Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 475
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 475]
(22)
Finchafen (having a few hours at Townsville en route) where I changed to a C. 47 transport plane to go on to Lae. There I joined a queue of United States Marines for a cup of excellent coffee being served, with a smile, by charming uniformed ladies of the American Red Cross, at the airstrip canteen, before going into the big Australian camp not far away.
The Americans were busy loading up a few huge C. 46 planes with the last of their stores and equipment, as their operations against the Japs were moving farther north; and the continuation of the campaigns in New Guinea and New Britain was now an Australian responsibility. General McArthur's daring and brilliant strategy had destroyed the very extended Japanese communications by sea and by air, and made it safe to by-pass their big garrison at Rabaul and their other concentrations in that area.
From Lae, I flew in another C. 47 plane across to New Britain and on to Jacquinot Bay, landing on an airstrip of crushed coral built by the Engineer units I was to command. The previous C.R.E. had already departed, but I took over command from the very efficient Adjutant of the headquarters unit, a Captain Moors, afterwards a N.S.W. stipendary magistrate, and found everything in good order. My new command comprised a Field Park Company in a large engineer stores dump, the Railway Construction Company that had been in Syria and Palestine recently, a Forestry and Sawmilling Company that had been in Scotland earlier in the war, and an Army Troops Company, eight hundred strong, that was organised in sections containing building tradesmen of all skills, and included a very well-manned Electrical and Mechanical Section.
The siege of the Japanese penned up in the Gazelle Penisular had settled down into a quiet static state, the main activity being constant and vigilant patrolling of the narrow and difficult passes through the intervening mountains, by front-line units of the Eleventh Division. Japanese were hardly ever seen or encountered. We engineers were mostly concerned with the