It was 6 August 1945, and Lieutenant Morris ‘Dick’ Jeppson was sitting down to dinner at the American airbase on Tinian Island. He had just flown his first and only combat mission of the war, a thirteen-hour return flight to the Japanese mainland. Sitting with him were several naval officers, who were recounting their various exploits. One turned to Jeppson and asked him, ‘What did you do today?’ He replied, ‘I think we ended the war today.’ Jeppson had been one of twelve crewmen on the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, which had flown from Tinian Island to drop a single atomic bomb over Hiroshima, hastening the end of the war.1
Three days later, the roar of aircraft engines made Lance Crowley lift his head. Captured at Singapore, imprisoned in Changi, left to die of typhus in the Thai jungle, then enduring eight weeks on a condemned hell ship to Japan and almost a year working on the docks and now at the coal mines outside Nagasaki, Crowley had little enough reason to look up. High in the sky he saw the gleaming cross of a silver bomber and only wished there were more of them. That aircraft was the B-29 bomber Bockscar, which carried the second atomic bomb. About half an hour later the plane returned unmolested, leaving a massive pall of smoke above Nagasaki. A few days later, Crowley watched as one of the Japanese guards cleared a space in the dirt and then pointed to it. ‘That’s Nagasaki!’ was all he said.2
On the same day as the Nagasaki bombing, Soviet tanks rolled across the border into Japanese-held Manchuria, breaking Stalin’s peace agreement with Japan, and sealing the country’s fate. On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered.
On 11 August, General Savige had ordered his troops on Bougainville to suspend hostilities unless attacked. Two days later, Private Eric Bahr, of the 7th Battalion, was shot dead by an enemy sniper at a position north of Pearl Ridge. Three of his comrades were wounded when the Japanese position was attacked in response. Though others would die later of wounds, accidents and illness, Eric Bahr was the last Australian killed in action on Bougainville.
Lance Corporal Shigeo Nakano, of the II/81st Battalion, had arrived in Rabaul on 3 November 1943. American submarines had sunk one of the convoy transports on the way south, and Nakano’s battalion had reached Rabaul via the deck of the cruiser Minazuki. The unit had been sent south to Bougainville, and after the abortive attack on the Torokina perimeter, the men had been engaged in planting and harvesting what food they could to survive. Now, as the war neared its end, Nakano was at Numa Numa. The Allies had for some time been dropping leaflets urging the Japanese to surrender. Gradually, it dawned on the troops that what these leaflets said about landings in the Philippines and beyond was closer to the truth than what they heard on Japanese radio broadcasts. The latest leaflet informed them that the war had ended—a message reinforced by aircraft with the words ‘Japan has surrendered’ painted under their wings in Japanese. Nakano reflected that ‘of the four thousand troops who sailed from Shanghai less than two years before, only 170 of the originals had survived and we were ragged and starving.’ Some days later, when five Australians arrived at Numa Numa, the Japanese battalion commander paraded his men and offered the Australians the only gifts he had, a fresh coconut each. One of the Aussie soldiers turned to Nakano, held the coconut aloft and said, ‘Well, here’s to peace.’3 When the Seventeenth Army commander, Lieutenant General Masatane Kanda, surrendered at Torokina on 8 September 1945, an extraordinary 14,546 Army and 9366 naval personnel ‘went into the bag’ as prisoners.4
On 4 September, Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura and Vice Admiral Jinichi Kusaka had surrendered all remaining Japanese army and naval forces on New Britain to Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee, the commander of the First Australian Army, on the deck of the British aircraft carrier HMS Glory, anchored off Rabaul. When the Australians landed at the town, there were 57,225 Japanese Army and 31,923 naval personnel there.5 The war had long since passed them by. The first repatriations to Japan took place on 28 February 1946, and they continued until 13 June.
In April 1945, four months before the end of the war, Masamichi Kitamoto had met with Lieutenant General Yoshihara at Eighteenth Army headquarters at Numbogua, 65 kilometres inland from Wewak. By this stage the Eighteenth Army was withering without a vine to sustain it. ‘There were men with both legs amputated, men who were blind in both eyes etc, everyone was waiting for death,’ Kitamoto wrote. With the end nigh, Yoshihara told him, ‘I want you to find a place where commander Adachi can commit harakiri. It must be an impregnable fort which can be held against the enemy to the last man.’ Taking his native guide and two other men, Kitamoto embarked upon another journey. Travelling by canoe to the Sepik River, he found a mesa-like redoubt in the Prince Alexander Range. This would be the ‘castle of the last stand.’ By now it was mid-August, and when Kitamoto picked up an air-dropped leaflet and read that the war was over he could not believe it. Only when he returned to Numbogua and saw documents and flags being burned did Kitamoto grasp that it was all too true.6
At Kiarivu, the 2/7th Battalion received news of Japan’s surrender on the morning of 15 August, but the Japanese troops did not, and the fighting continued. Private Frank Gage was mortally wounded that day while on patrol. Colonel Parbury ordered his battalion to cease aggressive action, but that night, even as those at battalion headquarters gathered around the radio to listen to the victory celebrations from Sydney, more Japanese attacks came in against the forward companies, and three men were wounded by blast bombs thrown into the Australian lines. Next morning, Parbury sent natives to Major General Nakai with a message to desist.7
On the following night, 17 August, a native returned with an answer, but it was in Japanese script and the nearest interpreter was with brigade staff at Yamil. The intelligence officer, Lieutenant Wal Fleming, copied the characters of the address and heading onto celluloid, then converted the ‘routes’ traced by the characters to map references. When these were transmitted to brigade headquarters, the points were joined up to form the script. The message was from Nakai. Next day, a light plane was sent to collect the complete message so it could be translated. Nakai wrote that he had received no instructions from senior officers and would continue to resist until he did.8
That same night, the enemy bomb throwers were back. A raiding party penetrated the Australian perimeter and threw bombs and grenades among the sleeping troops. Sergeant Ron Lilley, who had served his country for five long years, was killed as he slept. Corporal John Phillips and Private Allan Wallace were seriously wounded and both soon died.9 Trooper Keith Heffernan, serving with the 2/9th Cavalry Commando Squadron in the ranges behind Dagua, had a quieter night. However, just after dawn on 18 August, as he checked for Japanese movement, he was killed by a booby trap.10 In the weeks and months that followed, wounds, illness and accidents would claim others but Lilley, Phillips, Wallace and Heffernan were the last Australians killed in action in New Guinea.
On 1 September, Parbury sent another note to Nakai, this time asking for an assurance that a patrol back to Yamil would be given safe passage. Nakai replied that he could not give that assurance but said he would not initiate any action and that the Australians should negotiate with Lieutenant General Adachi, the Army commander. Just after dusk on 10 September, a party of officers with a lantern and white flag approached the Australian positions at Kiarivu with a message that Adachi was on his way to surrender. Held aloft on a chair suspended on two poles and carried by four men, Adachi arrived the next morning. He was later taken to Hayfield airstrip, from where he was flown to Wewak to surrender his army.11
On 13 September, Adachi arrived at the small airstrip at Cape Wom, just west of Wewak, to sign the document of surrender for his 12,000 remaining troops. Upon arrival he was marched into a U-shaped parade of 3200 Australian service personnel, mainly from 6th Division but also including RAAF and RAN personnel. Colonel Hennessy addressed those members of his cavalry commando regiment before Adachi arrived. ‘Now, I’m going to tell you what to do,’ he said. ‘When this bastard comes along you will not stand at attention, you will not stand at ease, you will stand easy and don’t move your bloody feet.’ The men didn’t move, but they did give Adachi a distinctively Australian greeting—they booed him.12
After spending most of the Pacific war sidelined in Australia, Major General Horace Robertson had taken over the command of 6th Division from an ailing Jack Stevens in early August. It was to him that Adachi surrendered before being flown back to Hayfield and returned to his headquarters. From there he arranged the movement of his troops to assembly areas and then on to Muschu Island, where all Japanese prisoners were to be held. Rear Admiral Shiro Sato, the Japanese naval commander, had already surrendered the 945 naval personnel on Kairiru and Muschu islands on 10 September. The first Japanese prisoners from Muschu were repatriated to Japan on 27 November, and all were gone within six months. However, the final four of Adachi’s soldiers did not emerge from the New Guinea jungle until 1954.
Just over a week after the surrender, Gavin Long was in Borneo following the final battles of the AIF 7th and 9th Divisions, whose men had done so much to turn the tide in New Guinea. With the war over, there was a chronic shortage of ships to get these soldiers back to Australia. The twenty-seven men from the 2/14th Battalion who had served throughout the war—the five-year men, veterans of the Middle East, of Kokoda, Gona, the Ramu Valley and Borneo—were among the first out. Many of their comrades gathered around to see the old hands off and the band played ‘goodbye’ as the jeeps left for the docks and HMAS Kanimbla. Long noted that ‘strong men swallowed hard and some could not prevent their tears.’ The 2/14th commander, Lieutenant Colonel Phil Rhoden, later asked him, ‘Do you think the people at home would understand what that was all about?’ ‘Not the slightest idea,’ Long replied.13
Tom Derrick never left Borneo. The Victoria Cross recipient had been commissioned and, contrary to convention, was reappointed to the 2/48th Battalion as a platoon commander. On 23 May 1945, among the steep jungle-covered knolls of Tarakan Island, off the coast of Borneo, Derrick was mortally wounded doing what he lived for, leading men in battle. A burst of machinegun fire caught him as he peered from a forward weapon pit into the darkness. Even as he lay dying, Derrick directed the actions of his men. His death rocked the battalion. Even the Japanese noticed the effect. ‘The great Australian general is dead,’ they wrote.14 Indeed he was.
Some of the men were drawn back to New Guinea. Peter Dixon, the engineering officer who had been captured at Kavieng on the first day of the land war, went on to work on some of the biggest mining projects in Papua New Guinea. Allan Cameron, who had probably seen more of New Guinea during the war than anyone, saw even more of it afterwards, returning to New Britain, where his war had begun, and running a plantation near Talasea. Alf Robinson, who had cheated death at Tol and given sterling service to ANGAU throughout the war, also returned to work in New Britain, on the fringes of Administration control. In 1948, long after the battles were over, the battlefield claimed him when he was speared to death by natives. Another who had seen more than his share of New Guinea, Norm Winning, returned to managing a plantation in Java only to be murdered by local insurgents fighting another war in December 1950. His former commandos sent a wreath with the message, ‘Farewell Red Steer.’15 One of those commandos, Peter Pinney, could not settle down. He wandered the world for fifteen years and wrote vividly of his experiences; his final three books were based on his secret wartime diaries.
Despite wounds to body and soul, Billy Cook, the most extraordinary of the survivors from Tol, worked after the war as a train examiner at Central Station in Sydney. On the night of 14 September 1951, his mates found him lying beside the rail track bleeding to death, both of his legs severed by a train. He was still conscious and chatted to his rescuers as he was carried to the ambulance. To the amazement of the doctors, Billy Cook survived. He would live another thirty years.16
Masao Kusunose, the Japanese regimental commander whose troops had carried out the Tol Plantation massacre, was evacuated to Japan after the Kokoda campaign. In 1946 he was tracked down by Allied authorities but not detained. However, his sword was confiscated, denying him the traditional way out for the supposed warrior. As an alternative, Kusunose went to a barracks at the foot of Mount Fuji in the freezing weather of December 1946. After nine days he was dead from exposure, rats gnawing at his wasted carcass. His last notebook entry read, ‘Heaven will preserve Japan and the Emperor.’ No heaven worth the name would have countenanced the Japanese actions at Tol.17
Condemned to life imprisonment for his war crimes, Hataz Adachi was able to choose the way of the disgraced samurai. His final words to the officers and men who remained in the prisoner compound at Rabaul set out his perceived dilemma. ‘I have demanded perseverance far exceeding the limit of man’s endurance of my officers and men, who were exhausted and emaciated as a result of successive campaigns and for want of supplies . . . they succumbed to death just like flowers falling in the winds. God knows how I felt when I saw them dying, my bosom being filled with pity for them.’ Adachi decided ‘to remain as a clod of earth in the Southern Seas’ with his fallen men.18 In the early morning hours of 10 September 1947, sitting upright in his dress uniform and facing towards the country of his birth, he met his end by ritual suicide, the steel blade slicing through the pity within. There was no room for pity on hell’s battlefield.