Australian Women's Weekly Article
4 December 1943
Below is reproduced an article from the Australian Women's Weekly, which featured, among others, Pte. Harold Herman, then recovering in the 2/5 AGH from his wounds and his close brushes with death.
The article was accompanied by two pictures, one of Harold Herman.
The article and the picture are reproduced with the permission of the publishers of the AWW.
The Luckiest Man in New Guinea
Every soldier in hospital lays claim to the title
by Alice Jackson
Who is the luckiest man in New Guinea?
I talked to many who claimed the title, but was never able to decide which had the best rights to it.
Cheerily battling their way back to health in the hospital wards, they told me in the most matter-of-fact way stories which, in pre-war days, would have featured in every newspaper in the world.
Here heroism is so common that any man whom you think labelled a hero would think you'd just "gone troppo" to entertain such a wild idea.
Him a hero! Forget it. He's only "the luckiest man in New Guinea!"
Among the "lucky" men I met was a young officer, always smiling in spite of his broken arm, always cheery as he talked through the plaster clenched teeth of his broken jaw.
"Having a glorious time," he gritted with a grin.
"They're wonderful here. It was worth it all just to get such a marvellous break. No pun intended," he assured me with a whimsical smile.
"How did I come by these impressive trappings? Why, I'm the luckiest man in new Guinea."
"He was in an air crash," the sister explains.
"So I was," he said, "but the pilot got killed, poor chap - and here am I practically wallowing in luxury."
"Tell me about it," I urge.
"Nothing to tell," he says. "We crashed - and next I knew I was sitting in a creek spewing petrol.
"Eventually I go to a C.C.S. (casualty clearing station), and they flew me in here - nothing to it, really."
"It was seven days before they found him," sister puts in.
"What did you get to eat?" I demand.
"Oh, I had a pawpaw and a bit.I didn't feel like eating, anyway" - and the luckiest man in New Guinea waved me a gay farewell with his free arm.
Eleven transfusions
Then there was Pte. Harold Herman, who was sitting up in bed putting the finishing touches to a black felt dog he was making for his mother in Bellevue Hill.
Pte. Herman simply radiates good cheer. The uneven bulge in the sheet of his cot tells the story of an amputated leg.
"How did it happen?" I ask.
"Oh, I stopped a bullet in the left leg. They did the operation here - and are they good! I'll say they're marvellous."
"He had eleven transfusions," sister murmurs to me.
"How are you feeling, Pte. Herman?"
"Me? Oh, I'm feeling number one - luckiest man in New Guinea, really."
And there is Pte James Rolan Fisher, from Talbot, Victoria.
Most of his friends had just gone to the mainland on long home leave.
You could see he was counting the days till he's join them, but his chin was well up.
Perhaps Pte. Fisher IS the luckiest man in New Guinea. It is a miracle he is still alive and well enough to take a short walk outside and sit for a while in the shade.
His was quite a common story.
You hear plenty like it, simply told by men who are just plain Australians who would die rather than admit they have shown superb courage, incredible endurance, miraculous spirit.
"We were out for six days near Salamaua. The Japs led a party of us into a bit of a trap.
"They let us go forward, and then closed in on us.
"We couldn't get back, and 40 or 50 of us were wounded. I'd collected gunshot wounds in the stomach, but I didn't reckon I was too bad.
"One of my mates bandaged me, and I and two other chaps decided to try to get back to our own lines to get word to them about it, so they could send a party in for the really badly wounded.
"We took off our boots to deaden the sound, and crawled through the Jap lines and ran right into them.
"We got into a bit of a hole, and the Japs were so near we could have touched them. So we crawled out into the grass.
"We kept on for six days. We hadn't anything to eat really, though we chewed a few leaves. We sweated a lot, but we didn't get too weak because we got water.
"We got through to our chaps, but actually we don't reckon we did anything, because a couple of days after we got out. our men broke through again and picked up the wounded. Still, I'm glad we gave it a go."
"And how are you now, Private Fisher?"
"Well, when I saw all my mates getting evacuated home I felt a bit blue, but I've got nothing to complain about.
"I'm the luckiest man in New Guinea really. The doc. reckons what I've been through would have outed most men."
You can count in their hundreds the Private Fishers and Hermans and the smiling young officers who claim the proud title of "Luckiest Man in New Guinea."
You can see why I failed to decide just who really had the fairest claim to it.
