CHAPTER THIRTEEN

During the weeks after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the American and Australian chiefs of staff tried to guess the next move of the Emperor’s war machine. After the enemy’s stunning success at Pearl Harbor, in Southeast Asia and in the Pacific, the Allies knew he would not be deterred by a temporary setback at Coral Sea. It was certain another major offensive would be launched at any moment. But no-one knew where.

One view was that the Japanese would consolidate their positions in the territories they had already won by digging in and preparing to defend them. Another was that with the American surrender in the Philippines, it was now even more vital that Australia be held to provide the base for an eventual Allied offensive against Japan. And with the return of much of the AIF, and the ever-increasing build-up of US troops strengthening Australia’s position, many thought a full-scale Japanese invasion was imminent.

The last enemy option the Allies considered was that the Japanese, buoyed by their string of victories and the seemingly invincibility of their forces, might decide to press even further across the Pacific, sending its combined fleet and ground forces to attack and occupy territories in the Central and North Pacific, totally isolating Australia and containing the Americans closer to home while preparing to invade the US mainland itself.

The huge resources of US Naval Intelligence and the small but highly effective Australian Coast Watcher organization worked around the clock intercepting and trying to decode the steady flow of signals transmitted from the Japanese combined fleet and from enemy ground forces in the territories they occupied in the Pacific.

A breakthrough came when an intelligence team in Hawaii partially decoded Japanese naval signals which indicated the Japanese were to launch an attack on the US garrison at Midway Island, seven hundred miles north-west of Honolulu. To camouflage the massive invasion force, the code-breakers learned the enemy would stage a diversionary attack on the Aleutians, the string of volcanic islands extending over a thousands miles into the northern Pacific from the Alaskan Peninsula.

The Japanese strategy was based on the assumption that an attack on Midway would bring the real prizes of the US Pacific fleet, the elusive American heavy aircraft carriers, which had been absent from Hawaii at the time of the Pearl Harbor raid. They would rush to the defense of Midway after first being tricked into steaming north to defend the American naval base at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. When they arrived, the aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers of the combined fleet would be waiting to pounce on them and finish off what they had started at Pearl Harbor.

As it turned out, it was the American heavy carriers which lay in wait for the combined fleet. With Midway’s air defenses still intact, land-based and carrier-based aircraft and submarines exacted a terrible and bloody toll on the Japanese, sinking four irreplaceable heavy aircraft carriers, four heavy cruisers and hundreds of aircraft with an enormous loss of life. For the first time in the war, Imperial Japan suffered a crushing defeat.

The news from Midway greatly heartened General MacArthur. Coming only weeks after Coral Sea, it meant he had gained even more desperately needed time to organize, equip and train the swelling numbers of Allied forces in Australia. A few days after Midway he addressed the War Advisory Council, a select group of government and opposition members of Parliament and military chiefs including General Blamey. MacArthur said that he believed the risk of a full-scale invasion of Australia had been eased and that Allied plans for an offensive against the enemy were nearing completion. He told the council that capturing the Japanese fortress and supply base at Rabaul in New Britain was the key to an Allied advance across the Pacific to Japan and that it had been decided to take a step-by-step approach to the enemy stronghold through the Solomons, Papua and New Guinea.

The plan called for the deployment of US army engineers and thousands of black American soldiers to build new airfields along the entire Queensland coast, and the expansion of all existing RAAF airfields, including those at Port Moresby and Milne Bay in Papua. MacArthur also announced that he and General Blamey had decided to send additional Australian Militia troops to Port Moresby and Milne Bay. When asked why raw untried Militia recruits rather than the battle-hardened AIF, were being sent to Papua General Blamey said that recently arrived Imperial Force soldiers needed time to acclimatize in Australia after so long in North Africa.

Before the meeting adjourned, Prime Minister John Curtin committed the services of the Civil Construction Corps, a recently formed organization, made up of mainly middle-aged conscripted laborers and tradesmen, to assist with airfield work and any other construction the military deemed fit.

*

It was late afternoon and Dan was on the telephone in his office in the aircraft assembly hangar at Archerfield when an Air Corps major stuck his head in the door.

Dan put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I’ll just be a moment, sir.’

The major stepped inside the office. It was so cramped there was barely room for the small chair across the desk from Dan’s. The major’s face twitched impatiently. Dan put the telephone down and stood up.

‘I’ll call them back, sir. I’m trying to track down some shipments. Trouble is, everything has to be in triplicate around here.’ Dan gestured around the poky little office. ‘Look at all this. Everything get so bogged down. When I try and speed things up on the phone everybody always puts me on hold. Half my time is spent waiting on other people.’

‘Not any more, Captain—at least not around here. You’ve been reassigned.’

‘Where to, sir?’

‘It seems MacArthur and his paper-shufflers down in Melbourne want more officers with engineering backgrounds to head north. You’re one of them.’

‘To set up another crated aircraft assembly unit?’

‘Crated aircraft are en route direct to RAAF station at Garbutt in Townsville and an assembly facility is under construction there, but you’ve been earmarked for construction work on airfields in remote locations. Your orders are to report to Garbutt in Townsville for briefings. Your flight leaves at six hundred hours tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow, sir?’ Dan glanced around the tiny room. ‘What about this lot?’

‘Just leave it, Captain. Your replacement will look after it. You’d best spend what time you’ve got getting your gear together and checking out of your quarters.’

*

Dan drove away from Archerfield in a jeep heading for the Chardons Corner Hotel in the nearby suburb of Rocklea where he was billeted. It was just beginning to get dark and he was leaving the assembly hangar earlier than usual. Normally he preferred to work late, rather than just spend the time hanging around the hotel.

As he drove through an industrial area of Rocklea, workers were changing shifts at small factories lining the side of the road. At the end of the street he pulled up at a stop sign and sat strumming his fingers on the wheel, idly appraising a group of female factory workers clustered around a tram stop. All were wearing drab dungarees and skull caps. When Dan realized one of the girls looked somehow familiar, he leaned forward to get a better look. In the half-light he couldn’t see her face clearly but there was something he recognized about her long fair hair and the way she stood. When a tram drew up behind the jeep the crowd of workers surged forward. Suddenly the girl was just an arm’s length away. As she passed she turned her head and looked directly at him. He recognized Faith at once.

‘Faith Brodie.’

She was startled for a moment and stopped in her tracks. Then her face broke into a wide natural smile. ‘Captain Rivers. What on earth are you doing in Brisbane?’

‘I got posted here. How about you?’

‘It’s a long story. I…’

Faith’s answer was drowned out by a long loud clanging from the tram’s bell. The intersection was now clear and the jeep was blocking the way.

‘Hop in,’ Dan said quickly. ‘I’ll drive you.’

Faith hurried around the front of the jeep and jumped in.

‘Where are you headed?’ Dan asked as he pulled away.

‘To New Farm. Its on the other side of town.’

‘I know where it is. It’s towards the docks.’ Dan briefly glanced at Faith. She perfectly fitted the image that had crossed his mind so often in recent weeks. ‘How’s Joe?’

‘That’s another long story, Captain Rivers. He’s…’

‘I asked you in Darwin to call me Dan’

Faith smiled. ‘Joe and I got separated in the Top End, Dan. We know he’s in the Army but we don’t know exactly where.’

‘Who’s we? Dan asked. ‘Joe said you were the only family he had.’

‘I’m staying with an aunt and uncle. I work at that factory back there. What are you doing now?’

‘I’ve been running an aircraft assembly unit.’

‘Aren’t you flying anymore?’

Dan shook his head. ‘I’ve been flying a desk since Darwin. There’s no shortage of pilots these days, just a shortage of aircraft and airfields. I got assigned to construction work today. I leave for Townsville tomorrow morning.’

‘For how long?’

‘I don’t know. From what they told me today, I’ll be working all over the north.’

‘Will you be back in Brisbane at all?’

‘I hope so.’ Dan stole another glance at Faith. ‘I really hope so.’

They drove on and the jeep passed through the working-class district of South Brisbane heading for a bridge spanning the Brisbane River. The darkened streets were alive with uniformed American soldiers. Almost all were Negroes, looking for whatever entertainment was on offer within an area specifically designated for black servicemen. Although it was still early evening, the dark recesses of the shops and businesses on the street were occupied by soldiers and young girls embracing in the shadows. There was also a large presence of American military police

Dan drove over the Victoria Bridge linking South Brisbane with the city centre. Like South Brisbane, there were uniformed soldiers everywhere, some Australian but mostly white Americans. With the central district out of bounds to blacks, there were no Negroes at all. But the white GIs, like the Negroes across the river, plainly held a monopoly on the affections of the hundreds of young Australian girls on the streets.

‘Do you have to go home right away?’ Dan asked as they neared New Farm. ‘Perhaps we could stop for dinner some place.’

Faith laughed. ‘In these dungarees. No, I don’t think so.’

‘Then maybe we could pick up something somewhere and eat it in the jeep and talk?’

‘My Aunt Helen’s expecting me.’

‘I won’t keep you late,’ Dan persisted. ‘I’d just like to talk. I may not get another chance.’

They drove on in silence for a few moments. Then Faith said, ‘I know a place not far away that makes the best fish and chips in Australia. We could get some, then drive up to the lookout on Mount Cootha. You can see the whole city from there. Do you know where it is?’

Dan smiled. ‘No. But you can give me the directions as we go along.’

Dan had meant to be true to his word but it was almost midnight when they pulled up outside the Sharkeys’ house. They had spent the entire evening just sitting in the jeep on the mountain, talking, and looking down in the moonlight over the blacked-out city below them.

‘Will you come in for a moment? ’ Faith asked when he opened the door of the jeep for her.

Dan and Faith tiptoed up the garden path and up the stairs onto the veranda When they stole into the house they found her aunt and uncle fast asleep in easy chairs in the lounge room. They woke with a start when Faith switched on the light.

‘We were so worried dear, we waited up,’ Helen said. ‘But I suppose we must have fallen asleep.’

Faith smiled. ‘Aunt Helen, Uncle Dick, I’d like you both to meet Captain Dan Rivers. Joe and I know him from Darwin.’

Helen stood up and touched her hair and straightened her apron. She held out her a hand. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, young man.’

‘I hope I’m not intruding, Ma’am,’ Dan said apologetically.

‘Oh no, you’re not intruding, Captain Rivers.’ Dick said, rising sleepily to his feet. He gripped Dan’s hand firmly and shook it. ‘It’s good to see you again, son. And you’re very welcome in my house.’

*

As Faith walked through the factory gate at Rocklea the next morning, a B-17 roared by overhead. It had just taken off from Archerfield and Faith stood for a few moments and watched it climb steadily into the clear blue sky then bank away to the north. She smiled and wondered if Dan was aboard.

Faith’s factory produced small caliber handgun and rifle projectiles. Like many others of its kind around the country, it was set up solely to manufacture ammunition for the Australian Army. Over eighty percent of its production was standard .303 inch rifle rounds. While the production of the ammunition was largely automated, the inspection and packing of the finished product was not. Faith was just one in a long line of women who sat at long inspection and packing stations, often for ten or twelve hours a day.

The work was hard, repetitious and boring beyond belief. All the girls found it hard not to let their minds wander and think of other things, as each live round passed through their fingers before being packed into wooden cases destined for far-off battlefields. Often they had to force themselves to concentrate on the task at hand, particularly the inspection of the shell casings, knowing that a single bullet not properly inspected might be the one which would blow a young digger’s face off.

The girls were supervised by men, all too old to be conscripted into the armed forces and too young for retirement. Few of them had ever seen women in the workplace before the war and none had ever been in such close contact with so many women on a daily basis. The first day she arrived at the factory, Faith had been warned there were a couple of supervisors who couldn’t help themselves when it came to a friendly slap and tickle. Some of the girls even encouraged them. Faith noticed those that did were usually given preference for lighter or less tedious duties.

Faith took up her position at the inspection bench and began sorting cartridges. It wasn’t long before the teasing from her work mates started.

‘I’ve been picked up by Yanks before, Faith,’ a girl beside her called out. ‘But never at a bus stop by an officer in a jeep.’

‘What do you have to give to get that kind of service, Faith?’ another girl sang out.

Faith laughed off the good-natured jibes but her ire rose when a male voice chimed in, ‘If she gives what I think she does, I’ll give her a ride on my crossbar anytime.’ A loud laugh came from Trevor Lipp, her fifty-year-old, overweight day-shift supervisor. ‘And I’ve got a ladies bike.’

Lipp laughed his raucous laugh again and his hand squeezed Faith’s buttock's briefly as he passed down the line behind her. She turned around angrily.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Faith.’ Lipp said quickly before she could speak. He winked knowingly. ‘Pay attention to the job. Think of all those diggers out there fighting for you. Don’t you think you should wait for them instead of dropping your drawers for the Yanks?’

When Lipp wandered away, Faith settled down to work. ‘Watch out for that one, Faith,’ said a workmate beside. ‘Lipp’s always bothering someone. He’s fairly harmless when he’s sober but he can turn nasty if he’s been drinking.’

After a few minutes the corrugated steel building reverberated as another huge airplane from Archerfield thundered overhead. Again Faith wondered if Dan was on it. He hadn’t been out of her mind since she woke up that morning. They had talked for so long the night before about everything under the sun. He asked had her so many questions, she must have given him her entire life history.

She had asked questions too. Dan had told her he’d been an only child, that his father had died when he was a boy and that his mother lived in Gallup, New Mexico. He seemed to enjoy telling her about New Mexico. Of how the Spanish came almost four hundred years ago and of how for three hundred years it had been a part of New Spain and then Mexico. And he told her of how the Americans had finally come in 1846 and had eventually granted the New Mexico Territory statehood in 1912.

Faith could tell Dan was proud of his heritage and that he had a close affinity with the land. She assumed it was Spanish blood that gave Dan his dark good looks. But there were still so many things she wished she knew about him, things she hadn’t asked, but now wished she had. And she wondered when and if she would ever see him again. As she carefully examined the shell casings passing through her fingers she hoped she would, and someday soon.

*

As soon as Dan’s plane touched down at Garbutt, he was whisked across the busy Air Force base to a room in an administration block where a meeting was already in progress. An American Army colonel and an RAAF wing commander were standing beside a huge wall map of Cape York, New Guinea and the Coral Sea Islands. The American colonel was addressing a small group of US Army engineers.

‘Unlike what you’ve probably heard from the Navy, they are not the only ones doing something about kicking the Japs’ ass,’ the US Colonel said. ‘Unfortunately the Army Air Corps can’t just up anchor and sail our airplanes to battle on mobile airfields and fight hit and run battles. While those naval engagements using carrier-based aircraft have been useful in stalling the enemy’s advance, only the power of land-based fighters and heavy bombers backing up ground forces are ever going to drive the Japs out the Pacific. With more aircraft becoming available to us, the number of operational Allied Air Force squadrons is now increasing and we desperately need more airfields from where we can attack the enemy. It is your job to get these airfields built.’

The Colonel turned to the RAAF officer beside him and gave him the floor.

‘Gentlemen.’ The wing commander tapped a pointer on the wall map. ‘These red pins indicate the positions of over two dozen proposed strategic new airfields in Far North Queensland. Work is already under way at some new sites and expansion has started at a few existing civil and RAAF locations. Unfortunately you will not find conditions at any of these places conducive to normal construction practices. Almost without exception, all the locations are extremely remote, with few facilities of any kind. But wherever possible it is planned to get heavy equipment in by road or by sea. You gentlemen will to be flown into the areas to which you have been assigned by RAAF.’

The colonel took the pointer from the wing commander and turned to the wall map.

‘Gentlemen, you will be going to two of the highest priority locations. The first is here,’ the officer pointed to a spot on the map, ‘in a rain forest jungle several hundred miles north of Townsville at a place called Iron Range on the east coast of Cape York.’ He moved the pointer up the map. ‘The second is here at an existing bomb dump field at Horn Island, just off the northern tip of Cape York. This field is to be enlarged and upgraded.’ He moved the pointer again over the sea to New Guinea. ‘Now, here at Port Moresby is the only operational airfield in Papua that stands between the Japs and us. It is exactly the same distance from Iron Range and Horn Island and it is essential that these two fields be operational as soon as possible to provide fall-back bases for Allied squadrons at Moresby which are being bombed constantly. I don’t think I need to tell you the position we’ll be in if the Japs take Port Moresby and use that field against us before the two fall-back fields are completed.’

*

The RAAF Catalina circled over Portland Roads, a calm bay nestled behind a high headland, protected from the strong south-east trade wind blowing over the Coral Coast. There was an old jetty at the almost abandoned outpost. It had been built years earlier in water deep enough to allow ocean-going vessels to disembark men and material destined for now played-out iron and gold mines at Iron Range located just a few miles inland.

After a second circuit, the flying boat glided in to a smooth landing and taxied over close to the jetty where a large American transport was disgorging huge Caterpillar bulldozers, trucks , graders and all types of construction equipment and building materials. Dan and a group of engineers travelled by four-wheel drive transport along an old road leading up over granite ridges, then through tropical jungle swamps made passable only the day before by the latest in American road-building equipment. Eventually the truck emerged from rough scrub into the area known as Iron Range. A sea of tents housing hundreds of black soldiers who would build the airfield were pitched in long rows.

Within hours, communications had been set up and clearing and grading had commenced on the three planned runways, aircraft dispersal strips and on the erection of semi-permanent screened canvass mess halls, latrines and various storage enclosures. Because of high rainfall conditions in the area and the sheer size and weight of the B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-26 Liberators that were to be based at Iron Range, the runways had to be paved with asphalt and engineers scoured the surrounding countryside until they found suitable materials to set up a batch plant.

In spite of difficult terrain and working conditions, Iron Range began to take on some semblance of an operational airfield after a few weeks. It was around this time that Dan and another engineer made the short flight to Horn Island aboard a Catalina. They were sent to assist in accelerating the expansion of the old bomb dump airfield to accommodate surveillance and bombing squadrons. As an existing airfield, Horn Island was a favorite bombing target for Japanese planes based in New Guinea.

As the flying boat began its descent onto the strip of calm turquoise water separating Horn Island from Thursday Island, Dan and his companion were looking down at the airfield when it suddenly came under attack. All at once they could see bombs exploding on the ground, then a burst of machine gun fire raked through the fuselage of the Catalina as Zero’s covering a squadron of high altitude bombers swarmed down to strafe the airfield.

Neither Dan nor the other engineer were hit. But when their pilot took evasive action they were hurled violently around the plane, grabbing onto whatever they could to hold themselves steady. The pilot banked hard to the south-west away from Horn Island towards neighboring Prince of Wales Island, where he tried to avoid being seen by skimming low over the tree line on the steep slopes leading down to the sea from the islands lofty peaks. But there was no second attack. The Zeros lost interest in the Catalina when they were engaged by a hastily scrambled P-40 squadron on Horn Island. The raid lasted no more than ten minutes and when it was all over the Catalina put down at the sea plane base on Thursday Island.

Dan and his companion crossed the channel to Horn Island in a naval launch. As the little craft neared the island’s jetty, it picked it’s way through some small private craft lying at moorings close in to the island. The larger boats were Thursday Island luggers. Some of the pearlers had been commandeered and flew small naval pennants. Others, which had been manned by Japanese now in interment camps, still had tattered impoundment notices nailed to the masts and their hulls were encrusted with barnacles.

As the launch was about to pull alongside the jetty, Dan’s attention was drawn to a dirty little sail boat lying in shallow water beside a clump of mangroves. Somehow the vessel looked familiar. He took a closer look and saw it was preparing to sail. There were two scruffy-looking men aboard. One stood in the cockpit at the tiller, the other was on the bow raising the anchor.

A puff of wind swung the old boat around bringing her transom into view. Dan read the name beneath the filth and crusted salt. It was the same sailing boat he had seen in Beagle Gulf the day after he was shot down. It was the Groot Eylandt Lady.