Lines of Escape

By Brett Wright

In January 1942, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded New Guinea, landing on the northern coastal areas of this harsh, remote country.

This book recounts the desperate efforts of missionaries, along with groups of downed allied airmen, ANGAU (Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit), officials and members of the 39th militia Battalion, to escape the invading Japanese army.

Following each groups harrowing story as they made their way through the energy sapping heat of the Papuan jungle, skirmished with Japanese troops, grappled with the, at times dubious, loyalties of the Papuans they encountered, and tried to survive.

Lines of Escape also details the incredible mission undertaken by Australian forces to cripple the Japanese air base at Salamaua.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781035829439

Brett Wright

Brett Wright was a serving police officer in the NSW police force for 15 years. He spent the majority of that time as a frontline officer where he saw and dealt with the worst that humanity has to offer. During his career, Brett was awarded the Commissioner’s Commendation for Courage. Brett also received the Jim Affleck award for bravery and outstanding policing. He was also twice nominated for Police Officer of the Year by the Campbelltown Chamber of Commerce. Brett left the police force in October 2016 and began writing shortly after. When not writing, Brett spends his time hiking (including the brutal and iconic Kokoda Track), taking part in running events, travelling and enjoying time with his family.

Book preview

Chapter One

The bright orange sun sank slowly into the far western horizon of the Solomon Sea as small waves gently lapped against the sands on Gona beach. A soft breeze blew along the beach, causing a small stand of beach grass to bend delicately in the dying sunlight.

A little way off the beach, the Gona Mission buildings stood amongst a grove of gently swaying coconut palms that towered above Sister May Hayman’s rose gardens.

Inside the mission building, Father James Benson calmly moved about the large central room, lighting candles as the room grew dark with the setting sun.

‘Won’t you please reconsider, Sisters?’ Lieutenant Alan Champion implored the two women who sat at a large table where they worked on repairing soldiers’ uniforms.

‘Bishop Strong has assured us it is very safe for us to stay here, Lieutenant.’ Sister Mavis Parkinson smiled politely at the thirty-seven-year-old Australian New Guinea administrative officer who paced up and down the darkening room with a look of frustrated agitation etched onto his face. Sister Parkinson picked up a document from the table and handed it to Champion.

‘This is Bishop Strong’s letter to all the missions, Lieutenant,’ she said. Champion held the paper next to a candle and read the document:

As far as I know, you are all at your posts, and I am very glad and thankful about this. I have, from the first, felt that we must endeavour to carry on our work in all circumstances, no matter what the cost may ultimately be to any of us individually. God expects this of us. The church at home, which sent us out, expects this of us. The Universal Church expects it. The tradition and history of missions require it of us. Missionaries who have been faithful to the uttermost and are now at rest are surely expecting it of us. The people whom we serve expect it of us. Our own consciences expect it of us.

We could never hold up our faces again if, for our own safety, we all forsook Him and fled when the shadows of the Passion began to gather round Him in His Spiritual and Mystical Body, the church in Papua. Our life in the future would be burdened with shame and we could not come back here and face our people again; and we would be conscious always of rejected opportunities.

The history of the church tells us that missionaries do not think of themselves in the hour of danger and crisis, but of the Master who called them to give their all, and of the people whom He trusts them to serve and to love to the uttermost, even as He has served and loved to the uttermost. His watchword is none the less true to-day as it was when He gave it to the first disciples, ‘Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s shall find it.’

No one requires us to leave. No one has required us to leave. Our people need us now more than ever before in the whole history of the Mission.

No, my brothers and sisters, fellow workers in Christ, whatever others may do, we cannot leave. We shall not leave. We shall stay by our trust. We shall stand by our vocation. We do not know what it may mean to us. Many already think us fools and mad. What does that matter? If we are fools, ‘we are fools for Christ’s sake’.

I cannot foretell the future. I cannot guarantee that all will be well--that we shall all come through unscathed. One thing only I can guarantee is that, if we do not forsake Christ here in Papua in His Body, the church, He will not forsake us. He will uphold us; He will sustain us; He will strengthen us, and He will guide and keep us through the days that lie ahead…Let us trust and not be afraid.

Lieutenant Champion drew a deep slow breath to calm himself before trying a different approach with the two Sisters, a more direct and brutal approach. ‘You have heard the stories of the Jap atrocities in New Britain. You have heard how they butchered one hundred and sixty Australian prisoners of war. Used them for bayonet practice. Those butchers will be here next. It is just a matter of time. You must evacuate to Moresby at the very least.’

‘Yes, Lieutenant, we have heard of these terrible crimes,’ Sister Hayman said quietly as Father Benson brought two brightly flickering candles to the long table, ‘but we are needed here. Our people here quite simply need us. And Bishop Philip Strong has been very clear that it is our job to stay and care for our flock,’ the older woman finished and turned to smile softly at Sister Parkinson.

Lieutenant Champion placed both his hands on the wooden table and bowed his head for a moment before looking up and turning to Father Benson. ‘Sir, I implore you to please leave the mission. I cannot protect you if the Japs land. I cannot protect the Sisters.’

Father Benson turned away from the three who sat or stood around the table. He pretended to fuss with some fruit scraps that he slid from a plate into a timber bucket. Father James Benson was worried about the safety of the Sisters, in fact, he was worried about the safety of the whole mission and the village of Gona.

He knew the small ANGAU force and the few Australian soldiers stationed in the area could not hope to stop a full Japanese invasion if the Japanese did indeed plan on turning west from New Britain and crossing the ocean to the north coast of Papua New Guinea.

At fifty-seven years of age, Benson was no stranger to tragedy, having lost his wife and four young children years before in an horrific motor vehicle accident that saw his family drowned in the Clyde River in New South Wales. Benson was the only one to survive the accident. The memory was too painful, and he pushed it back into its dark place.

He turned back to the table and forced a confident smile to his face. ‘We pray it does not come to that, Lieutenant.’ Benson looked at the two women sitting beside each other at the table. ‘We must have faith in God and in the wisdom of Bishop Philip Strong. Surely he would not encourage us to remain here if there was any danger to us.’

Champion pushed himself upright from the table. Weeks before, he had evacuated his wife and young son from his post at Buna, southeast of Gona, to Australia. ‘Very well, Father. I must return to Buna in the morning. If the Japs do come… when the Japs come,’ he corrected himself with a sigh, ‘do not stay here. You must head for Port Moresby immediately. You will not be safe here if you stay.’

*

Sangara Mission lay roughly halfway along the main track that led from Gona to the administrative station at Kokoda. The days in the flatlands north of the Owen Stanley Ranges were often stiflingly hot, however, the nights could reach temperatures more fitting to a Tasmanian winter.

Father Henry Holland sat on a small stool in the shade of a tall tree and felt every one of his sixty-two years. He was proud of the mission and his work here; however, he was beginning to wonder how much longer he could stay in this pretty little pocket, which was surrounded by the heavy dense jungle of Papua New Guinea.

He watched on as Sister Margery Brenchley, the mission’s twenty-five-year-old nurse, plucked some fragrant yellow and white flowers from a frangipani tree that stood outside the open-sided school room where local village children and women sat listening to Sister Lilla Lashmar, who was giving instruction on hygiene and its relationship with God.

At forty-seven, Sister Lashmar was an institution at the mission. Respected and loved by the local people, whom she equally loved, Sister Lashmar had dedicated much of her life to God and his teachings.

This was truly a place of beauty, Father Holland thought, and we are doing God’s work here. He silently scolded himself for the ever more intrusive thoughts that it might be time for him to leave this wonderful place for a more genteel climate.

In truth, he should not have been here. This was Reverend Vivian Redlich’s mission station. Redlich had taken ill and was in Dogura recuperating, and Henry Holland had taken on the duties at Sangara Mission in Redlich’s absence. How long would it be before the man returned, Holland wondered.

His ponderings were interrupted by the sight of the mission’s layman, John Duffill, hurrying across the sun-baked dirt towards him. ‘Father, I have fixed the loose balcony stair handrail but without more nails, it will not last,’ Duffill said as he wiped at the sweat that forever seemed to be dripping down his face.

‘The nails have been ordered, John,’ Father Holland said helpfully. ‘Until then, you must do the best you can with what we have.’

Duffill nodded and was about to answer when both men’s attention was taken by the sound of a plane flying to the south of the mission. The men looked up, squinting in the glare, and raised their hands to block the bright sunlight from their eyes as they tried to spot the aircraft against the brilliant blue background.

‘There,’ exclaimed Duffill triumphantly and pointed to a small shape in the distant sky. ‘A RAAF Wirraway. It must be on a reconnaissance flight to the coast. Pilot and gunner’s canopies are open, must be hot up there, too.’

There had been much more air traffic in the skies over the past months than Father Holland had ever seen anywhere in his life. He knew the war was coming closer. Indeed, he had been advised by the local ANGAU officers to leave the mission and head to the safety of Port Moresby a number of times over the proceeding weeks. However, the Bishop, Strong, had firmly requested all staff remain at their missions and continue their work so as not to upset the local populations. Bishop Strong had, through his communications, seemed certain the Australians and Europeans on the north coast of Papua New Guinea were perfectly safe.

Holland wondered, though. There was little in the way of Australian military in the region—some ANGAU officers and men along with units of the Papuan Infantry Battalion and their Australian officers, and local Royal Papuan Constabulary men. A handful of regular Australian army officers and men, and that was about it. Further to the west, Holland knew, men had formed the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles Militia Battalion, a formation made up of expats from Australia and many parts of Europe, along with some Americans. As good as these men were, Holland knew they could do little if the Japanese were to launch a full-scale invasion to the north.

*

The mission ketch, Maclaren-King, made its way steadily west, following the palm-fringed coastline as it headed for Buna. It had been a long and slow voyage; the Maclaren-King was loaded down with fifteen tonnes of supplies for the mission stations it was to visit along the northern Papuan coast. On board was Reverend Vivian Redlich who upon recovering from sickness was returning to his mission station at Sangara. And while the Reverend was excited to be returning to the mission station, it was the chance to see his new fiancée, Sister May Hayman, at Gona Mission that had him standing on the bow deck of the Maclaren-King praying for the boat to glide through the calm seas just a little faster.

Thin, with dark hair and of no real physical presence, Redlich was what some might describe, in an unkind way, as a weedy sort of a man. He had poor eyesight which forced him to wear excessively thick, round glasses. He often found himself speaking too quickly and had self-diagnosed this as a lack of confidence in himself, a subconscious thought that the person he might be talking to would find him dull and move away before he, Redlich, had the chance to say what he wished to.

Redlich was seldom without his pipe, which he suspected gave him an intriguing and dignified look. Despite his physical shortcomings, Vivian Redlich was a man of great determination and never shirked any manual task set before him. He may not have been a physically strong man, but that did not stop him from doing his best in whatever physical work needed to be done around the mission station.

Reverend Redlich was far from an impulsive man; however, at the age of thirty-seven he had decided it was high time he should find a suitable wife and had pondered the question as to whom he should bend the knee to for this most holy of unions. Before leaving for Dogura, upon a short stop at Gona Mission, he had decided to ask Sister May Hayman to marry him.

May, he decided, was beautiful. She was petite in size, gracious in nature and had a strong relationship with God. Her smile made the Reverend’s heart soar with happiness and excitement, and he wasted no time in approaching her as soon as he had seen her working alone at the mission station, professing his feelings for her and then kneeling down on one knee and asking May to be his wife.

While being completely surprised by the Reverend’s sudden outpouring of affection, May had immediately and happily accepted Vivian’s unexpected proposal of marriage. She had been in Papua New Guinea for six years and was a trained nurse, having completed her qualifications in Canberra.

Now Redlich watched the bow waves slip down the length of the Maclaren-King’s hull and smiled broadly to himself at the impending reunion with his beautiful new fiancée.

Redlich could now see Buna in the distance and estimated the ketch would dock there within a few hours. Then would begin the laborious task of unloading the stores followed by, he hoped, a quick journey to Gona Mission to see his betrothed.

A droning noise now caught Redlich’s attention and he turned to find its cause. He looked to the northeast, and in the sky, approaching fast, he saw a squadron of what appeared to be fighter planes.

The planes flew west of the ketch and Redlich watched as they quickly dived onto the town of Buna and began strafing the buildings and streets. Even from this distance, he could hear the faint explosive sounds of the guns.

The captain of the Maclaren-King told the Reverend they could not take the ketch any further west and that the best he could do would be to head into shore immediately, hope to be left alone by the Japanese fighters that circled above and dived down on Buna, and unload the cargo on the beach for collection at a later time.

The boat turned towards shore and anchored off the beach. The unloading of cargo was quickly done, the crew working in a sweating frenzy to lighten the ketch, dumping the supplies in the jungle just off the beach in what Redlich was sure must be record time.

‘I am staying,’ Redlich advised the captain once the task was completed.

‘Pardon, Reverend,’ the captain said with a doubtful look on his weather-browned face, ‘but are you sure you’re not still feeling the effects of your fever?’

‘I am quite fine, captain,’ Redlich said excitedly, ‘but I must go to Gona and find my fiancée and then on to Sangara to look after my parish. I cannot return to Dogura with you. You must report this attack on Buna as soon as you can.’ And with that Reverend Vivian Redlich turned around and walked off the sunny beach into the humid jungle. It was the twenty-first of July 1942.

*

The Japanese Mitsubishi fighter planes, better known to those on the ground as Zeros, circled above Buna and, to the people watching, seemed to take it in turns to dive down, firing their cannons into the timber buildings and along the dusty streets.

Most of the villagers took to the jungle in a bid to escape the screaming noise of the planes as they raced down above the trees and fired into their village.

Some attempted to take cover under the timber houses, only to find they offered little protection against the Zeros’ 20mm cannon shells, which tore apart the buildings, sending not only their metal death but long slivers of lethal timber, shattered from the shell strikes, flying through the air. Deadly timber splinters, ripped from the homes of Buna, flew through the air and caused shocking injuries to anyone they came into contact with, ripping arms, legs and heads from bodies and ripping open torsos, which spilt their innards onto the ground or splashed them against the walls and ceilings of the buildings the victims had taken cover in.

Lieutenant Alan Champion ran from his office and headed for the New Guinea Air Warning Wireless Company building which was located forty metres up the dirt road.

A Zero sped over the town no more than forty metres from the ground, firing its deadly weapons as it flew over the top of Champion. The lieutenant drew his service revolver and fired three rounds after the plane as it disappeared over the trees beyond Buna. Stupid, he thought, knowing he had next to no chance of hitting the plane.

He continued down the street and burst through the doors of the NGAWWC building to find thirty-three-year-old Sergeant Barry Harper already there, along with the two soldiers who operated the wireless, twenty-two-year-old George Clasby and twenty-year-old Selwyn, Scottie to his friends, Barrett. Harper, who was sitting at the wireless turned to his lieutenant. ‘Trying to get through to Moresby, sir, but can’t get a bloody response.’

‘Keep trying,’ yelled Champion above the roar of a Zero’s engine that was racing low over the town. The lieutenant grabbed a pair of field glasses from a windowsill and ran out of the building towards the beach where he stopped under a stand of palm trees and raised the glasses to his eyes. He was shaking and had to take a moment to steady himself. He wiped the sweat from his eyebrows and trained the glasses northwest towards Gona.

Champion immediately saw four or five warships and two, what appeared to be, troop ships moving quickly towards the mission station there. He ran back to the wireless building. ‘Barry, get a message to Gona, tell them to get out now, there is a bloody Jap invasion force speeding towards them.’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the sergeant.

‘And don’t bother sending it by code, the Japs know they’re coming.’

‘Yes, sir.’

*

Sister May Hayman and Sister Mavis Parkinson sat happily at the large table in the main Gona Mission building. They worked their way through a pile of ANGAU officers’ uniforms that had been dropped off for repair. The tropical conditions played havoc with any item of clothing worn in the area. Not only was clothing easily ripped on the men’s jungle patrols, but the wet and steamy conditions rotted material like it was day-old bread.

‘I will miss you when you move to Sangara,’ Mavis Parkinson said for possibly the fiftieth time since Reverend Redlich had proposed to May. ‘It certainly will not be the same here without you.’

‘And I will miss you too,’ May Hayman answered, for possibly the fiftieth time, ‘however, I imagine Margery of Lilla will be sent here from Sangara to replace me and you will grow a firm friendship with whomever they send.’

Mavis looked doubtful and so May tried a different approach to distract her young friend. ‘Perhaps your handsome young officer can get some leave and come visit you here soon?’

Mavis immediately brightened and launched into her plans and dreams of her future life with her own fiancé, a young Australian army officer who was currently stationed at Port Moresby.

Nearby, Father James Benson was inspecting one of the native gardens that supplied fruit and vegetables to the mission. He bent low to look at a crop of sweet potato that would soon be ready for harvest when he became aware of yelling coming from the pathway that led through the coconut palms down to the beach.

Benson straightened his back, with a quiet groan, and turned towards the pathway to see one of the village boys exit the coconut grove, running excitedly towards him. ‘Father,’ the boy called out as he approached, ‘ships, big ships coming.’ The boy stopped and pointed back towards the beach.

Benson looked past the boy, in the direction of the beach. ‘Ships?’ he said weakly.

‘Yes Father, great ships are here,’ the village boy answered. Benson walked past the boy, who still held his arm out, pointing towards the beach. He walked quickly, entering the coconut grove and feeling relief to be out of the blistering afternoon sun. He could see the blue ocean waters through the trunks of the pandanus trees that lined the edge of the jungle and quickened his pace until he reached the beach, where he stopped abruptly.

There, in the sea before him were six large warships. And fluttering quickly in the ocean breeze from their flag masts, Benson could see flags with bright red circles and red rays of sunlight reaching out from the circles, set against a white background. The rising-sun flag. The Japanese flag. ‘My God,’ he said quietly, ‘they are here.’ He turned towards the mission buildings and ran.

Chapter Two

‘Smash it all, leave nothing,’ Champion said. They could not carry the heavy wireless equipment with them so it must be destroyed, lest it fall into the hands of the Japanese. The air assault was over and the people of Buna were emerging from the many destroyed buildings and surrounding jungle.

Champion quickly made his way back to his office and began to fill his pack with rations and ammunition. Outside, he could hear the terrible wailing and the horrible screams of the wounded, the dying.