Anzac's Dirty Dozen (18 page)

During the 3rd Battalion's assault, some Germans were actually taken prisoner. One was described as ‘smaller than the others' and able to speak some English. His diminutive stature (and possibly youth), along with the fact that he could speak English, appear to have contributed to his survival. He was one of two unwounded Germans captured during the action, but the Australians proceeded to slaughter the wounded prisoners in their care. One Sergeant Yorke, who was asked to take a message back to headquarters, agreed, then added laconically: ‘All right, I'll go back through the trench and fix up those —— Huns, their moaning has been getting on my nerves'. When the order finally came to retire, the small German prisoner was carried back but other prisoners were euphemistically noted to have gone ‘for a stroll'.
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The incident is corroborated in the diary of Sergeant A. E. Matthews:

Orders came through from Brigade for us to evacuate our position and to leave no live Germans behind. Guessing that there would be dirty work for somebody killing the wounded prisoners, I and a Lance Corporal volunteered to escort the two unwounded prisoners back to Battn Hqrs and we had just got away when we heard the awful screams of the men who were being slaughtered through military necessity.
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For their heroic conduct in this attack, Weger and Meaker received the Distinguished Conduct Medal, Loveday the Military
Cross, and Yorke was recommended for an award by his brigade commander.
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If, as Matthews states, the orders to kill the enemy wounded emanated from brigade headquarters, then the Australian commander, Brigadier General James Heane, is deserving of condemnation, the more so because as a senior officer there could have been no question as to his misunderstanding the rules of war.

The same patterns of behaviour were again evident in World War II and, if anything, they were more openly admitted. Ivor Hele, an official Australian war artist, actually produced a sketch entitled: ‘Shooting wounded Japanese prisoners, Timbered Knoll'. It was dated 30 July 1943. By that time, if any doubt had existed previously, the war against the Japanese had assumed the ugly face of a race war – most certainly from the Australian perspective. Each side depicted the other as barbarians and non-human. In this context little empathy was cultivated and an uncompromising ruthlessness imposed itself: the rules of war were flagrantly disregarded by officers and men of both sides. In an address to his soldiers General Sir Thomas Blamey, Australia's Commander in Chief, referred to the Japanese as an ‘inhuman foe … a curious race – a cross between the human being and the ape'. They were ‘vermin' to be exterminated.
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General Paul Cullen, whose men were known to have bayoneted Japanese prisoners, found himself unable to condemn his soldiers, ‘It was my battalion and I felt guilty', he reflected, ‘but it was understandable. I'm not critical of the soldiers.'
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The range of incidents of such atrocities was wide and evidence of them is easy to uncover. Charles Lindbergh, the famous American aviator, spent four months with the Americans in mid-1944 and kept a journal in which he documented numerous acts of barbarity toward the Japanese. Mentioned among the incidents he described was the Australian practice of throwing prisoners from airplanes and then reporting that they had committed
hara-kiri
(suicide).
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How true this was is open to debate in the face of no obvious admissions by Australian troops. It cannot be discounted, however, and given the openly expressed desire of officers and men to annihilate the Japanese, as Paul Ham has suggested, the victors can be relied upon not to leave records of their wartime disgraces.
³⁸

In another noteworthy display of a singular lack of any sense of ‘fair play' in this conflict, on 29 December 1944, during operations at Bougainville, Brigadier R.F. Monaghan signalled to men of the 42nd Battalion: ‘For the present we have enough information to require no further prisoners. For now slaughter will commence and every Jap seen will be promptly and ruthlessly killed. Information all ranks.'
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A week later Monaghan chose to revisit his order in rather more civil tones. (It is likely that superiors felt his language had been too blatant and that if such uncompromising actions were to be advocated they should at least be veiled, if only thinly, with a modicum of decency.) The new message hardly hid the original intent and was well short of being a
mea culpa
:

Further to my 0241. This instruction should not be in any way interpreted to infringe the Hague convention laws and usages of war. Enemy prisoners who fall into our hands alive must be treated with the greatest humanity and will be of value but the painstaking special efforts in setting traps are no longer for the present required. They may, however, be necessary again. Further it is asked that the killing urge be maintained in troops and the trapping urge no longer predominant. Pamphlets have been dropped promising immunity to the enemy who must repeat must be given safe conduct. Read to all ranks and certify completion of promulgation.
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Treating prisoners with ‘the greatest humanity' was commendable and the right thing to do. They had to be allowed the opportunity to surrender, of course, but this was a courtesy rarely extended to the Japanese. When they were captured – usually in an emaciated and exhausted state – there was no guarantee of safe passage. The number of references in Australian battalion histories of captured Japanese being shot while ‘trying to escape' defies belief, given their generally chronically weak condition at the moment of capture. The truth of the following 42nd Battalion account, for example, given the attitude being cultivated by Monaghan, is open to question:

A Jap armed with a bayonet and carrying some Australian biscuits gave himself up. He was worn out and seemed unable to fight any more against hunger and exposure. Afterwards when he had rested and fed, he must have repented his action, for when he was being escorted back to the Battalion Headquarters he attempted an escape and was shot.
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The discovery of dead Australian soldiers mutilated by the Japanese during the fighting at Milne Bay in August 1942 is often cited as a turning point in Australian attitudes toward their enemy in this theatre. Any thought of giving quarter was cast from the men's minds. Although the post-war period would reveal the extent of Japanese atrocities, there had really been little opportunity for such knowledge to reach the men in the front line up until late 1942. It is important to note, however, that those discoveries were fuelled by a long history of ‘white supremacy' and fear of the ‘yellow peril' that made it easier for uncompromising attitudes to foment. One cannot discount the possibility that the celebration of a national ‘hardness' evident in World War I reportage and folklore also created a standard of ruthlessness to
which some men aspired in battle and so acted out when given the opportunity.

The same level of hostility was not evident between Australians and European enemies in other theatres of war. In stark contrast to the propaganda-influenced views of the bestial ‘Hun' of World War I, the Germans and the Vichy French of World War II were generally seen by the Australians as civilised, worthy and respected opponents (even if the Italians, whose fighting ability was much maligned, were largely seen as a joke).
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These were not feelings that easily engendered the necessary malevolence to engage in atrocities. That is not to say that such things did not occur. Margaret Barter in her book about 2/2nd Battalion cites a story, which had gained currency as a factual heinous act, of Australians throwing grenades into compounds of Italian prisoners. It appears, however, that the incident derived more from a bad practical joke in which an Italian grenade, rated no better than a basket bomb on cracker night, was rolled in at the feet of some sleeping prisoners. Five Italians were wounded and a digger found guilty over the incident.
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Worse, however, was an incident in which a member of an Australian patrol machine-gunned 20 Germans captured at Tobruk for no apparent reason. His act was viewed as ‘treacherous and brutal' by the rest of the patrol.
⁴⁴
Nonetheless, Australian higher commanders were, as in World War I and in the Pacific, implicated in deliberately advocating conduct that sat outside the rules of war. During the German invasion of Crete, soldiers of the 2/11th Battalion were told not to take prisoners, and at Alamein fighting patrols had limits placed on the number of prisoners they could take.
⁴⁵

The vast majority of illegal incidents perpetrated by Australian soldiers has occurred in land operations. Two actions involving Australian airmen, however, ought to be included in this discussion. In World War I, Australian airmen from No. 1 Squadron
participated in an attack on a retreating Turkish column at Wady Fara in Palestine on 21 September 1918. The gorge through which the Turks were attempting to retreat became blocked through the destruction of vehicles and transports which were abandoned by their drivers. Turkish infantry scattered and tried to find alternative means of escape, but their efforts were hampered as they were continually strafed by British and Australian planes. According to the Australian official history the attack began with a sortie by two Australian planes which fired off ‘600 machine gun rounds into the confusion. That was the beginning of a massacre … the panic and slaughter beggared all description.'
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Throughout the course of the day, a further 44 000 machine gun rounds were fired and six tons of bombs dropped upon the trapped and fleeing Turkish infantry. By day's end the airmen had given up estimating the losses inflicted and ‘were sickened by the slaughter'.
⁴⁷
At question here is whether excessive force was used. This is a central philosophical consideration of both just war theory and the rules of war. Having disrupted the Turkish column and put it to flight was it necessary to return again and again to attack a retreating column, to attack men who no longer presented any immediate threat?

Similarly, after the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, in which eight Japanese transport ships carrying approximately 6400 soldiers and marines were sunk, Australian and American fighter squadrons spent several days strafing survivors stranded in barges and life boats. The official history regarded this work as a ‘terrible yet essential finale', one for which it admitted the air crews ‘had little stomach' and some of whom suffered ‘acute nausea' as a result.
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Such reactions were understandable in those being asked to kill essentially defenceless men. The argument in favour of the action was that these survivors would ultimately reinforce the Japanese land garrisons, and that it was better to kill them while the opportunity
allowed than at a later time when they would be fortified and more difficult to overcome. This is a dangerous line of logic and might equally be used to justify the execution of prisoners, for example, in a wide range of circumstances. Certainly, however, the Australian public appeared to hold few misgivings about the attack. Cinesound cameras accompanied the fighters, and film of the strafing run featured in a newsreel that was screened at cinemas. The commentary, which can only be described as gleeful, described the Japanese as getting what they deserved and being sent back to their ancestors. A direct hit on a defenceless lifeboat was acclaimed as excellent shooting.
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One would have thought that the racism exhibited toward the Japanese during World War II would have carried through into the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The outright hatered that was mustered against the Japanese, however, was notably lacking against North Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese soldiers. To be sure, racist comment still informed the soldiers' private writings, but as Richard Trembath has argued in his study of Australia's Korean War soldiers, those diggers made a genuine effort to ‘understand' their enemy and this lack of hostility was ‘evidence of how the camaraderie of war can mediate traditional lines of prejudice'.
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Only one of the veterans interviewed by Trembath alluded to the adoption of past practices: ‘N. Koreans had a reputation as cruel to extreme', he reported, ‘they received short shrift from us … few prisoners were taken.'
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The wars mentioned thus far were fought on traditional lines in so far as it was one military force pitted squarely against another. Vietnam changed that paradigm. The way the Viet Cong exploited the civilian population meant that distinguishing friend from foe became an increasingly difficult and stressful aspect of war. Booby traps and mines were used on a previously unimagined scale. One incident that shaped many people's perceptions
about how the war in Vietnam was being fought was the massacre of civilians at Mai Lai by American soldiers in March 1968. The methodical barbarity of this atrocity, carried out against women, children and old men, in many ways heralded the collapse of support for the war amongst the Australian and American public. Australian soldiers did not commit any atrocities on an equivalent quantitative scale, but as allies of the perpetrators they were tarred with its dirty brush.

Certainly civilians were killed as a consequence of Australian actions in Vietnam. The most well-known incident occurred at Binh Bah, a village occupied by the Viet Cong and large numbers of civilians. Australian infantry and armour attacked on 6 and 7 June 1969 and, according to Paul Ham, they went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, trying to evacuate terrified villagers and refraining from firing indiscriminately during the fighting. Nevertheless a number of innocent villagers were killed, causing the action to be remembered – inexplicably to Ham – as a civilian bloodbath by some soldiers. Ham argues that such memory reflects ‘the play of guilt and trauma on the mind' of some of the soldiers present.
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Perhaps some of these men of the 5th Battalion believed that not enough was done to protect the civilians. One can only sympathise with their plight in being placed in the situation of an engagement in a populated zone.