New Guinea Forces
Operating behind enemy lines, and constantly hunted by the Japanese, 'coastwatching' was very dangerous work that brought torture and summary execution to those who were caught.
The loyalty of the native people of New Guinea to Australia was vital to the survival of Coastwatchers, and it says much for the quality of Australian government officers and missionaries in the territory that most of the native people remained loyal to Australia during the Japanese occupation. They served the Coastwatchers and Australian troops willingly as carriers, and some risked their lives by gathering intelligence while undertaking labouring work for the Japanese at their bases. Government officers carrying out Coastwatcher duties after the Japanese invasion were often fortunate to have members of their native constabulary to assist them. Native people of New Guinea who were caught by the Japanese aiding the Coastwatchers were almost invariably killed unless they were prepared to betray the Coastwatchers.
In a small number of cases, the native people betrayed the Coastwatchers to the Japanese. Coastwatcher C. L. Page remained on the small island of Simberi, off the northern coast of New Ireland, after the Japanese invaded New Guinea. He sent valuable reports on the movement of Japanese aircraft for five months until the Japanese caught him with help from some local natives. Page was executed. On Bougainville Island, the Japanese had won the loyalty of so many of the local natives by mid-1943 that all Coastwatchers had to be withdrawn, including the famous Coastwatchers Jack Reed and Paul Mason.
Prior to the Japanese invasion of the Australian Territory of New Guinea, which began at Rabaul on the island of New Britain on 23 January 1942, the role of the Coastwatchers was viewed by the Royal Australian Navy as being limited to passive observing and reporting of enemy activity. The Coastwatchers were mostly civilians and it was expected that they would withdraw from areas occupied by the Japanese. To stay behind Japanese lines would expose them to a grave risk of execution as spies. However, many of the civilian Coastwatchers declined to withdraw from Japanese occupied territory. They continued to perform Coastwatcher duties knowing the grave risk that they were taking. In the faint hope that it would provide them with the status of prisoners of war if caught by the Japanese, the Navy gave them naval appointments and badges of rank.
The Coastwatcher role as rescuers of those in danger of capture by the Japanese
Almost immediately following the Japanese landings in New Guinea, the Coastwatchers began to assume an additional important role as rescuers of Allied service personnel, and others at risk of capture by the Japanese.
On 23 January 1942, five thousand troops of Japan's elite South Seas Detachment stormed ashore at Rabaul on the north-eastern tip of the large island of New Britain. The Australian army garrison was heavily outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed. The survivors fled west, seeking some means of escape from the island. In the hope of saving some of them, the naval officer in charge of the Coastwatchers, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, contacted one of his Coastwatchers on New Britain, J. K. (Keith) McCarthy. McCarthy was Assistant District Officer at Talasea, which was a government post on the northern coast about 280 kilometres (175 miles) south-west of Rabaul.
Although McCarthy was a civilian, not subject to naval orders, and quite free to save himself, Commander Feldt asked him to take his portable radio transmitter and go towards Rabaul to find out what had become of the Australian garrison. McCarthy set off up the coast towards Rabaul in his government launch, and met the first survivors from Rabaul at Pondo, a coastal village only about 72 kilometres (45 miles) from Rabaul. McCarthy then continued up the coast towards Rabaul. He called at plantations and directed any Australian soldiers that he found to fall back towards Pondo.
McCarthy learned that a small motor vessel was still hidden at Witu Island which was situated about 96 kilometres (60 miles) north-west of his post at Talasea. He took possession of it, loaded aboard the survivors of Rabaul, numbering over two hundred, and conveyed them safely to the New Guinea mainland.
McCarthy informed Feldt that there was still a large number of Australian troops left on the south coast of New Britain. Feldt ordered Lieutenant Ivan Champion, RANVR, to take a 150 ton former government motor vessel HMAS Laurabada across to the island to pick them up. Laurabada arrived off the south coast of New Britain at dawn, remained at anchor camouflaged by branches during daylight, and then successfully ran back in the night with another hundred and fifty Army survivors.
The survivors of Rabaul who were rescued by the Coastwatchers were very fortunate. Most of those who were captured by the Japanese were either murdered or died in captivity.
As Japanese military forces advanced further into New Guinea and down the Solomon Islands, the Coastwatchers played an important role in rescuing people at risk of capture by the Japanese, including Allied servicemen and missionaries.
Coastwatchers serving in small vessels
The Coastwatchers' numbers in 1942 were augmented by inclusion of serving members of the armed services, and their role was expanded to include service in small motor vessels off the coast of New Guinea. These boats, manned by Coastwatchers with experience in New Guinea waters, were used to establish Coastwatcher stations, evacuate or replace Coastwatchers, and assist Allied supply ships to negotiate the natural dangers of the New Guinea coast. One of those serving members, Lionel Veale, tells the story of one of his missions as an Army Coastwatcher and steersman aboard the small motor vessel Paluma when it escorted a towed ammunition barge through reefs off the coast of New Guinea. The small vessels were also used when necessary to rescue troops at risk of capture by the Japanese, downed airmen, ship survivors, and civilians at risk.
From mid-1943, Coastwatchers acted as scouts for Allied counter-offensives
When the Allies were finally able to take the offensive against the Japanese invaders of New Guinea and the Solomons in mid-1943, Coastwatchers landed with the troops and set up radio stations to receive warnings of Japanese air attacks. Coastwatchers also guided the troops through the dense jungles.
Just before the Allied landings at Torokina on Japanese-occupied Bougainville, Coastwatcher parties were put ashore on the island to gather intelligence. On New Britain, prior to Allied landings, reinforcements expanded the Coastwatcher operation until there were five separate parties operating there.
Coastwatchers also landed at Long and Rooke islands to see what the Japanese there would do in response to the Allied landings at Cape Gloucester and Arawe on New Britain. Coastwatcher parties also operated in the Sepik Valley in far northern New Guinea before the Allied operation to recapture Wewak.
A Coastwatcher party landed at Hollandia in Japanese-occupied Dutch New Guinea, but it met with disaster. Its leader and four others were killed in action when their presence was discovered by the enemy.
Logistics, insertion and evacuation
Living rough, and constantly hunted by the Japanese, it was very difficult for Coastwatchers to maintain their radios and feed themselves and their native helpers. Their usual means of supply was by small motor vessel or air drop, at night, and at a pre-arranged time and location.
Royal Australian Air Force Catalina flying boats carried out most of the supply drops over Japanese -occupied territory. After long flights from Australia, to areas as distant as the Solomon Islands, the Catalina pilots had to find the drop zones in jungle clearings, and drop their precious cargo in a small area defined by signal fires. Repeated runs over the drop zones were necessary because each article was dropped separately to facilitate recovery. Radio parts were dropped by parachute and other articles, such as food, would hurtle to the ground in double-packed jute bags.
To minimise the risk of intervention by Japanese patrols, the site for an air drop was usually deep in jungle-clad mountains, and this made the low level drops at night highly dangerous for the intrepid Catalina crews. Occasionally, the supply Catalinas crashed in Japanese-occupied territory. Captured air crew members were sometimes executed by the Japanese, and many died in captivity.
When it was necessary to evacuate or replace a Coastwatcher in Japanese-occupied territory, establish a new Coastwatcher station behind enemy lines, or recover Allied service personnel and civilians rescued by Coastwatchers, this was usually done at night by US submarines, US patrol torpedo boats, small motor vessels, and occasionally, by Catalina flying boats.
All of these activities were fraught with danger for everyone involved.
Establishment of the Coastwatcher Organisation
At the end of World War I, the Royal Australian Navy felt that there was a need to establish a body of trained observers around Australia's extensive northern coastline to give warning of hostile or dangerous intrusions. A volunteer civilian Coastwatcher Organisation was established and it had grown in numbers to about eight hundred by 1939.
With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt was recalled to service in the office of the Director of Naval Intelligence, and he was given responsibility for the Coastwatcher Organisation. Feldt was the ideal choice for such a task. He had served in the Australian Navy in World War I, and in the interwar years, he had worked in the Australian Territory of New Guinea as a civilian mine warden. He knew the territory and its people well, and he took charge of naval intelligence for New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Feldt viewed the New Guinea Territory and the Solomon Islands as a natural protective barrier for Australia, and he set to work establishing Coastwatcher stations along the shores of New Guinea and the Solomons. He expanded the program to include non-government volunteers, including plantation managers. Each of the Coastwatcher stations was equipped with portable radio transmitter/receivers. The limited range of these radios, and the likelihood of interference from natural barriers such as mountains, called for Coastwatchers to cooperate with each other in receiving and passing on messages. By mid-1941, Feldt was supervising sixty-four Coastwatcher stations in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and he put a great deal of effort into training his Coastwatchers and visiting each station. Feldt also set in place emergency procedures for the withdrawal of his Coastwatchers if the Japanese occupied their areas. For example, the Coastwatcher on the small island of Tulagi in the British Solomon Islands was to move from the British administrative centre to the nearby large island of Guadalcanal if Tulagi was threatened.
At this stage, Feldt did not view his Coastwatchers as guerrillas or commandos. They were almost all civilians, and he saw their role as being a passive one, namely, to gather intelligence and then pass it back to Naval Intelligence in Australia. This passive function was reflected in the code name for the Coastwatcher Organisation. It was called "Ferdinand", after the passive bull in the children's story.
In response to the Japanese threat, Feldt extended his Coastwatcher stations across Australia's northern approaches to the British Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).
The status of the Coastwatchers altered dramatically when the Japanese invaded the Australian Territory of New Guinea in January, 1942. The effort that Feldt had put into selecting and training his volunteer Coastwatchers was rewarded by their dedication and efficiency as intelligence gatherers. Many of the Coastwatchers soon found themselves behind enemy lines and liable to be treated as spies and executed. The Royal Australian Navy had decided that civilian Coastwatchers should cease reporting and await evacuation when the Japanese occupied their area, but many declined to do so. In an attempt to provide them with some protection if captured, the Navy gave them military rank and badges of rank, but there was no optimism that the Japanese would treat Coastwatchers as prisoners of war.
This very brief account of the important and heroic role played by the Coastwatchers in the defence of Australia during the Pacific War cannot give a full picture of their achievements. A short account of the Coastwatchers' achievements by their own leader, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, is provided here, and those who would like a full account are referred to Commander Feldt's book "The Coastwatchers".
The role played by Australian Coastwatchers in the Battle for Guadalcanal
Of the eight battles that comprise the Battle for Australia 1942-43, the fate of Australia hung in the balance during four of those battles, namely, Coral Sea, Midway, the Kokoda Campaign and the Guadalcanal Campaign. During the six month long war of attrition between Japan and the United States for control of the island of Guadalcanal in the British Solomon Islands, the Americans came perilously close to defeat at times. If that had happened, Australia would have been cut off from American aid and exposed to a Japanese invasion of the Australian mainland. Australian Coastwatchers played a vital role in the ultimate American victory at Guadalcanal.
On the jungle-clad hills above the north-western tip of Bougainville Island, Australian government officer and Coastwatcher Jack Read monitored the movement of Japanese aircraft and warships between Rabaul and Guadalcanal. The stretch of sea separating the Solomon Islands into two roughly parallel island chains would become known as "The Slot" when Japanese warships used it for their nightly hit-and-run raids on the beleaguered US Marines on Guadalcanal. Those nightly raids were called by the US Marines the "Tokyo Express".
On the south-eastern tip of Bougainville, Coastwatcher Paul Mason had withdrawn to the jungle-clad hills above the town of Buin when the Japanese arrived. Mason had lived for twenty years on Bougainville and knew the area like the back of his hand. Mason also monitored the movement of Japanese aircraft and warships through the Solomon Islands.
On Guadalcanal, Coastwatcher Martin Clemens, the senior British official on the island, had withdrawn from the administrative centre at Aola to the hills overlooking the northern coastal plains of Guadalcanal when Japanese military flying boats from nearby Tulagi Island began to show interest in his station. During June and July 1942, from the hills above Lunga Point, he monitored progress by the Japanese on the construction of the vital forward airfield that was later captured by US Marines and named Henderson Field. Control of that airfield would give the Americans a vital strategic advantage in the lengthy Battle for Guadalcanal. Driven constantly deeper into the hills by Japanese patrols hunting him with dogs, Clemens was nevertheless able to employ his loyal Melanesian scouts to keep the Japanese airfield at Lunga Point under observation, and was able to give the Americans timely warning when the airfield was nearing completion. Twenty thousand US Marines were landed at Lunga Point and Tulagi on 7 August 1942. They arrived just in time to prevent the Japanese bringing their airfield to operational status.
The Japanese responded to the American landing on Guadalcanal with fiercely determined efforts to save their vital forward airstrip. Within one hour of the American landing, a large Japanese bomber group with Zero fighter escort formed over the Japanese base at Rabaul and headed for Lunga Point. If the Japanese had been able to attack without warning, the large American landing fleet at anchor off Guadalcanal would have been very vulnerable. The Australian Coastwatchers on the island of Bougainville now played a vital role in providing the Americans with advance warning of Japanese bomber formations heading for Lunga Point.
At 10.30 am on the first day of the American landing, Coastwatcher Paul Mason, from his hideaway on a hill commanding a view of the sea passage to Guadalcanal, observed the Japanese bomber formation passing overhead as it headed for Lunga Point. He quickly transmitted the radio message "twenty-four torpedo bombers headed yours". Mason's message gave the Americans forty-five minutes warning before the Japanese bombers arrived at Lunga Point. Landing activity ceased immediately, and the transport ships weighed anchor and assumed anti-aircraft dispositions. Paul Mason's warning also gave time for fighter aircraft from the aircraft carriers of the American naval covering force to reach an altitude over Savo Island, about 32 kilometres (20 miles) north-west of Lunga Point, where they could intercept the Japanese formation. An American destroyer was slightly damaged but the vital transport ships escaped damage. Very few of the Japanese bombers returned to Rabaul.
Later that same day, Mason gave warning of a formation of Japanese dive-bombers heading for Lunga Point. Again, the warning enabled the transports to disperse and the American fighters to be on station over Savo Island when the Japanese bombers arrived. No ships of the landing force were damaged, but at the end of the first day, the Japanese had lost thirty of the fifty-one planes they had sent against the American landing force.
Early on the morning of 8 August 1942, or Day 2 of the Guadalcanal landing, Coastwatcher Jack Read and his native carriers were struggling through dense jungle up the side of a steep ridge on northern Bougainville with heavy radio equipment. Read was looking for a high location from which he could obtain better radio transmission and reception. He heard the sound of aircraft engines, and looking up, he saw a large number of Japanese twin engine bombers with Zero fighter escorts heading in the direction of Guadalcanal. Read quickly set up his radio and transmitted the message "from J.E.R., forty bombers heading yours". The message was relayed via Townsville, Australia, to Pearl Harbor and thence to the American landing force at Guadalcanal.
Once again, American Navy fighters were stacked at various altitudes over Savo Island to intercept the Japanese bombers and the transports weighed anchor and dispersed. However, on this occasion the Japanese changed course before reaching Savo Island. They turned east while still 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Savo, and then, avoiding the island and the stacked American fighters over it, the Japanese bombers swept in at treetop height from the north. Having cleverly side-stepped the American fighters on patrol over Savo Island, the Japanese pilots were expecting easy pickings among the crowded transports at Lunga Point. Instead, they flew into a storm of anti-aircraft fire put up by the transport ships and their warship escorts. Most of the Japanese bombers were shot down, and the Americans suffered only serious damage to one destroyer and one transport.
If the first three Japanese air strikes had reached the anchored American transports at Lunga Point without prior warning, and while troops and supplies were being unloaded, it is likely that the success of the American landing would have been gravely prejudiced.
Coastwatchers Clemens, Read and Mason all survived the war. Martin Clemens came down from the hills to Lunga Point and offered his services as adviser on the local terrain and people to the first Marine Division. He and his native scouts gave valuable service to the Americans during the Guadalcanal campaign. Read, Mason, and their men were all evacuated from Bougainville by American submarine in July 1943 when Japanese troops were closing in on them.
United States Admiral of the Fleet, William F. Halsey, later paid tribute to the enormous value of the early warnings provided by Australian Coastwatchers when he said:
"The coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal, and Guadalcanal saved the South Pacific".
In Conclusion
This short account of the heroic exploits of Australian Coastwatchers would not be complete without further mention of their achievements in saving people who would otherwise have been at grave risk of harsh imprisonment or execution by the Japanese. In addition to their vital intelligence gathering function, the Coastwatchers rescued 75 prisoners of war, 321 downed Allied airmen, 280 sailors, 190 missionaries and civilians, and hundreds of native people and others who had risked their lives for the Allies.
Perhaps the most famous of those rescued by the Coastwatchers was US Navy Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, who later became 35th President of the United States. After his patrol torpedo boat was sunk in the Solomons, and Kennedy and his crew reached Kolombangara Island, they were found by Coastwatcher Sub-Lieutenant Reg Evans who arranged their rescue. President Kennedy later welcomed Evans as his guest at the White House.
A memorial lighthouse was erected to honour the Coastwatchers at Madang on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea in 1959. The memorial plaque carries the names of thirty-six Coastwatchers killed while carrying out their dangerous duties behind enemy lines. The plaque also bears the inscription:
HISTORICAL SOURCE MATERIAL:
. The Coastwatchers Commander Eric Feldt, OBE, RAN, (1946) Melbourne University Press; (1967) Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
. Alone on Guadalcanal: A Coastwatcher's Story, Martin Clemens, AM, CBE, MC; (1998) Annapolis, MD, Naval Institute Press.
. Wewak Mission Lionel Veale (1996) published by Lionel Veale, P.O. Box 408, Ashmore City, Australia 4214
. Hunted: A Coastwatcher's Story , Mary Murray (1967), San Francisco, CA, Tri Ocean Books:; Specialty Press, Melb.
. Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons Walter Lord (1977) New York, Viking; (1978) Pocket Books.
. Fire over the Islands: Coastwatchers of the Solomons Dick Horton (1975) London: Cooper.
Source:Australian Coastwatchers in the Pacific War