Salamaua Campaign

The Front - Again

Back to the Front

I got malaria and they fixed that up. That makes it late July, early August '43. While we were back, the 5th and 6th were up. We leap-frogged each other and relieved each other.

The front was moving towards Salamaua slowly. We came to a place called Observation Hill. There is a little flat area called Mubo Valley. That was an advantage because they could fly Piper Cubs in there but it wasn't much help as far as supplies were concerned ...

Piper Cubs could only carry about three people. What they would do was drop the ammo. Anything like a grenade or a mortar bomb, they would drop without the percussion caps. The percussion caps would come up by native carrier. By this time lines of communication were huge - you know, it took a week to walk in.

It was all down hill from the Summit to Salamaua past the Saddle, where we had had our first contact. Except that you went uphill and then downhill, it wasn't flat ... but the valleys were getting closer to sea level.

I don't know what units went out of the line or stayed there. It was getting pretty hairy even though the Japanese weren't counter-attacking by this time. We were gathering momentum towards the end of the Salamaua campaign.

Air Drop Seen from Below

Around this time, there had been an airdrop of food and stuff. This was some six weeks before I got wounded. We had hidden behind a tree so we wouldn't get hit by some falling debris because a lot of blokes got killed by being hit by flying parcels. The bloody thing hit the tree right above us, and bits of paper came down and what else came down? American zipper jackets. We still carried a sweater, you had to carry a sweater for the night. So I had my sleeping bag and a beautiful American zipper jacket, both of which got lost, with my gold.

3rd Division

By this time we had been joined by the 3rd Division which was militia. There was always a lot of ... not ill-feeling ... but the militia were called "chocos" - chocolate soldiers - and they were looked down upon by the AIF. By this time, three years had passed so they had plenty of time to join the AIF but they hadn't and at that time the CMF couldn't fight above the equator and this rankled the AIF a bit.

Anyhow, the 3rd Div had joined us and General Savige had taken over the 17th Brigade ...

Artillery

In addition to the infantry, there were two pieces of artillery which were Indian mountain guns which could break down into pieces. They were designed to be carried by mules in India in the old frontier days, pre-WWI. In New Guinea, they were broken down and carried by 3 or 4 natives to a piece. ANGAU looked after the natives, so there was an ANGAU officer, or an ANGAU non-com, in charge of the natives. The native carriers rotated - I think they only covered each stretch. In other words, group A would go from the Summit to point B, and from point B the next group would carry on. Some of the ANGAUs were in the front line. They were there as carriers and stretcher-bearers. Carried bodies back and ammunition forward.

Observation Hill

We were moving forward down in the Mubo Valley, and we were given instructions in Mubo to go up to the top of Observation Hill, walk along till we came to a fork in the track and then turn left. That would take us to where we were supposed to go. (Wherever the army went, there was an "Observation Hill".) So we started to climb Observation Hill which was just grass and mud - there were no trees on it.

There were a few Americans around by then and one American was coming down the hill. We asked this guy how long it was to the top. He said that it had taken him 45 minutes to come down. So, we multiplied that by a few and thought about two and a half hours to get to the top with all our gear. So we started up the hill and three and a half hours later we finally made it. By this time I had a roaring temperature - I had malaria again. The Carrier Platoon stayed overnight at the top of the hill.

More Malaria

I definitely had malaria so the Lieutenant told me to go down to the Regimental Aid Post (RAP) hut at the bottom ... and report in. So the platoon went on and I followed instructions. The Battalion tailor, who was a bit of a bludger, reckoned he wasn't fit to go on so he waited while I went down. I said to the platoon, "I probably won't see you again." So I went down to the bottom and met the Colonel, Colonel Gwynn, who was evacuated by Piper. I reported into the RAP hut and they gave me some quinine ...

This was my second bout of malaria and it wasn't documented. They gave me some pills and said, "Go on, back up you go again". They weren't very sympathetic to malaria. It was, more or less, "Are you still breathing?" I think I had a temperature of about 102. So back up the hill I went. I didn't bring any gear down with me, I only brought my rifle down with me - and I went up in about 2 hours. I got up the top and the tailor was still there and he wasn't well enough to go on. I'd left my gear with the tailor and picked it up again.

I thought I'd sleep the night and go ahead. So I went up the track and turned left and I was walking along and I hear some bloody footsteps. So I dive down into the bushes, rifle at the ready, and I saw a couple of Aussies. So I said, "Hey!" We get talking and they said, "Who are you with?" I said, "I am with the Carrier Platoon".

They said, "We're looking for them".

And I said, "What do you mean you're looking for them?" I told them that we had been given instructions to come up to the fork in the road and turn left.

They said, "You silly bastards, you should have turned to the right".

A Jungle Bath

So, they put me on the right track to the camp on Observation Hill where I told them what had happened to the Carrier Platoon. The two Australians, who'd been sent to find the Platoon, choofed off to the left. When they found the Carrier Platoon, it had been gone 2 day and was in Japanese territory. So they turned around and came back to the camp.

I hadn't had a bath for God knows how long, and I got down to the camp and there was a big pool of water, running water ... I was feeling better by then, the quinine, or whatever they gave me, worked. And I was putrid, absolute mud from head to tail ... I took the wallet out of my pocket and my watch off and the cigarette lighter and that was about it and just got into the pool. Clothes and all, boots, the bloody lot. Then I took my boots and gaters off and scrubbed the mud off them and put them on the bank and did that with all my clothes. Came out, got dressed in the wet clothes again and sat down to rest.

The rest of the Carrier Platoon arrived... about two or three days late ... a couple of hours after me. So, I met up with the Carrier Platoon again.

Francisco River

Then we went forward and went down to the Francisco River. We had an action down there and about 4 or 5 blokes got wounded.

One was from the other Carrier Platoon, a guy named Laurie Stead. He had been with us all the time through Adelaide. He had been up on the railway detail and I knew Laurie quite well. He copped about six machine gun bullets in his left leg. I was always going to look him up. He lived in Sydney and was a compositor at The Daily Telegraph , when it was still in the city. I was always going to look him up but never got round to it. I was very friendly with Laurie. He didn't lose his leg but he limped very badly after, I believe. He was evacuated. I don't remember how they evacuated him, but he was evacuated quite safely. He didn't lose his leg but he was very badly knocked around. Another bloke, Snowy (I forget his proper name), in our section, got a wound in the arm. "Beauty. Homer", he said. He got up and went away. I was lying still on the ground and I could feel, through the soles of my feet, the bullets whizzing by. That's how close they were.

Stretchering out

That night I think, I'm not sure because I have lost the track of time at which these things happened, they called for volunteers to carry a wounded bloke up the hill on a stretcher, if possible. The hill was like straight up ... There were no native bearers at that location.

That must have been when I got the Owen gun (the Australian sub-machine gun). I wasn't carrying a Bren gun any more and now I got rid of my rifle and carried an Owen gun. They were magnificent guns: they were so simple, there was nothing wrong with them at all. I definitely had an Owen gun at this stage because I remember wading across the Francisco River. I got over to the other side and I said, "Oh shit, the bloody Owen gun was shoving against my thigh and the water was up to my chest". But all I had to do was to shake the water off.

Francisco River Again

Another time, later on, we were down on the Francisco River (I got wounded on a tributary of the Francisco River) and our mortars were on top of this hill that we carried this bloke up and the Japs were around about 20 yards in front of us and we couldn't see each other. They were on the same side of the river, and on the other side. You would hear the mortars going poof, poof, poof, poof and you would count to ten and duck your head below the "slitty". Then the thumps (explosions) came through about 20 or 30 yards in front of us - very hairy for a while.

That night we were standing in the slit trenches, in pairs, one on, one off. There were two blokes per slit trench, and you would just wake him up every now and again and he would wake you up every now and again. There was no way you could see your watch. There was no way you could know if you had been on duty for two hours or one hour.

I was standing there and I got hit by a piece of mud from a Jap - testing. You didn't fire at night because you couldn't see where you were firing, and it gave your position away because of the muzzle flash. The only thing you could do at night was heave a grenade. They were trying to get us to expose our positions and it could have easily been a grenade but I got hit by a piece of mud in the slitty. So, that was a bit hairy too.

In Action (but confused)

It is a bit vague from there on for a while.

We were basically at the front. From the time we went there to the Francisco River to the time I got wounded we were on patrol. This would only have been a couple of weeks. We would have got there in early August and I got wounded on 27 August, so we were probably there for about three weeks on patrol on and off.

Most of the time we were in slit trenches at night and trying to advance during the day. There was no hot food. At one time there was a drop of bread. They threw some bread out of a plane and we took our dixies up. You just held your dixie out and you got a handful of breadcrumbs and you slapped some luke-warm butter/marg into it and then some jam on top of that and that made some bread and butter and jam. But that was a break from the bloody biscuits.

On the day I got wounded the whole platoon was there and we were on this little creek ...

The Wound

The day 5 of us got wounded, we had slept the night on patrol. In the morning, it must have been about 6 or 7 o'clock, we went out on patrol and found some Japs up this little creek. We had a bit of a stoush there, threw a couple of grenades and fired a few Owen gun rounds. We got at least one because we could hear him moaning. Then we waited around for about half an hour, three quarters of an hour, and they had just disappeared. The Japs had a habit of doing that. They'd have a good position and they'd hit and run. They wouldn't stay. They were pretty sick by this time. It was getting pretty close to the end and we were only about 4 or 5 miles from Salamaua (as the crow flies).

They must have had difficulty in supplying their troops. They had been struck by the Battle of the Bismarck Sea which had happened while I was in Port Moresby. They found these 10 or so cargo ships, with troops and ammunition, reinforcing the people we were fighting - well, I wasn't fighting at that stage - and they hit them with everything from the air. The Americans, and the Australians, slaughtered, that was the only word for it, that fleet.

Anyway, we had wounded at least one Japanese. We were walking along the creek to go back to the unit and we had just come around a corner when we just got hit by enfilading fire on our left front. There were eight of us in the patrol and five got wounded. One was Jimmy Walters who had a most unfortunate wound. It hit him on the shoulder blade on the left front and it didn't penetrate the shoulder blade, it carried along his shoulder blade and severed his spine. He lasted about four or five hours, but the first thing he said was, "I'm cold, I can't feel my feet". So we knew he was in a bad way. I was hit in the left thigh. I don't remember who the other three blokes were but five out of eight were wounded. We just lay on our bellies because we didn't know whether the Japs were there or gone. I know the time exactly - I looked at my watch - it was 10 o'clock. We had been out for a few hours, hadn't had breakfast of course, that didn't matter, I wasn't hungry by then.

Lying Around

I was quite conscious, I hardly bled at all. I put my field dressing on (we all carried a field dressing). As I lay on the ground with the seven others and waited for something to happen.

There was one bullet wound. As it turned out, as it was x-rayed, that night, it hit the neck of the femur and I don't know whether it was an explosive bullet or not but the bullet exploded when it hit ... it shattered. The next day when I woke up from the operation - I will tell you about that in a minute - around my wrist there was a piece of gauze with part of the cover of the bullet, which I kept for years but lost eventually. Anyhow, we lay there and I knew my leg was broken. I tried to move forward and it felt like my toes were still dragging along behind. I was lying on my belly ...

As I said, there was no external blood. There wasn't much blood internally, I don't think. The only way I can describe it is that it felt like I had been hit, not very hard, with a hammer. It was just a dull thud. There wasn't any great pain or anything at that stage. And we just lay there and, after a while we assumed, or we thought, they had gone which they had. There is nothing worse than lying on your stomach for hours, so I started trying to turn over but I couldn't because my leg wouldn't follow me. So I got one of the blokes to turn me over on my back. I had a couple of drinks of water. We had our water with us, water bottles, we always carried that.

I (and I don't know about the others) held on to a hand grenade in case I was taken alive. My distrust of the Japanese was of such depth that I contemplated death rather than capture.

Specific comments about Harold's memoirs can be sent to Harold Herman.

Harold's War was written and is maintained by Jack R. Herman as a part of the history section of his website.

Published by
Jack R Herman
Sydney, February 2002

All material © Copyright: Jack R Herman and Harold Herman.
Email: hhermie@iprimus.com.au

Last updated: 28 February 2002