1942–1943
An even more important battle occurred a few weeks later, from 4–7 June: the Battle of Midway, in which the American Navy beat off the Japanese. Japan lost four irreplaceable fleet carriers, compared with just one lost by the US. The US base at Midway was damaged by Japanese air attacks, but it remained operational.
The casualty figures were telling. The Americans lost 340 men, the aircraft carrier Yorktown, the destroyer USS Hammann and 145 aircraft. The Japanese lost 3057 men, nearly 10 times as many as the US. As well as the four aircraft carriers that were sunk, the heavy cruiser Mikuma went down. They also lost 228 aircraft. Emperor Hirohito was told in secret of the true extent of the carrier and pilot losses. But amazingly, General Tojo was not fully informed, nor was the Japanese media and public.
By any reckoning, the US Navy had won its first major victory of the war. Coupled with the Battle of the Coral Sea, Midway meant that the Japanese no longer ruled the sea lanes of the Pacific. Their navy had taken such a belting that it might never recover completely. Japan would have to find ways to move troops and equipment overland in its quest to rule Asia. This led to the building of the 450-kilometre Burmese–Thai railway using slave labour from among local and Allied troops (including Australia’s 8th Division).
The Pacific War was a long way from over, but Churchill might have judged Midway as ‘the beginning of the end’ of Japanese plans for supremacy in the region. Whether or not the Japanese had been robbed of their offensive capacity, or desire, remained to be seen.
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In late July 1942 the Japanese sent an exploratory force to probe the Kokoda Track, which ran along Papua’s spine to Port Moresby.
Communications were slow, but by 4 August, Blamey had alerted Allen on the Brisbane defensive line. Savige felt his 3rd Division was ready after half a year’s hard training, but acknowledged that the experienced soldiers of the 7th had to be preferred for the early encounters with the enemy in Papua and New Guinea.
Inside 48 hours, three battalions of the 7th were on the water en route to Port Moresby. Once there, two headed for the Kokoda Track, and one for Milne Bay in New Guinea’s east. The vacancy on the Brisbane line saw Savige’s 3rd Division moved up, and he believed he would be next into battle in New Guinea.
Major General Clowes, previously in command of 1st Division, was given a terrible mission to tackle malaria-infested Milne Bay, and a determined enemy. He commanded a brigade from 7th Division and a militia brigade in repulsing 2000 Japanese who landed there on 25 August. From 26 August to 20 September, Allen and his 7th Division tackled the Japanese on the Kokoda Track, and succeeded in preventing them from getting through to Moresby.
Meanwhile Savige waited for the call up to the front, but was usurped by 6th Division, which sent its 16th and 17th Brigades north. It seemed Savige would not get the chance to direct his troops in battle when, in October 1942, he was appointed to administer command of II Australian Corps, effectively the reserve force, after I Corps, the main force, was moved up to Port Moresby. However, he remained in command of 3rd Division, which was finally sent to New Guinea to meet an expected fresh Japanese thrust, this time at Wau. Savige’s (former) well-drilled and experienced 17th Brigade was flown there to greet the brigade as it came in, and the Japanese were defeated and pushed inland and further north.
The enemy was a long way from giving up. It reinforced Lae and planned a second assault on Wau. But Blamey was determined to jump in first. He arrived in Port Moresby to work on a plan to recapture Lae and Salamaua. Blamey wanted to end the threat to Moresby and Australia as fast as possible.
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In April 1943, Blamey beat his opposite number, General Adachi, to the punch by sending Savige to take command of all troops in the Wau–Salamaua area.
Blamey’s patronage of Savige sparked fury among the top officers of the 2nd AIF. The enemies of both men whispered that Blamey’s support was due to the fact that Savige had provided an alibi for him during the ‘badge in the brothel’ incident back in 1925, which had saved Blamey’s position as Chief Commissioner of the Victoria Police. But this ‘motive’ had worn thin. The event had been almost two decades ago and both men had moved on to other accomplishments. They were good mates, and while there was some partiality in Blamey’s support for Savige, the Commander in Chief was not so foolish as to push an incompetent into such an important role. Blamey was clever at picking horses for courses. Savige, he believed, was right for what he had in mind for this mission.
Still Blamey was challenged.
One staff officer, influenced by Vasey and Berryman, urged him to drop Savige, saying that it was ‘well known’ that a staff member was doing the real work for him. Blamey had heard this all before and was well versed in the backbiting, clawing ambitions of the general staff, who, if they weren’t jockeying for a command position themselves, were pushing up their favourites.
‘They say I stick with him because he is my friend,’ Blamey said to the staffer. ‘You tell me when he has let me down in this war.’
The staffer mentioned Bardia, but Blamey knew both sides and believed Savige had received a ‘raw deal’. Blamey also mentioned he had put good staff men in to support Savige.
‘Somebody’s got to do the job,’ he said, and pointed out that if Savige could ‘pick a good man, give him a job to do, and stand behind him, that’s all that matters. If he doesn’t stand behind he is not a good commander.’
The staffer went to make another point but Blamey cut him off.
‘If anyone can prove to me that Savige has let me down,’ he said, ‘then Savige won’t be there.’1
***
By the time Savige reached New Guinea to lead 3rd Division he had been on six battlefronts in two wars, fighting and commanding against five enemy nations. In 1943, no one in the 2nd AIF or the US forces had his broad experience in frontline and field operations.
Savige believed in keeping the morale of his whole division high. He made a point of moving over all the terrain his troops did, and visiting them at every opportunity. This was scorned by MacArthur and his staff, the new officers, and even Blamey. They were rarely ‘in touch’ with the front-line soldier, except for a photo opportunity.
This perceived weakness of Savige’s led his critics to say he should never have been promoted above a company command. A division was too much for him. But Blamey, being contrary, plucked him from a ‘back block’ (although important) post of raising and training 3rd Division and now placed him in an important field command. Savige was also loyal and would never be a threat to Blamey’s position, whereas Bennett, Rowell and others were. The Commander in Chief of Land Forces felt familiar with, unchallenged by and therefore comfortable with Savige. But, personal reasons aside, Blamey did not underestimate Savige’s strengths.
He warned Savige that the operational areas between Wau and Salamaua were ‘the foulest country’, and that this command was ‘a poisonous job’.2
But Savige was not deterred. He had seen some officers, such as Allen, Rowell and Herring, in key roles in New Guinea. He wanted to end his own career in another fighting command. He soon acquainted himself with the terrain, which was as bad as anything he had encountered.
He wrote: ‘Such conditions of rain, mud, rottenness, stench, gloom, and above all, the feeling of being shut in by everlasting jungle and ever-ascending mountains, are sufficient to fray the strongest nerves.’ He added that there was ‘the tension of the constant expectancy of death from behind the impenetrable screen of green’.
Apart from nerves of steel, commanders and soldiers had to have ‘morale of the highest to live down these conditions’. The harsh environment had to be accepted ‘as a matter of course’. The men had to ‘maintain a cheerful yet fighting spirit’.3
Savige felt he was the man for the job, even if Blamey was the only one among the high command who supported him with any enthusiasm.
The tactics to be used in the slower-moving jungle warfare suited his style. By instinct, he would turn to the Japanese method of furtive, flanking attacks. As the months turned into years, Japan’s reliance on air support and its inferiority on the ground were becoming big factors in winning this protracted war in New Guinea.
Most importantly of all, Savige played up his outstanding attribute of generating the strongest team spirit possible. From his first day in the region he moved among the troops, to their appreciation. Many officers and soldiers had fought under him in the Middle East and North Africa. He lifted morale. He knew the importance of getting mail to his ‘boys’. There would be a hot meal every day, even in the ‘hottest’ war spots. He would go to the front, feign an apology for interfering, and talk on the phone to commanders he knew. Savige brought smiles and cheers at every post.
His prodigious memory helped. He made an effort to work at it. He would take a personal interest in each of the diggers, recalling an incident here, a moment of battle there.
‘G’day, Artie . . . didn’t I last see you in Bardia?’
‘’Ello, Fred . . . I remember you in Derna . . .’
Apart from being seen as a ‘good bloke’ who looked after his men, he had a reputation as a ‘winner’ across two wars and generations. His inspiration and support for the welfare of the troops at the front would not just cause a trickle-down effect. It would cause a greater rush in a surprise attack; a flood of determination in hand-to-hand fighting; an extra effort in a critical battle moment.
***
Savige’s force now included his former 17th Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Murray Moten, which had seen off the Japanese when they first hit Wau in January. There was also 2/3rd Independent Company, which had arrived soon after that initial battle. The remnants of Kanga Force, which had been in skirmishes with the Japanese in the area for some time, were relieved by Savige’s raw 3rd Division. Joining them with the hard nuts in 17th Brigade was inspired, especially with Savige astride the new combination.
He had his plans for the defeat of the Japanese ready by the end of his first week at his initial HQ at Bulolo, 100 kilometres from Salamaua and the coast. They included, at an as yet unspecified time, a landing by US troops at Nassau Bay, 60 kilometres south of Salamaua.
Savige was ready by 1 May 1943, which turned out to be just in time. On 9 May the Japanese moved out of Mubo, where Moten had pushed them three months earlier, and attacked Australian contingents at Lababia Ridge, about 30 kilometres inland from the Huon Gulf. The skirmishes of the past few months had been stepped up.
The Australian military in Papua and New Guinea, with support from the Americans, had defeated and countered the Japanese invaders in three major battles: at Kokoda, Milne Bay and Buna–Sanananda.
The fourth battle for Papua and New Guinea had begun.