd people from Rabaul. We had 20 odd nurses and that'd be about it.
Sensuji
When we started, the steelworks, oh, we were quite good but the poor little Japanese, I'm afraid quite a few of them died working. Things would fall on them or something like that but the poor devils got killed just working in their own factories. We didn't lose a man...We sorted materials. There was one part there, had a big race, a water race. It had a little bridge over it, carting things. The bridge used to collapse once a day.
It fell because some idiot Australian prisoners weakened it in a spot underneath. It sort of collapsed and the poor little Jap went with a great tractor full of steel. I eventually ended up at Sensuji which was the prime avenue that you tried to get to. Anyway I got there. I was not very impressed with our Australian people there. They just kowtowed.
A goat supplement
Sensuji was down on an island, south, right in the south of Japan and there was nothing much there except, as I say, the group that didn't obey the Japanese and nothing happened to them. They were just in camp for a bloody long time, seeing nobody, and doing nothing. Sometimes we went out and got some stuff.
I got a damned goat one night...We saw this goat coming back from work so we went out that night because it wasn't hard to get out and we got a goat and ruined our food for quite a while. We weren't very experienced.
Prison life
You didn't really look upon people as being different nationalities. There were some decent ones and some not so decent. By and large I don't think there was too much trouble. I didn't know of any. The goat business that finished up with, I think it was four days in the clink for that. Didn't get much food then.
After they closed Sensuji and shifted us all out, God knows where we went but we were on the coast somewhere. It was quite scenic. Took us a long time to get to the north of Japan. I suppose the greatest thing was lack of decent food and the thought of never getting out but we're here. Not many of us...Occasionally we had chaps that took a decent hiding, but they weren't that often. At Sensuji they were rare.
The end of the war
We were moved out of Sensuji. We went up to the, right up to the northern part of the mainland Japan and that was in a mine...By our standards the conditions were pretty poor and we, a few of us went to work at the mines for the sheer, wanting something to do to fill in time and the main part of that was at the end of the war we were there and we used to tell this bloke, he sold newspapers and things, "Senso sugu ai awarimasu."
The war will be over soon, and this day he said, "Senso wa aowatta". Not soon, it's ended and we asked him how he knew and it was in the paper and when we knocked off at night, he had this paper, which he did, and we had two or three of Australians that could speak and read Japanese and they finished up, we got the paper. Senso wa sugu ni wa owarimasen, ima owarimshata. The war won't be over soon, it's over now.
An unlucky death
There was a little bit of tragedy. When the Allies flew aircraft from aircraft carriers down looking for ex prisoner of war camps and they found us and the next thing was, I think there was six aircraft and they just bombed us with food and cigarettes and God knows what and it killed one bloke.
He had one cigarette left and when the stuff dropped and he saw cigarettes he climbed in through the window back inside to get his one remaining cigarette and he was hit by a keg of something that came through and killed him... Later on, I understand, his body was, we buried him on a hill just outside the camp and he was, what do you call it, taken up out of a grave and taken somewhere else. He finished up being taken to somewhere in Australia, but I don't know where.
Don't Fence Me In
Up there we were treated quite well. I don't think there was any brutality. There were Allied prisoners up there and they were a bit hostile because we didn't do any of the major work. I always remember the end of it. Now I've got to remember his name. He was one of the senior people...
When we were going out to work which we knew now the war was over, he walked over to the Japanese guard who was a major and he said to him, "Hand me your sword." And the Jap handed him his sword. And that's when we really knew the war was over.
And we finished up, I don't know exactly if we buy it or rent it, a train service. Went down to the coast of Japan on that and, believe it or not, when we got to that station they were playing, the Americans, were playing "Don't Fence Me In". We thought, very appropriate. It was a popular song in Australia at that time.
Homecoming
We got to this town there where there was an American cruiser and they took us down to Tokyo. They gave us a lot of food. We probably put on a stone a day. That's an exaggeration. We ate...Then in Tokyo we were only there two or three days. An Australian ship commander came in and said, "Would you like to go to Australia?"
Some people didn't but we got down there and got on the aircraft carrier down to Australia and nobody even knew we were arriving in Australia. We arrived in Sydney and there was a big fuss when we came in there and all these people there. They didn't even know we were coming...You can't describe it. You were home in Australia. It was very difficult to absorb and then became hard to realise that you'd ever been away.
Reflection
It's difficult because there are not that many of us left. The people can't, and I can't imagine them ever being really knowledgeable about what a prisoner of war was like because I think most of it, it was time.
We were three years or something like that and I think that overrode pretty well anything else where we first came back and explaining to people, but you didn't want to talk about it. I've never talked like this about it.
Anzac Day
It's getting to the stage that it doesn't mean anything because there's nobody there that went through it. There's not many Second World War people still alive.
