5

‘The eyes of the Western world
are upon you’

Kokoda Trail
September to November 1942

Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Brad Pitt have all played him. He recurs in one war movie after another: the hero who, in the climactic scene, grabs the captured German submachine gun and mows down dozens of enemy troops, often not even troubling to change the magazine. Captain Alex Sanderson did not live to see such a scene in the cinema. But as he fought for his life on a jungle-covered hillside in New Guinea, he played that role for real. Sanderson had acquired a Schmeisser submachine gun while serving in the Middle East and had brought it to New Guinea. When the gallant company commander’s body was found, there were some 300 spent shells around it, along with over thirty dead Japanese soldiers. Alex Sanderson, the real life hero with the Schmeisser.¹

From Imita Ridge, the infantrymen of Brigadier Eather’s 25th Brigade probed forward, then finally attacked Ioribaiwa Ridge on 28 September. But the Japanese had long gone. Five days before, Lieutenant Kogoro Hirano had written, ‘Like a bolt from the blue, we received an order to withdraw . . . It left us momentarily in a daze.’² The delays and losses that Major General Horii’s force had suffered during the advance from Kokoda had taken their toll. As the Japanese troops advanced, their supply lines stretched and without an effective native carrier train or air supply, the troops had to carry most of the supplies on their backs. By mid-September, those at Ioribaiwa were starving and low on ammunition, at the end of their tether. On the 18th, one wrote, ‘We are taught in the training manual to overcome any hardship or obstacle, but are there any battles as difficult as this? I’m keeping up my diary, but even holding a pen tires me. How I’d love to eat something! Anything to fill my stomach.’³

The Japanese commanders had few qualms about sending half-starved, ill-supplied troops into battle. Their final decision to withdraw was prompted by developments in the Solomon Islands. The fighting at Guadalcanal had drained increasingly scarce Japanese reinforcements and supplies from Rabaul. With the landing at Milne Bay also repulsed, the capture of Port Moresby would have to wait. Colonel Yazawa’s 41st Regiment withdrew first, heading for the north coast, with the 144th behind them, supposedly in a rearguard role. Major Koiwai wrote, ‘Our bodies were completely fatigued . . . every step seemed to exhaust one’s entire strength . . . many were stooped over, their eyes filled with tears and without even the strength to urge themselves on.’⁴

Also withdrawing was Lieutenant General Rowell, who had been relieved of his command on 28 September after an acrimonious clash with General Blamey. In the wave of panic that followed the loss of Ioribaiwa Ridge, Blamey had been ordered to Port Moresby by Prime Minister John Curtin, at the urging of General MacArthur. Rowell, who disliked Blamey, took this as a serious affront.⁵ Immediately after he decided to relieve Rowell, Blamey cabled Curtin and MacArthur, saying that Rowell ‘would be [a] seriously disruptive influence if retained here.’⁶

Blamey wanted Lieutenant General Ned Herring, who had commanded the artillery of the 6th Division in the Middle East and more recently organised the defences of Darwin, to be sent up immediately to replace Rowell as I Corps commander and to also take over command of New Guinea Force.⁷ Though no brilliant strategist, Herring did have the ability to work with Blamey and the Americans. Blamey knew his appointee would do as he was told, but the troops were less sure of Herring’s suitability. Addressing the 2/6th Independent Company before they flew across to the north coast in mid-October, Herring told the men, ‘You should be proud to live at a time like this when you can die for your country.’ ‘Easy for him to say,’ was the general opinion.⁸

Now that General Horii was in retreat, MacArthur and Blamey pushed hard for the Australians to retake Kokoda and drive the Japanese out of Papua as soon as possible. The Japanese were directing considerable army and naval resources to Guadalcanal, increasing the likelihood that they would win that battle and then resume operations against Port Moresby. MacArthur expressed his concerns on 17 October: ‘It is now necessary to prepare for possible disaster in the Solomons.’⁹

As with the earlier fighting, the key to a successful Australian advance back across the Kokoda Trail would be maintaining supply. When the 3rd Battalion reached Nauro, two companies cleared air-dropping grounds in the Brown River valley and the first drops took place on 4 October. As the Australians moved north along the track, other dropping grounds were cleared at Menari and Efogi; the extensive grass ‘lakes’ at Myola would also be used again.

MacArthur flew into Port Moresby on 2 October, his first visit to New Guinea. George Johnston wrote of ‘roads from the 7-Mile drome lined with American troops standing at attention and a top-cover of fighters overhead and his car escorted by an armoured car with guns manned and pointed everywhere!’¹⁰ The next day, General Allen sat in a jeep with MacArthur en route to Owers’ Corner. MacArthur stressed to the 7th Division commander that Kokoda had to be captured fast; he added that he thought 21st Brigade had not fought well. Allen ‘keenly and strongly resented this insinuation’; he told MacArthur that when the American troops proved to be as good as his, he would listen. Allen was loyal to his men but also naïve in believing his comments would not have ramifications. He later told Gavin Long that he regretted the comments ‘but could not help myself.’ He had already made similar ill-judged comments to Blamey about the appointment of Herring.¹¹

Meanwhile, Brigadier John Lloyd’s 16th Brigade (comprising 2/1st, 2/2nd and 2/3rd Battalions) was advancing up the track from Port Moresby. In anticipation of what lay ahead, the men had dyed their uniforms a splotchy jungle green and screwed studs into the soles of their boots to improve their grip. As Lloyd passed MacArthur at Owers’ Corner, MacArthur told him, ‘By some act of God your brigade has been chosen for this job. The eyes of the Western world are upon you.’ These expectations would not make Lloyd’s job any easier.¹²

On the ‘golden stairs’ up the steep track to Imita Ridge, Sapper Bert Beros, who had lowered his age so he could serve in his second world war with his two sons, watched the native carriers bring back the wounded from the front line. His mate Vic Cooke quipped, ‘There’ll be a lot of black angels in heaven after this.’ Next morning, Beros penned a poem that ended, ‘May the mothers of Australia, when they offer up a prayer/ Mention those impromptu angels with their fuzzy wuzzy hair.’¹³ The selflessness and dedication of those patient men would never be forgotten by the Australians whom they carried from the battlefield and tended with such care. Bob Matten, evacuated from Efogi, put it simply: ‘If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today.’¹⁴

Eather’s brigade did not catch up with the Japanese rearguard until they had crossed the main range and were approaching Templeton’s Crossing. Hampered by an extending supply line, the Australian advance was brought to a halt on 8 October. When it resumed a week later, small enemy rearguard parties continued to harass the men as they moved along the Eora Creek valley towards Kokoda. On 21 October, an impatient MacArthur bypassed Blamey and told Allen bluntly, ‘Progress on the trail is NOT, repeat NOT satisfactory.’¹⁵ Allen had moved his headquarters forward to Myola and deployed three battalions, the maximum he could supply. He now relieved Eather’s tiring brigade with Lloyd’s. The 25th Brigade casualties starkly illustrate the difficulties of warfare along the Kokoda Trail. In a month of fighting, the brigade had lost sixty-eight men killed, 135 wounded, and a staggering 771 men evacuated sick.¹⁶ The battlefield was the main enemy here.

On 20 October, the day it moved into the front line, Lieutenant Colonel Cedric Edgar’s 2/2nd Battalion made its first attack at Templeton’s Crossing. The Japanese made artful use of the terrain and camouflaged their positions with skill. The ABC war correspondent Dudley Leggett, who had accompanied the advancing troops all the way across the Owen Stanleys, wrote of the Japanese, ‘They’ve made cunning use of natural features for concealment . . . they frequently burrow under huge roots of trees and fire from between them.’¹⁷ The first Edgar’s forward troops knew of the enemy presence was when they were hit by a devastating blast of small-arms fire. Ernest Bennett-Bremner, who was in the initial 2/2nd attack, wrote, ‘There was a wicked crackle of MG fire from a bit of a glade and down we went.’ The sergeant ordered the men around to the left, but ‘No sooner did we move than the fire came again.’ Pinned down, the men threw grenades at the places they thought the fire was coming from, but it did not stop. By now, four men had been killed and the scout and two NCOs wounded. More men were hit getting out. Bennett-Bremner added, ‘And no one saw a Jap.’¹⁸

Other men did see the enemy defenders and close with them. The attack by two of Edgar’s companies threw the Japanese from four defensive lines. Losses were heavy, with two of the platoon commanders from Captain Ian Ferguson’s company killed and the other wounded. Ferguson tripped over a tree root, then heard a burst from a ‘woodpecker,’ a Juki heavy machine gun. The two men behind Ferguson were killed; the misstep had saved his life. The two companies dug in on the newly captured ground with ‘our own and enemy dead lying in grotesque positions, bullet-scarred trees with the peeled bark showing ghostlike, our own lads digging silently.’¹⁹

That night the enemy rearguard moved further back and took up new positions for the following day. The Japanese formed up on what was perhaps the best defensive position on the Kokoda Trail, the steep ridge on the northern side of Eora Creek. From here they were able to bring enfilading fire, including artillery, against the approach track from Templeton’s Crossing. The remnants of the 144th Regiment were mustered here, a strong nucleus of experienced and determined troops.

Troops from Lloyd’s brigade reached Eora Creek village on 22 October, taking up positions on Bare Ridge, on the southern side of the ravine, opposite the enemy’s improvised fortress. The Japanese opened fire on the exposed Australians, wounding the 2/3rd Battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel John Stevenson. Lloyd then decided to split Lieutenant Colonel Paul Cullen’s 2/1st Battalion and attack from two directions. Though the Japanese positions overlooked the creek crossings, Lloyd wanted them, so he directed Cullen to move across the bridges and then attack up the main track into the teeth of the enemy defence. Captain Basil Catterns’ company got the thankless task.

Cullen’s two other companies were sent across Eora Creek further upstream and climbed a steep spur onto the high ground to attack the western flank of the Japanese position. These units, led by Captains Alex Sanderson and Arch Simpson, were to attack at the same time as Cullen’s men. Unfortunately for Sanderson, two of his platoons and all of Simpson’s company failed to find their way up onto the heights. This was not surprising, given that to get there they had to negotiate a waterfall as well as the thick scrub. Though Sanderson had only the seventeen men from Lieutenant Keith Johnston’s platoon with him, he immediately led them into an attack on the Japanese flank. The platoon was then counterattacked and surrounded. Eleven men were killed, including Johnston and Sanderson, who had wrought havoc with his Schmeisser submachine gun before he fell. Cullen later observed of Sanderson’s action that ‘practically every round carried was fired, and the ground next day was covered with dead and dying Japs.’²⁰

Meanwhile, on the night of 22 October, the first men had made their way across the bridges over Eora Creek. The patrol, led by Lieutenant Ken Burke, was caught by Japanese machinegun fire and suffered thirteen casualties. But Lloyd still wanted those bridges taken, so Cullen decided to lead from the front. As Ed Law noted, ‘Cullen didn’t like putting his men in places he wouldn’t go himself.’²¹ Together with his adjutant, Captain Geoff Cox, Cullen crawled over the bridge and through the dead bodies from Burke’s foray to find the enemy machinegunner gone. He quickly ordered Captain Peter Barclay’s company to descend Bare Ridge and cross the bridges. Most of Barclay’s men made it to the north bank, but the company’s problems were only just beginning.

The dawn light revealed that the men of Lieutenant Bill Pollitt’s platoon, in trying to stay to the right of the track, had become trapped between the river and a sheer rock wall. The track here traverses a steep slope, and there is no feasible alternative route up. The Japanese defenders dropped grenades down onto Pollitt’s men until John Hunt managed to get up the slope and shoot two of them, thus saving the platoon. Hunt would be killed later that day while acting as forward scout for another platoon. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Jim McCloy’s platoon had found a spur and succeeded in getting forward up the incline to the left of the track. Company commander Barclay was killed during this move. McCloy could hear Sanderson’s flanking attack further west, but the two platoons he now commanded could not move from their tenuous position below the Japanese.

Sergeant Arthur Carson had form. Having joined up at the age of 15, he had served as Arthur Carlson in the First World War. After seven months at Gallipoli, he went to the Western Front, where he was awarded the DCM for bringing wounded men out from the battlefield of Bullecourt under continuous shell fire. When the Second World War broke out, he re-enlisted under his real name, and was now in charge of the pioneer platoon in 2/3rd Battalion. On the afternoon of 23 October, Carson gathered a party of men from his platoon and went down to Eora Creek village to bring back a badly wounded man. They came under fire from enemy machineguns, which killed one rescuer and wounded another. Still under fire, Carson headed back up the slope to the regimental aid post to get stretcher bearers. He returned with them at dusk, and the wounded were evacuated that night. For his selfless devotion to duty, Carson was awarded a Military Medal. He was thus decorated for bravery in combat in both wars.²²

With McCloy having cleared the way, Catterns now took his men straight up the ridge. Leading out along the track, Lieutenant Ed Body’s platoon heard two shots. A runner came back to say the ‘leading scout had been bowled.’²³ Body kept on, losing more men, and dug in no more than 30 metres below the Japanese positions. Here the platoon was protected from direct rifle fire but endured almost continuous attack from grenades. The bravest of the men went back down the slope and across Eora Creek each night to get food and ammunition. A Vickers gun was brought forward along Bare Ridge on 25 October, but dawn brought the enemy artillery into action and a direct hit soon destroyed it. Next day, a 3-inch mortar was also knocked out by the well-directed fire of enemy mountain guns. The shells would explode in the tops of trees, and there was no way of knowing where the blast would hit: the men would just hug a tree.²⁴ Dudley Leggett wrote, ‘Deep throated explosions would shake the ground and shrapnel would spatter through the timber as we crouched low in the nearest cover.’²⁵ Bennett-Bremner recalled, ‘It was a wicked weapon, you never heard it coming and it drew blood nearly every time.’²⁶

A second 3-inch mortar blew up when a bomb that had armed itself during aerial resupply went off prematurely. During the night of 26–27 October, heavy rain flooded Eora Creek, washing out the bridges and cutting the supply line. On the same day, Japanese reinforcements arrived. Knowing he commanded the best defensive position along the Kokoda Trail, Horii planned to delay the Australians for as long as possible. Brigadier Lloyd finally realised that he had to get stronger forces onto the high ground to turn the Japanese western flank. The 2/3rd Battalion, now under the command of Major Ian Hutchison, made the wide flanking move across Eora Creek in Sanderson’s footsteps. Captain Bruce Brock’s company, from the 2/2nd, was also attached for added weight. Hutchison took his force even further out to the north and, on 27 and 28 October, attacked the Japanese western flank in three 200-man columns about 300 metres apart. Corporal Lester ‘Tarzan’ Pett was in the forefront of the attack. As the Australians unhinged the Japanese right flank, he wiped out four enemy bunkers. Pett’s mates called him ‘five feet of dynamite’, but he would not survive his wounds.²⁷

When Catterns’ men rose from their positions on the front slope and stormed over the crest, they found the Japanese gone. The 226 soldiers of Lloyd’s brigade who had been killed or wounded taking this Japanese Gibraltar proved Blamey and MacArthur wrong in their dour assessment of the Australian efforts. Dudley Leggett put it well: ‘These troops of ours are showing qualities which would move mountains.’²⁸

On 28 October Major General Vasey, who had flown by light plane to Myola, replaced Allen as commander of the 7th Division. Blamey had suggested the move as a temporary one to Allen on 13 October, but Allen had wanted to remain. Now, with MacArthur directly criticising Allen, Blamey ordered him back to Moresby to help sort out the supply issues. Vasey had already proven his ability during difficult fighting in the Middle East. More importantly, he had the confidence of both Blamey and Herring, and his appointment would help placate MacArthur.

Vasey was known as ‘bloody George’—for good reason, as Padre Herb Pearson found out during a later encounter. ‘You’ll have to forgive me,’ Vasey told the chaplain. ‘I can’t bloody well talk if I can’t bloody well swear.’²⁹ Vasey sent regular letters to his wife. On 27 October, the day he was appointed to his new command, he wrote, ‘Phew, what a day . . . so it has come at last . . . I am to leave by air tomorrow [for Myola].’ He spent a day conferring with Allen before moving his divisional headquarters to Eora Creek ‘so as to get on the tail of the brigadiers and get them forward.’ Vasey soon found how tough the going was. He strained his knee, but taped it up and kept moving.³⁰

Cullen’s battalion took up the pursuit of the Japanese rearguard from Eora Creek, entering Alola on the afternoon of 30 October. Then, once the 2/2nd Battalion had secured the makeshift bridge across Eora Creek to Abuari, Lloyd’s brigade pushed east through Abuari. Lloyd was looking to head northeast out of the Eora Creek valley and cut the track east of Kokoda behind the retreating Japanese.

Meanwhile, Eather’s 25th Brigade returned to the fray, moving north through Deniki towards Kokoda. Dudley Leggett accompanied the men on the descent from the mountains. ‘We slid and slipped on the steep mountain track,’ he wrote, ‘and sometimes fell at full length as we stretched for a foothold beyond our range.’ Troops from the 2/31st Battalion entered the abandoned town on 2 November, two days behind the Japanese rearguard. Leggett wrote, ‘The troops tired but now happier than they’d been for weeks, raised a few desultory cheers and cries of satisfaction . . . The village wore an air of destruction and decay.’ Just after 1100 on 3 November, General Vasey hoisted the Australian flag above Kokoda. Leggett reported, ‘Once again the Southern Cross floated over the valley.’³¹

Vasey pushed Lloyd to reach the coast as soon as possible. Allan Cameron’s 3rd Battalion was now under Lloyd’s command, and Cameron’s stamina and familiarity with the terrain were of great help. Lloyd sent the 2/1st Battalion east along a track south of the Kokoda Trail, while the other three battalions pushed east along the main route. On the day Kokoda fell, Lloyd’s men had engaged with the Japanese rearguard at Oivi, midway between Kokoda and the Kumusi River. Lloyd was in the thick of it, coming under fire when he went beyond the forward scouts on the road to Oivi.

On 5 November, Edgar’s 2/2nd Battalion went up against the strong Japanese defences west of Oivi village. Ferguson’s company was held on the main track while Brock’s moved around the right flank. Brock was unable to make progress, so two companies from Hutchison’s 2/3rd Battalion were sent in on the left, followed later by the other two, further out to the right flank. Two companies from Cameron’s battalion also went to the right to prevent the Japanese from getting in between the track and the wide flanking companies. They arrived just in time to help hold off a strong counterattack before dusk. On 7 November, mortar ammunition finally came forward from Kokoda airfield, and the bombs were soon falling onto the Japanese positions.

Vasey now turned his attention to Cullen’s battalion, further south. On 5 November it had reached Sengai, where five Australian bodies were found still on their stretchers, the tragic remains of Captain ‘Ben’ Buckler’s party from Isurava.³² Cullen sent one platoon north on a track to Gorari while the rest of the battalion continued to push east. They were aiming for Ilimo, well behind the main Japanese positions, but the track was difficult. As supplies dwindled, Cullen pulled his men back to the Gorari track.

Eather’s 25th Brigade now came in behind Cullen, and 2/31st Battalion was ordered to move north along the track and seize Gorari on 8 November. Just before midday, Lieutenant Albert Hurrell’s company encountered the enemy, and the other three companies came in to support it. Eather’s other two battalions diverted out to the right flank to get in behind the Japanese positions. The 2/31st kept at it the next day and, backed up by some air support, held the defenders in place. This enabled the 2/25th to come at the Japanese from behind, but the enemy held and even counterattacked.

The wider flanking move by the 2/33rd, now backed up by Cullen’s battalion, turned out to be the key move of the battle. The 2/33rd got into Gorari, and the battalion broke the Kokoda Trail further east, overrunning a major enemy supply dump. The two main Japanese positions at Oivi and on the southern track were now untenable. Now the 2/33rd fought hard to hold the critical Gorari bottleneck behind the two forward Japanese positions. The first attacks on 10 November came from the northwest. Captain Patrick Brinkley, the B Company commander, was killed.

Further east, Cullen tried to join up with the 2/33rd, but enemy pressure soon forced his battalion into a perimeter defence. To the south, the 2/31st and 2/25th continued to press the enemy positions. Finally, on 11 November, they broke through. Eather had ordered a bayonet attack, but with all sections down to a handful of men, most carried Bren or Tommy guns. One officer observed that ‘there were barely enough bayonets to open our bully beef.’³³

Meanwhile, Cullen had pushed his flanks outwards to block the Japanese from moving around him. The fighting was fierce: attack and counterattack. Corporal Harrowby St George-Ryder killed three Japanese with his Tommy gun before he was attacked by an officer wielding a sword. One blow glanced off his helmet but wounded him. Ryder grabbed the officer and kneed him to the ground, where another man killed him. The war diary simply stated: ‘Hand to hand struggle with Cpl Ryder. Ryder won.’³⁴ When a Japanese bayonet pierced Jack Bowman’s shirt, he grabbed it with his bare hands and wrested the rifle from its owner. Bowman then smashed the butt into his assailant’s head, killing him.³⁵

When the rest of 16th Brigade pushed forward, the men found that the Japanese had abandoned the strong Oivi defences on the night of 10 November. Knowing his division had broken the back of the Japanese, a relieved Vasey wrote to his wife, ‘He’s a stubborn creature this Jap: but we have just proved that he doesn’t like being attacked from all directions any more than we do.’³⁶

Vasey now pushed his strongest brigade, Eather’s 25th, towards the Kumusi River, which it reached on 13 November. Lieutenant Charlie Wegg’s platoon from the 2/5th Field Company accompanied the brigade, tasked with getting some sort of bridge across the swift-flowing river. Using the Royal Engineers pocket book he had brought with him, Wegg worked out the design, and the next day a plane dropped in wire rope and tools. The platoon soon had two flying foxes in use, but by the second day two makeshift bridges were also available, and Lloyd’s brigade, which had come up in the wake of the 25th, had started to cross.³⁷ The 16th Brigade war diary recorded, ‘On the one hand an extremely flimsy wire suspension bridge that gave all users a bath at its middle and on the other a high strung flying fox that whilst efficient occasionally stopped with the occupant swinging helplessly above the stream.’³⁸

For the Japanese, crossing the Kumusi had been a more hazardous affair. Many of them drowned in the attempt. General Horii and two other men managed to get down the river by raft and then canoe, but when they reached the mouth and set out for Giruwa, further along the coast, the canoe capsized. ‘I have no strength to swim any further,’ the commander told his surviving companion. ‘Tell the troops that Horii died here.’³⁹

Late in the afternoon of 9 November, General Blamey addressed the troops of the 21st Brigade at the Koitaki cricket ground, on the Sogeri plateau just outside Port Moresby. Though the ranks had been considerably thinned by the gruelling retreat from Kokoda, the men stood tall, proud of what they had achieved. In an unfortunate choice of words, Blamey told them: ‘It’s not the man with the gun that gets shot; it’s the rabbit that is running away.’ The assembled men took great offence at the remark. Stan Bisset certainly hadn’t seen it that way. ‘My brother didn’t run,’ he said.⁴⁰ Many also vented their indignation—as did many officers. After speaking to the men, Blamey called the officers aside and spoke to them separately. ‘We acted very violently to that,’ Bob Johns recalled.⁴¹ Harry Katekar heard Blamey say that some of the officers weren’t worthy of their men. ‘Some of the officers . . . they were absolutely ropeable,’ he later said.⁴² Blue Steward, the 2/16th medical officer, didn’t bother with the officers’ meeting. Having seen the sacrifices at first hand, he was shattered by Blamey’s words to the men. ‘He might as well have kicked the whole AIF in the guts,’ Steward wrote.⁴³ Blamey later retracted his claim that the Australians were beaten by a smaller force, but as Geoff Lyon observed, ‘by that time 600 men were under the sod who had never heard the apology.’⁴⁴

Blamey never again held the respect of the Australian soldiery. Later, when he made a visit to 21st Brigade, all the men began singing a popular song that went, ‘Run, rabbit, run.’ When Blamey inspected a field hospital, the men chewed on lettuce leaves as he passed by.⁴⁵ To this day, you would be hard pressed to find any 21st Brigade veteran with a kind word for Blamey. Tragically, many of those who took the greatest offence at his remarks sacrificed their lives seeking some form of retribution in the later fighting at Gona.

Not all soldiers fought in the front line with rifle and bayonet. Some, like Padre Roy Wotton, fought their battles on bended knee. Chaplaincy was an important job in the Australian Army; it always had been and remains so. For men living close to death, the chaplain provided much more than prayers. He represented life when death was all around, and provided hope in death when life was over. Wotton had arrived in Port Moresby as the Anglican chaplain for the 53rd Battalion before being transferred to 21st Brigade. In early October, as the Australians moved back towards Kokoda, he was sent up to Brigade Hill in the wake of the desperate fighting. The Australian dead lay in shallow graves quickly scraped out by 2/33rd Battalion troops; it would be Wotton’s task to give them a Christian burial. His assistant did not last long: the horrific work of dealing with the decomposing bodies proved too much for him. But the padre kept on. Amid the mud and gore, he recovered Australian bodies and dug new graves along the top of Brigade Hill, at times working with his bare hands. As the front line moved on towards the north coast, in the muddy forest atop Brigade Hill, Roy Wotton knelt to fight.⁴⁶