RECOLLECTIONS OF A CATALINA PILOT

*The author of this first-rate article was second pilot of a No. 20 Squadron Catalina, shot down in flames by Japanese fighters on 21st January, 1942, after it had reported the first historic sighting of the Rabaul invasion fleet. A former wing-commander in the R,A.A.F., he is now employed by the Department of Defence, Canberra. The captain of the air-craft, R. H. Thompson, a still-serving regular, is now a group captain.

TODAY I was in my garden and my attractive teenage-daughter told me that I was wanted on the telephone. Attractive, of course, depends entirely on the viewpoint -whether, say, the opinion comes from a somewhat smitten young man at a happy party of modern adolescents or from a parent whose best days are well behind him and all he asks for is a little uncomplaining co-operation now and then. Be that as it may, I was pleased to find that my caller was a Mr. "Bill" Sweeting and hoped that he was about to invite me to join him in some veterans' tennis. It came as a surprise when he asked me if the 21st January meant anything to me. It does, as a matter of fact. Like practically all men who have spent the most part or their adult lives in Australia's air force or any other air force for that matter, I am not greatly impressed by the odd near miss here and there, but just the same when every 21st January comes round two things happen; the first is that I don't let any of life's trifling irritations worry me all day, and the second is that I always have a quiet drink or two at night, even if it's by myself. You see, on one particular 21st of January----a long time ago, over twenty years now----I nearly had my career ended for me in about five different ways, and each of there was an odds-on-bet. I think you'll agree that adds up to a fair day's work.

Anyway, I don't dwell on it or anything, l just don't care a hoot and I have my drink----so that it was natural enough for me to think that Mr. Sweeting was referring in particular to last January, and so, having no particular sins of omission or commission on my mind, I replied more or less accurately that apart from probably being drunk I couldn't remember anything to be hauled up about now. Then he dealt me a body blow, as you can imagine, when he told me that a Canberra public servant had recently visited some remote area or other in Japan and by chance had come across a doctor in a fishing village who claimed that he had once given sympathetic medical treatment to some Australian survivors of a Catalina flying-boat shot down in the Pacific on the 21st January, 1942. The Japanese had then produced a small and obviously highly prized notebook and displayed the names of each and a few lines in their handwriting. My name was one of them. "Well, what about it", said Mr. Sweeting (whom by now both you and I can begin to recognise as really being a war historian), would I tell the story of the incident, which research at the Australian War History Section had shown him to be connected with the loss of Rabaul, the loss of eight heroic Wirrawav pilots and the loss of Australia's first two Catalinas in the Pacific War. Records were sparse, and they needed information to fill in the gaps. "What about it?"

Yes ... well ... exactly ... what about it? If you, like me, were neither historian, author, nor even a good teller of stories, what would you do about it? And everybody's got a fair amount of natural reticence in relating anything in which they are completely involved. Add to all that the fact that this business led directly to a period of my life that was in general so, damned wretched that ever since I have doubted that if I could have my whole life completely over again I would want it - but I think I needn't go on any further and that what I am trying to express is clear enough. Just one more thing though. As with all episodes of long ago, parts are startlingly clear while others are blurred, making impossible to reconstruct the scene in anything like the proper depth. It was the 21st January, 1942, over twenty-one years ago, by anyone's reckoning a long time ago ... Well, as the young R.A.A.F. doctor, unsure of his diagnosis but armed with a full syringe, once determinedly said - "Here goes ... "

In January, 1942, a chap called Bob Thompson and I found ourselves in charge of Catalina No. A24-8, with a new crew we had known for only four days, off on what could be a rather dangerous sortie. Thompson and I were both flight-lieutenants, regular officers in the permanent forces of the Royal Australian Air Force, and both fresh from our Catalina captain's conversion course. We had been placed together instead of each taking his own crew and boat in the normal way because we had set off from Rathmines to undertake a special and secret mission flying some unnamed and unnamed nationality V.I.P's.. Looking back on it this step of placing two captains in the one crew was the forerunner of elaborate regulations which now cover the carriage of V.I.P's. in service aircraft. At all events the entry of Japan into the Pacific war by means of the Pearl Harbour attack brought about an abrupt change in our operations so that on 21st January after various adventures, a change of aircraft, and a new crew, we were still together when we set out on what was to be our last sortie. Thompson and I did not really have much in common but we rubbed along well enough together. I found that the thing to do was not to ask him but to watch him. He could not explain anything worth a damn but he had done a fair amount of motorcycle racing in his youth, he could certainly whirl an aeroplane about and he understood everything about its engines and its various systems and equipment very well; in short, he was a most competent operator.

Now to get down to the job itself... It appeared that Rabaul, the object of recent raids by Japanese bombers, had the day before received its first fighter escorted bomber raid. This could only mean that aircraft carriers were in the vicinity and our task was to search for this Japanese force. Writing this now I shudder far more when I think of it than I did twenty-one years ago. Tropical skies often offer little or no cloud cover, a Catalina's top speed never was much over 150 knots, its defensive armament consisted of a few World War I Lewis guns and it carried no less than 1,460 Imperial gallons or 1,500 U.S. gallons of fuel contained in non-self-sealing and highly exposed wing tanks. All this amounts to a high degree of vulnerability. Fortunately in 1942 my thoughts were directed almost completely towards such purely offensive aspects as accurate navigation, piercing ship recognition and precise sighting reports. There's no doubt about it you can't beat being young.

We started from a little place called Gizo near Buka Passage in the Solomon Islands, where we had spent the preceding night. There was nothing at Gizo apart from a stretch of water, a mooring buoy for the Catalina and some drums of petrol. There were no air force men whatsoever and we had spent the night with a British resident and his wife. We took off as usual at first light. One thing about starting all your operations at first light is that for the rest of your life it makes it easy to get up so much later at dawn. To take off at first light everything preceding this has to be done while it is as black as the inside of a cow. However, we got off, as always, smack on first light and flew in a north-westerly direction towards Rabaul. Sometime early in the afternoon either by good navigation or by good or it fortune we encountered the fleet. It seemed to be in limitless wastes of ocean but was actually between the islands of New Britain and New Ireland, in fact some where south of the island of New Hanover. I was flying the aeroplane at the time and can remember that at first sight the fleet looked like a number of grey logs smudging the surface of the ocean. Thompson was ready to flash off a signal pin-pointing the position and giving the composition of the fleet and its course. But it would have been a terrible thing if it were not the right fleet. What if they proved to be Allied ships of which we had no knowledge? This was quite possible in those, early days, so we went in for a closer look. Whatever doubts we may have had the Japanese Admiral certainly had none, because the next moment there were bright red flashes, the crack of anti-aircraft guns and black puffs of smoke burst around us. "They're firing at us, turn away", yelled Thompson, making the only unnecessary speech I have ever heard from him. We climbed away towards some cumulus cloud and before entering it I can remember getting a very hazy glimpse of some Zero fighters taking off from the deck of the carrier.

Thompson sent off without delay the sighting signal which he had prepared. I don't know at what stage he sent a second one, but we eventually received a signal from our controlling headquarters instructing us to shadow and report. This is in accordance with the classical procedures of maritime reconnaissance and probably it was sent without the knowledge that we were being stalked by enemy fighters. I cannot remember much about this part of it now. All I know is that it was ours not to reason why, and so we carried out instructions, breaking out of cloud every now and again at a height of about 11,000 ft. and catching glimpses of the enemy fleet. Whether we had many alterations of their course to report is also more than I can remember at this distance of time.

At all events we were there one hell of a long time when all of a sudden four Japanese Zeros burst out of the cumulus behind us and the fight began. The Zeros formed line astern and made rear attacks on us; with their vastly superior speed they dived at us from the rear and went round again for another turn so that at any time when we were out of cloud cover ,we were subjected to a more or less continuous stream of circling Zeros. They were dark olive-green with large dull-red "rising suns" on wings and fuselage, flown by dark-helmeted hunched-up-looking pilots. Thompson was flying at this time, trying desperately to turn back into cloud whenever we ran out of it, and I was controlling the firing of our guns. These performed in their normal shocking fashion; exactly as with all our practices which we used to undertake near the return of each sortie, our guns were never all serviceable at any one time. I can remember hearing, just as it had been with all the practices, "Starboard blister-gun, number one stoppage", or "Front gun out, Sir", or "Tail gun ... " Never all going together, at least after the opening bursts. With this information I would tell Thompson which way to turn so that we could at least bring the guns which were firing to bear on the Zeros. Not that I think we troubled them very much.

The Jap fighters for their part were having a much better time. They wounded the tail-gunner who had been going through the horrible experience of having fighter after fighter apparently coming straight for him and aiming straight at him. They killed one of the blister-gunners and wounded the other, and perhaps it was at this time that the front gunner was also wounded From the pilots' point of view I can clearly remember tracer bullets, looking like heavy slanting rain, hissing down past my window just in advance of the wing; I can also remember Thompson yelling "Cannon shells" above the roar as I saw things which looked like blurred oranges going past at what seemed about two yards from my ear. One other thing I recall was hearing a noise like gravel being thrown against a window-pane, which was in reality bullets coming through the fuselage and striking the bulkhead plating directly behind my back.

But the worst damage of all that the enemy was inflicting was fire, and by this time whatever was left after about seven hours flying of those 1,460 Imperial or 1,500 U.S. gallons of highly inflammable fuel contained in murderous non-selfsealing tanks was well and truly ablaze. We were like a great bonfire coloured red and black and pointing skywards, and at the same time small flat flames were spreading out along the wings and. hull. The skin of a Catalina is duralumin but the control surfaces are fabric-covered, and this fabric was being burnt away disclosing the ribs. This was a bad enough sight from the front of the aeroplane, but the heat of the backward-leaning flames for those at the rear must have been terrible. It was not possible for our gunners to fire any more.

I simply cannot help it if it sounds like the line of all time, but I can honestly say that up to this stage I had quite enjoyed myself. The truth can only be that I just did not understand the situation. Thinking it over sometime later I thought it was rather a pity that -I was out of action for the duration because experience seemed to have proved that I liked fighting in the air. A little sober reflection, however, soon showed me that I had had one experience only and that that had happened to occur on a day when I was feeling lucky. And as every-one knows who has ever tried to make any runs, it is far better to he a lucky bat than a good one. At any rate I felt it was my lucky day and while others were facing grim realities I was really only playing the part of a lucky air fighter. Anyway, in the midst of that battle all I wanted was to see one of those Zeros get shot down in a screaming dive and prang straight into the ocean far below. I think it is true to say that I just about would have given my right arm to have had it happen. It is certainly true to say that today I regard all that as rubbish.

We had been forced lower and lower, well clear of any clouds, and by this time must have been decidedly below 2,000 feet. We weren't spinning and I would not even say that we were out of control, but I will say that our control surfaces were well burned away, with the ribs showing, and that we were coming down pretty steeply and in a spiral. Perhaps Thompson was only turning steeply to avoid further bursts of cannon shells, but at the time I took notice I thought we were spiral-ling. Now, as a well-disciplined Air Force officer I had never touched the controls when anyone else was flying and even in later years as a flying-instructor, with pupils at all stages, I never did so. I can, however, remember seeing those two throttle levers hanging down from the roof of the cockpit just near my head. I could not tell you if they were closed or half-open but I grabbed them and sawed: one was right open and the other right back. Next instant, it seemed, We Were diving straight and I closed them both. Also I could not tell you if Thompson had been just about to come out of the spiral and that my throttle-bashing had only meant that he had to correct again in the midst of his valiant wrestling with a heavy and battered aeroplane. I can assure you though that this was no time to ask.

By now we were not far from the water; the Japs were not firing at us, but we were going down fast enough for a crash to look imminent, at least to me. Everything happened at once, Thompson heaved back with both hands on the heavy column, at the same time I pushed both throttles right open, the nose came up and we were level. I will never know if this second lot of throttle-bashing, like the first, was even desirable let alone imperative, but what I do know is that that Catalina touched the water faster than any Catalina had ever done before. The first skip must have been a good 200 yards and with each succeeding skip the boat charged through the water with a noise like thunder. It never entered my head to close those throttles and to this day they must still be wide open at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. We abandoned ship before it could explode, with the boat still doing a good rate of knots; in fact, after we were in the drink it careered round us several times burning and crackling like a bushfire. Once I even had to duckdive as it came straight at me. All the Very lights of various colours exploded like fire-works one after another, accompanied by encouraging cheers from those of us in the water. Finally it came to rest and burnt right out in the middle with the nose and the tail tilting up and then disappeared with a terrific hiss of salt water on hot metal. It had proved itself terribly vulnerable all right, but at least it hadn't blown up.

Of a total crew of eight there were five survivors. One had been killed in the air and had never left the aeroplane and two others soon died of wounds and burns. Later, imprisoned in Japan, Thompson was to grumble to me that perhaps he could have done better: that in the circumstances we should never have remained to shadow and report after the initial sighting. But in those early days we had no experience of others to guide us, and in any case orders were orders. Thompson was the designated captain of the aircraft, responsible for its safety and the safety of its crew. He had done his level best and, though he could not bring back to life the men who had been killed, there is also no certainty that in similar circumstances those left alive would have survived, much as they may have deserved to, if they had been in the hands of another skipper.

Although I had felt that we were in the middle of a limitless ocean, away to the north the faint outline of the mountainous top of an island was just visible. It must have been New Hanover. In answer to Thompson's enquiry I judged it to be at least ten miles away. This had the immediate and inevitable effect of making him decide it was about fifteen. However, as we got together, he said to the others something about an island being about five miles away, that it was actually closer than it looked, that we could swim for it keeping pretty much together, but just the same it had to be up to each individual to make it. In view of later tales of ditchings where crews have joined hands, all together boys, sink or swim, and sun "Rule Britannia" and other stirring songs of the sea, this sort of decision, taken without the benefit of experience of others, should not he too glibly criticised by any reader sitting back comfortably in his armchair. All were good swimmers and self-reliant men, and all accepted it. We set off, the water was surprisingly warm, the swell was going at least quarter-on to the direction we were taking, and nobody was in any trouble. (I'd say now that probably we were all a bit numbed.) Personally I was quite confident; it was still my lucky day. Just how unreal a state of mind can a normally sane person reach? Actually I was to lose almost everything I had that day with the exception of my life. Swirling along with the swell and occasionally-breaking tops of waves, I got rid of everything except a small blue-and-gold pen and pencil set which my wife had given me as a wedding present. I kept these all through the years that followed only to have then stolen by a cleaner at my first staff job in Air Force Headquarters immediately after the war. When they were stolen my life didn't crumble about me; nor did my wife desert me or any other calamity befalls, showing how foolish it is for anyone to place any faith in the good luck powers of an inanimate object. For your good opinion of me, let's hope I was merely being sentimental for once. Among the things I discarded were money and my watch, again little realising that in later years another inanimate object (in the form of the Finance Branch) would find it impossible to reimburse me either for these, or even for my clothes.

We pressed on for about two hours at the end of which I felt that the island was perceptibly closer whilst at the same time Thompson was coming to the con-elusion that the damn thing was only a mirage. The next thing that happened was that just about this time one of the crew--for all the world like someone from Treasure Island announcing "Sail on the starboard bow" -shouted "Christ Almighty, here comes a cruiser!" Even I could not imagine that it would be Allied, and Thompson's reaction was to say, "Keep on swimming, don't look round, and for the love of God don't wave at the . . . s." Eventually the cruiser was just about alongside us, so that there could be no point in ignoring; its existence any further. We stopped, trod water and looked at it, wooden-faced. The sight was like something out of a technicolour film. I was well used to naval ships, having been on board them and exercised with them, and, in fact it was only a few nights preceding that I had been in the wardroom of the ill-fated H.M.A.S. Perth in Noumea Harbour. But this cruiser looked altogether different. It had queer-shaped funnels and wavy-shaped deck lines (I have forgotten the technical term for this), a great golden chrysanthemum on the bow, and the rails were lined with a swarm of brown figures calling excitedly in high-pitched voices and clad in long shorts (or short longs) and sandshoes. They slung a rope netting down the side of the ship. We formed up and swam over in formation, performing the Australian crawl to show them they had merely caught us at a disadvantage rather than rescued us at our last gasp. (Youthful, I'll agree-but pardonable.)

And now for the climax. We had just arrived at the rail, not really as perturbed as all that at having escaped the cannon of the fighters, the fire in the air, the crash or possible drowning, when suddenly we saw a swirl of Water and in the same instant a number of sharks attacked a piece of driftwood one of the crew had found in the ocean and used to keep himself afloat. Now I don't say that we were within minutes of being eaten alive by sharks because I am quite sure that these sharks came with the cruiser, but just the same I think it could fairly be called a suitable finish to the day's adventures. It really put the lid on things, so that a little later, when being interrogated by the captain of the Japanese cruiser, we were not aware that it was more anti climax than bravery which made us practically laugh in his face when he threatened to have us shot for refusing to answer his questions.

Leaving the angry captain in deep disgrace because of our complete lack of chivalry (his idea of things was that before knights in olden days fought each other they lifted their visors, raised their swords, and proudly and loudly declared who they were and where they came from, including such things as number, location and strength, and for good measure full details of sup-porting feudal barons, squadrons, wings, troops and Allied naval forces), we set off for the ship's sick bay without having had either to walk the plank or be fired (shot).Don't let me belittle in any way the agonies of mind and body which other people have suffered during interrogations. I received several more, and learnt to dread future ones as much as the next man. Your heart is in your boots and you are far from home and support, all alone and without a feather to fly with. Anyone who scoffs at interrogations is rather like a batsman who boasts that he loves fast bowling - he's never faced fast bowling. In our case it was simply that we were interrogated far too soon, before life had time to become sweet again, and while we were in a thoroughly reckless mood.

At the sick bay we encountered, besides rows of curious brown faces lining every door, Dr. Hosogi Daisabura, the man who has now appeared at the remote fishing village in Japan. He was the soul of kindliness and courtesy, both to his wounded warriors and to the Jap sailors who silently crept closer and closer in their complete absorption and unrestrained curiosity. It was impossible not to warm to a man like Dr. Daisabura, even in our mood of utter defiance. He attended to the bullet wounds (fortunately superficial) received by the tail-gunner, wireless operator and the surviving blister-gunner, and he bound up my burns with more attention and care than they really merited. I have forgotten to mention that just before diving off the Catalina-turned-speedboat I had gone back from the cockpit to the main cabin of the aeroplane to get the Mae West life-jackets we had. We didn't carry parachutes in those days and Mae Wests also were a new fangled idea to us.

I suppose later crews were given battle drill which included tying their Mae Wests on before going into action. Anyway the cabin roof was pretty well alight but I could see yellow Mae Wests in a corner and decided to have a go for them. I had no idea if the others were swimmers; remember, I hardly knew them. Well, by halfway across I was getting singed and then burnt a little and I gave it up. Just as well I didn't waste any more effort over the jackets. It would never have got me a George Medal-more likely a crop of nasty scars for absolutely nothing. The others could all swim as well as I could, and as a child I'd learnt to build sandcastles long before I ever heard of a mud-pie, and we were all picked up after two hours in fairly warm water. Anyhow I looked fairly impressive swathed in the doctor's bandages, and to compensate him for all his trouble I at least had the grace finally to shed all the skin off my right arm and leg. Thompson had not received a scratch. My comment on this is: unfair and inexplicable.

Life went on, as it always does wherever you are, down in the stifling sick bay. Our tail-gunner turned out to be quite a humorist, and as one of the sailors undoubtedly was too, the antics of this pair did us a fair amount of good. I have not so far given the names of the crew members, letting them grow on you as they did with me. Sollitt was the wireless-operator, Blackman the blister-gunner and Parkins the tail-gunner; all were thoroughly trained and valuable men. They all survived Japan, as I fully expected they would. I wrote to them after the war but I cannot now remember either their ranks or Christian names. I do not want to rake up the names of the men killed; if anyone should recognise them, let me simply say that their loss was heavy, as they too were valuable men and they had performed their duty to the end of their lives.

About ten days later as the time drew near for us to 'be placed on a transport to begin the despairing voy age to Japan, Dr. Daisabura produced a small note book or diary. He asked if we would each write our names in it that night together with a few lines of the thoughts that were nearest to our hearts. Though the wish nearest my heart was that some Hudsons would come over and blow the whole rotten ship and every Jap in it out of the water, I nevertheless told Thompson that I thought the Doctor was a doctor and a gentleman in any man's language and accordingly I would try to write something in his little book as touching as any such sentimental man could wish to have. Later, as Thompson's reply to me had been a grunt, mostly of disgust, I asked him what in the name of Hell lie bad managed to think up. "Nothing, of course; I only gave him that doggerel 'Life is mostly froth and bubble. Two things stand like stone', stuff," Next morning Daisabura informed us in his shy manner that he was touched with the charm and beauty of our sentiments. All were beautiful, but he had to confess that the words which had touched his heart most deeply were those of Flight Lieutenant Thompson!

It just shows you, doesn't it, that the pen is mightier than the sword any day and that aircrew aren't in it with poets. Remember too, in the same action (the defense of Rabaul) how the "Nos Morituri to sahrtamus" ('We who are about to die salute you") signal has been remembered far more than the actual deaths of the gallant Wirraway crews.

Well, God bless the Doctor, spared to survive the war, in which I am sure he acted bravely and selflessly, and to carry on in his humanitarian way finally ministering to the ills of living in a little village on people Shikoku Island. I was certain he would have been well and truly sunk by now as this fleet was part of the famed carrier force which had attacked Pearl Harbour and, after one of the most destructive cruises in naval history, which included a sortie into the Indian Ocean, had finally met with disaster in the Battle of Midway Island. Somewhere along the line he must have left his ship. At the right time too. There's nothing like being lucky.

Neglecting whatever happened to be written in the Doctor's book, just what were our true feelings? I never asked anyone and I can't attempt to know other men's private thoughts. Perhaps (but only perhaps, because i don't really know what they endured and what effects it had on them) it may not have been so bad for Sollitt and Blackman, both very young, as for the other two. But I am fairly sure that for the restless, on-the-ball, first-with-the-latest Parkyns, it must have been terrible, while for a man-of-action type like Thompson it must have been pure Hell. For myself, it felt just like being knocked out after months of training and planning for the big fight including a few encouragingly successful preliminary bouts. All my plans! I'd wanted to get on to Catalinas and ocean flying and active service and the wish had been granted. I'd been trained to the minute on commanding the latest and most expensive aeroplane in the Service, and all I needed was experience in operating under as many varying conditions and from as many different bases as possible. I'd even married my good looking, popular and quite undemanding girl in whose company I was always happy so that wherever I teas stationed she could come and join me with the minimum of delay and fuss, Poor girl, I'd had three days' leave (which included Saturday and Sunday) to get right down to Melbourne (train in those days) to wed her and return, and she shared her month's honeymoon with a Catalina, including, if you want me to pour it on, evening lectures, night flying, and plenty of practice in taking sights of those literally heavenly bodies, the moon, the planets and the stars. I left her in early December, 1941, to find her own way down to Melbourne, and she was not to rejoin me until late 1945 at Sydney Harbour, after having spent the intervening time at just one base -her parents' house. Ever since then my wife does all the planning in this family; as a planner I'd be a good garbage collector. And what unknowing conceit it is, too, to much for in a world where so many plan yourself unknown forces can affect you and where so many unrealised demands can claim your efforts.

What did we accomplish, to balance the loss of eight highly-trained men and one of the country's only twelve Catalinas? The commander of the Iand forces in Rabaul and Kavieng, Colonel Scanlan, later told us that as a result of our information they had managed to inflict heavy casualties during the Japanese landings on the 23rd January. And I Iike to believe that as a combined result of completely outclassed aeroplanes like. Catalinas and Wirraways facing Zeros and only handfuls of Australian troops facing their invasions of Rabaul and Kavieng, the Japanese believed that the whole affair was a decoy and that their Rabaul base would be set upon and destroyed if they left and pressed on to capture Port Moresby; in consequence of all this they stayed in Rabaul from January almost till May and then in their Moresby attempt they ran into their losing Coral Sea battle which marked the beginning of the end of the Japanese threat to Australia. But if I'm wrong don't prove it to me point by point; just leave me with it.

Sometimes, when I'd been eating lemon-peel or sipping a nice little glass of diluted gall, I used to think that any living members of the War Cabinet of those days would be most happy if my views were commonly held. But this sort of mild bitterness isn't very worthy. I would think that in wartime many an individual politician would rather be in the armed forces and that, even taking them as a responsible group, it is rather juvenile to blame the politicians for every reverse. More realistic to blame the whole country (which included my own family and myself) for the lack of preparedness which existed. Mid-week racing was still going on, and the Australian public wanted it. So let's all be tolerant; after all, one of the compensations for age is the experience-mileage you've put on.

What was it like in Japan? We were soon separated to different prison camps. I never met another Japanese like Dr. Daisabura. Instead, in my particular camp (and I stress these last words) I found that defiance, where-ever possible but maintained from start to finish, was the hest attitude-or, in addition to other miseries, we would have been forced into humiliation and degradation. Our people (English, Dutch, American and our own Australians) were very good and included some of the best men I have ever struck. If I could mention any group in particular it would be the members of the 2/22nd Battalion and the No. 1 Independent (Commando) Company who fought at Rabaul and Kavieng and who, I like to believe, adopted me almost as one of their own from those days right up to the present time. Of all the philosophies developed and argued about by men of all ranks and intellects while rotting away in captivity the years of their youth, once again the professional statement beats the inventions of amateurs hands down. I have never heard better than an old proverb a Dutch submarine officer quoted to me one black Japanese mid-winter: "Forget the dark hours of sorrow, but never forget the lessons they teach." Any more on Japan would be another story.

Why have I never written about any of my experiences before? No one seemed interested. The day of the action was neatly closed by an entry which I have in one of my log books-"Recce vicinity New Britain: aircraft last heard 6 hrs. 55 mins. after take-off, having sighted enemy surface forces. Believed shot down by A.A. fire. All personnel missing-believed killed." That description's near enough for practical purposes, I'd say. Also I. was still serving until only a short time ago (as Thompson is now), and that explains a lot. Finally, I'd never thought of it.

Why did I never think of enquiring about the one Japanese who, it could truthfully be said, had impressed me far more favourably than any other? The answer is that it would never enter my head to remember a name like Hosogi Daisabura; let alone an outlandish address he might have had, if I'd brought myself to ask for it.

It is by pure chance that I have written these recollections. By coincidence three people, quite independently but all over the past year, asked me to do so-Mr. Gavin Long, the General Editor of the Australian Official War History (in connection with the recently-issued war history Royal Australian Air Force 1939-42, which I confess I did not even know was being prepared) and Messrs. Harry Manning and Bill Sweeting (both of whom I had known only as sportsmen). Mr. Long’s letter, in passing, provided me with a little unintended amusement where it stated that he had written some time ago to Group Captain Thompson for information and verification "but had received no reply"! To each of, these gentlemen I gave what I hoped were polite replies, but as to complying with their requests the general sentiment expressed was that it was not very Pygmalion likely. However, by a further coincidence I suddenly experienced a rare bout of non-fitness and the inactivity of lying in bed touched what little conscience I have. The last chance in this affair was that my wife happens to write shorthand. On the other hand, if I'd planned it, it probably would never have been written.

Now that I've gone as far as this, will I write to Dr. Daisabura? It may happen that way.