Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons by Walter Lord
Only occasionally was there a complication, like the time on the Abia River when Paul Mason scheduled a supply drop just a few hours after the local chief planned a funeral pyre. Worried that the plane would confuse the pyre with his signal fires, Mason asked rather indelicately, “Can you cook him before the moon comes up?” The Chief assured him that this could be done, and it was.
There were no funeral pyres on the night of the 26th. The only problem was the shift to a new drop site. For months Read had used the abandoned coffee plantation called Rugen near the north coast, but in December mounting Japanese pressure forced him to move the site south to the Inus area. Now that was dangerous too, and tonight would be the first time for using Aita, a small village deep in the mountainous interior of the island. It would be unfamiliar ground, but the pilot had all the necessary bearings, and there shouldn’t be any trouble.
By 11 P.M. everything was ready. Four stacks of branches soaked with kerosene marked off a rough rectangle in the clearing. Natives stood by, ready to light the stacks. A group of bearers hovered in the rear. Two of the Australian commandos working closely with Read—Sergeant Walter Radimey and Sergeant H. J. Broadfoot—cast a practiced eye over the scene, making doubly sure all was in order.
At 11:59 they heard the distant hum of the Catalina’s engines. That was the signal to light the fires, and all four stacks were soon blazing. The hum grew louder, and soon in the glare of the flames the Coastwatchers could make out the plane itself, circling down to make the first run.
On the Catalina, Flight Lieutenant W. J. Clark peered down at the signal fires mushrooming up below. Behind him the plane snapped to life. The monotony of the eight-hour flight from Australia was over now, and the crew took their posts for the drop. The navigator, Flying Officer C. S. Dunn, asked whether Clark wanted him in the bombardier’s compartment; the skipper said no, he could see quite well. The moon wasn’t up yet, but the sky was clear.
Corporal H. Yates removed the gun from the port blister, and Pilot Officer C. J. Twist crawled in with the headphones. They would be making the drops from here, and Corporal J. Fenwick squeezed into the blister compartment to help.
About 12:15 the drops began. Circling to the left, Clark swung low over the fires. The men in the blister pushed out the first container, watched the parachute open and float lazily down. Still circling to the left, Clark came by on his second run; another parachute floated down. Clark asked if the third chute was ready, and Pilot Officer Twist said not yet. Instead of continuing his left-hand circles, Clark now swung to the right, planning to fly a sort of “figure 8” to use up time.
Perhaps it was a downdraft … or a miscalculation … or the unfamiliar terrain—whatever the reason, the plane clipped some trees near the top of a ridge, sliced off its starboard wing, and ploughed on through the bush for 300 yards in a long, tearing crash.
Then silence, except for the trickle of gasoline as it leaked from the ruptured tanks. But men still lived in the wreckage and were soon calling to one another. Flying Officer Dunn and Sergeant F. G. Thompson managed to crawl free. Others were moving around, but trapped in the tangle of metal. No one could find a flashlight, and since it was obviously too dangerous to strike a match, they decided to stay as they were until dawn.
At the drop site Sergeants Broadfoot and Radimey didn’t see the crash, but they heard it all too clearly. They immediately doused the signal fires and divided their men into two search parties. It was Broadfoot who finally located the wreckage at 6:00 A.M. and summoned the others by firing his pistol.
One by one they freed four survivors still trapped in the plane: Twist, Fenwick, and Yates, who had been handling the chutes; and Corporal R. H. Wettenhall, one of the helpers. Flight Lieutenant Clark, his co-pilot, and the engineer were all dead and left in the wreckage.
Most of the survivors were too badly injured to walk; so the plane’s bunks were used as stretchers to carry them to the Australian commandos’ camp at Aita. Here they were given first aid plus the good news that they might be evacuated almost at once. A U.S. submarine was due tomorrow to land and pick up some personnel at Teopasina, just 15 miles away. That operation would be rescheduled for April 29. With luck they could make it.
But luck was something they didn’t have. After an early start on the 28th, a heavy rain set in, turning the trail to grease and at some points blocking it with flash floods. It was the 30th before the last of the party even got to Dariai—and that was only halfway to the coast. The sub had come and gone.
Jack Read decided the airmen should remain for the time being at Dariai. Here they were as safe as anywhere and could be treated by Sergeant Radimey, who had good medical training. Once they were mobile again, they could be taken out when the next opportunity came.
And the opportunity would come, Read felt sure, because his situation was steadily improving. Things had progressed a long way from those dark days in December and January, when the Japanese had Paul Mason and himself on the run. First, Mason managed to join him on January 28, and the two men were now operating together. In addition, the Army agreed to replace Lieutenant Mackie’s commandos, worn out after eighteen months in the bush, with fresh men reporting directly to Read.
The first 12 replacements came at the end of March on the U.S. submarine Gato, landing at Teop, where Bill Brockman had picked up his nuns on New Year’s Eve. Creeping into the harbor submerged on the 28th, Lieutenant Commander Robert J. Foley raised his periscope to find a Japanese schooner sitting at anchor a few yards away. Evening, and it was still there. A radio message from Jack Read put off the landing until the following night.
At dusk on the 29th the Gato was back, this time approaching cautiously on the surface. The schooner was gone, and signal fires blazed on the beach. The submarine hove to only 100 yards offshore, and a canoe appeared alongside with Jack Read. He welcomed the new arrivals and presented Foley with a small problem in arithmetic. The orders said the Gato would be taking out 12 of the original commandos plus another 12 refugees. But waiting to go were the commandos, three elderly Belgian nuns just rescued from Buin, nine island women, and 27 children—51 altogether. How many could Foley fit into his submarine?
All of them, said Foley, who evidently believed the Gato wasn’t full as long as he could dog down the hatches. A swarm of native canoes now went to work, ferrying the replacements in and the evacuees out. In an hour the job was done, and the Gato stood to sea, her forward torpedo room turned into a nursery. Until she transferred her charges two days later, one 10-month-old baby would sleep nowhere except in the arms of a giant, bearded torpedoman named Phillips.
Back at Teop Jack Read began clearing the beach even before the Gato was out of sight. The canoes were hidden in the bush, the new supplies and equipment carried inland. By dawn everything was gone, so that when a Japanese coaster and two barges poked into the harbor later that day, there was no sign that anything unusual had happened.
Lieutenant Mackie, still on the island with the remaining 12 men of his company, escorted the new commandos to his camp at Namatoa. Leading them was Lieutenant Douglas M. Bedkober, an intensely dedicated young officer, although without experience in the South Pacific.
But there was plenty of experience packed into another new officer, also landed by the Gato. This was Australian Navy Lieutenant Jack Keenan, transferred from Vella Lavella. He not only had five months of Coastwatching under his belt, but he knew Bougainville like a book. In pre-war days he had served on the island as a patrol officer.
April 29, the Gato was back again with the last of the commando replacements. This was the trip rescheduled in hopes she could take out the injured airmen. The rendezvous was also moved south to Teopasino Plantation, which seemed safer from the Japanese.
Lieutenant Charles McGivern, the Gato’s young navigator, regarded the change with some misgivings. His chart showed just a dotted line for this stretch of coast. “Nothing to it, Pilot,” skipper Foley cheerfully assured him, “just follow directions.”
Somehow the Gato threaded the reefs and inched into the harbor, guided by the usual signal fires. Once again dozens of native canoes shuttled back and forth, landing 16 fresh commandos and taking out Lieutenant Mackie with the remainder of the original group. Also evacuated were the last of the missionaries, including a tired and discouraged Bishop Wade and a perky Father Lebel, already plotting how he could get back to the island.
It was now obvious that the six survivors of the Catalina could never arrive in time; so around midnight the Gato headed back to sea. Jack Read was so anxious to clear the beach that he doused the signal fires before the submarine was by the reef, leaving her to feel her way out. “Hell of a time to turn off the lighthouse,” remarked Bob Foley, but once again navigator McGivern proved up to the challenge.
On Bougainville the new arrivals included two more thoroughly experienced officers. Lieutenant George Stevenson, who had been married just before leaving Brisbane, had been a patrol officer before the war. He was a slender young man, quiet and rather serious.
Captain Eric Robinson was just the opposite—a jolly, roly-poly Sydney pubkeeper, who had once been a public health official on the island. He was universally known as “Wobbie” because, as he put it, “I have twouble wolling my r’s.”
In assigning Robinson, Stevenson, and Keenan to Bougainville, Eric Feldt originally hoped they would spell Read and Mason, who had been behind the lines for over a year and surely needed a rest. Read and Mason saw it differently. They had been routed from the south, were barely hanging on in the north. They simply couldn’t walk out on their natives at such a crucial time. Instead, this new manpower should be used to reestablish the Coastwatchers’ position. Feldt finally agreed; it was one of his last decisions before his coronary.
Read quickly organized a new network designed to cover the whole island. Jack Keenan took on the north coast, basing himself near a village called Lumsis, with an observation post at Read’s old lookout, Porapora. Sergeant G. J. McPhee, one of the new commandos, was put in charge of the isolated west coast, where not much action was expected. Read himself—assisted by “Wobbie”—took the central east coast, where the Japanese were currently most active. Mason and Stevenson headed south with a large party, hoping to cover Kieta and, with luck, Buin.
All four bases not only had teleradios but several new “midget” radio sets brought in by the Gato. These had a range of about 30 miles and would be used by outposts reporting to the main stations.
Supporting this network, Lieutenant Bedkober had commando units stationed at Namatoa, Dariai, and Aita. Bedkober himself was at the Dariai camp, where the six injured airmen still awaited evacuation. A second plan to get them out by PBY had to be abandoned when the Japanese occupied the rest of the east coast.
Dawn, May 26, and everyone was finally in position, except for Mason’s station in the south, which wasn’t expected to open up for some days. Surveying the setup, Jack Read felt the glow of pride that often comes when an ambitious plan actually works.
Then, a little after 9 A.M. the roof fell in. At the Porapora lookout Sergeant W. V. Florance and Corporal N. L. MacLeod were just finishing breakfast when one of their scouts dashed by their hut shouting, “The Japs are here!” MacLeod grabbed his rifle, rushed to the doorway, and saw several Japanese soldiers standing about ten yards away with guns at the ready. He got off one shot … then bolted into the bush and down the mountainside, losing both his rifle and revolver in the process.
Sergeant Florance stayed behind long enough to smash the radio on the floor. Then, seizing his Tommy gun, he too plunged down the mountain. Like MacLeod, he lost his revolver, and in addition his shoes. The Japanese made no attempt to follow either man. They were content to loot the camp and lob grenades in the general direction the fugitives fled.
At Lumsis, the main Coastwatching station for the north, Jack Keenan knew from his native contacts that the enemy was on the prowl. Early on May 26 he tried to warn Porapora but couldn’t get through in time. Around noon on the 27th it was clear his turn would come next. His scouts reported an enemy patrol scrambling up the trail that led to his camp.
No time to lose. Keenan and his commando assistant, Corporal A. R. Little, hastily hid the teleradio and went bush. An hour or so later they could hear the snapping and crackle of blazing bamboo as the Japanese burned their camp.
May 29, they returned to the ruins, recovered the hidden teleradio, and set off to find a new camp site. Just after leaving they met Sergeant Florance stumbling through the jungle, and he told them what he knew of Porapora. For three days he had been thrashing around alone in the bush, his flesh torn by vines, his bare feet cut to ribbons. He was in no shape for duty; Keenan packed him off to Dariai to join the convalescent airmen.
Two days later Keenan got the rest of the Porapora story when his scouts picked up Corporal MacLeod, wandering aimlessly through the jungle. He had been six days without food, and for shelter had only the banana leaves he covered himself with at night.
Reconstructing the events that led to these disasters, Jack Read learned that both camps were betrayed by the natives of Tetakots, a small village near the northern coast. Nor was this an isolated case. As the Japanese expanded their hold on Bougainville, an ever-growing number of natives were shedding their loyalty to the old government. At first, Read had sounded plausible when he assured them the Allies would be back, but the Japanese had been in control for more than a year, and there was no sign of deliverance yet. Tashira, Tokyo’s clever spokesman, was the one who sounded plausible now. He insisted that the old days were gone forever, pointing to the number of Japanese bases and airstrips multiplying on the island. And with his military arguments he mixed in allusions to white exploitation, while suggesting that the Japanese were really like cousins. As he talked, more and more natives were listening.
Read sensed he was losing his grip and took a desperate step. He radioed KEN urging heavy strafing and bombing of the coastal areas occupied by the Japanese, including the native villages friendly to them. On May 31, and for the next several days, American fighters and bombers swept in, chewing up piers, storehouses, gun positions, barges—and countless native huts as well.
The benefits were questionable. Read understandably could never see anything wrong about bombing the villages that were supplying the Japanese with scouts and carriers. Others felt such measures would never win back the disaffected natives, and would only drive others into the enemy camp.
In any case, it did no good. The Japanese moved steadily down the east coast, while their patrols—guided and supported by natives—probed ever deeper into the interior. Soon they had the commando base at Namatoa and were threatening Dariai, where the injured airmen lay.
Read had them moved back first to Aita, then still farther back to a little village called Sikoriapaia. They were now more than halfway across the island, and Lieutenant Bedkober, in charge of the camp, began searching for a spot on the west coast where they might be rescued. Meanwhile they missed another chance for evacuation, when KEN radioed on June 8 that a submarine had unexpectedly become available and could pick them up in three days at Empress Augusta Bay. This was much too short notice—it would take a week to get them there—so a third chance was lost to get the flyers out.
June 11 was a quiet day at Read’s camp, high above the Aita River and overlooking Numa Numa. The only visitor was an old chief from a village across the river valley who had come to barter fruit and tara for newsprint (used by the natives as cigarette paper) and a few strips of parachute cloth. Negotiations were successful, and toward evening he headed back for his village.
At dusk the scouts brought word of a Japanese patrol, accompanied by many natives, heading up the river below. There were some tense moments, but it passed the turnoff to Read’s camp, and with a feeling of relief he sent a couple of runners to alert the commando camp about five miles farther up the Aita valley.
To be on the safe side, he also hid the teleradio and strengthened the
At 9 P.M. Signalman Falls relieved “Wobbie” and began standing guard with the giant, bearded Sergeant Yauwika and Read’s servant Womaru. Each of them had a rifle and a couple of grenades, but there was not the slightest hint of trouble. All was quiet, except for the occasional rustling and small stirring sounds that are so much a part of the jungle at night.
Suddenly, the crackle of bamboo. Thinking it might be a friendly scout who didn’t know about the warning system, Sergeant Yauwika challenged. No reply. Falls then fired a tentative shot in the direction of the sound. He was answered by a roar of gunfire that split the night. The three guards emptied their magazines, threw their grenades, then ran for it as two light machine guns joined the barrage.
At the camp Read and Robinson grabbed their guns, dived through the thatched side of their hut, and plunged into the bush. The scouts were scrambling for cover too. Only Constable Iamulu hung back briefly. He remembered Read’s repeated warning to the natives that any traitor who led the enemy to his camp would be the Coastwatchers’ prime target. Now Iamulu paused long enough to shoot the first native he saw with the Japanese. It was the old chief who had visited them that afternoon.
For a few minutes Read and Robinson lay in the bush watching the Japanese storm the camp. Grenades and automatic fire cleared the way, and a horde of yelling natives followed them in. Long after the camp was taken they continued to rake the bush with submachine guns, but never the narrow area where the two men lay. It seemed so strange that Read began to wonder whether a second force of Japanese might be approaching from their own direction.