The Battle for Shaggy Ridge

With the 2/10th Battalion attacks east of the Faria River and the 2/12th Battalion attack at Prothero, the time had come for the third of Brigadier Chilton’s battalions to join Operation Cutthroat. Lieutenant Colonel Clem Cummings’ 2/9th Battalion had a daunting task: an attack along the top of Shaggy Ridge. ‘The twenty-fives are pounding, and high in the air there’s the stutter of strafing planes. Up and up towards the clouds you trudge,’ Shawn O’Leary wrote. ‘You climb and climb and climb … till suddenly, you are at the top and ahead is the jagged finger of The Pimple stabbing the sky. This is the field of battle … tonight some of us will be dead.’¹

From 10.00 am on 21 January US Kittyhawks strafed and dive bombed the Japanese positions along the top of the ridge. ‘There’s a whine in the sky and the dive bombers, right on time, appear above the river. A Boomerang peels off, and, as though drawn on a string, makes for Green Sniper Pimple, leading the Kittyhawks in,’ O’Leary wrote. ‘They follow … and the ridge rings with the crash of bombs. Gouts of flame and rising smoke mark the fall: distantly you hear a scream as a Jap gets his.’² Private Ron McAuley was down the east side of the ridge with 7 Platoon as the Kittyhawks came over and dropped their bombs. Two of the bombs careered down the slope towards the men waiting to climb up. One bomb went straight over the top of McAuley and the accompanying dirt and debris took the skin off the back of his hands. The bomb exploded down in the valley that night.³

As the air attack finished, a section from Major Fred Loxton’s A Company moved forward to occupy Intermediate Sniper’s Pimple against slight opposition. Loxton was the senior company commander and had earlier told the other officers, ‘I am the senior officer, I will do the attack.’⁴ The next objective was Green Sniper’s Pimple but with so little room along the top of the ridge only two sections from Sergeant Ron McDowell’s 9 Platoon could make the initial attack. ‘You wouldn’t expect the Nips to have much fight in them after the pounding they’ve just received,’ O’Leary thought, ‘But they’ve got it, all right. Guns break into red laughter and slugs churn around you.’⁵ Kumao Ishikawa watched from down in the Faria Valley as ‘enemy planes left and sounds of shelling became sporadic’. Then Ishikawa ‘started to hear machine gun and small arms firing at the front of Byobu Yama … finally the all-out assault was on the way’.⁶

Gordon Davidson and Doug Wade had patrolled towards Green Sniper’s Pimple prior to the attack and noted that a log-reinforced bunker had been constructed in a dip across the ridge before the feature. During the attack Private Tom Childs was in the lead section moving along the ridge when an enemy defender jumped out of a hidden weapon pit and wrestled with him. As they fought, the Japanese machine gunner in the bunker shot the pair of them and they both rolled down the side of the ridge.⁷

While McDowell’s platoon moved along the top of the ridge, Lieutenant Hector Potter’s 7 Platoon had descended the east side of the ridge from the first Pimple, moved along the side of the ridge and were now climbing up the steep slope towards Green Sniper’s Pimple. ‘You’ve got to climb; climb where there are no holds and the slopes fall down like a leaning wall,’ O’Leary wrote. ‘You’re flat—you’re upright—you’re slipping. Your chest burns with the pain of effort and you fight for gulps of air. The climbing is worse than the firing. You don’t care about the bullets much. You only want to reach the peak where you can lie and rest.’⁸

Ron McAuley grabbed the tufts of grass as he climbed to pull himself up the slope. ‘The Japs were down the other side in the trees throwing grenades over,’ he recalled. The grenades were rolling down the slope but fortunately they didn’t get caught up in the grass and most went past the climbing men before exploding. One blast did pepper McAuley’s buttocks with some fragments but he kept going. There was so much stuff going on that ‘you didn’t know where the bangs were coming from and you couldn’t see much on the climb up’.⁹ O’Leary was more lyrical: ‘Below you a man is killed. His hat leaps into the air, he drops his rifle and rolls over and over, down and down towards the river until he comes to rest on a thin track barely visible. Ahead you see another man fall, clutching a shattered arm.’¹⁰

‘You start to scrabble up the cliff. You reach the top … and, as you tense yourself for the levering over the rim, a burst of fire chews the earth within inches of your hands. Panic-stricken, you drop,’ O’Leary continued. ‘You haven’t seen a Jap yet, and you haven’t fired a shot. There is only the momentary expectation of another grenade or another burst stitching you into oblivion.’¹¹

By the middle of the day McAuley was up on Green Sniper’s Pimple. The Australians were engaged in a grenade-throwing duel with defenders who were well dug in on the west side of the ridge and the Australians soon used up the grenades they had carried up. ‘Thirty feet from the top you lie, and the grenades commence to rain as the Japs, from the shelter of the lip of the hill, hurl them at you,’ wrote O’Leary.¹²

McAuley went back down the ridge to get more grenades from a sergeant who had set up an ammunition dump of sorts further down. When he came back he saw Doug Wade in a higher trench about a metre deep, so joined him. There were other platoon members either side of them, close to the peak of the pimple. But soon after getting in the trench an enemy grenade came over and landed in it, forcing McAuley to quickly get out. Then another grenade landed right next to him so he got back into the trench. The first grenade then went off and McAuley was wounded. He headed back down the ridge to Guy’s Post with Private Ralph Hughes who had been shot in the arm. When it got dark the two men became lost until they saw a line of native carriers coming up with their lit cigarettes showing as a line in the darkness, giving them the direction to take off the ridge.¹³

‘You have a clear view of Intermediate Pimple from where you lie. The head of an Australian appears above it … the man throws a grenade … and a foxhole explodes in a blur of smoke,’ O’Leary remembered. ‘He appears again … another grenade is thrown … Brens chatter … and within a moment our guns are holding the position. You feel like cheering. Only Eric and his grenades have made the summit possible.’¹⁴ O’Leary had been watching Private Eric Knight who had done great work with grenades, knocking out the bunker in front of Green Sniper’s Pimple. Gunfire from the bunker had killed Corporal George Behrens and Tom Childs during the initial attack.¹⁵ Knight wriggled along the side of the ridge below the bunker to within 6 metres of it, then threw some grenades up at the position. The defenders responded ‘with a shower of grenades that came over like confetti’ but fortunately went past right down the side of the ridge. Knight then called for more grenades before climbing up around the back of the bunker where there was a small opening. He threw the grenades in, surprising the defenders ‘who were peering out at the other end’. Knight then called up the rest of the section to cover him while he cleared the bunker with his Owen gun, shooting the one surviving defender as he tried to get away down the side of the ridge.¹⁶

A sandbagged Bren-gun position had been built further back to provide covering fire for the attack. Doug Wade and Gordon Davidson manned one of the Bren guns there before moving further down the slope as the attack progressed.¹⁷ ‘With the covering fire from those Brens you commence to climb again. Others are doing the same beside you, and you are able to inch your way up the side of Green Sniper Pimple,’ O’Leary wrote. ‘You reach the crest and dig in, not showing your head over the top. You hold one side of the Pimple and the Japs the other.’¹⁸

Kumao Ishikawa watched from down below through his field glasses: ‘I saw a belt of flames at the front line still in smouldering smoke from enemy fire.’ The battalion commander, Captain Yano, ordered a counterattack backed up by Captain Masahiko Ohata’s two mountain guns, one at Prothero and the other east of Kankiryo, and ‘At the agreed time, each gun started firing.’ Opposing the 2/9th Battalion were about 30 men from Lieutenant Shinichi Katayama’s 6 Company. Katayama led the counterattack and succeeded in retaking the front-line positions on the west side of Green Sniper’s Pimple. With great joy he reported his success but the 2/9th kept the pressure on and soon thereafter Katayama, who was still forward with his men, was killed in action. Lieutenant Takerou Urayama, the commander of the 37 mm rapid-fire gun detachment, took over the company and backed by Ohata’s artillery secured the Japanese position.¹⁹

After midday the 2/9th’s D Company moved forward along the side of the ridge to take over the former A Company positions. Frank Rolleston observed that enemy shells were coming over every 20 seconds. At this stage the 2/12th Battalion had not reached Prothero and the Japanese observer for the 75 mm mountain gun had an unobstructed view along the south-west side of the ridge to the positions now being occupied by the 2/9th Battalion. There was no cover on the north-east side of the ridge from the shells bursting along the ridge top. ‘It was as if we were standing against a wall,’ Rolleston wrote. He watched as two men ran past along the crest carrying ammunition forward. After a shell burst, Private Stephen Sheen staggered back with a knee wound, saying ‘Johnno’s copped it, I think he’s dead.’ Private Colin Johnston had been hit in the head by a shell fragment that had penetrated his helmet and killed him. Rolleston and Corporal Bob Booth took over the former forward observation post only to have a sniper put a bullet between their heads as they peered out.²⁰

Meanwhile the shellfire had claimed another victim. ‘Back on Intermediate Pimple the company commander is killed,’ O’Leary noted.²¹ Major Loxton was standing up using his binoculars when he was hit.²² ‘A field-telephone line has been laid and while he is talking to an officer at the rear a shell bursts on the tree beside him,’ O’Leary wrote. Loxton was killed and his body rolled away down the side of the ridge. The Japanese mountain-gun fire was telling. ‘The mountain-guns open a barrage against which Brens can do nothing,’ reflected O’Leary. ‘This is hell … Shrapnel is whining around you and there is nowhere you can go for cover. Go over the ridge and you’re a sitting shot for snipers in the trees.’ The 2/9th men had to just sit tight and take it. ‘You must lie … and lie and wait … and wait. Wait for the caress of agony from flying steel. One by one men are being wounded around you.’²³

Doug Wade and Gordon Davidson moved forward, passing captured weapon pits dug in under the crest of the ridge. A large dugout had been built behind the ridge on the western side about 3 metres square with a mortar in it. Not far back was a 37 mm gun on rail lines so that it could be wheeled in and out of its shelter to fire. The Japanese had tried to push it over the bank as they withdrew but it got hung up on the edge of the position. Wade and Davidson were right on top of Green Sniper’s Pimple shooting down into a little gully on the other side where there was a fortified position with empty sacks covering the entrance. As Wade stood up to bring the Bren gun to bear and fire a burst into the position, Davidson told him, ‘God, be careful.’ Then a single rifle shot rang out and Wade was hit in the face, killing him. He fell back into his mate’s arms.²⁴

Another shot was fired at Private Jim Pacey, who was close by. The bullet hit the buckle of his helmet which pushed the helmet up over his head and the next shot went straight through the raised helmet without hitting the fortunate Pacey. Behind Davidson, Corporal Joe Anderson was also targeted by an enemy sniper, the bullet grazing his skull and exiting near his ear, but he survived. Meanwhile Davidson had taken over the Bren gun with Private Murray Appledore sent up to him as the new number two. It was now late in the afternoon and the job was to hold Green Sniper’s Pimple through the night. Those few men holding the narrow front line were sweating on an enemy counterattack, the normal response after a position had fallen.²⁵ Further back along the ridge Lance Corporal Jim Fountain was part of a Vickers-gun crew covering the left flank of the attack. At one stage, after a message came through from battalion headquarters that there was an enemy counterattack, he fired the Vickers gun for 4 minutes, putting six belts each of 250 rounds through the gun, a tribute to the reliability of the gun and the efficiency of the gun crew.²⁶

As night approached, Private Aubrey Abbott brought tea up to the men at the front. ‘There are some things you don’t forget on days like this,’ O’Leary wrote. ‘Such things as Aubrey struggling forward to the advanced sections from the cookhouse at the rear with a four-gallon dixie of hot black tea in each hand.’ A number of casualties were dragged up the side of the ridge by ropes that night. ‘You watch stretcher-bearers hauling wounded up the cliffs in strait-jackets along the terrain you have passed. There never was country such as this.’²⁷

During the night there were hand grenades thrown and mortar fire directed onto Green Sniper’s Pimple but there were no further casualties. ‘That night you sleep where the Japs have slept, and the hours of dark are quiet,’ O’Leary recalled. With the threat of being cut off by the 2/12th Battalion at Prothero, most of the remaining Japanese had pulled out that night. Twenty Japanese defenders lay dead including Lieutenant Katayama.²⁸ The 37-mm gun had been captured along with three light machine guns.²⁹ ‘There are men lying dead on the slopes,’ observed O’Leary. ‘They were your mates; men who had lived and laughed by you; and men who had died by you.’ Major Loxton and six other men had been killed on 21 January and another sixteen were wounded, twelve by mountain-gun fire. ‘You’ll remember them; you’ll remember everything that happened this day. You’ll never forget Shaggy Ridge.’³⁰

Norm Stuckey had been up there that day ensuring Shaggy Ridge would not be forgotten. On 19 January Stuckey had been told that the photographs he had taken during the earlier 2/16th attack on Shaggy Ridge had been well received. ‘I think they are quite the best photographs you’ve taken in NG,’ his commanding officer wrote.³¹ On 21 January Stuckey was back on the ridge recording the 2/9th Battalion attack, this time accompanied by the cine-cameraman Frank Bagnall. Both men were covered with a shower of dirt when one of the aerial bombs crashed down only 50 metres away and a shell from the mountain gun landed close enough to shatter the glass in Stuckey’s camera.³²

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‘In the morning the hill is clear,’ wrote O’Leary. ‘The enemy have left the scene in panic. The day is bright and although you can hear the sound of another battalion assaulting Prothero, there are only occasional snipers to bother you.’³³ However, that morning a reconnaissance patrol came across a bunker 20 metres ahead with several machine guns preventing an advance along the ridge. At 1.15 pm a message came through that the 2/12th Battalion had captured Prothero Two and units from the battalion were advancing south along Shaggy Ridge. Clem Cummings therefore cancelled artillery support for an attack by D Company.

The defenders who remained expected the attack to continue along the top of the ridge but the plan was for D Company to attack up the south-western face of the ridge. At 5.30 pm artillery and mortars opened up on McCaughey’s Knoll as D Company waited at the forming-up point down the side of ridge. Half an hour later 17 Platoon reached McCaughey’s Knoll. ‘We carefully worked our way up the ridge as silently as possible,’ Frank Rolleston recalled.³⁴ After two men were wounded by grenades, Private Lawrence Kelleher went forward with his Bren gun and grenades and silenced the two forward enemy positions, enabling the platoon to get onto the knoll.³⁵ A black signal flare went up from the Japanese on the knoll, likely indicating it had fallen and the 2/9th lead section pushed along the ridge hoping to meet the 2/12th coming the other way. ‘Are you there, 12th?’ was the call. However, an enemy machine gun stopped the advance before any link up. Although the gun opened up from only 50 metres away, no one was hit. ‘We threw ourselves flat and slithered back over the rise,’ Rolleston wrote. It was now getting quite dark so a halt was called to the advance.³⁶

On the morning of 23 January a dawn patrol found the enemy had pulled out in front and only empty cartridges remained where the machine gun had been. Further ahead was a wounded Japanese soldier but he soon exploded a grenade to take his own life. Soon after midday the lead section of the 2/9th Battalion finally met up with the 2/12th.³⁷