The invasion of Balikpapan
The air force. The invasion of Balikpapan was on. The liberators were bombing the Japs there and they said they wanted 50 to go to Tarakan, air force infantry, and 50 to go to Balikpapan so my mate and I instead of sitting around, we joined up to go on the invasion of Balikpapan.
The 2/2nd Pioneers took us in on the barges and took us up the hill behind the AIF. They were fighting the Japs all the way up and they told us to keep back, there's too much going on upstairs, so after a couple of days we finally got down to a place called Manggar and we were sent out doing guard work on all the main objects of the place where we got into a scrap with the Japanese, 2AD was what we were called and we got eight Japs and one got away at half past four in the morning, with hand grenades mostly.
I was just hoping, I had a Tommy gun but I didn't shoot any of them but maybe I did, I don't know but I was in it and we got eight and one got away and, of course, the funny part about that was I used to go to school with a bloke by the name of Mackay, big fellow, and he was the head of the commandos and they'd been chasing these Japs for weeks in the bush and they all came out of the bush with these big sprays on them, camouflage and he looked over and he saw me and he said "What are you doing here." He said "We've been chasing them for three or four weeks" and he said "And you just go and knock 'em off." And every time I go on holidays he says "Here comes that Jap fellow." He used to embarrass me.
Well we got sick of sitting around up there and the bloody mosquitoes. Everywhere you went you were up to your backside in mud.
It never stopped raining there. All the airfields were pretty bad, you know, and you could see the planes going this way and trying to take off, you know, it was a helluva time for the pilots but we just wanted to see some action, you know.
We were in the landing there at Balikpapan. We thought we might see a bit of action with 50 of us together but all of our fellows came home with no one killed. They all came home together after the war. No one was killed.
When we pulled up there the first day they were strafing all along the shore with, throwing these flares over and then bombing all the battleships along the front of us and we were out behind them and after two days the AIF went in and were still out there and I think it was the second or third day we went in behind them and they were still fighting up the hill when we went in behind them.
Death of Flight Lieutenant Hill
We lost a few pilots that crashed. I think there were six altogether the whole time I was with them. They lost about six pilots.
When I was in Bankstown where we formed, Flight Lieutenant Hill, he was in charge of the squadron. He'd just been made leader of the squadron and he took over the squadron duty and on Christmas Day they went out on target practice together and they collided in mid-air, Flight Lieutenant Hill and another fella.
I forget his name now but he's buried at Rookwood cemetery. They collided in mid-air and Flight Lieutenant Hill went into an orchard and the plane drove right into the ground about a quarter of the way in. Lost his life and the other fella got caught in the trees. He tried to jump out and he got caught and he got killed too.
That was a sad time for 82 Squadron. We were just about to go to Darwin and the advance party that happened and me, being a truck driver with a license' I had to take them out to see what had happened and it was very sad, very sad. He was a lovely bloke and we lost him.
Japanese POWs
We had a very peaceful three months after the war there. I used to have to go, we were taken from our squadron and put into an RSU compound down on the water waiting to be transported home.
We had to wait three months and my duty was to drive up to the camp where the Japanese prisoners of war.
They were all sea marines and a lot of women, Korean women up there that were taken prisoners with them and went into Borneo.
They were, I used to go up in the truck and get twenty of them and bring them down for them to work around the areas and that and we used to watch them because they were very suicidal and they would have knocked themselves off, you know, but we had to stay there and keep an eye on them and when they finished work I'd take them back up and that went on for quite a few weeks and then the LST came in and said ""You're all going home"" and that was it.
They were very, very severe people. They had one idea to die and any chance they got they were going to knock themselves off but they had nothing to do it with because they had no guns.
Nothing. [Q: You didn't feel that they were happy that the war was over?] No. They wouldn't get up and shake your hand or anything. No. No chance of that. They were just disappointed they had lost the war. There was quite a few suicided there, you know, in the camps and that, a helluva lot.
The Gurkhas were looking after them there. It was a very stressing time for them because they had to surrender, you know, and they never got over it the Japanese. They would have died for their country for sure.
