after the
battle
THE BATTLE FOR BUNA
No. 162
£5.00
NUMBER 162 © Copyright After the Battle 2013 Editor: Karel Margry Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey Published by Battle of Britain International Ltd., The Mews, Hobbs Cross House, Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 0NN, England Telephone: 01279 41 8833 Fax: 01279 41 9386 E-mail:
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BUNA
Located in the south-west Pacific Ocean, New Guinea is the world’s second-largest island after Greenland. Discovered by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, its western half ended up as a Dutch colony, while its eastern part was divided in 1884 between Germany, which colonised the northern half, and the United Kingdom, which ruled the southern half. In 1905, British New Guinea was renamed the Territory of Papua and, with the passage of the Papua Act, transferred to the newly-formed Commonwealth of Australia, which took on its administration. During the First World War, Australia occupied German New Guinea and after the war was given a League of Nations mandate to administer the territory, now named North-East New Guinea. Buna, an administrative station in the Territory of Papua, lay 60 miles north-east of the northern end of the Kokoda Trail, the site of the hard-fought jungle campaign between Japanese and Australian forces between July and November 1942 (see After the Battle No. 137).
THE BATTLE FOR BUNA 2 CZECHOSLOVAKIA Holleischen Concentration Camp 28 WRECK RECOVERY Dornier Recovery 40 FROM THE EDITOR . . . 46 Front Cover: This is the very first picture of American dead soldiers to be published in the United States in World War II. It was taken by Life photographer George Strock on the beach just west of Buna Mission in Papua New Guinea in early January 1943 at the end of the bitter twomonth struggle to annihilate the Japanese stronghold around Buna. (Phillip Bradley) Back Cover: This Japanese naval gun remains at the western end of Buna Old Strip, a relic from the bloody battles that took place there between November 1942 and January 1943. Known by the Japanese as the 8cm/40 Type 10, this type of gun was actually of 76.2mm (3-inch) calibre. (Phillip Bradley) Photo Credit Abbreviations: AWM — Australian War Memorial; USNA — US National Archives. 2
US OFFICIAL HISTORY
CONTENTS
The approach march by the 32nd Division’s 128th Infantry from Oro Bay to Buna in the second half of November used three different routes. The 1st Battalion marched straight north along the coast. The rest of the regiment marched north-west to Dobodura, where it split into two columns, the 2nd Battalion taking the left-hand trail via Ango and the 3rd Battalion the right-hand one via Simemi. As for the 126th Infantry, its 2nd Battalion toiled the entire way from Port Moresby across the rugged Owen Stanley Mountains to Soputa, being joined there later by the 3rd Battalion, which had been flown forward to the new airstrip at Pongani and then moved inland, passing through the sector of the 7th Australian Division. Both battalions would eventually join the 2nd Battalion, 128th, on the Ango trail.
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From mid-November 1942 until early January 1943, a bitter battle raged for possession of Buna, a small settlement on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea, which the Japanese had turned into one of their final strongholds in Papua. Surrounded by impenetrable jungle and swamps, and heavily fortified with bunkers, pillboxes, trench works and dual-purpose guns, the position proved a very hard nut to crack, the US 32nd Infantry Division, reinforced in December by the Australian 18th Infantry Brigade and armour from the Australian 2/6th Armoured Following the capture of Rabaul (see After the Battle No. 133) in January 1942, the Japanese made further landings on the New Guinea mainland at Lae and Salamaua on March 8. With the subsequent seaborne operation against Port Moresby stymied by the naval battle in the Coral Sea from May 7-8, Japanese landings commenced on the north coast of Papua near Buna and Gona on July 21, 1942. A Japanese force then advanced overland across the Kokoda Trail (see issue No. 137) to threaten Port Moresby. Foiled by a combination of mountainous terrain, increasing Australian resistance and strategic priorities at Guadalcanal (see issue No. 108), the Japanese forces withdrew to the Papuan beach-heads at Buna, Sanananda and Gona. While Australian troops closed up to Gona and Sanananda, Major General Edwin F. Harding’s US 32nd Infantry Division, the ‘Red Arrow’ division, was given the task of capturing Buna. The 32nd had been the first American division sent from Australia to New Guinea, its lead elements flown to Port Moresby on September 15, 1942, at the height of the Japanese threat. The 126th Infantry Regiment came by sea, arriving on September 26; the 128th Infantry arrived by air. The 2nd Battalion of the 126th Infantry was the only American unit to walk across to the north coast, traversing the Jaure Trail, which was further east than the Kokoda Trail and over the 9,000-foot Ghost Mountain. The terrain was the enemy here. As Sergeant Paul Lutjens observed: ‘It was one green hell to Jaure’. Another said that ‘combat later was almost a relief’.
Regiment, needing seven weeks of bitter, costly fighting to overcome the 2,500 Japanese defenders. Even getting to the place provided the infantry troops with almost insurmountable problems, entailing a flight from Port Moresby across the Owen Stanley Range to Wanigela, a voyage by coastal luggers up the coast to Oro Bay, and then an approach march through the jungle to Buna itself. Here men from Company L of the 128th Infantry of the 32nd Division cross one of the many watercourses on the route to Buna on November 15, 1942.
THE BATTLE FOR BUNA The battalion reached Jaure on October 28, though without its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Henry A. Geerds, who had had a heart attack. After the experience of the 2nd Battalion, the rest of the regiment went across the ranges by air and by November 9 had gathered at Pongani. Meanwhile, the 128th Infantry was flown into another rough field strip at Wanigela, then, having found the swampy terrain impassable by foot, moved up the coast to Oro Bay using eight 20-ton coastal luggers. This was a trying task in itself, particularly after the ships were mistaken for Japanese vessels and bombed by US aircraft. The Australian 2/6th Independent Company, which would support the Americans, managed to walk from Wanigela to Pongani through the foothills. When General Harding moved up to the front on November 16 his convoy of four vessels, visible to the Japanese troops at Cape Endaiadere, was attacked by 21 enemy aircraft and all the craft were sunk. The attack came late in the afternoon after the American fighters had returned to their Port Moresby bases. One of the Japanese pioneers wrote: ‘The enemy made a landing about ten to 12.5 miles from the Buna beach in the broad daylight, but lost five transports’. The attack killed 24 service troops and at least 28 native carriers who were
By Phillip Bradley aboard the boats while two artillery pieces plus other weapons, ammunition, food and medical supplies were lost. Harding made it to shore but the loss of the boats would seriously jeopardise his division’s operations. Meanwhile Imperial Headquarters in Japan sent a message to Rabaul stating: ‘It is essential for the execution of future operations that the Buna area be secured. Our strategic position in the seas will be fundamentally shaken if this area is lost.’ Colonel Hiroshi Yamamoto, the new commander of the 144th Infantry Regiment, was ordered to secure the Buna, Sanananda and Soputa (seven miles south of Sanananda) areas at all costs and reinforcements from Rabaul were immediately dispatched. The transport of the 1,500 troops led by Colonel Yamamoto was divided into two echelons. The five destroyers carrying the 1,000 men of the first echelon left Rabaul at 0800 hours on November 17 and reached Buna that night. The three destroyers with the 500 men of the second echelon boarded at Rabaul at midnight on the 17th, and arrived at the Buna anchorage at 1700 on the 18th. An Allied bomber attack by moonlight damaged two of the destroyers but the troops were all put ashore safely. 3
US OFFICIAL HISTORY
BOTTCHER’S CORNER
Buna Mission, the pre-war seat of government for the area (and hence also known as Buna Government Station), consisted of three houses and a few dozen native huts. Buna Village, a half mile to the north-west, was merely a cluster of huts. Stretching south-east along the shore from the Mission lay a government coconut plantation (Giropa Plantation) and a mile and a half further on, south of Cape Endaiadere, lay another cultivated area, the Duropa Plantation. In between lay the most-important objective of the Allied drive on Buna,
extending from the coast down to the southern side of Buna airfield. This landing field, which ran parallel to the coast between the swamps and the Simemi river, was known as Old Strip. A dummy airfield, New Strip, which ran towards the coast, was also cleared but it was never used for operations. The second approach to Buna was a much narrower one that followed the track up from Ango.
The Americans split their force, allocating the eastern approach towards Cape Endaiadere and Old Strip to Warren Force, commanded by Brigadier General Hanford MacNider and comprising the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 128th Infantry with the Australian 2/6th Independent Company attached. The western approach up the Ango track was allocated to Urbana Force, made up of the 2nd Battalion, 128th Infantry
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PHIL BRADLEY
The operations at Buna, as with all operations in New Guinea, were dictated by the terrain. The three key points of Buna village, the so-called Buna Mission and the Buna government station, were all located along the coastal strip. To the south and west of Buna were extensive swamps, which meant there were only two feasible land ap proaches. The first was from the east where there was a coastal land bridge
an old jungle airstrip, which the Japanese had enlarged and fitted out with dispersal bays. The Japanese had also built a dummy field in another grassy area across the Simemi Creek. To distinguish the two, the Allies called the original field ‘Old Strip’ and the dummy field ‘New Strip’. Having split its strength into two, the 32nd Division approached Buna along two jungle tracks, Urbana Force coming up from the southwest up the trail from Ango and Warren Force advancing from Simemi in the south-east.
Left: In the jungle warfare of New Guinea, the use of native carriers was vital to supplying the front lines. They were recruited by men from the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU). The recruiters had all spent time in the territory before the war and were familiar with the characteristics 4
and language of the native population. Local men were also recruited into the police force and native infantry units. These carriers were pictured on the Ango track two miles south of Buna Mission on December 25, 1942. Right: Looking down the same track 70 years on.
URBANA FRONT (NOVEMBER 26-DECEMBER 4) Meanwhile, Urbana Force was similarly unsuccessful attacking north along the Ango track towards Buna government station. With the advance of the 2nd Battalion, 128th Infantry, channelled along a narrow neck of land between Entrance Creek and the Girua river, the Americans were held at a point known as the Triangle. Colonel Smith’s men were up against formidable, though isolated, opposition. On November 27, feeling that the attack was not being pressed with sufficient vigour, General Harding sent his Chiefof-Staff, Colonel John W. Mott, to take over command from Smith, yet Urbana Force would remain pinned at the Triangle until late December. Lance Corporal Kondo, serving with the 500 fanatical marines of Captain Yoshitatsu Yasuda’s 5th Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Party, wrote on December 5: ‘Every day my comrades die one by one and our provisions disappear day by day’. Four days later he remarked: ‘This may be the place where I will meet my death. I will fight to the last.’
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(Lieutenant Colonel Herbert A. Smith) and the 2nd Battalion, 126th (Major Herbert M. Smith). Being the senior officer, Colonel Smith took command of the force (To avoid confusion in radio messages, General Harding designated Colonel Smith as ‘White Smith’ and Major Smith as ‘Red Smith’.) On November 16 the 32nd Division made its first contact with the Japanese defences at Buna. As Lieutenant Colonel Kelsie E. Miller, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 128th, noted, the Americans were ‘stopped cold’. All troops who fought in New Guinea, whether American, Australian or Japanese, had considerable difficulty adjusting to the incredibly trying conditions there, and Harding’s division had more trouble than most. Warren Force was at a standstill on the eastern (coastal) flank and Urbana Force was bogged down to the south of the Buna government station. The Americans had come up against intricate defensive systems incorporating strongly-built and well-camouflaged bunkers manned by well-trained, determined defenders. On Urbana front these defences covered the narrow approaches up the Ango track to Buna government station while on the Warren front a line of interlocking positions covered the cleared killing ground of New Strip and extended to the coast below Cape Endaiadere. Enemy snipers positioned in the trees of Duropa Plantation added another dimension to the defence. Major Harry Harcourt was in command of the Australian 2/6th Independent Company, which was deployed to cover the Americans’ inland flank at New Strip. The 47-year-old Harcourt had been decorated three times serving with the British Army in the First World War and twice more in Russia, making him the most-experienced front-line officer at Buna. On November 21, Harcourt’s men were to advance with the Americans, but Miller’s 3rd Battalion, 128th Infantry, was late reaching the start line and disrupted by US aircraft bombing. When the battalion finally advanced, the staunch Japanese defence stopped the men in their tracks, inflicting 42 casualties. Harcourt’s 60 men, led by Captain Rossall Belmer, cleared some enemy positions and advanced along the airstrip, but this only left the troops open to enfilading fire from their right, where Miller’s infantry had not progressed. Miller’s battalion was then moved to the coastal flank, where it attempted an attack towards Cape Endaiadere on November 26. That operation had no more success than the first and this time it cost 77 casualties. General MacNider was wounded on November 23 and Colonel Tracy J. Hale, commander of the 128th Infantry, succeeded him as chief of Warren Force.
In overall command of the Allied operations at Buna from November 30 onwards was American Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger, commander of the US I Corps, who until then had supervised his corps from his headquarters in Australia. This picture of Eichelberger with Colonel John E. Grose (left), the commander of Urbana Force, was taken at Buna on December 30. On November 26 the strength of the Japanese garrison at Buna numbered approximately 2,500 men. The main combat troops comprised the 700 reinforcements from the 144th Regiment under Colonel Hiroshi Yamamoto, another 700 from the 3rd Battalion of the Japanese 229th Infantry Regiment under Major Heishichi Kenmotsu and about 800 naval troops under Yasuda. These troops were augmented by companies from the 38th Mountain Artillery Regiment and the 47th Field Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. The Australian commander of New Guinea Force, Major-General Edmund Herring, sent his liaison officer, LieutenantColonel William Robertson, to meet with Harding on November 28. When Major Harcourt reported his concerns about the American troops, Harding admitted that he was out of touch with his forward troops. An astonished Robertson passed this on to Herring, who then told General Thomas Blamey, the commander of Allied ground forces. Meanwhile, General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander in the South-West Pacific Area, had also received a damning report from Brigadier General Stephen J. Chamberlin, his Chief of Operations, whose deputy, Colonel David Larr, had visited Buna from November 27 to 28. MacArthur expressed his ‘very serious disappointment with Harding’ to Blamey. On November 30 Harding was replaced as overall commander at Buna by Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger (Harding remained in command of the 32nd Division). ‘Bob’, MacArthur told Eichelberger, ‘I want you to take Buna or not come back alive.’ Further American attacks at Buna that same day got nowhere.
Eichelberger flew across to Dobodura on December 1 and, after meeting Harding, visited the front line the following day. The challenge in front of him stared back from the hollow eyes of his fever-ridden men. ‘Yet’, as he later wrote, ‘to evacuate all those with fever at Buna would have meant immediate victory for the enemy.’ He later told the American officers: ‘You don’t look like officers and you don’t look like gentlemen’, and said he would not address them until they looked like both. One then asked Harry Harcourt where the laundry unit was. Harcourt said his facility was 50 metres down the track. There the Americans found some of Harcourt’s men washing in a creek. On December 2, the Americans failed in another attack on New Strip. Harcourt’s men again had to advance with an open right flank, and Captain Belmer was killed near the bridge over Simemi Creek. Another American attack up the Ango track from the Triangle was also unsuccessful. Having personally witnessed this latest failure, Eichelberger relieved Harding as divisional commander and Colonels Mott and Hale as force commanders. Brigadier General Albert W. Waldron, until then Division Artillery Commander, replaced Harding but was wounded the following day. Two weeks later, Waldron’s replacement, Brigadier General Clovis E. Byers, was also wounded, forcing Eichelberger, as the only US general officer present, to take command of the 32nd Division forces at the front. Colonel Clarence A. Martin, Eichelberger’s G-3, replaced Hale as commander of Warren Force. Lieutenant Colonel Melvin McCreary, Waldron’s Executive Officer, led Urbana Force until December 4 when Colonel John E. Grose, Eichelberger’s inspector general, took over. 5
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WARREN FRONT (DECEMBER 5) Five Australian Bren-gun carriers operated by men from the 2/7th Battalion were towed up the coast on barges to provide support for the next attack at Buna. After an artillery barrage on the morning of December 5, the carriers moved out of cover into a clearing to confront the defenders from Captain Hitabe’s company, part of the recently arrived 3rd Battalion of the 229th Infantry Regiment. The five carriers moved at walking pace so the American infantrymen could follow, but the infantry hardly got past the start line. After advancing less than 50 yards on the right, Corporal Norm Lucas’s carrier bellied on a log but Sergeant Doug ‘Jock’ Taylor’s carrier kept going and got close enough to a bunker for the men to throw grenades in before backing off to let the Bren gun take aim. The Japanese retaliated with mortar fire. The first round landed just behind the carrier, but Taylor managed to get behind the enemy position and fire on its rear entrance. Taylor’s carrier then came under heavy fire from the left flank, but its thin armour held. However, Right: The attack on Warren Front of December 5 was carried out by two companies of the 126th Infantry, which struck west of New Strip aiming for the vital bridge over the Simemi Creek; the 1st Battalion of the 128th, which launched two companies over the eastern end of the airstrip, and the 3rd Battalion of the 128th which attacked through the Duropa Plantation. The Australian carriers supported the latter. 6
because the vehicles of Corporal Norm Lucas and Corporal Cec Wilton broke down soon after leaving the start line, these three carriers are probably (front to rear) those of Lieutenant Terry Fergusson, Sergeant Doug Taylor and Corporal James Orpwood. Fergusson’s carrier bellied on a fallen log, so it is likely that his is the one in the foreground. Taylor’s carrier advanced further and engaged an enemy position before backing into a depression so, though he started to the right of Fergusson, he may have ended up to his left. Orpwood’s carrier was on the left flank and when the crew evacuated they were covered by the rear Bren gunner, indicating that it may have turned around and been facing away from the Japanese lines when halted.
when Taylor stood up and tried to engage the enemy with a Bren, he was shot in the left arm. The driver, Private Angus Cameron, then backed the carrier into a depression to raise its front end for better protection, and covered Taylor as he made his way back. When the vehicle would not restart, Cameron went back for help under cover from Private Leslie Locke, the rear Bren gunner, who had also been hit by shrapnel.
In the centre, Lieutenant Terry Fergusson’s carrier had bellied on a coconut log and the crew were shot up. From Taylor’s carrier, Locke could see the enemy snipers standing on platforms up in the coconut-palm trees firing down into the carriers. Locke shot and killed the sniper who had got Fergusson. Despite his wound, Taylor left the carrier to help the mortally wounded Fergusson. Locke covered him until he was also hit, but before
US OFFICIAL HISTORY
On December 5, five Bren gun carriers from the Australian 2/7th Battalion were deployed in support of an attack towards Buna by Warren Force, the south-eastern prong of the 32nd Division. The attack, through the Duropa coconut plantation at Cape Endaiadere, ended in dismal failure, all five of the carriers being knocked out, either bellying on coconut logs or having grenades thrown into their open tops by the Japanese defenders or having their crews shot by snipers in the coconut palms. Signal Corps photographer Pfc Henry C. Manger pictured three of the disabled carriers on December 23. The view is looking north-west towards the Japanese lines. There is no record in the war diaries of which crew manned which carrier but,
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One of the disabled carriers being inspected by Privates George A. Manges (kneeling) and John Lafferty of the 32nd Division on December 23. Another picture by Pfc Manger.
PHIL BRADLEY
he collapsed he managed to tussle with and kill another Japanese soldier. Locke lay on the ground for three or four hours, feigning death and when darkness fell, crawled back to the American lines. On the left Corporal Cec Wilton’s carrier had bellied on a log a short distance from the start line. After the two Bren gunners were wounded by snipers firing from the treetops, the crew left the carrier and regained the American lines. Further forward, Corporal James Orpwood’s carrier had also been halted and the crew wounded. At about 1020 the unit second-in-command, Lieutenant Ian Walker, headed up to the carrier graveyard, moving across the clearing to the carriers on the left flank. After trying unsuccessfully to drive Orpwood’s carrier off the log, he moved to another abandoned carrier but was soon shot dead. Open at the top and only lightly armoured, the Bren gun carriers were easy victims for grenades and snipers. With the American infantrymen failing to advance, the bravery of the vehicles’ crews was not enough to save them. One of the defenders, First Lieutenant Jitsutaro Kamio, wrote: ‘They attacked with five tanks [sic] at their head . . . Everyone was surprised at first at the appearance of the tanks, but we repulsed them with hand-grenades and other things. Three tanks stalled about 4050 metres in front and it seems that they were about all killed.’ A naval signaller, Hiroshi Kuda, simply wrote that ‘all of these tanks were crushed’. Of the infantry action, Sergeant Yamada observed: ‘The enemy has received almost no training. Even though we fire a shot they present a large portion of their body and look around. Their movements are very slow.’ First Class Mechanic Satanao Kuba saw beyond the successes of the day and wrote: ‘When the sun sets in the west we look at each other and wonder that we lived till now.’
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Above: A closer view of Taylor and Orpwood’s carriers. The palm branches seen on top of the vehicles were probably put there by the crews before the attack to try to provide some degree of camouflage. The Japanese salvaged the guns and grenades from the carriers although there is no indication that they covered them with palms and used them as fire positions — they were knocked out too close to the Allied lines for that.
Right: Most of the coconut palms have disappeared since the war but this is the same location today. 7
PHIL BRADLEY
Right: Although the Japanese entrenched in Buna village were now cut off, they defended vigorously and by December 8 the 2nd Battalion, 126th Infantry, had launched 12 futile attacks on the position and were spent. The freshly arrived 3rd Battalion relieved them on December 11 and began probing the area immediately but the village would not finally fall until the morning of the 14th, the Japanese having sneaked away the night before. Here GIs of Urbana Force occupy a captured Japanese position near the settlement on December 15. 8
successors. Under such circumstances, my body will be buried in New Guinea and become fertiliser for the soil of Buna.’ He made his last diary entry on the following day. Though Bottcher’s men were relieved after seven days, the position remained a thorn in the Japanese side until the fall of Buna in early January. The wounded Bottcher was promoted in the field to captain. Captain John Milligan, who later met him, observed: ‘He was keen to go out and have a smack and was a fine soldier, but there were few like him.’ Like many of the finest, the highly-decorated Bottcher did not see the war’s end; he was killed in the Philippines on the last day of 1944. Meanwhile, ten miles west of Buna, the Japanese beach-head at Gona had fallen to the Australians on December 9 after three weeks of brutal fighting. Despite costly Allied attacks, the beach-head at Sanananda, between Gona and Buna, remained in Japanese hands.
PHIL BRADLEY
URBANA FRONT (DECEMBER 5-17) Another attack on the Urbana front was also unsuccessful, with one notable exception. Staff Sergeant Herman Bottcher, serving with the 2nd Battalion, 126th Infantry, was one of the few NCOs at Buna with battlefield experience. That had come fighting with the Republican Army in Spain, a stint that had denied him American citizenship. Of German birth but staunchly anti-fascist, he now fought for his adopted country as a German citizen. During the attack north up the Ango track on December 5, Bottcher took his 18-man platoon out on the far right flank, knocking out several bunkers, crossing a creek under enemy fire and, penetrating between the flank of the 14th Naval Pioneer Unit and an adjacent outpost, pushed through to the coast east of Buna village. Digging in on the coast, Bottcher’s men could command the beach either side of that point. With one machine gun, they proceeded to fire at Japanese moves along the beach on both flanks of their position, now named ‘Bottcher’s Corner’. Two Japanese landing craft off the coast were also fired on, setting one on fire. On the night of December 8/9, Captain Yasuda’s naval troops made another attempt to retake the position but this was also turned back. One of the attacking platoons had eight men killed including the commander, Lieutenant Kusonoki. Two light machine guns that were lost in that attack were recovered by Bottcher’s men and used to augment their own gun. On December 13 one of the survivors from Kusonoki’s platoon wrote: ‘We have lost our original company and platoon commanders and also their
Setting up a machine gun in a commanding position — soon known as Bottcher’s Corner — for the next seven days they decisively interdicted enemy movements along the beach and, despite being heavily out-gunned and out-numbered, staved off repeated Japanese counter-attacks. The picture of Bottcher was taken by war photographer George Strock of Life shortly after the action. Right: This is the site of Bottcher’s Corner as it looks today.
The memorial to Bottcher, erected by the American Legion in April 1992, stands at Giropa Point, about a mile further east along the coast. Meanwhile, on December 7, Colonel Clarence M. Tomlinson, commander of the 126th Infantry, had taken over command of Urbana Force from Colonel Grose at the latter’s request.
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Meanwhile, heavy fighting had taken place on the western side of the Buna front. On December 5, an 18-man platoon from Company G of the 2nd Battalion, 126th Infantry, under Staff Sergeant Herman Bottcher (left) pushed out on the far right flank of Urbana Force. They knocked out several enemy bunkers, crossed a creek under enemy fire and, penetrating the Japanese lines, pushed through to the coast east of Buna village (see the map on page 4).
position among the coconut palms. His No. 17 Platoon was supported by Corporal Evan Barnet’s Stuart tank, which advanced, horn blaring, through the knee-high kunai grass between the rows of untended coconut palms. MacIntosh directed Barnet against the first bunker position and after the 37mm gun had opened a gap the infantry moved in with grenades and cleared the position. On the left side, Sergeant Bob Thomas’s section came up against a bunker that MacIntosh had missed on his reconnaissance.
The enemy soldiers inside it were armed with Bren guns and grenades they had gathered from the knocked-out carriers. Though Thomas was spattered in the face with grenade fragments, he managed to shoot two defenders. Then, when another Japanese soldier poked a captured Bren gun through the embrasure, Thomas wrestled it away from him and used it to kill him as well. MacIntosh’s platoon reached Cape Endaiadere by 0750, having only lost one man killed and five wounded.
PHIL BRADLEY
WARREN FRONT (DECEMBER 6-22) Following the failure of the December 5 attacks at Buna, Eichelberger decided to wait for experienced Australian infantry and tanks before resuming major operations on Warren front. That infantry came in the shape of the Australian 18th Infantry Brigade (detached from the Australian 7th Division). Having served with distinction in the Middle East and then having defeated the Japanese landing at Milne Bay, Brigadier George Wootten’s brigade now faced the toughest of tasks. Wootten took over the command of Warren front on December 17 as the first of his battalions, Lieutenant-Colonel Clem Cummings’s 2/9th, reached Buna. Cummings’s battalion had left Milne Bay on three Australian corvettes on the 13th, arriving off Buna early the next morning. When an enemy plane circled and started dropping flares, the captains of the corvettes decided to pull back to Oro Bay and only Cummings and a single platoon managed to disembark. At midday on December 15, the rest of the battalion began the 18-mile trek back up to Buna. The heavily burdened infantrymen trudged along the beach, crossing creeks as they went, and arrived the next morning. Having had his American infantry get nowhere in four weeks, MacArthur now wanted the Australians to take Buna immediately so the battalion was ordered to attack the next morning. However, the Regimental Medical Officer had other ideas and he demanded a day’s rest for the weary men; which was granted. Eight M3 Stuart tanks from the Australian 2/6th Armoured Regiment (LieutenantColonel Charles Hodgson) were to support the Australian attack. They had been unloaded at Oro Bay, towed on barges to Hariko, and then driven up the coast by night, making the final move to the start line with one track in the ocean to fool any enemy observers. The Stuart was a light tank and, though not ideal in the role of infantry support, it was a marked improvement over the carriers, being fully armoured and possessing a 37mm main gun. On the morning of December 18, after limited artillery support, a platoon of Australian Vickers machine guns opened fire, spraying the tops of the palm trees for snipers while mortars searched for the bunkers down below, the noise masking the sound of the tank engines starting up. At 0700 hours, a section of tanks moved forward, with the Vickers guns firing between and above them to discourage any enemy anti-tank squads. When the infantry of the 2/9th Battalion came through a few minutes behind the tanks the Vickers guns ceased firing but as the infantry moved on, ‘all hell broke loose as the Japs opened up with everything they had’. Captain Roger Griffin’s D Company went in on the right, the start line marked by an abandoned Bren carrier from the December 5 attack. Lieutenant Bill MacIntosh had crawled forward on the previous evening and spotted a Japanese machine-gun position at Cape Endaiadere. Further inland, he had identified the prominent mound of another
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Right: Meanwhile, faced with repeated failure, Warren Force on the eastern front had been reinforced by the Australian 18th Infantry Brigade. The introduction of the crack Australian infantry — veterans of the battle of Tobruk in the North African desert war — made all the difference. On December 18, the 2/9th Battalion launched another attack on Duropa Plantation, supported by eight Stuart tanks from C Squadron of the 2/6th Armoured Regiment, which had been laboriously brought to this front by ship, barge and then overland. Here Australian infantrymen advance behind one of the tanks. The picture was taken by Australian official war photographer George Silk.
Having passed through the American lines during the short preliminary artillery barrage, the Australian infantry and tanks jumped off at 0700 hours. Though costly, their attack once and for all smashed the Japanese defences in the plantation. In the days following, the 2/9th Battalion, with the 3rd Battalion of the 128th Infantry on their left, cleared the entire area north of the Simemi Creek. 9
Lieutenant Tom Sivyer’s No. 18 Platoon was on the inland side of MacIntosh, supported by Lieutenant Vic McCrohon’s tank. The platoon immediately ran into heavy fire spitting from the concrete bunker MacIntosh had spotted the previous evening. Sivyer and platoon member Private Frank Rolleston were moving past one of the Bren carriers when an enemy machine gun killed Sivyer. From a covered foxhole, a defender then threw two grenades at Rolleston, who hugged the ground; he was unharmed. When he next looked up, he saw Lance Corporal Charlie Alder standing over the Japanese position with his Tommy gun blazing. Alder then turned his attention to a bunker. After firing into the door, he threw in a grenade Right: This very same turret is now on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Three of the disabled Stuart tanks were recovered from the Buna battlefield in 1973, being removed by engineers from the Papua New Guinea Defence Force utilising the heavy Australian Army landing craft LCH Balikpapan. On recovery, the hull of Curtiss’s tank was considered too corroded for display so only the turret remains. The yellow colour of the circle indicates that the 2/6th Regiment was the second regiment of the 1st Armoured Brigade (the 2/5th Regiment had its tactical signs in red and the 2/7th in blue). 10
but it was thrown back before it exploded. Two or three defenders rushed out of the bunker, only to fall to Alder’s Thompson and Rolleston’s Bren.
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Three of the eight Stuarts were knocked out or bogged down during the December 18 attack. This is Lieutenant Grant Curtiss’s tank, which got stuck on a stump and then, after the crew abandoned it, was set on fire by the Japanese. The tactical markings indicate that it was from No. 10 Troop in C Squadron. Tanks from A Squadron had the troop number (Troops 1 to 4) in a triangle, B Squadron (Troops 5 to 8) in a square and C Squadron (Troops 9 to 12) in a circle. The picture by Pfc Manger shows Captain Emil Khail, Operations Officer of the 128th Infantry, looking inside the turret of the burned-out tank after the end of the battle.
Sergeant Dave Prentice took over from Sivyer before being wounded in the head. Alder bandaged him before dashing across to check why the Bren had stopped firing. Alder found the two Bren gunners had been killed, and a split second later so was the selfless Alder, probably hit by the same sniper. Only nine men remained of the 30 from Sivyer’s platoon who had crossed the start line. When Sergeant Harold Armitage went forward to take over the platoon, he was also killed. The platoon remained pinned down some 25 yards from the enemy post. It was originally manned by 12 men with two light machine guns and a sniper’s rifle. By the time it was taken, the following morning, only two defenders remained. Trooper Norman ‘Ted’ Nye was the driver of Sergeant Jack Lattimore’s tank, the third in McCrohon’s troop. He later said: ‘They tried to get around the point and we gave them hell. The 37mm gunner plastered them, and the hull gunner just picked them off.’ Then the tank was called back to help Sivyer’s struggling platoon further inland. As it lumbered through heavy scrub, the infantry lost touch and an enemy defender placed a magnetic mine on the back of the Stuart. The blast took the arm off the assailant but also blew out the tank’s battery, putting the radio out of action. The tank then bellied on a log and the crew had to fight off more attackers by firing through the pistol ports until Corporal Barnet’s tank arrived to give covering fire, allowing Lattimore and his crew to escape. The role of the tanks was crucial. After the infantry indicated an enemy position, the tank would get to within five yards of it and blast a hole in the bunker with 37mm rounds from the main gun. An infantryman would then move up with grenades while the Stuart’s machine gun took care of any defenders who tried to flee. The hull gunner would also fire his machine gun at the tops of the palms, probing for enemy snipers. Captain Bob Taylor’s A Company attacked on the left flank of D Company but lost its three supporting tanks early. Lieutenant Grant Curtiss’s Stuart was the first casualty: it ran up onto a stump hidden in the kunai grass and got stuck. The Japanese defenders lit a fire beneath it, but the crew got out under covering fire from the infantry. Sergeant John Church tried to recover the bellied tank with his own, but once the flames took hold, Curtiss’s tank burned out in a huge blaze with many explosions. A Japanese diary entry that day simply noted ‘one tank was burned up’.
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Sergeant Jack Lattimore’s tank was knocked out on December 18 by a Japanese Type 99 magnetic mine placed on the rear left of the hull. One of the trio of tank wrecks recovered in 1973, it is now kept at the war museum in Port Moresby. The hole from the mine explosion is clearly visible. Three companies from the 3rd Battalion of the 229th Infantry Regiment had faced the Australians in a line from the coast to the Simemi Bridge at the southern end of New Strip, with a fourth company in reserve. The battalion was at about two-thirds strength at the time of the attack: some 400 men, many of whom had now fought to the death. The attack had badly shaken the Japanese defenders at Buna. At the naval anti-aircraft headquarters on Old Strip the war diary noted: ‘This morning there was a violent
ground engagement at the front-line salient . . . the army unit in the salient was smashed by tanks and is on the verge of annihilation . . . Incessant shelling in all sectors.’ Nerves were strained that night on the perimeter. When Brigadier Wootten arrived at 2/9th Battalion headquarters, Major Bill Parry-Okeden, the battalion second-in-command, wryly observed: ‘I thought the heads must be pleased but what about all those fine chaps lying stiff on the battlefield . . . He [Wootten] turned to me with a cheerful smile
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Captain Cecil Parbury’s C Company moved up on the left flank of Taylor’s company to complete the line through to the Americans. Parbury had taken over command only the previous day from Captain Alec Marshall, who had been evacuated with scrub typhus. Parbury put Lieutenant Frank Pinwill’s No. 13 Platoon and Lieutenant Roy De Vantier’s No. 14 Platoon up front, with Warrant Officer Jim Jesse’s No. 15 Platoon behind them. But with no tank support, the company suffered grievously: within ten minutes it had lost 46 men, over half its total strength of 87. De Vantier and all his NCOs but one were killed as the company advanced barely 100 yards, only half-way to the enemy’s front-line positions. Despite coming under constant fire since the first American attacks, the Japanese defenders had hoarded their ammunition. ‘We are waiting for one good shot and will not fire’, Lieutenant Suganuma wrote five days earlier. On this day his men had ample good targets. Parbury ordered the rest of his men to ground, where they sheltered among the logs from the felled coconut palms in the three-foothigh kunai grass. There were 16 bunkers in Parbury’s area, six to the immediate front and the others further back. At 1300 hours, Jim Jesse’s reserve platoon and three tanks under Lieutenant Curtiss were finally sent in to help Parbury’s shattered platoons. Just before the Stuarts attacked, three Japanese soldiers targeted the right-hand one with Molotov cocktails, but they were beaten off. In Captain Norman Whitehead’s tank, both he and the gunner, Trooper Gordon Bray, had been wounded when an enemy soldier climbed up and fired through the slit. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hodgson, the battalion CO, then took over the tank. With the vision slit damaged, instead Hodgson had to stick his head out of the turret to direct the driver. The replacement gunner, Trooper Bob Taylor, put three shots into the first bunker and then handed four grenades up to Hodgson to throw into the blasted opening. He also shot two defenders with his pistol. Under constant sniper fire, Hodgson was finally hit in the head and he fell down inside the tank. Nevertheless, the tanks had made the difference, destroying 11 bunkers and emptying another five. The defenders had been told to hold their positions to the last man and they had and over 80 Japanese bodies were counted in the area, not including those inside the bunkers. On the left, Parbury’s C Company had taken the heaviest losses. Cummings now ordered Captain Arthur Benson, whose B Company remained in reserve at battalion headquarters, to take his men forward on the left flank, where the resistance had been greatest. Though the forward troops had already moved through the area ahead of Benson’s company, it was by no means cleared. Many of the Japanese dugouts were only for shelter, so after taking cover from the supporting fire the enemy soldiers came out and occupied the adjacent trenches and weapon pits. Private Grahame ‘Snow’ Hynard recalled: ‘We had orders not to help anyone, to keep going. The Japanese positions had creepers and vines growing over them and could not be seen until you were on top of them.’ The company, he said, ‘ran right into hell itself’. Corporal Tom Clarke took command at the front, climbing up onto the tanks to tell their crews what was required, then following behind to grenade the targeted bunkers. Refusing cover, the inspirational Clarke was twice wounded on that first day. With one tank and 11 men, he destroyed 12 bunkers. ‘I have never seen a man with more guts’, said one of his men. Benson’s company took about eight hours to reach the forward positions, but only 20 of the 96 men who started out made it: all three platoon commanders were killed.
A bogged Stuart from No. 5 Troop, B Squadron, being pulled out by another Stuart, Cabby from No. 12 Troop in C Squadron, at Duropa Plantation. This particular tank was not knocked out on December 18 but in the subsequent fighting on the following two days, the picture being taken by Signal Corps photographer Pinto on the 21st. All 52 tanks in the 2/6th Armoured Regiment had been named after race horses selected from the Australian Stud Book. This had been supplied by the commander of A Squadron, Major Frank Thompson, who was from the Widden stud farm near Denman, close to Singleton Camp in New South Wales where the regiment had trained. Tanks in A Squadron all had names starting with an A, those in B Squadron with a B and those in C Squadron with a C — hence Cabby. 11
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The Japanese defences on the Warren Front consisted of lines of interlocking and well-camouflaged bunkers, which covered a cleared killing ground of New Strip and extending to the coast below Cape Endaiadere. The tanks played a crucial role, being able to get in close to the bunkers and fire directly into them. This is one of the bunkers in Duropa Plantation, pictured after the battle. Sand-filled 200-litre drums were used as supports, and coconut logs were interlaced at the sides and on top of the bunkers. There were usually two layers of logs on top, separated by a layer of earth and covered with more earth on which vegetation could grow, forming perfect camouflage. The firing slits were only narrow openings, almost invisible from outside.
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and asked if I had any worries. What about the dead bill.’ On this day, the 2/9th Battalion had had five officers and 49 men killed, and another six officers and 111 men wounded. Having taken Cape Endaiadere, the battalion pushed westward, aiming to clear all enemy positions north of Simemi Creek up to the creek mouth. On December 20, Parbury’s company advanced through kunai grass that was above the men’s heads, following the tanks as they moved parallel to the coast. The kunai was like a thick blanket, trapping the Australians in steamy, airless heat. Parbury said it was ‘so hot that men were collapsing’. When Lieutenant Francis Pinwill’s platoon stumbled on a Japanese position, three men, including Pinwill, were killed. Devastating mortar fire followed and another 19 were wounded, including Parbury. On December 21 and 22, the attacks continued. Colonel Cummings phoned through to the forward companies to say: ‘We’ll take Simemi Point if Parry-Okeden and I have to go in with a bayonet ourselves’. There were two tanks available, but in the swampy terrain they had trouble getting anywhere, just ‘pushing a wave of slimy mud in front of them’. The need for constant changes of direction as the tanks tried to find a way forward meant that here they were of little help to the infantry. All the men were riflemen now, spread out in an extended line from the beach to Simemi Creek, advancing on Simemi Point.
Captain Khail examines the entrance to one of the bunkers.
The interior of the Japanese command bunker near New Strip.
Right: Although not constructed of materials that one would expect to last for many years in the tropical climate of New Guinea, the site of one former Japanese bunker can still be recognised by a raised mound among the kunai grass and coconut palms behind Cape Endaiadere. 12
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Having lost all his platoon commanders, Captain Griffin of C Company led the attack on the final enemy position east of the creek. Major Parry-Okeden had watched Griffin go forward that morning: ‘I will never forget the look poor old Griffin gave me. Somehow I think he knew that he was going to get it.’ Griffin died at the head of his men as he rushed forward to cut off the Japanese withdrawal. Inspired, his men reached the point late in the afternoon, completing the task the battalion had been set. There were more casualties in the days that followed. Cummings was among them, wounded when his headquarters was shelled on December 24. However, his men had done their job, closing up to the mouth of Simemi Creek.
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Above: Advancing on the right flank of the 2/9th Battalion, D Company cleared the beach leading to Cape Endaiadere and the cape itself, ending the day holding a line just west of it. George Silk photographed the beach at 1100 hours that morning. Note the tank tracks in the sand. Right: Signal Corps photographer Pinto pictured GIs of the 32nd Division on the same beach on December 21.
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URBANA FRONT (DECEMBER 18-28) On the Urbana front the Americans had pushed out to the west of Entrance Creek to reach the coast and secure Buna village by December 18. However, east of Entrance Creek the Japanese still held the Triangle, the government gardens and Buna Mission. On December 18, Captain Roy F. Wentland’s Company L from the recently arrived 3rd Battalion, 127th Infantry, got across the tidal channel to Musita Island but ran into heavy enemy fire on the approaches to the bridge across to Buna Mission. After Wentland and four other men were killed and another six men wounded, the company pulled back to the mainland. The Americans also attacked at the Triangle that day. The US Official History describes the Triangle as a ‘narrow, junglecovered tongue of land set in the midst of a swamp’, a perfect defensive position. After an attack by two companies on December 17 had failed, it was decided to attack east across Entrance Creek from the Coconut Grove on the 19th. Two companies from the 2nd Battalion, 126th Infantry, would make the assault with another holding a blocking position to the south. Support from 17 heavy mortars would be provided while USAAF A-20 Havocs and B-25 Mitchells would bomb the Buna Mission area beforehand to hinder any enemy response. However, when the ground attack went in Japanese cross-fire stopped it cold. The 2nd Battalion commander, Captain William F. Boice, vainly tried to get the attack moving again before he was Right: Phillip Bradley’s shot looking west towards Cape Endaiadere today. 13
Right: The Japanese defences at Buna included ten Type 88 75mm anti-aircraft guns, manned by personnel of the 47th Field Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. These guns could also be used against ground targets and were deployed with deadly effect against the American and Australian attackers. Three of the 75mm guns were sited in the grassy area known as the Government Gardens. They were finally captured by the 127th Infantry on December 30 during their final push through to the coast. On January 14, Australian Department of Information war photographer Cliff Bottomley pictured General Eichelberger and General Thomas Blamey inspecting one of the guns.
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mortally wounded. General Eichelberger then got involved and ordered the attack resumed under a smoke barrage which also failed. Another attack supported by a 700round mortar barrage did no better. On December 20 Captain James L. Alford’s Company E from the 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry, resumed the attack. This time heavier support in the form of a 25-pounder battery and a 105mm howitzer was used. Smoke was also deployed to mask the attack across the
creek but the premature firing of a supporting machine gun confused the inexperienced attackers and when they went in they were unable to get close to the enemy bunkers. A follow-up bayonet charge by a reinforced platoon reached the bunkers but the crafty Japanese defenders had withdrawn and the platoon was cut to pieces by enfilade fire. Alford’s company had lost over 40 per cent of its strength during its first engagement. That evening an exhausted Colonel Tomlinson asked General Eichelberger to be relieved of his command of Urbana Force. Colonel Grose, by now leading the 127th Infantry, again took over the command position he had already held for three days a fortnight before. A frustrated Eichelberger finally concluded that the Triangle had to be outflanked from across Entrance Creek further north. On December 21 two companies from the 3rd Battalion, 127th Infantry, made this latest assault. Engineers built a makeshift bridge in Company I’s sector but the tidal creek was too swift in Company K’s sector. Here the creek was some 50 yards wide and six to ten feet deep. The company commander, Captain Alfred E. Meyer, thought any attempt to ford the creek was suicidal and wanted to use the bridge in the Company I sector. A number of attempts were made, but without any success. First Lieutenant Edward M. Greene, Jr. made the bravest attempt when he tried to swim across with a 14
Australians, Papua New Guineans and their Allies in the battles for Buna, Gona and Sanananda in 1942-43. Popondetta is the capital of the province of Oro, located near the northern end of the Kokoda Trail and about 14 miles inland from Buna.
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Left: The remains of a Japanese anti-aircraft gun site at the Government Gardens. Right: A 75mm gun from this site is now displayed at Popondetta Memorial Park, the central site in Papua New Guinea commemorating the service and sacrifice by
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Left: South-west of the Government Gardens, where the main jungle track to Buna from the south forks left to Buna Village and right to Buna Mission, lay a piece of land known to the American troops as the Triangle. For over a month, the Japanese troops entrenched here blocked any further advance by Urbana Force. It was only after the attack on Christmas Day created a corridor from the small American bridgehead that
make MacArthur’s day, sent a message that Buna Mission had fallen. Next thing General Eichelberger knew, he was receiving congratulations from MacArthur! However, the diversionary move across from Musita Island forced Captain Yasuda into diverting troops to the mission from the crucial government gardens area. The left platoon of Captain Fahres’s company, ably led by 2nd Lieutenants Fred W. Matz and Charles A. Middendorf, noticed the resistance ease and pushed through to Giropa Plantation. Two bunkers blocked further progress but, covered by the rest of the platoon, Sergeant Kenneth E. Gruennert crawled up to one of them and tossed grenades through the firing slits. Hit in the shoulder, he bandaged it up and moved on to the second bunker and also cleared it with grenades. Finally shot by an enemy sniper, Gruennert did not live to receive the Medal of Honor he was awarded for his bravery. The platoon pushed on but, out of touch with the company, was unfortunately shelled by Allied artillery which killed Lieutenant Middendorf. Six of the last eight men were ordered to withdraw while Lieutenant Matz,
who was himself wounded, remained with a more seriously wounded man. Matz remained hidden with the man for eight more days until US troops finally captured the area. Though downcast by the failure of the attack, Eichelberger ordered Grose to make another attempt on Christmas Day. Again Grose made a diversionary show against Buna Mission from Musita Island. While a thunderous barrage hit the mission, two companies attacked the government gardens and Captain Byron Bradford’s Company F reached Giropa Plantation. It was soon surrounded and had to fight off a determined Japanese counter-attack. Later in the afternoon a detachment under Captain Horace N. Harger broke through to Bradford but most of his Company A did not make it, the weapons platoon being ambushed and destroyed. Another attack on the Triangle that same afternoon led by Captain James W. Workman also failed and Workman was killed. Over the following days Grose kept pushing his men towards the coast and on December 28 the Japanese defenders finally had to give up their longheld positions at the Triangle.
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rope and was killed. However, his men kept on and got the rope across. By daylight on December 22, 75 men had made it over but casualties had been crippling; six men were killed or drowned during the crossing and another 40 had been wounded in the bridgehead. Meanwhile Captain Michael F. Ustruck’s Company I crossed the footbridge and deployed on the right of Company K without losing a man. Using the newly acquired bridgehead, Eichelberger ordered Colonel Grose to attack east into the government gardens. Grose planned to use five companies from the 127th Regiment for the operation which would again be supported by artillery and mortars. Other troops on Musita Island and at Buna village would fire on Buna Mission to divert enemy attention. At 0600 on December 24 the supporting barrage came down and, as it rolled forward, the infantry moved off on a 400-yard front. However, the two lead companies, one of which was Captain Ustruck’s, ran into well-hidden enemy positions. When a Japanese grenade landed next to Ustruck, 1st Sergeant Elmer J. Burr reacted quickly and with extraordinary bravery he threw himself onto the grenade and smothered the explosion. His selfless act resulted in the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor. Ustruck’s Company I had suffered heavily and was replaced by Captain William H. Dames’s Company G which managed to clear out a three-bunker strong point before also being held up. Meanwhile on the left, 1st Lieutenant Marcelles P. Fahres’s Company L, well supported by heavy weapons, made no forward progress. Lieutenant Colonel McCreary, now in command of the divisional artillery, who had climbed a coconut palm to personally direct the 81mm mortar fire, was wounded in the back but strapped himself to the tree and continued his work until he collapsed from blood loss. Colonel Horace Harding, Eichelberger’s artillery officer who was at the front inspecting the artillery, immediately took over the perilous role at the observation post from McCreary. The presence of so many senior officers in the front lines had other consequences. When Brigadier General Spencer B. Akin, General MacArthur’s signal officer, went across to Musita Island for a quick look that morning he saw American troops in Buna Mission. A platoon of 20 men had indeed crossed the rickety bridge from the island but were soon forced back, losing eight men killed. A misled Akin, no doubt delighted to
had been established across the Entrance Creek a little to the north across the Government Gardens to the sea west of Buna, that the Japanese at the Triangle, now threatened to be cut off, decided to abandon the position. These troops from Company G, 127th Infantry, were pictured at Triangle Point on December 28. Right: Phillip Bradley visited the Triangle and took this comparison at the same location.
General Eichelberger and members of his staff inspecting Japanese fortifications at the Triangle on December 28. 15
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Meanwhile, on Warren Front, a new attack was being planned that would hopefully bring about the fall of Buna. Launched on December 24, further inland and south of the Simemi Creek, it deployed another unit from the Australian 18th Brigade, the 2/10th Battalion, in an assault along the length of Old Strip. Again, the attack was to be supported by Stuart tanks from the 2/6th Armoured Regiment, this time three tanks from B Squadron and one from C Squadron. The 1st Battalions of the 126th and 128th Infantry were to advance on the Australians’ left flank.
struck on the turret, killing the gunner and wounding Barnet (who would later lose his arm). Sergeant Lattimore’s tank moved forward at 1030, with Sergeant Church’s 15 minutes behind. The infantry had fired two Very flares to indicate the enemy gun position, and the tanks moved in that direction. But as Lattimore’s tank made a turn to the right it became the next target. ‘It’s impossible to describe just how the impact was’, Lattimore later said. ‘Everything just stopped.’ When Lattimore looked down, there was a gaping hole in the hull gunner’s position, and Trooper Frank Forster was dead, smashed back over his seat. Trooper Ted Nye clambered out of his driver’s seat and out through the gaping hole the shell had made. Lattimore’s frozen watch recorded the impact time: 1127. Though both Lattimore’s legs had been badly smashed, he somehow managed to lift the mortally wounded turret gunner, Corporal Reg Leggatt, off the gun, and, with the help of Nye and the injured wireless operator, Trooper Frank Jeavons, push him out through the hole in the hull. Lattimore then dragged himself over Forster’s broken body and got out the same way. By this time the tank was burning, fed by leaking fuel. ‘The ammunition was starting to go up in the guns, in the boxes’, Lattimore observed. ‘It was really merry hell.’ After he exited the tank, Ted Nye headed towards Church to warn him of the danger, but just as he got close Church’s tank was hit: all four tanks had been knocked out by a pair of Japanese 3-inch naval guns concealed under light scrub at the western end of the airstrip. They had an excellent line of sight across the open ground and at such short
Right: The area of the attack photographed by an Allied reconnaissance aircraft. The bridge across the Simemi Creek can be seen at the bottom and the mouth of the creek is visible below Giropa Point. Note the line of bomb craters covering the airstrip. 16
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WARREN FRONT (DECEMBER 23-JANUARY 2) On Warren front, the second stage of the Australian 18th Brigade’s offensive against Buna was to take place on the inland flank of the 2/9th Battalion, south of Simemi Creek. Lieutenant-Colonel James Dobbs’s 2/10th Battalion, having arrived from Milne Bay, would attack along the old Buna airstrip. Patrols had already moved along Simemi Creek, and on December 23 Captain Austen Ifould’s B Company had captured the bridge, a goal that had eluded the American infantry for over a month. The 2/10th then consolidated at the eastern end of the kunai-covered airstrip while the American engineers repaired the bridge. The Japanese defenders here were some of Captain Yasuda’s crack naval troops. Seaman Masaji Konagaya wrote: ‘Although we only had a handful of men, we defended our positions with desperate efforts’. On the next day, December 24, Brigadier Wootten decided to send four of the Australian Stuart tanks across the bridge to support the attack along the airstrip. Japanese guns were known to be in the area, but they had been silent for some days, and it was hoped that they had been destroyed by air attacks. At 0935, after a short barrage, Lieutenant McCrohon’s and Corporal Barnet’s tanks crossed the bridge and headed up the strip. They advanced some 250 yards in short order, and McCrohon began engaging machine-gun posts. Then, at about 1000, McCrohon saw a flash off to his left front and his tank was hit down low on the body. The wireless was dislodged and the tank slewed into a flooded bomb crater, where it remained bogged. Barnet’s tank was then
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range the light tanks were easy targets. The canny Japanese gunners kept their dual-purpose guns silent to deceive the Australians until the last moment. With the tanks gone, the infantry took a hammering from the enemy machine-gun positions, and the advance stalled. Particularly deadly was a triple-barrelled quick-firing 25mm anti-aircraft gun that had been sited to fire along the airstrip. With three 15round magazines, it could fire five rounds a second per barrel and be depressed ten degrees below the horizontal, which made it a murderous weapon against infantry. Major James Trevivian’s D Company was on the right flank, hard up against Simemi Creek, with Ifould’s B Company in the centre and the Americans on the left. Ifould, leading from the front, was immediately picked out by an enemy sniper and shot dead as his company left the start line. On the right, however, under cover of the vegetation along the creek, Trevivian’s men kept moving forward. The Japanese intelligence report on the action stated: ‘Fierce artillery fire since morning. About 100 enemy troops accompanied by three tanks attacked the aerodrome, but due to the fierce fighting of our AA guns, two tanks were knocked out and the rest of the enemy checked.’ Next day, Christmas Day, Trevivian’s company advanced about 300 yards in the early morning but got stuck for the rest of the day; some of the wounded were still lying out there after midnight. On December 26, Trevivian gathered up the remnants of the other companies and managed to press on under artillery and 2-inch mortar support. Meanwhile, at the instigation of Colonel Martin, the Warren Force commander, 2nd Lieutenant George J. Hess had led a patrol of 15 men from the 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry, through the swampland south of Old Strip on December 25. At times waistdeep in mud, the men moved around the Japanese right flank and established a position on firm ground in the rear of the Japanese positions. Hess was reinforced late in the day by 1st Lieutenant Donald A. Foss’s Company C accompanied by Colonel Martin who ordered an attack for the following morning, December 26. The Americans were joined by Captain Hugh Matheson’s C Company from the Australian 2/10th Battalion, which had also
Early on the morning of December 24, the four tanks crossed the creek and joined up with the Australian infantry at the eastern end of the airstrip. Silk took this shot of 2/10th troops crouching in the kunai grass behind Corporal Evan Barnett’s tank Bacchus from No. 5 Troop. It was later hit by the Japanese 3-inch guns.
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Left: Men of the 3rd Platoon of Company C of the 114th Engineer Battalion working to repair the bridge across the Simemi Creek at the eastern end of Old Strip, pictured by George Silk. Once repaired, the bridge would allow the Stuart tanks to cross the stream in order to support the renewed Australian attack. Above: The bridge site today, looking west towards the end of Old Strip.
Right: The jump-off area as it looks today pictured by Phil Bradley. 17
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The three naval guns at the western end of the airstrip were finally captured by the 1st Battalion of the 126th Infantry on December 25. A Signal Corps photographer pictured Sergeant Henry H. Zutler from the 126th sitting behind one of them.
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moved along the left side of the airstrip, and by late afternoon the men had captured key positions and linked up with other troops to the right. The fire from the 3-inch guns was murderous. When one gun fired blank rounds to set the kunai grass on fire around the attacking Australians, Matheson’s men responded with Molotov cocktails, trying to burn the defenders out. To make any progress, the men had to get in close with grenades under cover of supporting fire directed into the narrow openings in the Japanese bunkers. Little progress was made that day but heavier support was to hand. Two of the 3-inch guns were captured, one by Matheson’s men and one by the Americans. Both guns were overgrown with kunai grass to camouflage them, but both were now out of ammunition. To counter the Japanese guns and help destroy the bunkers, a 25-pounder gun from the Australian 2/5th Field Regiment under the command of Sergeant Rod Carson was brought up close to the front that night. By morning, the gun had been set up in an abandoned Japanese bunker on New Strip with a camouflage net draped across it. Artillery observers in a tall banyan tree on the southern side of the Old Strip directed its fire against targets at the western end of the airstrip. By using fuses with a slightly delayed action, the Australians were able to penetrate the bunkers and explode the shells inside them to devastating effect. With friendly infantry between the gun and its targets, and the trajectory so flat, the ranging had to be meticulously accurate. Even so, the shells were barely clearing the top of the aircraft bays behind which the infantry sheltered. The first shot fired went through an embrasure just a foot square, disabling a 75mm gun. Over the next six days, Carson’s crew systematically flattened every bunker in the target area. The centrepiece of the bunker system protected the enemy’s triplebarrelled 25mm anti-aircraft gun. When Carson’s gunners first opened fire, it fired back, one round hitting Carson’s emplacement only a yard from the gun shield. The Australians then found the range and silenced the gun, which was later found with one barrel blown off. At 2000 hours on December 27, after the Japanese recaptured one of the positions on the right of the airstrip, Lieutenant Murray
Lattimore’s tank, clearly showing the damage caused by the Japanese gun, now resides in the United States, in the National Museum of the Pacific War (also known as the Nimitz Museum) in Fredericksburg, Texas. The original museum building is located in the hotel formerly owned by family of Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Allied C-in-C Pacific Ocean Areas from 1941 to 1945.
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During the attack, Sergeant Lattimore of No. 5 Troop, B Squadron, had his second tank shot out from under him, his mount this time being knocked out by one of the three Japanese 3-inch naval guns that stood at the western end of the airfield. The relics of the battle remained in situ for several years after the war; this is how the wrecked tank looked in 1952.
Left: One of the guns is still in its original position. Above: Another was relocated to the Nimitz Museum. Its Japanese designation was the 8cm/40 Type 10 but it was actually of 76.2mm (3-inch) calibre.
Brown led a night counter-attack to get it back. ‘Fix bayonets’, he told his men. ‘We’re going into them, boys.’ The men closed up to within ten yards of the position before Brown put up some Very flares. ‘There they are! Into them!’, he cried. More fighting, more flares — and then Brown was hit. When the Japanese counter-attacked again that night, aiming to retake Brown’s position, Trevivian’s men fired 2-inch mortar flares, which lit the place like day. The Americans on the left flank knew that a flare was the signal to fire, and they obliged, with great success: about 40 Japanese soldiers were killed within 20 yards of the Australian positions. At the end of the fighting, only four men from Trevivian’s original D Company were unscathed.
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Right: During the Christmas Day attack, as he moved up along the track from Simemi village to Buna, George Silk took what was to become one of the most iconic pictures to have been taken during the Pacific war: that of the ‘blinded digger’. As Silk later recollected: ‘Suddenly on the track ahead of me I see these two figures coming toward me. There’s just them and me, and I stood over to one side with my Rolleiflex focused at ten feet. I used the open viewfinder, so that I could see everything. As they came within range, I pressed the shutter. As they went on by, neither of them even looked at me. Well, the soldier obviously couldn’t look at me, but the native leading him didn’t either. I didn’t chase after them to take another couple of pictures. That is how I work. I would never consider forcing myself on the people that are in such a situation. If I did not get the picture, then I’ve been stupid.’ The two men in the photo were later identified as Private George Whittington — who was wounded during the 2/10th Battalion attack on Old Strip — and ‘fuzzy wuzzy angel’ Raphael Oimbari. He was the oldest member of a party of five native carriers from nearby Hanau village who brought back Whittington and another soldier on a stretcher from Buna. The other four had gone on ahead with the stretcher, leaving Oimbari to aid Whittington. Although the latter recovered from his wounds, unfortunately he died of scrub typhus on February 12, 1943. Initially the image was suppressed by the Australian Department of Information but William Chickering, a war correspondent for Time magazine, to whom Silk had shown his Buna photos while recovering from malaria and dengue fever in a hospital in Sydney, knew a way around the censors and sent them across to the United States. So the iconic image first appeared in print in America, published by Life magazine on March 8, 1943. Since then it has been used as the basis for many plaques and sculptures, including that on the grave of Oimbari who died in 1996. Our assessment of the overall situation is that we will be able to hold the garrison until tomorrow morning. On reflection in over 40 days of battle, all the men, whether navy personnel or labourers have given all that could be asked of them. We pray for the prosperity of our imperial land far away and for lasting success in battle for all.’ After the message was sent, Yasuda had the telegraph machine and code-books destroyed.
Exploring the Buna battlefield for his research, and acutely aware of the photo’s symbolic importance in his native country of Australia, it was a great moment for Phil to walk in George Silk’s footsteps and match up the iconic picture on the same track.
Today, George Whittington lies buried at Bomana War Cemetery, Port Moresby, in Plot A1, Row B, Grave 22.
PHIL BRADLEY
PHIL BRADLEY
Major General Tsuyuo Yamagata, commanding the defence of the Papuan beachheads from Sanananda, wrote in his orders of December 27: ‘On account of the attack on Buna by the enemy of the 26th, it seems that the last stage has been entered.’ It had. Captain Yasuda acknowledged as much in his last message from Buna, sent at 1730 on the 28th: ‘The garrison is being gradually destroyed by concentrated enemy fire . . .
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On New Year’s Day 1943, the third battalion from Wootten’s brigade, LieutenantColonel Arthur ‘Wolf’ Arnold’s 2/12th, was ready to complete the third phase of Wootten’s plan. Its objective was the coastal strip between the mouth of Simemi Creek and Giropa Point. For the attack, Arnold would have two American battalions and part of Dobbs’s 2/10th Battalion in support on his flanks. He would also have the support of six Stuart tanks from B Squadron of the 2/6th Armoured Regiment under the command of Captain Rod May in a control tank, with another three Stuarts in reserve. Captain Alec Murray’s A Company and Captain ‘Harry’ Ivey’s D Company would advance on the left while B Company, under Captain Colin Kirk, and C Company, led by Major ‘Keith’ Gategood, would advance on the right. An Australian Wirraway aircraft skidded and weaved at minimum height down the airstrip before the attack, drawing fire from the Japanese positions in front of the 2/12th so the Australian gunners could pinpoint them. Lieutenant Mike Steddy had six Vickers guns supporting either flank and his gunners strafed the coconut trees, concentrating on the upper trunks to bring the tree-tops down. One of the gunners, Private Geoff Holmes, recalled: ‘We used thousands of rounds of ammunition before we went in there, but they were still there. As soon as we stopped firing and started to go over, that’s when they got into our blokes.’ Zero hour was 0800. A slight cross-wind had prevented the use of smoke rounds to mask the attack. The tanks went in first, the infantry closing up behind them once they reached the plantation. One of the tank commanders, Lieutenant Max Schoeffel, watched the men advance across open ground at the western end of the airstrip: 20
from a bunker some 150 yards away just moments after one of the tanks has blasted it. Private Jack Searle is the Bren gunner in the foreground, with Corporal Geoff ‘Mick’ Fletcher alongside firing his weapon from the hip. Tucked in beside the tank is a 2-inch mortar crew. Though the name is censored in the photo, this is in fact a No. 7 Troop tank named Binalong.
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On January 1, 1943, it was the turn of the third battalion of the 18th Brigade, the 2/12th Battalion, to strike at the Japanese, their attack (see the map on page 16) being supported by nine Stuart tanks from B Squadron of the 2/6th Armoured Regiment. George Silk was again present to cover the action. Here infantrymen from D Company fire on Japanese troops fleeing
Eschewing cover, Silk moved about recording the battle, this time from the other side of Binalong. On the left the wounded Corporal Harry Bowering is carried out by Corporal Cunneen and Corporal Palmer. Jack Searle, who continues to give covering fire with his Bren from behind the tree stump (in the centre background), was wounded later that day and subsequently killed at Sanananda on January 18, 1943. Sergeant Jim Condon stands on the left of the tank with Corporal Fletcher on the right. The presence of Condon next to the Stuart indicates that this is probably Sergeant Eric McGill’s disabled tank. This had been brought to a halt by an explosion yet, after putting out the resultant fire, it continued to provide support for the infantry. However, without power for the extractor fan, only one man at a time could stand the sweltering conditions in the turret. Condon (not part of the tank crew but from the 2/12th Battalion) therefore directed the gunner from outside the tank which stayed in position for five hours providing fire support before the sweat-drenched crew bailed out.
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‘Some jogged along, some with heavy guns walked, some crouched a little as they came on . . . I saw a couple go down.’ ‘Beyond the first low line of pillboxes I could see the forbidding humps of more pillboxes’, Australian war correspondent Dudley Leggett, reporting for ABC radio, observed from the banyan tree observation post. ‘Innumerable smaller pillboxes and deep trenches were hidden in the undergrowth between the long rows of coconut palms . . . Every minute the crackle and ripple of rifles, Tommy guns and machine guns became louder and more sustained.’ Things went well on the left side of the attack, and by 0900 the Australians had broken through to the beach. Leggett watched as ‘red [Very] lights soared above the tops of the coconuts from the direction of the sea front, the signal that our troops were through to the sea.’ Those two companies, accompanied by two tanks, then turned left to roll up the Japanese line up to Giropa Point. With the infantry having passed, Lieutenant Steddy decided to move his Vickers
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Right: At about 1730 hours, George Silk moved up alongside an Australian Vickers machine gun position, one of 12 Vickers deployed to support the attack. Manning the gun are Privates John Senior and Geoff Lowe. They are aiming at the tops of the coconut palms to cut them down and thus eliminate any enemy snipers. Silk had heard stories from the First World War of machine gunners being killed and simply being replaced by others. Now he found himself in the midst of such a battle facing that very scenario. He quickly stood up and took this photo with his Rolleiflex. ‘Get down you bloody fool’, Lowe shouted, ‘they’ve just got my cobber’, referring to Private Charlie Knight, who had just been killed by a sniper. Consequently, Silk quickly ducked down. His extraordinary photo, which captured the bravery and immediacy of the action of both the machine-gunners and of Silk, was not initially released by the Australian authorities as it also showed the body of the dead Vickers gunner on the left. Later the censors released the image but only after having cropped the photo to remove the dead soldier from it, only his outflung arm remaining visible. The censored photo was also reproduced in the Australian Official History but we have obtained the original print. Note the hose carrying the water to the gun’s cooling jacket and a water bottle beside it to top it up. In the background other infantrymen shelter in a Japanese slit trench. As one of the infantrymen later said: ‘A lot of the time you were just in the plantation hoping to Christ nobody would see you.’ machine guns forward on the left flank to give better support. He went with the first three guns, under cover from the rest. Private Geoff Lowe’s crew had one gun and Private Charlie Knight’s another. When they reached one of the bunker mounds, Knight climbed up to look over the lay of the land, and was felled by a sniper’s bullet. Lieutenant Steddy then ordered Lowe to get his gun set up on the left side of the bunker while he went to the right to try to locate the sniper. Moments later, Mike Steddy was also dead. A mortar crew came up to help, and two of them were also killed. Lowe and his loader, Private Jack Senior, desparately worked the Vickers gun, searching for the deadly sniper, one of whose victims lay dead beside the gun position. Hearing a noise to his right, Lowe looked up and was astonished to see George Silk, the Australian war photographer. ‘What the hell are you doing?’, Lowe demanded. ‘Get down, you bloody fool. They’ve just got my cobber.’ On this day, Silk had been responsible for some of the most-extraordinary combat photographs ever taken.
When Captain Murray moved back to the same area, he was killed as was Lieutenant Talbot Logan, while two of Murray’s platoon commanders were wounded. Captain Ivey’s company had three officers wounded, including Ivey. On the right, Kirk’s and Gategood’s companies struck trouble early. Gategood was wounded even before he had crossed the open ground, and Kirk was killed soon thereafter. By the end of the day, the two companies would have only one officer, Lieutenant Owen Curtis, left standing. Curtis, who had taken over Gategood’s company, observed that ‘instead of being like we thought it would be, possibly one line of pillboxes, there’s line after line of pillboxes.’ There were more than 40 well-constructed and well-manned bunkers within the small area from the start line to the coast. One, which measured 20 feet by 60 feet, contained 70 Japanese. Sand-filled 40-gallon drums were used as supports, and coconut logs were interlaced at the sides and on top of the bunkers. There were usually two layers of logs on top, separated by a layer of earth and
Left: Born in New Zealand in 1916, George Silk was appointed as a combat photographer for the Australian Department of Information in 1939, covering action in the Middle East, North Africa and Greece. Trapped with Allied forces at Tobruk in Libya (see The Desert War Then and Now), he was captured by German forces but escaped ten days later. This picture of him was taken at Gona in December 1942, just before he went to Buna. Following his extraordinary series of photos on January 1, he collapsed with malaria and dengue fever and, like many of the soldiers he had photographed that day, was carried to the rear and flown back to Australia. Astonished and utterly frustrated that his ‘blinded digger’ photo had been suppressed by the Department of Information, he soon resigned to take a job with Life magazine, the latter’s picture editor Wilson Hicks offering him a contract almost solely on the basis of this picture. Unlike the other outstanding Australian photographer of the war, Damien Parer, who remained in the Pacific theatre as a cine cameraman for Paramount (see After the Battle No. 156, page 41), Silk went on to cover the war in Europe. He spent time at the Italian front before returning to England to photograph the Normandy invasion and the subsequent fighting in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. In February 1945, he was wounded by a grenade during the crossing of the Roer river. Returning to the Pacific, he took some of the first photos of a devastated Nagasaki following the atomic bombing of August 1945 (see After the Battle No. 41). In 1947 he became a US citizen and served as a photo-journalist for Life up until the demise of the magazine in 1972. Awarded magazine photographer of the year on four occasions, Silk was also renowned for his revolutionary outdoor sports photography. He died in Connecticut at the age of 87 on October 23, 2004. 21
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soldier (second from right) drops to his knees. Corporal Max Croker can be seen on the left and Private Max Daniels at far right. Croker was wounded later that day while Daniels was killed on January 6.
The narrowness of the battle zone is apparent from this photo taken from a water tower at the western end of the former Old Strip, looking north across the area where the 2/12th Battalion
attacked towards the coast. The sea is visible above the building on the right. Almost all the coconut palms from the Giropa plantation have disappeared since the war.
PHIL BRADLEY
As the advance continues, Silk pictured a Stuart tank (visible among the coconut trees in the centre background) blasting a bunker on the left. The beach is just behind the last line of trees. Having been hit by a Japanese sniper, an Australian
22
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Moments later, Silk pictured infantrymen from B Company following the tanks in towards Giropa Point. The Stuart visible here is from No. 6 Troop. had been killed, and another seven officers and 120 men wounded. However, as the US Official History observed, ‘all that remained was to deliver the coup de grâce’. Next day, two tanks were deployed on each flank, and by 1000 hours Giropa Point was in Australian hands. With its capture, the Japanese position at Buna government station became untenable. The station was finally captured by the Americans moving up from the south. They then moved on to capture Buna Mission. On the 2/12th Battalion’s right flank, one final bunker remained, on a small island at the mouth of Simemi Creek.
The Australians were taken aback when a Japanese officer in full dress uniform climbed atop the bunker and waved his sword. Colonel Arnold, the battalion CO, said, ‘Well, we can’t shoot him; we’ll give him to ten, count ten.’ The count was shouted out. When it got to eight, the enemy officer shouted back, ‘Nine, out!’ With sword in hand and a defiant smile on his face, he was shot down by two Vickers guns. The officer was probably Colonel Hiroshi Yamamoto, tasked with the defence of Buna. Most of the defenders of Buna went that way, defiant to the end.
PHIL BRADLEY
covered with more earth on which vegetation could grow, forming perfect camouflage. Some of the bunkers were partitioned inside to provide protection from grenades. The firing slits were only narrow openings, almost invisible from outside, and the entranceways were just as cunningly constructed, often barred by a log. The bunkers were mutually supporting with snipers hiding in the trees or among the thick scrub nearby. Directed by the infantry, the Stuart tanks would go right up to the bunkers and blast the firing slits or doorways at close range, opening a gap large enough for a grenade or blast bomb to be shoved in by a brave infantryman. Owen Curtis’s company, which had started the day with five officers and about 80 men, steadily dwindled. ‘The last attack I did was myself, one officer and 19 men’, Curtis later said. ‘That’s why the casualties are so high . . . The Japanese won’t surrender, he won’t.’ Curtis had fought all day, yet ‘as far as live Japs went, I wouldn’t have seen more than half a dozen . . . You can be up to within ten feet of the enemy and you won’t see him . . . It’s not that you’re not going to get up and charge him — you don’t know where to charge, and he’s that close he can’t miss you.’ One of Curtis’s men added, ‘they camouflaged them sort of thing with fronds off the coconut trees. Actually what we used to locate them by was the fire. The chatter of a machine gun or you would see a few blokes go down or something like that. Follow where that comes from. Try and get over to it.’ Captain Angus Suthers had brought the headquarters company through behind the initial breakthrough to the coast. He had then led his men to the right, towards the mouth of Simemi Creek, to support the two struggling companies there. Suthers had brought all available men to the fight, with the dismounted transport drivers, under Lieutenant Bill Bowerman, to the fore. Bowerman led the way, dashing 30 yards over open ground to toss a blast bomb into one of the bunkers. The day had been costly for the 2/12th Battalion. Five officers and 45 men
Looking towards the promontory seven decades later. 23
PHIL BRADLEY
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24
Men from the heavy weapons platoon of the 1st Battalion, 127th Infantry, firing a 37mm gun west along the coast from newly captured Mission Point towards Sanananda. Another picture by Pfc Manger.
PHIL BRADLEY
URBANA FRONT (DECEMBER 29-JANUARY 2) On the afternoon of December 28, General Eichelberger had ordered the 3rd Battalion, 127th Infantry, to split into two elements and attack Buna Mission from Musita Island. One element would repair and then move across the damaged bridge while the other would use five assault boats to get across and form a protective bridgehead. Unfortunately the landing went awry and the boats were fired on from both sides but nonetheless the bridge repair party managed to lay new planks across the gap. However, when the assault troops moved across the bridge, the pilings gave way and the attack stalled. On the morning of December 29 Company B of the 127th pushed a corridor through to the coast on a 200-foot frontage between Buna Mission and Giropa Point. It was now planned to attack Buna Mission from both east and west on December 31. The attack from the west along the sand spit went in before dawn and, after the first wave was repulsed, men from Captain Jefferson R. Cronk’s Company E of the 128th Infantry held firm west of the mission. Boosted by a submarine resupply that had reached them on the night of December 25/26, Captain Yasuda’s men at the mission continued to resist fanatically. However, after the Australian attack on January 1 had smashed the Buna defences, increasing numbers of Japanese troops tried to escape up the coast to Sanananda. The American troops walked into a deserted Buna Mission on the morning of the 2nd. When it was all over, the stench of decomposing bodies was everywhere. The Japanese dead had been left unburied to rot in the fierce heat and humidity. Along the Buna beaches, the bloated bodies of Japanese lay half buried in the sand, lapped by the tide. Photographs of one such scene, at so-called ‘Maggot Beach’, would soon be seen around the world. Some 1,400 Japanese dead were buried by the Allies at the end of the battle. On the Allied side over 950 men had been killed or were missing plus over 2,000 wounded. For good reason the place was later referred to as ‘Bloody Buna’. Yet it was not the end of the fighting for these exhausted troops. After a brief rest the remnants of the Australian 18th Brigade were sent into the fight for Sanananda while the Americans pushed west along the coast from Buna in support. Sanananda did not fall until January 28.
Infantry finding the settlement evacuated by the Japanese. A US Army photographer pictured GIs of the regiment’s Company A taking a rest in the mission grounds the following day. Right: Rusted relics of war remain at Buna Mission today.
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Left: Buna Mission, the central one of the three objectives that formed Buna (the village, Buna Mission and Buna Government Gardens) was finally captured by American troops from Urbana Force on the morning of January 2, elements of the 127th
Phil’s comparison, taken looking west from Mission Point today.
PHIL BRADLEY
USNA
When the United States first entered the war, they decided to continue the policy laid down in the First World War of banning the publication of any photographs showing American dead. This blanket ruling continued to be enforced until the middle of 1943 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided that the American people had become too complacent about the war. So it was ordained by the War Department and the Office of War Information (OWI) that it was time that the public should see the reality of what their armed forces were enduring. In February, 1943 Life magazine had run a story about the fighting at Buna. Their staff photographer George Strock (above) had taken this picture (right) there but permission to publish it was refused by the OWI. Then in its issue of September 20, 1943, Life decided to publish Strock’s picture, accompanying it with a full-page editorial: ‘Last winter, in the issue of February 22, we told about Bill, the Wisconsin boy; how he struggled through the dark and nervous jungle of New Guinea, stalking Japs like a cat; how he came at last to the blue sea at the rim of the jungle, and ran out onto the white beach, blazing mad; how the Japs got him there, suddenly, when the job was almost finished, so that he fell down on the sand, with his legs drawn up; and how the tide came in. And we said then that we thought we ought to be permitted to show a picture of Bill — not just the words, but the real thing. We said that if Bill had the guts to take it, then we ought to have the guts to look at it. Well, this is the picture. All we can do, is give meaning to their death. And this is to say that when freedom falls, as it has here on the beach at Buna, it is our task to cause it to rise again.’
told, the Japanese had suffered 1,400 men killed at Buna. Right: Looking south down the same beach today.
GEORGE STROCK
Left: The terrible cost of war. Pictured by Manger on January 3, these Japanese dead lie on the beach west of Buna Mission. All
This was then the first picture of fallen American soldiers to appear in print in the United States during the war. It had been taken by George Strock on the same beach west of Buna Mission as where Manger had photographed the Japanese dead. The photograph caused a mass reaction in the USA, a private writing from his army camp in Mississippi said: ‘Your Picture of the Week is a terrible thing, but I am glad there is one American magazine which had the courage to print it.’ Another soldier commented that the ‘three dead Americans on the beach is the greatest picture that has come out of the war.’ One letter to the editor was received from a lieutenant: ‘I served in Guadalcanal, and the real and only heroes of this war are the fine American lads who have made the supreme sacrifice for freedom and their homes.’ An office manager said that after he had pinned up the photo on the notice board the number of employees participating in payroll deductions for War Bonds immediately doubled. 25
PHIL BRADLEY
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Relics of Japanese aircraft still lie in the scrub alongside the former airfield.
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The Mitsubishi G4M ‘Betty’ bomber served widely throught the Pacific War; this wreck was pictured alongside Old Strip on December 28, 1942.
PHIL BRADLEY
The American cemetery at Buna established by the 32nd Division immediately after the battle.
The same cemetery after the temporary crosses had been replaced with wooden grave markers. The 32nd Division had suffered about 590 men killed at Buna. 26
Post-war all graves were relocated to Manila American Cemetery or repatriated to the States. This is the former cemetery today, still kept cleared by the Buna villagers.
emblem on a rusted Japanese helmet. Centre: A Japanese 7.7mm Type 92 heavy machine gun. Right: American standard issue water bottles.
he would embark on a bypass strategy, setting up air and amphibious bases as he went, leapfrogging his troops along the New Guinea coast all the way to the Philippine Islands. As one of MacArthur’s operational
planners Captain Charles Adair put it, the resultant strategy in the South West Pacific Area was ‘to go where the Japanese were not and hit them where they didn’t expect it.’ There would be no more Bloody Bunas.
PHIL BRADLEY
BRIAN MANNS
The long and costly fighting for the Papuan beachheads had a marked effect on General MacArthur’s strategy for the rest of the war. Once he had built up his amphibious and air capability by the second half of 1943
PHIL BRADLEY
PHIL BRADLEY
PHIL BRADLEY
As with all the battlefields in the Pacific theatre of war, relics from both sides of the fighting are still frequently uncovered in the jungle and coconut groves at Buna. Left: Naval infantry
investigation was finally begun, and in 2009 a team recovered the remains from the grave site. They were subsequently identified as those of Lieutenant Talbot Tim Logan (below left) of the 2/12th Battalion, killed in action on January 1, 1943. Along with the other Australian dead, Logan had been hurriedly buried soon after his death but his battlefield grave was not found when the graves recovery units went through the area some six months later. Right: Colonel Geoff Stacey, Royal Australian Army Dental Corps, sifting soil excavated from the burial site watched by Brian Manns who led the recovery team.
Right: Sixty-seven years after he fell in battle, Logan was buried among the other fallen from his battalion at Bomana War Cemetery, located 12 miles north of Port Moresby, in Plot C8, Row E, Grave 22. The cemetery contains 3,823 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 700 of them unidentified. In July 2010, following this and the much-larger recovery and identification of unknown Australian soldiers from the First World War at Fromelles in northern France (see After the Battle No. 150), the Australian Army established a new unit called the Unrecovered War Casualties — Army (UWC-A), its role being to recover the remains of Australian servicemen and to investigate information that might lead to such discoveries. Since 2007, members of UWC-A (before 2010 with the Australian Army History Unit) have recovered Australian human remains in Vietnam, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Currently they are investigating reports of Australian servicemen in France, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and East Timor.
PHIL BRADLEY
NAA
Left: In August 2006, while carrying out battlefield research for his book Hell’s Battlefield: The Australians in New Guinea in World War II, Phillip Bradley was shown this gravesite at Buna. He was told that it contained human remains that had been found by a Buna villager, Basil Koe, whilst digging footings for his new house. Australian coins and equipment were also found. Koe had reburied the remains and tended the grave for about ten years. Although the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby had been informed, nothing had transpired. However, after Bradley notified the Australian Army, an
27
GEDENKSTÄTTE FLOSSENBÜRG
In October 1938, two months after the Nazi occupation of the Czech Sudetenland region, the Germans took over a large glass factory at the small town of Holýšov (renamed Holleischen by the Germans) and transformed it into a munitions factory for the Luftwaffe, known as the Metallwerke Holleischen (MWH). Initially employing a mixed workforce of voluntary civilian workers, both Czech and German, production grew rapidly, leading to the construction of a second production site in the nearby
woods in 1941. In April 1944, the plant’s ever-increasing demand for labour led to the employment of political prisoners as slave workers in the MWH factory and the creation of a small concentration camp nearby to house them. Known as KZ-Aussenlager Holleischen, it was a satellite camp of Flossenbürg and grew to hold up to 1,000 inmates. This picture of the factory in the town was taken in the spring of 1945. By then, it had suffered from Allied bombing raids, which explains the damage to the roof.
HOLLEISCHEN CONCENTRATION CAMP
Right: Repaired after the war, and since used by various industries, the large factory complex, comprising various large production halls and workshops, still stands on the northern edge of town. A labyrinth of tunnels and underground chambers — used as ready-made air raid shelters during the war — stretches underneath the whole complex. 28
METALWERKE HOLLEISCHEN (MWH) Soon after the annexation of the Sudetenland in October 1938, the Deutsche Waffenund Munitionsfabriken AG (DWM — German Arms and Ammunition Factories Inc.) took over the land and properties of a vacant former glassworks at Holleischen. The large factory, complete with its huge labyrinth of underground rooms and passages, was an excellent location for an armaments factory,
By Carl Barwise the site being mainly chosen for its transport links (the train station was located very near to the factory) and good power supply. On August 6, 1939, the plant became a recognised munitions factory for the Luftwaffe, and in 1941 it was named the Metalwerke Holleischen (MHW — Metal Works Holleischen).
CARL BARWISE
In the western part of the Czech Republic, nestled into the gentle rolling forested hills 20 kilometres south-west of Pilsen (Plzen), on the bank of the Radbuza river, not far from the border with Germany, lies the small town of Holleischen (Holýšov). It was here that, from April 1944 to May 1945, existed a little-known concentration camp, known as AL Holleischen. A satellite camp of Flossenbürg, one of the largest of the Nazi concentration camps (see After the Battle No. 131), it housed prisoners put to work in a nearby armaments factory set up by the Third Reich. Holleischen lies in the Sudetenland, the borderland region of Czechoslovakia that was annexed by Nazi Germany in October 1938 following the Four-Power Conference at Munich in September (see After the Battle No. 62). Five months later, on March 15, 1939, Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, setting up the so-called Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) in the German-occupied western half of the country and establishing a collaborating puppet government in Slovakia in the east.
Right: Holýšov lies 20 kilometres southwest of Pilsen, close to the border with Germany. Flossenbürg, of which Holleischen was a sub-camp, lay just 60 kilometres to the north-west. We have also indicated Weiden, the location of Stalag XIII B, from which the Soviet and French prisoners of war, who arrived in 1941 to work on the expansion of the factory, originated.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
FLOSSENBÜRG WEIDEN
HOLÝŠOV
GERMANY
GEDENKSTÄTTE FLOSSENBÜRG
Taking up production in the winter of 1939, the factory employed a workforce made up of Czech and German civilians. Most of them came from the surrounding areas — the factory was almost the only opportunity for work in the region — but through the Arbeitsamt (Labour Office) many others came from far and wide, not just from within the Protectorate but beyond the borders. They came at their own free will, with a proper labour contract, although there were also some who had been sent there by the Arbeitsamt. Most of the foremen and qualified technicians were men but the majority of the labourers were women. To house them, two Arbeitslager (labour camps) were built near the site in 1941, one for the 700 female workers and one for the smaller number of male workers. The employees were provided for by the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF — German Labour Front) and NS-Frauenschaft (NSF — National Socialist Women’s League). Production increased throughout 1940, and by 1941 full capacity had been reached, the plant manufacturing aircraft ammunition, 20mm anti-aircraft shells, 30mm shells for MK108 cannon, anti-tank shells, incendiary shells and, later, Panzerfaust weapons. Work groups, known as Kommandos, worked 12-hour shifts on the completion of shells in the pressing shops (Kommando 137), chemical filling (Kommando 453) and the more dangerous aspect of dealing with volatile shells, a duty that was left to Kommando 119. Despite the risks, no accidental deaths were ever recorded at the MWH.
The large halls of the glass factory were transformed into production sites for various types of ordnance, including aircraft
ammunition, anti-aircraft and anti-tank shells and, later, Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons. 29
CARL BARWISE
GEDENKSTÄTTE FLOSSENBÜRG
Right: Werk II was largely abandoned after the war but many of the buildings still stand, derelict and unused. 30
In 1941, the MWH embarked an a huge expansion of the plant, building a whole new factory complex in the woods to the north of the town. This not only included workshops and production sites but also a large complex of dwellings and hutted accommodation for the German staff and workers. Henceforth, the original factory was known as Werk I and the new complex as Werk II.
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PRISONERS OF WAR ADDED TO THE WORKFORCE For the first 23 months of its existence the factory relied solely on voluntary civilian labour but this changed in June 1941 when French and Soviet prisoners of war were sent to Holleischen to work as forced labourers in the expansion of the factory. The first batch — 360 French POWs sent from Stalag XIII B at Weiden in the Oberpfalz, close to the Czech border, just 80 kilometres due west of Holleischen — arrived towards the end of June 1941. They were billeted in the sheep pen of an empty farmstead known as Nový Dvur (New Yard), located about a kilometre north of Holleischen along a secondary road leading into the forest and on to the town of Hradec. This farm had formerly belonged to the Picman family. On October 27, 1938 — just 17 days after the German occupation of the Sudetenland — the Gestapo had arrested Jaroslav Picman, son of the owner Václav, for publicly demonstrating against the lack of a Czech school in the area. After his release, the family were constantly harassed by the Gestapo, and in the summer of 1939 the Gestapo returned to take control of the premises, arresting both the father and son in the process. Later, they were sent to the Gestapo detention centre at Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary). Despite protestations from the family, on August 11, 1939 ownership of the farm passed to the German state. All property and belongings went to the Deutsche Ansiedlungsgesellschaft (DAG — German Settlement Organisation), and the family were given until November 4 to vacate the premises. Further, they were also obliged to find new accommodation at least 30 kilometres from the Sudeten border. The POWs billeted in the sheep pen, which was located across the road from the main farm, were put to work as part of the Bau-Kommando (construction team) engaged on expanding the plant. This comprised a new complex of factory buildings and workhouses, designed for the testing and completion of the munitions, together with a large settlement of residential units planned to house around 1,000 German staff and workers employed at the factory. To distinguish the old and the new sites, the original factory was known as Werk I and the new site, which was located in the woods two kilometres north of Holýšov, as Werk II. The prisoners referred to it as ‘the forest’. The two sites were connected by a cable-car system, used to transport materials and machinery from one to the other.
Today the whole factory stands empty and disused, the last industrial user having ceased production around the year 2000.
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Another of the production halls. Note the large number of female workers at the machines.
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The POWs also worked on the Werkstrasse (main factory street) located in the central industrial area, and also performed heavy labour duties in a nearby stone quarry. Unlike the civilian workers, who lived and worked without being guarded, the POWs were watched over by Wehrmacht guards. The new factory complex was brought into use before the end of 1941. An MWH report that year put the total number of workers employed at the plant — German staff, Czech and German workers, and French and
To assist in the construction of Werk II, in June 1941 the Germans began employing a force of several hundred Soviet and French prisoners of war. These were billeted in the sheep pen of a farm located on the road between Werk I and II (see the map below). Three years later, in August 1944, this same building became the so-called Männerlager (men’s camp), housing 200 male concentration camp prisoners sent here from Flossenbürg as an additional workforce engaged on a further expansion of the plant. Still later, in March 1945, the building was used to hold some 400 Hungarian Jewish women, who had been sent to increase the slave labour force in the factory. The former sheep pen still stands across the road from the main farm. Soviet POWs — at 4,627. By December 31, 1942, the number had risen to 5,990. The
total number of workers at the two plants during the war was approximately 8,000.
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WERK I
The original factory (Werk I) lay right next to the railway station. Werk II lay two kilometres to the north, and the farm that
became the POW camp in 1941, and later the concentration camp, was located about halfway up the road between the two. 31
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earth covering and heavy steel doors. Right: Carl Barwise found the same building surviving to this day.
The shell-testing area at Werk II, constructed during the latter part of 1944.
Its gutted remains mouldering in the forest, increasingly overgrown by trees and bushes.
Left: An extensive supply system was built to link the two factory sites. Right: The pipework has been dismantled but the
stone supports remain at regular intervals in the fields between the two sites.
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Left: Werk II included many buildings specially constructed for the safe handling of munitions, like this storage bunker with
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In April 1944, faced with the increasing shortage of workers, the factory began utilising female concentration camp inmates as slave labourers. To house them, the farm along the road between Werke I and II, was converted into a concentration camp. Known as Novy Dvur, this farmstead had stood empty since November 1939. Its sheep pen across the road was the building in which the French and Soviet POWs had been housed since 1941, and which later in 1944 became the Men’s Camp. [1] Camp gate. [2] Sick bay. [3] Kommandant’s office. [4] Main prisoner block. [5] Stores room. [6]-[8] Prisoner’s blocks. [9] Kitchen and SS canteen. [10] Roll-call area. [11] Men’s camp. THE CONCENTRATION CAMP It was not until the spring of 1944, when the MWH company increased the demand for female workers, that the next stage of the development of the camp occurred, the establishment of a concentration camp. The recognised date for the beginning of Konzentrationslager Holleischen is April 15, 1944, when the camp became an official Aussenlager (satellite camp) of Flossenbürg, with 195 female prisoners. These had all arrived from Ravensbrück, the concentration camp for women located north-east of Berlin. Two days later, on April 17, a second group — comprising 66 French women — arrived, followed by another of 280, again mostly French women, on the 18th, both from Ravensbrück. A further group of 150 reached the camp on June 6, also from Ravensbrück. Of the total of 691 women, about half were French with Poles and Russians each representing about a quarter. At Ravensbrück the women had carried prisoner numbers in the 27,000 series (the ones that arrived in April) and 35,000 series (those that arrived in June) but now, in addition, they were enrolled in the Flossenbürg administration, all receiving prisoner numbers in the 50,000 series. The women were housed across the road from the POW compound in the main buildings of the Picman farm. Significant alterations were made around this time including the erection of a main gate, new roofing, barred windows, barbed wire, and an electrified perimeter fence. The site consisted of several rectangular brick buildings, which were turned into prisoner blocks, and two farmhouses that together formed a nearsquare around a central yard measuring 60
by 40 metres. The main prisoner’s block was a former grain store. A Waschraum (ablution facility) with 12 sink units and seven shower-
heads was provided although the water was always cold, so instead prisoners usually took showers in the basement of the Werk I. Toilets were separated but without doors. The prisoner blocks had three-tier bunkbeds with straw mattresses. Each prisoner initially received two blankets but this was later reduced to one per person. Basic DAFstyle tables and benches, each accommodating ten people, were used in batches of four or five tables per room, each of which held around 250 prisoners. Small coal-fired stoves in each room were the only method of heating water but in the winter of 1944-45 the coal supply ran out. The third floor of the main building was converted into a loft dining area, complete with tables and china plates, a welcome change for the prisoners who had arrived from lesser-equipped camps. Being a women’s camp, Holleischen originally came under the administration of Ravensbrück even though it was accountable to Flossenbürg for its labour achievements. It remained so for the first four and a half months of its existence until Flossenbürg assumed full control of the camp on September 1. The first Kommandoführer or Lagerführer (camp commander) of Holleischen was SS-Oberscharführer Schmerze. The camp was guarded by a detachment of Luftwaffe guards and SS-Aufseherinnen (SS female guards). By August 1944 there were 64 of the former and 27 of the latter. Right from the beginning, KL Holleischen served not only as an Aussenlager but also as an Ausbildungslager (training camp) for female guards who were later posted to other subcamps of the extensive Flossenbürg camp network. Due to the increasing need for more men at the front, these female overseers were increasingly employed at a number of concentration camps and more than 100 eventually served or were trained at Holleischen. SS recruitment campaigns were designed to attract women away from their menial roles in the factories, enticing them to become active participants in the concentration camp system by stating that their role ‘only involves the watching over the prisoners’! Lured by the higher salary, promise of light physical work and
A vertical aerial photograph of the camp, taken in 1946. 33
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The farm’s large grain storage was converted into the main prisoner block, accommodating hundreds of female prisoners. The Kommandant’s office is on the left. Note the electric fencing in the foreground, added following the arrival of the new camp commander, Emil Fügner, in the autumn of 1944. The picture was taken in the spring of 1945.
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for resistance work in July 1943. She was first incarcerated at Saarbrücken, then sent to Ravensbrück before being transferred to Holleischen in September 1944 where she was assigned to the dangerous shelltesting Kommando 119. She survived and was liberated, having spent eight months at the camp. The prisoner’s day would typically start with wake-up call at 0530 followed by breakfast at 0600 consisting of substitute coffee and a small piece of bread. At 0630 they departed for either Werk I or Werk II for a
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undoubted prestige attached to a position working amongst the elite SS, moral scruples often faded once the indoctrination process converted these women into members of the cruel camp staff. At Holleischen they escorted Kommandos to and from work, guarded them throughout the day and delivered punishment as and when they saw fit. As a result the female guards enjoyed a position of power that was both feared and reviled. As far as the prisoners were concerned, they scathingly nicknamed the Aufseherinnen ‘mice’ due to their grey uniforms. Erstaufseherin (First Matron) Anna Schmidt was the head of female guards. Nicknamed ‘Honeyfly’ by the prisoners, she was infamous for the aggressive treatment she meted out. Two Oberaufseherinnen (Chief Matrons) served at Holleischen, Dora Lange and Elfriede Tribus. The latter was transferred from the Graslitz sub-camp, replacing Anna Schmidt as head female guard on March 14, 1945. Another female guard of note was Blockführerin (Block Leader) Frederike Schneider. Born in Vienna in September 1911, she had trained at Auschwitz I (see After the Battle No. 157) before transferring to the Babitz sub-camp where she was promoted to Blockführerin as reward for her ‘good’ conduct. Later, she served at Auschwitz-Birkenau, before accompanying a group of prisoners to Ravensbrück in November 1944. She arrived at Holleischen in late January 1945. Some of the female guards were accommodated at the camp staff quarters, others lived in the nearby village. In April 1945 there were 46 male SS and 48 female guards at the camp. All female prisoners of Holleischen wore the inverted red triangle insignia on their prisoner jacket, indicating their status as Schutzhäftlinge (political prisoners). The oldest was Marguerite-Marie Michelin, a Frenchwoman of 50 who had been arrested
12-hour shift. Civilian workers and camp prisoners worked alongside each other. Apart from a short late-morning pause and a lunch break of weak turnip or potato soup from 1415 to 1500, work continued until 1900 when diluted soup and another small piece of bread were dished out. Lights out was at 2200. Due to the low caloric intake, prisoners typically lost between 20 and 40 kilos during their stay at the camp. Towards the end of the war, the quality and regularity of meals fell and hunger increased. During the final days in April 1945 only one small meal was served daily and even this usually consisted of rotten potatoes. Although there was a sick bay at the women’s camp, it was unable to cope with the frequent bouts of typhus, scarlet fever and tuberculosis, so sick prisoners were usually sent to the hospital in nearby Pilsen, surviving records indicating that nine camp inmates died there. Frostbite was a threat, especially during the winter of 1944-45, when temperatures fell below minus 20C. Many inmates suffered from oedema, a condition in which excessive fluid builds up within body tissue, causing swollen feet and ankles. Constant contact with the chemicals used at the plant resulted in skin and throat irritations. Despite regular delousing, the inmates suffered from fleas and bugs. As was the policy within the Nazi concentration camp system, for each prisoner supplied by the SS, the MWH had to pay four Reichsmark (later reduced to 2.9 RM) to the SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (SS-WVHA — SS Main Economic and Administrative Department). The camp history records several acts of defiance by the prisoners. For example, on July 14, 1944, French members of Kommando 137 at Werk II stopped work to sing the Marseillaise in recognition of their national day. As a result, they received a beating from the guards. On August 11, 1944, Holleischen opened a Männerlager (men’s camp), when some 200 male prisoners arrived from Flossenbürg to reinforce the factory workforce. They were put to work building a testing firing range at Werk II. The new arrivals — mainly Poles (half of them of Jewish descent), Russians and Czechs — were housed in the sheep pen that was located just across the road from the main camp area and which had previously
A long low shed has been built against the grain-storage building dividing the yard into two separate compounds.
Right: The inmates at Holleischen all wore the inverted red triangle of political prisoners. The ‘R’ visible on the patch of the woman standing at top right designates her nationality, Russian. Prisoner numbers in the camp were all in the 50,000 series.
The prisoners at Holleischen were supervised by SS-Aufseherinnen (female guards), over 100 of them either serving or being trained at Holleischen. Many of them had portrait shots taken when they were investigated for war crimes after the war. This is Anna Wolf.
Margit Heitler, born October 11, 1921 in Drachowitz, was employed from October 9, 1944 and also served at Flossenbürg. She reported to Lagerfüher Fügner. Sentenced to 12 months in 1946.
Anna Pausch was one of the youngest Aufseherinnen. Born in Sokolov on September 27, 1923, she was only 21 when she came to Holleischen. (The oldest Aufseherin was Ida Behnstedt, 47.)
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Anna Rauner began work as an Aufseherin on March 30, 1944. Born on June 25, 1923, an ethnic German from the Sudetenland, she also served at Flossenbürg and one of its satellite camps, Zwodau — the largest camp for women in the Czech lands.
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served as accommodation for the French and Soviet POWs. Mainly due to their arrival, the number of prisoners at Holleischen rose from 600 in August 1944 to 946 by October 1, of whom by then some 250 were males. (It is not altogether clear what happened to the POWs, it being uncertain whether they remained at Holleischen, had been transferred back to a Stalag or — more likely in the case of the Soviet prisoners — had been worked to death.) On September 13 three Polish females — Stanislawa Swiergola (prisoner No. 50487), Anna Fabicki (No. 50276) and Irene Cholewa (No. 50480) — made a successful escape from the camp, the only recorded break-out in the history of Holleischen. They were never caught and their subsequent fate remains unknown but their escape instigated a change in command, SS-Oberscharführer Schmerze being relieved as Lagerführer and replaced by SS-Hauptsturmführer Emil Fügner. Immediately after his arrival the atmosphere of the camp changed. Windows were bricked up and guard patrols reviewed with the prisoner’s accomodation blocks being placed under non-stop surveillance. Also the whole site was camouflaged in an attempt to hide it from Allied bombers which were now ranging further over German-occupied territory. The Männerlager existed for only six months, being dissolved sometime during February 1945, although the subsequent fate of the men is unknown. On February 3, there were still 148 male inmates on the camp roster but by the end of February only 694 female prisoners were recorded. They comprised 379 French, 169 Polish and 132 Russian women and 14 others of various nationalities including German, Belgian and Spanish. In early March 1945, a contingent of 402 Hungarian Jewish women arrived at the camp, a first group of 143 arriving on March 6 and a second one of 259 following on the 9th. They were housed in the former sheep pen that had served as the Männerlager until the previous month. Their arrival led to a
Paula Seidl worked as a supervisor in the camp kitchen. Tried after the war, she received a sentence of 17-months in prison and forfeiture of all her possessions to the Czech state. 35
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By early 1945 Holleischen had become the target of frequent Allied bombing attacks and two heavy raids on April 20 and May 3 effectively wrecked the factory, halting all production. Severe damage to the railway tracks also made any further transportation of goods completely impossible. One of the production halls of Werk I can be seen behind the wrecked cargo train.
The brick wall separating the railway tracks from the factory remains unchanged.
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sudden increase in the number of prisoners, a total of 1,090 inmates, all female, being recorded on April 9, 1945. Before coming to Holleischen these women had endured an arduous period. Part of a group of 550 Hungarian Jewish women, they had originally been held at Auschwitz, from where they were transferred to the Siemens-Schuckertwerke (SSW) electrical engineering factory in Nuremberg, a subcamp of Flossenbürg that had been established in October 1944. After integration into the SSW company, their prisoner numbers were changed from Auschwitz to Flossenbürg series (Nos. 55740 to 56290). On January 20 and 21, 1945, their prison block was destroyed during Allied air attacks. After spending a few days out in the open, without food and subject to the harsh winter conditions (leading them to resort to eating dirty snow in order to survive), they were housed in the basement of a nearby school, from where they worked clearing the rubble from the recent air raids. Following further bomb damage to the Schuckertwerke, 405 of the 550 women, aged between 13 and 40 years and each selected for their small hands and good eyesight, were transferred to Holleischen. Due to the disruption of rail traffic by Allied air attacks, they had to walk part of their journey before being put in open coal trucks. Three of the first group of 146 died on the voyage. Emaciated and exhausted, the 402 survivors finally disembarked at Holleischen, along with a complement of SS-Aufseherinnen. In early April 1945, three French women employed at Werk II — Noémi Suchet (prisoner No. 50279), Hélène Lignier (No. 50414) and Simone Michel-Lévy (No. 50422) — were all suspected of acts of sabotage at the munitions facility, and subsequently sentenced to 25 lashes. Following a report to camp commander Fügner by Aufseherin Anna Graf, the three women were then transferred to Flossenbürg where they were hanged on April 13. From mid-April 1945, the factory became a frequent target of the Allied air forces (it was known as the Stod ammunition plant after the nearby city of that name eight kilometres to the north-east). During the afternoon of April 20, an alert sounded which sent the SS staff into a state of panic as they frantically herded the prisoners into the underground shelters. The raid by the US Eighth Air Force knocked out the cable-car system connecting the two sites as well as destroyed many of the Werk II installations. Another raid by 132 A-26 bombers of the US Ninth Air Force on May 3 finally brought an end to all work at the MWH. The railway station, located near Werk I, was also destroyed with severe damage to the tracks.
The railway station was also destroyed by the bombing . . . 36
. . . but was rebuilt after the war.
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Left: Following the liberation of the camp by Polish partisans on May 5, the French national flag was raised in the Appellplatz. Most of the 700 French inmates declined to leave the camp with the Poles, being either too weak or preferring to
they approached the town of Tábor, they received intelligence from the Czech underground that SS forces were lying in wait to ambush them near the town. Taking a detour around Tábor, they moved in a westerly direction towards the German border which brought them to Holýšov. Meanwhile the camp staff, aware of the approaching enemy yet unaware of their proximity, had begun to make preparations for their own departure, as fear spread among the prisoners who believed that their lives were in peril. At 1100 hours on the morning of May 5, whilst the starving prisoners nervously awaited their fate, members of the Polish partisan brigade emerged through the trees and approached the camp, climbing over the walls with guns firing and taking the guards completely by surprise. As the surrendering SS were rounded up in a corner of the yard, the partisans rooted out the petrified Aufseherinnen from their hiding places. The
prisoners had feared that the SS would wipe them all out at the last moment, but the swiftness of the assault meant that no such barbarity was possible. As the gates of the camp were opened, the inmates appeared from their barracks — joyful that their torment was over. Some of the women left with the partisans, who continued on their journey. Those that stayed behind — some 700, mostly French women and Hungarian Jews — were either too weak to leave or chose to wait for the Allied forces. On May 6, one day after the departure of the Polish partisans, American troops of the 2nd Infantry Division, part of the US Third Army, arrived at the camp. Eleven prisoners, including Polish, Hungarian and Soviet inmates, who had died shortly after the liberation were laid to rest in Holýšov’s eastern graveyard. The surviving women remained in the camp for another five weeks until repatriation was organised to their respective countries.
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LIBERATION Two days later, on May 5, Holleischen was liberated but strangely enough not by the Soviet Red Army or Western Allied military forces, nor even by Czech resistance fighters, but by a partisan unit from Poland. The Brygada Swietokryzyska (Holy Cross Mountain’s Brigade) was a unit of the Polish underground military force known as the Narodowe Sily Zbrojne (NSZ — National Armed Forces). Created during the summer of 1944, they refused to merge with the Armia Krajowa (Polish Home Army), instead choosing to operate as a unit of the NSZ-ZJ, an alliance of the NZN and the Zwiazek Jaszczurczy (ZJ — The Salamander Association), a military arm of the Oboz Narodowo Radykalny (ONR — National Radical Camp). Having crossed into western Czechoslovakia and fighting their way around the Protectorate, they were heading towards Pilsen in mid-April 1945 when, as
wait until regular Allied forces appeared. Right: The new shed prevented Carl from taking an exact match but his comparison shows how the camp commander’s office has been turned into a nice family home.
Left: American troops of the US 2nd Infantry Division arrived the following day, May 6. The French women were delighted to find that among them were French-speaking members of a Belgian unit attached to a US tank destroyer battalion. Here, freed prisoner Marie Michelin talks to some Allied troops in the
yard. The Belgian soldiers were instructed by the American medical staff to refrain from feeding the starved prisoners lest they suffer from digestive complications that might easily kill them. Right: Looking across the yard to the former prisoner blocks on its eastern side. 37
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A group of women gather outside one of the accommodation blocks on the northern side of the roll-call square.
teurs executed at Flossenbürg led to her being sentenced by a French Military Court in Rastatt to 15 years. Some of the female guards escaped all judicial action. Anni Bräsick was arrested by the Polish partisans yet her fate is unknown. Frederike Schneider fled to her native Vienna and was never prosecuted. Camp commandant Emil Fügner was never called to account for his deeds at Holleischen. A rumour circulated in postwar Czechoslovakia that he had been shot and killed by the Polish partisans during the liberation but in fact he escaped prosecution
and died in Aussig-an-der-Elbe (Ustí nad Lábem), an industrial city in the north of the present-day Czech Republic near to the German border, in 1966. In 1968, the state attorney for Frankfurtam-Main began an investigation against the MWH’s former managing director, Walter Schlemp, but this led nowhere. Also the investigations into Holleischen carried out by the German Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg, which were later taken over by the state attorney of Baden-Baden, were closed in 1976.
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POST-WAR TRIALS Several of the former SS-Aufseherinnen were investigated for war crimes after the war though not all of these enquiries led to prosecutions. Angela Ottenschläger, who had served at both Flossenbürg and Holleischen, was questioned regarding reports of her torturous behaviour towards inmates. Anna Hässler and Maria Dobner were also interrogated, Hässler whilst living at her parents house near Beroun, just outside Prague, in April 1946, and Dobner whilst heavily pregnant with a child rumoured to have been fathered by a US soldier. However, none of
The part of the building closest to the street has been turned into a family dwelling.
the three women ever went on trial. Anna Schmidt, the first head of female guards, was investigated for her aggressive treatment of inmates but the case was officially closed in 1948 amid confusion regarding her identity and that of another A. Schmidt. However, other ex-Aufseherinnen did not get off so lightly. Anna Rauner, born and raised in the Sudetenland, claimed that she had been pressurised into the role due to her background. Despite one prisoner’s testimony that she had been pleasant and actually helped to keep them alive, she was found guilty, losing all her property and being sentenced to a term of seven years. Paula Seidl, Margit Heitler and Ernestine Frisch were all given sentences ranging from 12 to 18 months. The heaviest punishment was reserved for Anna Graf, whose report to Fügner concerning the three French saboRight: The same gate, now just an ordinary yard entrance. 38
camp at their own choosing. Right: A group of survivors posing at the camp gate.
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Left: Two of the French girls, Jackie Marnée (left) and Renée Braun (right), savour the freedom of being able to leave the
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Left: Eleven of the freed prisoners died shortly after the liberation and were buried in the village cemetery. A large group of AFTERMATH Before the end of the war, Jaroslav Picman, son of Václav, the farm’s owner at the beginning of the occupation (who had died in 1940), had been arrested by the Gestapo in his Prague office for ‘anti-state activity’ and subsequently incarcerated in Pankrác Prison in Prague. Several months later, he was transferred to the Gestapo prison at Theresienstadt (Terezin), known as the Kleine Festung (small fortress), where he was given prisoner number 2484. He was hospitalised
their comrades attended the funeral. Right: Today marked with proper headstones, the graves remain carefully tended.
in late April 1945 and died soon thereafter. Another son of the same family, Bohumil Picman, then took ownership of what was left of their property and tried to restore the farm but gave up in 1948. Today, the former camp site is privately owned and although the original gateway and outer walls have been demolished, the majority of the original structures remain standing, including the main barracks, the former kitchen, SS canteen and offices and the sheep pen across the road. The MWH
installations at Werk I were utilised for various industrial enterprises, the last of which ceased operation around the turn of the century. Meanwhile, the structures that survived from Werk II have gradually been swallowed up by the advancing forest. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank Martina Meštanová, Jan Valeš, Rudolf Švec, Miroslav Skála, Annette Kraus, Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg, Magda Watts and Louis Gihoul.
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Right: Today, a memorial outside the former camp records its dark history: ‘On this site during the Second World War, there was a concentration camp for men and women of Russian, Polish, Dutch, Italian and French nationalities.’ Commemorative services for the victims are held every year in May. Among those attending the ceremony on May 4, 2013 were (L-R) Czech historian Jan Valeš (far left), our author Carl Barwise (third from left) and Louis Gihoul, a Belgian veteran (fourth from left) who was with the US forces when they liberated the camp.
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Above: A memorial plaque adorning the red triangle of French political prisoners was placed on the outside wall by the French Association of Former Inmates of Flossenbürg and its Satellite Camps. Below: Another wall plaque, dedicated in 2006, records the camp’s liberation by Polish partisans of the Brygada Swietokryzska (Holy Cross Brigade) on May 5, 1945.
At former Werk I, on the tower near the entrance, is a large mural memorial with the text: ‘People, never forget what fascism means!’ Next to it is a small plaque commemorating that this was the spot where on April 29, 1945 — a week before the liberation — several Italian prisoners were shot. 39
Having made its maiden flight in 1934, the Dornier 17 was first revealed publicly at the International Military Aircraft Competition in Switzerland in 1937. It was outstanding for its time and, although a twin-engine bomber, it performed almost like a fighter. It became a mainstay in the Luftwaffe’s armoury during Monday, August 26, 1940 was yet another day during the Battle of Britain in which the Luftwaffe attempted to destroy Fighter Command airfields. The day before had seen attacks to airfields in the west of England; now it was to be the turn of airfields to the east. Rather than approach their targets over land, this day the majority of the attacking aircraft approached via the Thames Estuary, turning north or south as required. At St Trond airfield in Belgium, nine Dornier 17s of the 7. Staffel of Kampfgeschwader 3 (7/KG3) took off to attack the RAF airfield at Manston in Kent, the raid timed for 1220 hours. The formation was part of Hauptmann Erich Rathmann’s III/KG3 although records are not clear as to who was the Staffelkapitän of 7/KG3. This small number of bombers enjoyed a close escort by all three Gruppen of Jagdgeschwader 3 (JG3) commanded by Major Günther Lützow with all three Gruppen of JG54, commanded by Major Hannes Trautloft, carrying out a fighter sweep between Canterbury and Deal. The withdrawal and return to Belgium would be covered by all three Gruppen of JG51 commanded by Major Werner Mölders. The latter’s logbook records taking off from Pihen in the Pas-de-Calais at 1230 hours and landing again an hour and ten minutes later. (German time in the summer of 1940 was one hour ahead.)
DORNIER RECOVERY The Dorniers followed the north Kent coast turning inland between Herne Bay and Westgate to attack Manston from the north. It was now, as the formation approached the Kent Coast and prepared to turn southwards, that the Hurricanes of No. 56 and Spitfires of No. 610 and No. 616 Squadrons appeared together with the Defiants of No. 264 Squadron whose task it was to lead the interception. Two days before, No. 264 had been badly mauled by German fighters, losing five aircraft, one of which was flown by their popular squadron commander, Squadron Leader Philip Hunter. At exactly the same time that the German escort lifted off from their bases on the Continent, seven Defiants, led by Flight Lieutenant Arthur Banham (with gunner Sergeant Barrie Baker), were scrambled from Hornchurch in Essex. Instructed to patrol over Dover, they were then vectored towards the Herne Bay—Deal area to intercept the Dorniers. Mindful of the German escorting fighters, they successfully launched their attack from below the bombers. In the ensuing confused combats, No. 264 Squadron claimed to have destroyed six of the Dorniers and damaged another.
Probably the most well-known crash of a Dornier 17 in Britain occurred on September 15, 1940 when F1+FH of 1/KG76 was 40
the Battle of Britain being nicknamed the ‘Flying Pencil’ from its slim profile. Of the 2,139 built, few survived the war and the last known Do 17 was one belonging to the Finnish Air Force which was scrapped in 1953. These photographs show machines of 7/KG3, most probably those in operation on August 26, 1940.
By Chris Goss Pilot Officer Des Hughes with his gunner Sergeant Fred Gash attacked one that burst into flames although it was not seen to crash. Attacking a second Dornier, they watched as the nose broke away and the aircraft dived away shedding pieces but again it was not seen to crash. Pilot Officer Harold Goodall with his gunner Sergeant Bob Young attacked another two of the Germans as his combat report shows: ‘I attacked a Do 17 with an overtaking beam attack at 250 yards and got it two fairly long bursts; the Do 17 immediately lost speed and came towards me when my gunner got in two fairly long bursts at point-blank range. Pieces fell from the starboard engine which burst into flames. Just as the machine went into a dive, one of the crew baled out. I saw the machine go down in flames. I immediately attacked another Do 17 which had broken formation and my gunner got in a short burst which appeared to hit. I then saw the Do 17 dive into cloud and lost it.’
brought down over central London, the main wreckage falling in front of Victoria Station.
Flight Lieutenant Ernest CampbellColquhoun and his gunner Pilot Officer Gerald Robinson carried out several attacks on the formation, and reported seeing one aircraft break formation with a smoking starboard engine before having to return to base with jammed guns. However, the two remaining Defiant crews — Flight Lieutenant Banham and Sergeant Baker and Sergeant Edward Thorn with gunner Sergeant Fred Barker — had more spectacular combats. Having successfully manoeuvred his formation to attack, Banham was quickly in the thick of the action: ‘When approaching Dover at 12,000 feet, we sighted 12 Do 17s in vics line astern. We approached on starboard side in two vics line astern and I opened fire at leading bomber of last section. I saw my gunner get in a long burst at 100 yards; I then broke away and turned towards leading section and got a long burst in at 100 yards on No. 2 of first section. I was then hit myself near the cockpit and my machine was on fire. I lost control and telling my gunner to jump as I turned aircraft on its back. I fell out and was picked up in the sea.’ The Defiants had been spotted by the Stabsschwarm of JG3 whilst the remainder of the Staffel were tied up with Hurricane squadrons. In quick succession, Major Lützow and his Geschwaderadjutant, Oberleutnant Friedrich-Franz von Cramon, accounted for three Defiants. One was Banham’s aircraft (Sergeant Baker was reported missing); a second loss was Flying Officer Ian Stephenson and his gunner Sergeant Walter Maxwell. Like Banham, Stephenson’s Defiant crashed into Herne Bay with his gunner also being reported missing. Pilot Officer Goodall returned slightly damaged. Sergeant Thorn had a more spectacular end to the combat. Having apparently shot down two Dornier 17s, before they could attack a third, they themselves were badly damaged by a Messerschmitt 109. Spinning away to attempt a forced-landing near Herne Bay, they were then set upon by another German fighter when they were at 500 feet and about to land. Although they were now on fire, Sergeant Barker was able to open fire and saw the German fighter crash a few fields away.
With the fall of France, Luftwaffe bomber units were based on established French, Belgian and Dutch air force airfields, KG3 being spread over three bases in Belgium. The Headquarters and I. Gruppe were at Le Culot (now renamed Beauvechain); II. Gruppe at Antwerp/Deurne, and III. Gruppe at the most easterly airfield of St Trond (today Brustem). This meant that III/KG3 Dorniers would have a 150-mile flight just to reach the Belgian coast. However, what the Defiant crew had failed to see was another RAF fighter above them. Pilot Officer Ken Marston of No. 56 Squadron had been scrambled to intercept the formation from the north-west. Spotting a lone 109 about 2,000 feet below him, he dropped in behind and got in a short burst which caused the radiator cowling to fly off. The German pilot then rolled his fighter onto his back and Marston could clearly see the pilot’s head and shoulders out of the cockpit but he then lost sight of the aircraft in cloud. However as he flew back to base, he spotted a burning wreck in a crater southwest of Westgate-on-Sea which matches the crash site of Unteroffizier Willi Finke of 4/JG3 who was killed when his fighter crashed near Reculver. Yet Ken Marston had still not finished for the day and related what happened next in his combat report: ‘The first thing I saw was another Me 109 on the tail of a diving Boulton-Paul Defiant. I dived with full throttle and got about 70 yards behind the Me 109 at a height of 50 feet. I gave him a short burst and I saw flames appear from beneath the cockpit. The Me 109
crashed about 100 yards behind the Defiant which had force-landed wheels up. The crew of this Defiant got away from their machine and were picked up by an Army tender. The position of the crash was approximately five miles south of Reculver Church near Herne Bay.’ Thorn and Barker were reported to have crash-landed near Chislet, south of Reculver, whilst the Messerschmitt 109 of Unteroffizier Fritz Buchner of 6/JG3 also crashed at Chislet. The part played by No. 264 Squadron in intercepting this raid was now over and the remaining German bombers headed for France, all the losses coming from 7/KG3. One Dornier 17, coded 5K+ER, crashed into the sea off Foreness, the pilot, Leutnant Karl Eggert, being rescued but dying two days later. The radio operator, Obergefreiter Kurt Ramm, and gunner, Obergefreiter Walter Knochenmuss, were both killed whilst the observer, Unteroffizier Rudolf Haupt, was captured. Another Do 17, coded 5K+GR, also ditched in the Channel, killing just the pilot, Leutnant Heinz Sachse. Another aircraft landed at Merville low on fuel with
GOODWIN SANDS ANTWERP/DEURNE ST TROND
LE CULOT
To put Monday, August 26 into context, the previous night had witnessed a severe escalation in the Luftwaffe attacks when the first bombs fell on London proper. Churchill had already declared that should there be a German raid on the centre of government in London, ‘it seems very important to be able to return the compliment the next day on Berlin’ –- which is exactly what happened on Sunday night. Yet the significance of the event had not yet sunk in so on Monday morning it was business as usual using maps just
like this one. The first raid just after 11.30 a.m. saw 100+ aircraft en route for the Dover area to bomb the coastal towns of Folkestone, Margate, Broadstairs and inland aerodromes at Biggin Hill and Kenley. A mixture of Messerschmitt 109s and 110s, Dornier 17s and Heinkel 111s were involved, one of KG3’s machines, 5K+AR, force-landing on the Goodwin Sands in the Channel off Ramsgate. (This original German Luft-Navigationskarte produced in 1938 was taken as a souvenir by Chris Smith from the HQ at Caen in 1944.) 41
wounded crewmen, believed to be Unteroffizier Horst Pässler, Gefreiter August Meyer and Unteroffizier Heinz Henning. There was just one more loss: Dornier 17 Z2, Werk-Nummer 1160, coded 5K+AR. This aircraft had been separated from the formation by RAF fighters and badly crippled, apparently ditching on the Goodwin Sands, Feldwebel Willi Effmert (pilot) and Unteroffizier Hermann Ritzel (observer) being the only survivors. The body of the gunner, Gefreiter Heinz Huhn, was discovered in the
sea off Whitstable where he was buried on August 29, while that of the radio operator, Unteroffizier Helmut Reinhardt, washed ashore at Den Burg in Holland on September 29. (Both were exhumed and reburied after the war, Reinhardt in Block BQ, Row 6, Grave 136 in the German cemetery at Ysselsteyn, Holland, whilst Huhn lies in Grave 405 in Row 11 of Block 1 in the German War Cemetery at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire.) Although contemporary records explain much, a degree of confusion still remains as
to the precise circumstances which resulted in the deaths of two RAF pilots and the wounding of another four, and the deaths of three German fighter pilots and six bomber aircrew, the capture of six of whom three were wounded. But August 26 is notable for the successful forced-landing of one of the Dorniers in the Channel. After it sank nose first onto the Goodwin Sands, it turned turtle and ended up on its back where it lay relatively undisturbed for the next 73 years.
Uncertainty still remains as to who got whom during the battle that day as no combat report for No. 264 mentions seeing a Dornier 17 crash. Only one other claim for a Dornier 17 was filed and even that does not help. Flying Officer Peter Lamb of No. 610 reported attacking a Do 17 off Deal headed south and despite damaging it, did not see it crash but reported that the pilot of this was later rescued from the sea (which could have been Willi Effmert although the combat report does not confirm this). Furthermore, Nos. 56, 610 and 616 Squadrons were also involved in bitter fighting with the German fighters and could possibly have had a part to play. In addition to the two aircraft shot down by Ken Marston, one more Messerschmitt 109 was claimed destroyed by Pilot Officer ‘Mouse’ Mounsden of No. 56 Squadron whilst No. 610 claimed three German fighters destroyed (Sergeant Ray Hamblyn, Squadron Leader John Ellis and Pilot Officer Doug Wilson) and two probably destroyed (Sergeants Norman Ramsay and Ray Hamlyn). Flying Officer Denys Gillam of No. 616 was the only other RAF claimant: a Messerschmitt 109 destroyed. RAF losses were heavy. In addition to those lost by No. 264 Squadron, No. 56 lost two Hurricanes (Pilot Officer Brian Wicks and Sergeant George Smythe); No. 610 two Spitfires (Flying Officer Frank Webster and Sergeant Peter Else) and No. 616 seven Spitfires (Sergeants Percy Copeland and Marmaduke Ridley; Pilot Officer Roy Marples, and Flying Officers Teddy St Aubin, John Bell, George Moberley and Bill Walker). In addition to the three Defiants claimed by Stab/JG3, German claims were two Hurricanes by Oberleutnant Lothar Keller of 1/JG3 and Oberfeldwebel Robert Olejnik of 2/JG3 and two Spitfires by Feldwebel
Hans Ehlers of 2/JG3 and Unteroffizier Kurt Graf of 3/JG3, the locations being Thames Estuary, Faversham, west of Calais and Canterbury respectively. II/JG3 did better with five Spitfires by Oberleutnants Karl Westerhoff and Erich Woidtke of 6/JG3, Leutnant Horst Buddenhagen of 5/JG3 and Hauptmann Erich von Selle and Oberleutnant Heinrich Sannemann of Stab II/JG3. Just one Hurricane was shot down by Oberleutnant Jost Kipper of 4/JG3. Again, the locations are scattered around the Thames Estuary between 1315 and 1335 hours. Finally, III/JG3 claimed three Spitfires by Leutnant Winfried Schmidt and Unteroffizier Josef Kell of 8/JG3 and Oberleutnant Egon Troha of 7/JG3. The only losses were one fighter damaged for 3/JG3; three destroyed for II/JG3 (in addition to the two mentioned earlier; Unteroffizier Emil Müller of 4/JG3 was reported missing in combat) and one other damaged for 8/JG3. JG54 claimed just two Spitfires (Hauptmann Dietrich Hrabak of Stab II/JG54 and Oberfeldwebel Paul Hier of 4/JG54) for no losses. Meanwhile, JG51 bounced RAF fighters (believed to have been No. 616 Squadron) as the Dorniers crossed the coast. Werner Mölders claimed his 27th kill, a Spitfire off Folkestone, and Oberleutnant Richard Leppla of 3/JG54 claimed another Spitfire. II/JG51 claimed quite a number with two Spitfires for Oberleutnant Hans Kolbow (5/JG51); a Spitfire each for Oberleutnant Josef Fözö, Leutnant Erich Hohagen, Feldwebel Hans John of 4/JG51 and Oberleutnant Josef Priller of 6/JG51, and a lone Hurricane by Oberfeldwebel Werner Hübner of 4/JG51. Leutnant Gottfied Schlitzer of 8/JG51 claimed the only RAF fighter (another Spitfire) for III/JG51. JG51 like JG54 failed to lose a single fighter.
Two crewmen from 5K + AR lost their lives. The gunner, Gefreiter Heinz Huhn now lies in the German War Cemetery at Cannock Chase. Alex Medhurst, the General Manager of the RAF Museum at Cosford, near Birmingham, was pictured paying his respects.
The body of the radar operator, Unteroffizier Helmut Reinhardt, was washed up on the foreshore of the Dutch island of Texel in Holland having been carried by the tide some 250 miles from the crash. Karel Margry, Editor of After the Battle, sought out his grave at Ysselsteyn.
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Over the years, the Goodwin Sands have seen well over 2,000 sinkings because of their location close to the major shipping lanes through the Straits of Dover. The sandbanks lie on a base of chalk, the same as the White Cliffs, and are 25 to 50 feet Local fishermen were more than aware of the presence of the many wrecks on the Goodwin Sands as testified by the number of nets being snagged on remains of aircraft. However, in 2008, a wreck, well-known to divers and fishermen alike, gradually began re-emerging from the seabed, eventually lying some 52 feet below the surface. The aircraft was lying on its back, appeared to have two engines, and as it had an open section in the fuselage, it was most probably a bomber. Wessex Archaeology carried out side-scan sonar imagery of the wreck in 2008 and 2009 at which time it was clearly identified as a German Dornier Do 17Z. This was later confirmed by dives on the wreck and multi-beam scan sonar imagery carried out by the Port of London Authority in 2011. The RAF Museum now saw this as a perfect opportunity to recover the world’s only remaining Dornier 17 that would form the missing link in its collection of Battle of Britain aircraft. However, it took over three years’ planning, fund-raising and researching to get to the point when — on May 3, 2013 — it was formally announced that the recovery would be taking place. The following day saw a floating recovery platform being positioned over the Dornier. Although research by the RAF’s Air Historical Branch had indicated that the wreck was believed to be that of the Dornier Do 17Z-2 coded 5K+AR of 7/KG3, the identity was still not absolutely certain and there was always the risk of finding human remains or ordnance if it was not Werk-Nummer 1160 lost on August 26, 1940. Divers had conducted a detailed survey of the aircraft and reported that the aircraft had survived the winter storms and remained intact. Conditions were always difficult on the Goodwin Sands with tides only allowing 50-90 minutes of diving per day and in conditions which generally gave no more than a few feet visibility. Various sections of the airframe were in a particularly fragile state, something that the RAF Museum had anticipated. The plan was for a specially-designed, light-weight lifting frame to be assembled underwater around and under the airframe to support it. That being said, it was expected that the recovery would still take three to four weeks to complete dependant on the weather and tides.
below the surface although much less at low tide. Left: Sidescan sonar revealed the image of the Dornier lying upside down and divers captured the wreck close up in the murky Channel waters (right).
With their vast experience of raising vessels, Seatech Commercial Diving Services Ltd at Southampton offered their services although they realised that a fragile aircraft wreck, already disintegrating, would be a challenge to lift without it breaking apart. As these schematics show, a clever frame was specially designed to act as a cradle.
Right: The elaborate frame was manufactured in aluminium and divers from Seatech carried out numerous rehearsals on land at assembling it so that they would be able to bolt the sections together around the wreck underwater. The seabed was assumed to be soft sand but in fact it turned out that the underlayer of chalk made it impossible to insert the frame underneath the Dornier. Drilling through the chalk would have taken far too long and added thousands to the cost. 43
Right: Seatech’s lifting barge on station over the Dornier. Fifteen days of diving were lost due to the bad weather and on four occasions the barge had to take shelter in Ramsgate harbour. So with time and money running out, an emergency meeting was held with the RAF Museum to formulate a ‘Plan B’. This resulted in a more conventional lift by attaching cables onto strong points on the aircraft. However, getting the aircraft to the surface and then to land would be just part of the task. Being immersed in seawater for over 70 years would mean that as soon as the aircraft was exposed to air, it would quickly start corroding to such an extent that the remains would eventually disintegrate completely. The museum therefore intended transporting the remains to Cosford in the West Midlands where they would be positioned in two purpose-built hydration tunnels fitted with a moisture spray system.
On Monday, June 10, the Dornier was finally lifted clear of the seabed and gently lowered onto the deck of the barge. This would allow the remains to be soaked with a special solution to gently wash away the salts on the airframe, hopefully without damaging any remaining paintwork or any of the components within the wings and the fuselage. The run-off would drain through the floor to be filtered before being re-circulated back into the system. Before being used again a reading would be taken of the water to ensure that it was still the right pH value. All of this seems simple yet it is estimated the conservation process will still take up to three years. The first recovery was planned for June 2, 2013 and then again the following day but the attempt had to be postponed due to the weather and tidal conditions. Weather delays coupled with seabed geology problems had earlier forced a change in the method to be used for the recovery. When it proved impossible to insert the frame under the Dornier, instead the rear fuselage was reinforced and 44
Although it was believed that the identity of the machine had been established, obviously finding a constructor’s plate would confirm the serial number without doubt. German aircraft had several such plates on various parts of the airframe as well as
having the serial painted in black on any removable panels. This Henschel data plate was the first to be discovered, although unfortunately it did not include the aircraft’s WerkNummer.
In the past years, several aircraft recovered from the sea have soon disintegrated on coming in contact with the air so, as part of the £500,000 recovery project, the RAF Museum had previously prepared two hydration tunnels at their outstation
in the Midlands at Cosford. As the lifting frame had been designed to be split in half, this was used to transport the Dornier in sections by road on its journey north. This is where the long preservation process will now take place.
lifting strops attached to strongpoints on the airframe, in this case the front and rear spars plus the undercarriage mounting. As the aircraft lay inverted on the seabed, access to these parts of the plane was not a problem and just before 6.30 p.m on June 10 the Dornier appeared above the waves. It had been lifted almost in one piece save for the starboard tailplane and fin, the bomb doors and the undercarriage doors. It was then taken to the docks at Ramsgate before being loaded for the road trip to Cosford the following day. Ian Thirsk, RAF Museum’s Head of Collections, who has been involved in this project from the start, says that ‘The first stage of the Dornier’s conservation at Cosford is now well underway and I’m pleased to say that we are making great progress. It has been an incredible project all the way from discovery to recovery and we are grateful to the many partners who ably assisted us with their expertise along the way. Currently we are developing a supporting exhibition which will sit around the Dornier at Cosford and will include some stunning technology which will ensure that both visitors and enthusiasts are engaged with the story of this legendary aircraft.’ 45
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Forty years of After the Battle: Winston’s Jeep on Omaha Beach in 1973 (issue 1) . . . and outside our main office in 2013.
From the Editor . . . Although we let the occasion pass without much publicity, we thought that this was a perfect moment to make another step into the world of social media, so that day we launched our own Facebook page. It is still in its infancy and more postings will be added as time progresses, providing snippets of news and lifting some of the veil on upcoming stories. Just search ‘After the Battle’ on Facebook and you are welcome to join us by pushing the thumbs-up ‘like’ button. Meanwhile, it has been a year since I sat down to compile the last instalment of reader’s letters and follow-up stories and already the file box is full of interesting new items. When we planned the production of The Battle of France Then and Now with our long-time author Peter Cornwell, it gave us the opportunity to use a manuscript that had been sitting on the shelf for many years. This had been written by the adjutant of No. 73 Squadron and we thought it would be a perfect way of setting the scene in France. Having served in the First World War when he was awarded the Air Force Cross, Pilot Officer Edward ‘Henry’ Hall had a desk job in the Air Ministry when he was called to the colours in 1939. Posted to No. 73, as well as maintaining the squadron’s
Operations Record Book, he also wrote a narrative on everyday life in France that included quite revealing descriptions of the various personalities on the squadron. (When checking a particular point of fact, one officer violently objected to ‘Henry”s description of himself appearing in the book, leading to a difficult decision whether or not to edit the text.) Anyway, when putting the book together, we were vary anxious to trace ‘Henry’ if he was still alive or at least speak with his daughter Joan as we had a huge number of the letters he had written to her, one of
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COURTESY CATHERINE STABB
The publication of our preceding issue, No. 161, in August 2013 — although we let it pass without much roll of drums — was very special to us for it marked the 40th anniversary of the start of After the Battle. Forty years ago, on August 15, 1973, Winston Ramsey published After the Battle No. 1, the D-day issue, featuring on the cover the iconic photo of Winston’s Willys Jeep on the sands of Omaha Beach. Forty years of After the Battle — who would have imagined that in 1973! And how true is it that time flies! I myself can still vividly recall, as a 16-year-old Dutch youngster with a budding interest in the Second World War, finding No. 1 on the shelves at Henk de Weerd specialist bookshop at Apeldoorn and being immediately fascinated by the Then and Now concept. My enthusiasm grew with the publication of No. 2, the Arnhem issue, a subject in which I had already developed a special interest. My parents gave me little pocket money but I gladly spent it all on becoming a subscriber. Little did I imagine that 14 years later, in 1987, I would be writing my first article for the magazine; that 25 years later, in 1998, I would become its Editor, and that now, in 2013, I would be writing this paragraph on our 40th anniversary!
Unfortunately we have had to raise the cover price of After the Battle from this issue but the cost of subscriptions in the UK are not being increased, effectively now being post-free. Taking out an annual subscription helps us and you can then always be sure of receiving the latest issue as soon as it is published, delivered direct to your door and cutting out any difficulty of obtaining the magazine from retailers. To place your annual subscription at just £20 for four issues (£29.88 overseas), please use the order form or call us on +44 01279 418833. Alternately you can order on line at www.afterthebattle.com and choose the option: Subscription Product.
Left: The adjutant of No. 73 Squadron just home with his family at 50 Westfield Road, Surbiton, after evacuation from France in 1940. L-R: son George (Catherine Stabb’s father), died March 14, 2011; son John, died May 15, 1992; daughter Joan (to 46
whom Henry wrote many letters from France), died October 9, 2009; Pilot Officer Edward ‘Henry’ Hall, AFC (died December 14, 1985), and seated his wife Emily (died May 1980). Right: The same back garden today.
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archive images blending into the perfectly same shot today. The film explores the island’s numerous fortifications in great detail. Many of the sites are described by Trevor Davenport, President of the Alderney Society and an old acquaintance, as he guided us round back in 1976 with Colin Partridge. The documentary is 87 minutes long. Retail price is £17 and for ordering information see www.battleshipislands.com. It is always sad to report the passing of one of our experts but the death of Chris Way, author of Glenn Miller in Britain Then and Now in July 2013 was more than tragic. Chris was probably the world’s leading authority on the Miller band and he came to us with the idea for a book showing all the venues where the band played in the UK which we published in 1996. In later years Chris fell on hard times, was made redundant, and underwent a serious operation for cancer. In the end he died penniless and alone in his flat in Harlow, Essex, just a dozen well-wishers attending his paupers funeral conducted to the music of the period. It was fitting therefore that Chris’s ashes were later scattered by John Miller, Glenn’s nephew, at Twinwood Farm (see After the Battle No. 117) from where Miller departed on his last fatal flight.
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which we wanted to reproduce (see page 58 of the book). We tried every avenue to reach him without success so had to go to press in 2007 none the wiser. Readers can therefore imagine Winston’s excitement to receive an E-mail out of the blue in December 2012 from ‘Henry”s granddaughter. Catherine Stabb said that she was currently writing a biography of her grandfather who had died in 1985. She told us that her aunt Joan had married a GI, John ‘Jack’ Enders, and had emigrated to the States after the war but sadly she had died in Colorado in 2009. We already knew that after the war, ‘Henry’ worked in the Air Historical Branch of the RAF and Catherine told us that after leaving the Air Ministry he had made a brief living as a dealer in old books and manuscripts, before retiring. He had also run a bookshop in Surbiton between the wars, which ended in financial disaster. As a child, when visiting ‘Pop’ at his home in Surbiton and later in Gravesend, Catherine said he was keen to show her his collection of old books and manuscripts. ‘Henry’ passed away on December 14, 1985 at Holywell Park Nursing Home in Bruton, Kent. Cremation took place in Medway Crematorium on December 20, his ashes being scattered in Woodland Grave 38.
Following our story on the crash of Ian Smith (issue 160) we received a letter from Clive Bloor of the Combined Rhodesian Forces Collection (museum) in Bedford in the UK. Clive was in No. 4 Squadron of the Rhodesian Air Force and so looks after the air force room. He informed us that the museum has Smith’s air force uniform from the war, complete with Flight Lieutenant’s rank, wings and medal ribbons. His rank and service number are still on the trousers waistband. The museum, which opened in January 2010 and is located in the building of the RAFA Bedford Branch at 93 Asburnham Road, includes all Rhodesia’s forces and the weapons they used, uniforms, flags, etc for the RhodAF, SAS, Rhodesian Light Infantry, Rhodesian African Rifles, Selous Scouts, Greys Scouts, British South Africa Police (Police Reserve Air Wing and Black Boots) and Internal Affairs. They also have ZIPRA and ZANU memorabilia. Although we do not generally advertise other people’s work, I would like to make an exception for a DVD documentary released in October 2012 and titled Battleship Islands — Alderney. One of series of DVDs on fortified islands, this one focuses on the fortifications of Alderney, giving ample attention to the 1940-44 German occupation of the island and the many remaining bunkers, gun platforms and other installations of the Atlantic Wall there. Producer-director Alberto Tabone from Higher Wincham in Cheshire told us he was inspired by our The Channel Islands Then and Now and, not surprisingly, we especially liked the many instances of
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Left: Ian Smith’s uniform at the Combined Rhodesian Forces Collection. Above: His name on the trousers waistband.
Left: Chris Way revisited the derelict control tower at Twinwood Farm on the 50th anniversary of Glenn Miller’s final departure from the Bedfordshire airfield on December 15, 1944.
Right: Watched by Winston Ramsey and Wendy Gibson, Chris’s first cousin, John Miller performs the honours outside the restored tower. 47
JOHN MARTIN
JOHN MARTIN
Revisiting the sites of Himmler’s suicide. This is where the former Lohse Mill stood at Bremervörde, where Himmler’s party was arrested by British military police, now occupied by the Hotel Oste.
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been shown the spot by the two gravediggers (see issue 17). After Bill Ottery and Ray Weston died, the German television station ZDF tried everything short of a bribe to get Winston to reveal the location. But the reasons why Himmler was buried secretly in 1945 remain: the man was a monster who denied his victims honourable graves; that he should have been stamped into the earth by British Army boots was only just retribution.
JOHN MARTIN
HQ Defence Company were photographed, the steps are still there. However, the owners of the property are aware of its history and are very wary of strangers arriving with cameras. They told me that occasionally at night young men stand outside and shout Nazi slogans!’ John told us that he would have liked to follow the story to where Himmler was buried in a secret grave, Winston having
Outside 31a Ülzenerstrasse, Lüneburg, today housing a social centre for old people.
JOHN MARTIN
The suicide of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (issue 14) continues to fascinate readers and so we were interested to receive from John Martin from Liverpool (author of the book The Mirror Caught The Sun about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942) an update on the main locations of that story: ‘Since the ATB article was written in 1976, some of the locations have changed and I would like to give readers an update, maybe making it a bit easier to find the places. ‘Himmler and two of his SS adjutants, SSObersturmbannführer Werner Grothmann and SS-Sturmbannführer Heinz Macher, arrived at the northern German town of Bremervörde. I was surprised at how big a town this was as I was just expecting a small village or hamlet. The most likely scenario is that they first went to 165 Waldstrasse. The farmhouse down a lane leading off it is still there and easily recognisable from the photo in issue 14 although the gate at the front has gone. It is believed that the Himmler party stayed there for about five days, maybe deciding on their next course of action. ‘Local historian Rainer Brandt told me it was believed that the group went to the district office in the town (located at 17 Vorwerkstrasse, it now houses the local museum for regional history, the BachmannMuseum) to try to get passes to get through the security checkpoint at the river crossings. Field Security police was stationed in the Lohse Mill which burnt down 25 years ago to be replaced by the Hotel Oste. The hotel, like the mill was, is almost on a small island surrounded by small rivers and a couple of bridges. This is where Himmler, Grothmann and Macher were arrested on May 21. ‘From here they were taken to another camp at Barnstedt. To find this, just follow the small road where Barnstedt becomes Kolkhagen. It is believed that this is where Himmler revealed his true identity. There are a number of small barracks remaining today and they have been turned into dwellings easily recognisable as barracks. The intake hut where the photographs of Himmler’s escorts Grothmann and Macher were taken still stands. It is now painted yellow. (Grothmann died in 2003, aged 86, and Macher in 2001, aged 81.) ‘From there I travelled to Lüneburg to 31a Ülzernerstrasse. The house is still there although there is absolutely nothing that would indicate its former use as British Field Security HQ. Originally it was two semidetached houses but now it has been converted into one and the front room where Himmler committed suicide is today an office. The huge conifer tree that appears on many pictures has been severely cut down, which makes it much better for photography. ‘At the rear of the property, where CSM Edwin Austin and his men of Second Army
John Martin outside the barrack hut at Barnstedt where the party was detained and where Grothmann and Macher were photographed.
The room where Himmler committed suicide — now just an ordinary office.
PETER THOMPSON
Left: SS-Oberscharführer Rochus Misch at the Wolfsschanze FHQu. Right: Peter Thompson of Halifax is one of our long-time readers ever since he purchased issue No. 1. He was visiting Berlin in 2001 and quite by chance recognised Rochus Misch (left) walking across the site of the Führerbunker. Peter approached him and A prominent recent event associated with the Third Reich was the passing-away of former SS-Oberscharführer Rochus Misch, the last surviving eyewitness to the final days and hours in Hitler’s Führerbunker in Berlin. Born on July 29, 1917 in Alt-Schalkowitz (now Stare Siolkowice in Poland), an orphan from the age of three, Misch grew up with his grandparents. A painter by trade, he joined the SS-Verfügungstruppe in 1937. Fighting in the 1939 campaign in Poland, he received a bullet in the lung during the negotiations for the surrender of the town of Modlin. Incapacitated for front-line service, he was then transferred to the Leibstandarte-SS and assigned to the Führerbegleitkommando in May 1940, his duties being to act as a courier, bodyguard and switchboard operator in Hitler’s personal staff. He remained at this post for the rest of the war. While in the Führerbunker in April 1945, he saw a glimpse of Hitler and Eva Braun slumped on
asked if he would agree to a photo. He recalls that Misch believed that in future years the buried bunker would be excavated and put on show. Where for many years the authorities tried to ignore the existence of the bunker, today a signboard with a plan overlay marks the correct location (see issue 136, page 55).
the couch after their suicide. He also watched Magda Goebbels tidying the hair and clothes of her six children shortly before she killed them with poison. Arrested by the Soviets on May 2, he was sent to Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison, where he was questioned under torture for a week. When he wrote a request to the NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria asking to be executed as a soldier, the maltreatment stopped but he spent the next nine years in Soviet internment. On his return to Germany in December 1953 he took over a small painting and wallpaper business in West Berlin. Misch gained the public eye relatively late, certainly much later than other members of Hitler’s staff such as his valet Heinz Linge, driver Erich Kempka, pilot Hans Baur, secretaries like Christa Schroeder or adjutants like Otto Günsche, surfacing into the limelight only after his retirement in the early 1980s. Thereafter he gave countless
In our story on the Allied capture of Frankfurt (issue 154) we related how the first combat commander of the city, Generalmajor Friedrich Stemmermann, was grievously wounded by an American shelling of the German headquarters on the third day of the battle, March 27, but was eventually evacuated to a military hospital in Dornholzhausen and survived. We were therefore very interested when Guus de Vries, of our Dutch distributor SI Publicaties, drew our attention to a postcard sent on December 12, 1945 by Frau Mina Stemmermann to her husband, who was then in the POW camp at Steinlager Allendorf near Marburg on the Lahn. ‘Am living near Sinzheim at Halberstung village, No. 2 on the village street, have room at farm-
interviews and in 2003 acted as historical advisor to the film production Der Untergang, in which his character is also portrayed (see After the Battle No. 128). In 2005 French journalist Nicolas Bourcier published a biography of him, titled J’étais garde du corps d’Hitler 1940–1945 (I was Hitler’s bodyguard 1940–1945), which was translated into several languages. In 2008 Misch himself published his memoirs Die letzte Zeuge (The Last Witness). He remained a staunch admirer of Hitler to the end, invariably speaking positively about him: ‘He was not a monster, he was a good boss, couldn’t have had a better one.’ And he kept questioning the Nazi genocide of the Jews: ‘I don’t know if Hitler’s acts were right or wrong. If what is said about the Holocaust is true, it is terrible. But I wonder; why then did we, in Hitler’s inner circle, never hear anything about it?’ Misch passed away on September 5, 2013, aged 96.
stead. Mother in good spirits. My mother ill. Herbert missing. Lilo and Mischa in good health. Dearest Christmas greetings.’ In that same story we commented that little was known about Stemmermann’s wartime career. Gerry Franken from Heijen in the Netherlands sent us an extract from Wolf Keilig’s book Die Generale des Heeres (1983) which provides the information: Stemmermann was in the signal service; when war broke out he was in command of Nachrichten-Regiment 558; in October 1939 he became Nachrichtenführer (Chief Signal Officer) of the 7. Armee; in March 1943 he switched to same position in the 2. Armee, which he held until November 3. His next assignment, nine months later, was Frankfurt. 49
JACQUES DUCAMP
MUNIN VERLAG
Lyons-la-Forêt, 20 kilometres east of Rouen, then in the night of August 25/26 moved to Metz-en-Couture, 65 kilometres north-east of Amiens. By checking out these various towns, Quentel discovered that the picture of the three generals had been taken at the latter location, at a building locally known as ‘le château’, probably on the 26th (the date given in the records for Gersdorff’s award ceremony). Dramatic events were to overtake the German generals a few days later. On August 30 Eberbach visited the 5. Panzerarmee HQ at Saleux to attend an evening conference chaired by Model. The meeting ended late and Eberbach and his staff decided to spend the night there. The general woke up early next morning, took breakfast, and then spent some time to study the situation and prepare orders. Suddenly, the place was invested by British troops, elements of the 11th Armoured Division that had broken through during the night and had pushed forward many kilometres without being noticed. Many, like Dietrich and von Gersdorff, managed to escape but Eberbach was captured, unshaven and in pyjamas according to some. The remnants of the 5. Panzerarmee headquarters joined that of the 7. Armee at Metzen-Couture and for the rest of that day both staffs shared the same command post there — but obviously the picture could not have been taken then as Eberbach was by then a prisoner of war. The following day Dietrich’s HQ moved on to Flines-lez-Raches.
Pierre Drémont’s diary of his time as a forced labourer in Germany. His entry for Sunday, July 23, 1944 reads: ‘Voyage à Swinemünde. Drôle de canon’ (Travel to Swinemünde. Queer cannon). Years after he told the story of the German HDP ‘secret weapon’ — the multichambered cannon also known as the V3 (issue 114) — Jean Paul was contacted by Pierre Drémont from Château-Thierry, who told him a remarkable tale. As a young man Drémont had personally seen the top-secret gun near Misdroy at close range. In May 1944, Drémont had been called up for forced labour in Germany (under the socalled STO — Service du Travail Obligatoire). He was sent to the Portland ZementFabrik at Stettin (now Szczecin in Poland) where he was assigned to work in a quarry at Kalkofen (now Wapnica), a small village east of Stettin. As they did not have to work on Sunday, Pierre used to hike around in the hills and sometimes even go up to the beaches of the Baltic near Misdroy, a long
PIERRE DRÉMONT
PIERRE DRÉMONT
On page 127 of Rückmarsch! The German retreat from Normandy Then and Now, published in 2006, we included a remarkable picture taken about August 26, 1944, and showing the three German top commanders in the West — Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, Ob. West; SS-Oberstgruppenführer Joseph Dietrich of the 5. Panzerarmee and General der Panzertruppen Heinrich Eberbach of the 7. Armee — standing on the steps of a house, the occasion being the award ceremony of the Knight’s Cross to Oberst Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff, the 7. Armee’s Chief-of-Staff. Although the three generals were all smiles for the photographer, the situation at that moment was anything but joyful as by then their defeated armies were in full retreat. Much to his frustration, Jean Paul had been unable to find the location of this house, hence the picture had to go without a comparison. Imagine his delight when, in December 2012, he was contacted by Patrick Quentel from Saint-Mandé near Paris who announced he had found the place after a long search. Quentel had solved the riddle by tracking the moves of the two army headquarters. That of the 5. Panzerarmee left Canteleu, just west of Rouen, on August 26 to set up a new command post at Saleux, four kilometres south-west of Amiens; it then moved to Flines-lez-Raches, five kilometres northeast of Douai, on August 31. The 7. Armee staff first pulled back from Canteleu to
Oberst Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff. Right: Patrick Quentel discovered it was taken at the headquarters of the 5. Panzerarmee at ‘le château’ in Metz-en-Couture, 65 kilometres northeast of Amiens, most probably on August 26. The same house had served as the local Kommandantur from 1940 to 1944.
PIERRE DRÉMONT
Left: An elusive picture — until now. Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, the German C-in-C in the West; SS-Oberstgruppenführer Joseph Dietrich of the 5. Panzerarmee and General der Panzertruppen Heinrich Eberbach of the 7. Armee pictured at the Knight’s Cross award ceremony of Eberbach’s Chief-of-Staff,
Drémont brought back a collection of postcards from his stay on the Baltic coast. One of them shows the Vietzig bay with, on the right, the heights of Weissgrund where the HDP prototypes were built. 50
The Gasthaus August Berndt cafe at Weissgrund, located close to the HDP test site, where Pierre stopped for a beer during his long walks to Misdroy or Swinemünde, and saw the locals repairing damage to their property after a test-firing.
RAMP No. 3
GOOGLE EARTH
PIERRE DRÉMONT
RAMP No. 2
Left: Another souvenir that Pierre brought back was this German map that he found in the basement of a barracks in Stettin where he was billeted for a time by the Russians prior to being repatriated to France. Right: In issue 114 we stated that there were three HDP ramps at Weissgrund, two for the 130-metre-long version of the cannon and one for the shorter 50-metre version, which was the one finally used in operations. However, restoration of the site
since then has shown that actually all three ramps were long ones. Each was built to a different design: one (No. 1 or Stellung Mitte) was resting directly on the ground, thus using up only a small amount of concrete; No. 2 (Stellung Süd) used massive concrete supports, while No. 3 (Stellung Nord) had long concrete slabs cast directly on the ground. Today, Ramps 2 and 3 are still clearly visible from the air.
walk of some eight kilometres through the villages of Vietzig (now Wicko) and Weissgrund (Zalesie today) and back. On the hillside beside the road near Weissgrund was the site where the prototype of the HDP gun was mounted for full-scale tests. Pierre still possesses the diary he carefully kept of his time of deportation in Germany. On July 23, 1944, he scribbled: ‘went to Swinemünde, a queer cannon’, and on August 13: ‘a lot of fuss at the cannon’. As Pierre remembers today: ‘It was like in a Jules Verne book! The cannon was very long, impossible for me to tell the length. There was a wooden staircase on the righthand side. The bottom end of the barrel was in a small bunker, and on each side there was a bunker with a facade at a slight angle to the road. The installation was in the middle of the forest, the cannon and the bunkers were all painted dark green, and the whole was meant to be invisible from the air.’ Kalkofen, where he worked, was some two kilometres from the gun site. One summer day, he heard explosions from the direction of the cannon. A few days before, he had seen the inhabitants of Weissgrund arriving in
Left: While on the subject of V-weapons, during one of his explorations, your Editor came across a sign in the Belgian Ardennes indicating that this was the spot from where on September 8, 1944, the very first-ever V2 was launched on actual operations — the first ballistic missile attack of the war. Two missiles were fired by Lehrund Versuchsbatterie 444, their target being Paris. The first, fired at 8.40 a.m., never reached its target and probably exploded during flight. The second, fired at 11 a.m., came down between Rue des Sapins and Rue des Ormes in Maisons-Alford, a south-eastern suburb of Paris, four minutes later, killing six and wounding 37 people and destroying several homes. The sign stands in the woods some ten kilometres north-east of Houffalize, at a locality known as Le Beuleu, in a clearing along the south side of the N827 from Sterpigny to Gouvy. The first missile aimed for London landed in the UK at 6.43 p.m. that same day. (See The Blitz Then and Now, Volume 3, pages 449-453.)
KAREL MARGRY
PAVEL UKRAINSKI
Although there were three ramps, only two complete guns appear to have ever been constructed. Today paths have been laid out to the upper end of the HDP ramps and information panels placed. This is Ramp No. 1 or Stellung Mitte.
Kalkofen with few of their belongings, being evacuated for the duration of trials with the cannon. Actually, their houses were located just at the foot of the gun, about 50 meters from the nearest ramp. A few days later, when things were back to normal, Pierre walked to Weissgrund and stopped at the local cafe for a beer. He saw the locals busy at work repairing damage to roofs and windows, aided by a team of workers from the Organisation Todt. It was impossible for him to wander around and have a closer look at the mysterious gun for ‘there were many armed guards around’. This recollection of Pierre leads one to think that he might have witnessed the accidental explosion that destroyed a cross section of the gun during one of the test-firings. Pierre stayed at Kalkofen until March 5, 1945, when the quarry was closed and he was transferred back to Stettin. Russian troops captured the city some weeks later and liberated him there.
51
ELECTRICITY BOARD
No. 44
VICARAGE LANE
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Below: The family house shows no sign of the damage incurred in 1944.
‘My maternal grandfather, Jim Alston, kept a detailed diary during the war’, explained Peter, ‘and reading through his daily entries I discovered that that particular incident had occurred on March 19, 1941. This triggered an idea for a new project to bring together relatives’ experiences, together with my own later memories, to produce illustrations that might hopefully create a fresh and vivid impression of a Stratford resident’s life during the Second World War. ‘On Sunday morning, July 2, 1944, a doodlebug struck the southern end of the Electricity Department Offices in Vicarage Lane (see The Blitz Then and Now Volume 3, page 425). This was a fairly new building predominantly constructed in steel reinforced concrete and tough engineering bricks. With open ground toward the backs of houses in Tavistock Road, there was an uninterrupted path for the blast wave. Mercifully, Jim was not at No. 44 on this occasion.
‘The painting reproduced here depicts the scene just after dawn on Wednesday, July 19. Normally Jim would have been awake, having slept in his Morrison shelter, and been at his ablutions in the scullery. However, this particular morning he was late, and as he slumbered a terrific roar erupted nearby. Another flying bomb had fallen on exactly the same spot as the earlier one. This time part of a chimney came down at No. 44. I believe also that lumps of concrete were hurled through the kitchen by the explosion, finishing up in the hallway and the front room of the house. A glass-fronted bookcase that had leaned against the middle wall was pitched forward and lodged on the edge the shelter leaving evidence that is still visible to this day. On its frame and doors, beneath a layer of varnish applied after the war, are many angular pinhole-like indentations, some retaining a glittering shard of embedded glass which remain to tell the tale.’
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In September 2011, an E-mail arrived from Peter Insole of Haverhill, Suffolk, asking for details of an incident that had occurred during the V-weapon attacks on London. The illustration Peter attached to his message was so stunning and life-like that we asked him to explain. This is what he replied. ‘I can remember holding my Grandparent’s hand while we walked past endless bomb-sites at Stratford in east London during the early 1960s. At the junction with Tavistock Road and Vicarage Road there were enormous timber buttresses holding up exposed end walls from falling onto ‘prefabs’ which had been erected on the open ground. ‘Why are those funny little houses there?’ I asked my Grandmother. ‘That’s where a stick of bombs came down in the war,’ she replied. Many years later an invitation to submit artwork for an exhibition presented me with the opportunity to revisit the site of the prefabs.
Left: The Electricity Department of West Ham Borough Council was hit by V-1s twice in 1944 — on July 2 at 00.57 and again at 52
4.44 a.m. on July 19. Right: It was rebuilt after the war but in 2005 it was converted into flats with an added penthouse.
STEVE DYER
‘Bombing of Darwin Day’ as a ‘national day of observance’ each year will sustain this new interest.’
STEVE DYER
provides more information on the war in northern Australia. The proclamation, in December 2011, of February 19 as the
Remains of ‘Zero’ fighter No. 5349 at the Aviation Heritage Centre. A veteran of the Pearl Harbor attack from the aircraft carrier Hiryu, it was shot down during the first raid, on February 19, 1942, crashing on Melville Island, 80 kilometres north of Darwin.
STEVE DYER
Steve Dyer, who authored our story on the 1942 Japanese raid on Darwin (issue 67), visited that city again on the 70th anniversary of the attack and sent us a report on the changes that have taken place since then. ‘When I researched the story in 1990 there were only scattered relics and some commemoration. Now there are numerous books (more than 20 since 1990), better heritage signposting; guided tours of wartime sites and, inevitably, changes in sites mentioned in the article. ‘At East Point, the Darwin Military Museum (formerly the Artillery Association Museum) is now augmented by the multimedia ‘Defence of Darwin Experience’, and a full-size replica of the 9.2-inch gun has been installed in the original emplacement there. ‘The brass plate commemorating the death of ten people when the Post Office was hit is now inside a new Legislative Assembly building, together with an Australian flag flown in Darwin during the attacks. This 1994 building also incorporates a wall made of undamaged remnants of the Post Office (in 1990 part of the original Post office wall was still in place). The Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac) has kept the original shrapnel-pitted brass bank nameplate on display inside. ‘The gun from the USS Peary was re-sited at the Darwin Esplanade for the 50th Anniversary celebrations and now points to where the destroyer’s remains lie in Darwin harbour. On the western side of the harbour, near the remnants of the anti-submarine boom nests, recent bushfires have exposed extensive military emplacements invisible when the original article was written. ‘On the highway south on the outskirts of Darwin there is now the new Aviation Heritage Centre with the remains of a ‘Zero’ shot down in the first raid and other relics including the table made from a searchlight, formerly in the Legislative Assembly. Further south, one of the rudimentary airstrips strung out along the highway, Strauss Field, is dotted with large-scale cut-outs of Spitfires. One depicts the mount of Flying Officer Malcolm ‘Junior’ Beaton of No. 452 Squadron RAAF, whose helmet, flying boots and Mae West are in the Aviation Heritage Centre. ‘Major impetus for the renewed interest came from the Government-sponsored ‘Australia Remembers’ community projects in 1994-95 to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the war and the continuing ‘Saluting Their Service’ monetary grants from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. An official website, www.defenceofdarwin.nt.gov.au,
STEVE DYER
Above: Full-size cut-out of Spitfire A58-236 (QY-G) of No. 452 Squadron RAAF flown by Pilot Officer Malcolm Beaton at former Strauss Field, one of several airstrips scraped out of the bush alongside the main road south from Darwin. Right: Beaton’s flying kit is now on display at Darwin’s Aviation Heritage Centre.
Replica of one of the two 9.2-inch guns at Darwin’s East Point Battery, set up in No. 2 Emplacement. The original guns, installed in 1944, were sold to — ironically — a Japanese salvage company in 1959 and cut up for scrap. 53
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54
Another group placed a ladder against the Cross of Sacrifice and started smashing it with hammers. They decapitated the top and chopped sizeable parts from the base. The CWGC took immediate steps to repair the desecration. All the broken headstones and the remnants of the Cross of Sacrifice were removed and temporary markers placed above all the graves whose headstones were damaged. The cemeteries were tidied throughout, and made too look ‘presentable’ again. However, a full restoration is
still awaiting. As the CWCG reported in February 2013: ‘The security situation in Libya remains difficult. Nevertheless work at Benghazi War Cemetery will be resumed as soon as the situation improves. In the interim, work at the cemetery has been suspended until further notice but regular inspections will continue.’
CWGC
In the final chapter of The War in the Desert Then and Now we included pictures of the various war cemeteries in North Africa, including on page 564 the British War Cemetery in Benghazi. We were therefore utterly abhorred when, in March 2012 (just before we went to press), a shocking video was released on YouTube showing Muslim fanatics destroying headstones in that very same cemetery. Filmed by one of the vandals, the video shows some 30 armed men kicking down rows of headstones in an unhurried and systematic way. ‘We will start with this and then carry on’, one voice is heard saying. Another group is seen placing a ladder against the Cross of Sacrifice and starting to smash it with hammers. Few of the mob make any attempt to hide their face, apparently confident about not being held to account, including the cameraman, a young male in a black-and-white scarf who takes shots of himself. One can be heard saying he cannot kick down one grave because ‘this soldier must have been good to his parents’ but someone pressures him: ‘Come on, they are all dogs, who cares’. As later transpired, these attacks had occurred on February 24 and 26, 2012. As the Commonwealth War Graves Commission reported, a total of 224 headstones out of 1,214 were broken or destroyed and the Cross of Sacrifice was damaged. A further 129 headstones were affected in the nearby Benghazi British Military Cemetery (where 315 post-war dead are buried). None of the cemetery maintenance staff was reported injured in the attack. The action was apparently carried out by wahhabists, a fanatical strain of Islam that grew in strength in Libya following the end of Gaddafi’s regime. To them, all graves above ground level are taboo and a fatwa to this end was delivered only a few weeks before by Libya’s Chief Mufti, al Sheikh al Sadeq al-Gheriani, instructing his followers to destroy indigenous Muslim shrines. Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council — which has close ties with Western countries after a NATO bombing campaign helped it to topple Gaddafi — apologised for the vandalism, calling the acts ‘unethical, irresponsible and criminal’. Police arrested three members of the armed mob but released them after a few hours. A senior officer explained: ‘We have no control over these men, they are too dangerous, they have more weapons. We have arrested members of this brigade in the past and their fellow fighters raided the police station to get them out.’ It does not seem any of the perpetrators was finally arrested and put to trial, highlighting the National Transitional Council’s inability to control the militias.
The mob beginning to break up Row F. Remarkably, they appear to have left headstones of unknown soldiers unharmed, as evidenced by the one seen here (Row G, Grave 15) and others at the eastern end of Row F.
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Benghazi War Cemetery being desecrated by an armed Muslim mob in February 2012. Here one of the vandals is about to break the headstone of Gunner Eric Jones, RA, in the front row of Plot 7 (Row G, Grave 25).
As soon as it was safe to access the site, the CWGC local staff began clearing the site. Over time, the broken headstones will be replaced but until then the graves are marked with temporary metal plaques.
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TWGPP
In February 1942, four women were brutally murdered in London in as many days — a reign of terror which led the Press to declare that a ‘Black-out Ripper’ was at large. Evelyn Oatley plied her trade in Wardour Street where her mutilated body was discovered on February 10. Subsequently an RAF cadet, Gordon Cummins, was executed for her murder, evidence indicating that he had also been responsible for the deaths of Evelyn Hamilton, Margaret Lowe and Doris Jouannet. Ros Seton is the niece of Evelyn Oatley and she has spent years searching for the grave of her aunt. She made contact with Winston Ramsey who had tracked down many graves of murder victims in his new book Scenes of Murder Then and Now. He told her he had checked dozens of cemeteries in the Blackpool area, where Evelyn’s husband lived, and also around her home town of Keighley but without success. Although cremation was unusual during the war, Ros told Winston that she was now going to check crematoriums and she could not believe it when her very first call struck gold! Not only was Evelyn listed in the records of Streatham Park Cemetery but she was buried there in a common grave. Why Evelyn should have been laid to rest in south London is a mystery yet to be solved but meanwhile Ros was able to place her tribute on the grave which had remained forgotten and unmarked for 70 years.
Another of the wartime crimes that we reported on in Scenes of Murder Then and Now was the so-called ‘Wigwam Murder’, which comprised the killing of 19-year-old Joan Pearl Wolfe by Canadian Private August Sangret on September 13, 1942. Her heavily decomposed body was found on Hankley Common training grounds in Surrey, close to three Canadian Army camps on Witley Common known as Algonquin, Jasper and Laurentide. Private Sangret, who was arrested in December and hanged in March 1943, had been stationed at Camp Jasper. The sites of these camps have since been totally reclaimed by nature but David Boxall from Petersfield in Hampshire took up the challenge. David is a member of the local neighbourhood policing team at Godalming and part of his area is Witley. Having seen the plan of the camps on page 116 of our book, he decided to carry out some investigation. Not only did he manage to identify the old entrance to Camp Jasper on the south side of the A3 (when the old A3 was upgraded to a dual-carriage road in the 1980s, the original road became the southbound (Portsmouth) carriageway) but he discovered there is still some 200 yards of the original tarmac camp road stretching into the trees. The camp’s parade ground can still be discerned as a large clearing in the woods. These are the only remaining vestiges of the three camps, everything else having been cleared in the 1950s.
DAVID BOXALL
Speaking of CWGC cemeteries, we were very pleased to learn that The War Graves Photographic Project received official commendation and Royal recognition for its good work. Set up in 2007, TWGPP has undertaken the immense task of recording, archiving and making available images of the graves or memorial listings of every British and Commonwealth service casualty since the outbreak of the First World War. Working with volunteers around the world, they have been able to photograph and record over 1.7 million named graves and memorials. As the CWGC Director General, Alan Pateman-Jones, said: ‘The project provides a valuable service to families, scholars and researchers seeking to obtain a copy of the photograph of a grave or memorial — virtually anywhere in the world. This service has only been made possible through the efforts of a dedicated group of 900 volunteers, from all walks of life, who recognise the importance for families to see where their loved ones are laid to rest or commemorated. In recognition of this outstanding contribution to the work and aims of the Commission the Project is awarded the President’s Commendation.’ At a ceremony at St James’ Palace on May 23, 2013, HRH The Duke of Kent, who is president of the CWGC, presented Steve Rogers, the TWGPP Co-ordinator, with the prestigious award. In his word of thanks, Steve said it was an honour to accept this award on behalf of all the volunteers. In his earlier announcement to the project collaborators he elaborated: ‘This award is in recognition for all the hard work that has been carried out by our volunteers and those of you that have supported us since our inception in 2007. Some of you have trekked to the back of beyond to photograph a single grave whereas others have photographed many hundreds, if not thousands, of headstones and memorials around the world. Some cemeteries, I am aware, have required a bit of “diplomacy” to access and a few favours have been redeemed for which I am grateful. This determination has allowed us to continue to supply photographs to families who have never had the opportunity to visit a loved one’s grave and promote the work of the CWGC via our website.’ Requests for grave photos can be made via www.twgpp.org.
Ros Seaton paying her respects to her aunt Evelyn Oatley, second victim of the ‘Black-out Ripper’ in February 1942, at Streatham Park Cemetery in south London.
DAVID BOXALL
The War Graves Photographic Project at work: volunteer Tony Wege photographing the grave of Sergeant Joseph Percival of the 1st AIF at Windorah cemetery in the Australian outback.
Left: The old entrance to Canadian Army Camp Jasper — where Private August Sangret, the ‘Wigwam Murderer’ was stationed — as seen from the A3 south-west of Witley. Right: Tarmac from the old camp road, now heavily covered in moss. 55
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