 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
a daring attack by five
323
Japanese midget submarines, three of which were destroyed. A few ships were torpedoed
elsewhere, and some bombs were dropped, to little effect, on Cairns and Townsville. But for
the first six months of 1942, the fear of invasion was very real.
Connie Miller, then 37, wrote later: 'By early 1942 Albany was severely war-conditioned. The
town was completely blacked-out at night; it had air-raid trenches by the score, barbed-wire
entanglements along every accessible beach front, and on the seaward side of Mount Clarence
the forts bristled with guns. Normally a modest 4,500, Albany's population had doubled
overnight. A United States' supply ship bound for Guam was the first of a whole fleet of supply
ships, submarines, and submarine tenders, mine-sweepers and seaplanes to take refuge in
Princess Royal Harbour... in "gob" caps and ultra-neat uniforms young men with fair
complexions and crew-cut hair spoke cheerfully to passers-by; they intrigued everyone with
their long-sounding vowels: "ceement", they said and "Melb-o-r-n-e", with the accent on the
second syllable, and "Maam" and a thousand other odd words that we began not only to
understand but to use ourselves.'
Air-raid precautions were also taken in Charters Towers. 'We had our little trench in the back
yard', said Mabel. 'The siren goes - we were in the trench. But it never worried me.'
Meanwhile, Bob Honeycombe had been put in charge of D Company (Bowen and Proserpine)
at Miowera Camp. The Company had orders to function as a mobile reserve, covering 70 miles
of coast there, from Rollingstone to Giru. Said Bob, with an ironic smile: 'If a landing force
came, it was my job to destroy it!'
It would have been a fatal and impossible task - one company, about 100 men, defending 70
miles of coastline against a mighty invasion force. But that force was directed elsewhere, and the
Japanese made their last major landing in New Guinea, in January 1942.
Port Moresby was bombed in May; but it was never taken, although Japanese troops came
within 30 miles of the town, in September. By November 1942, Kokoda was reoccupied, and
all Japanese resistance was crushed within three months. The Japanese advance was stemmed
and Australia, as it seemed, was saved.
Bob remained in Townsville until after the naval-air battle of the Coral Sea early in May 1942,
which was followed early in June by the Battle of Midway Island. This American victory turned
the advancing Japanese tide in the Pacific. When Bob left Townsville, Esther returned to
Charters Towers to live with her mother.
There, she and Bob's sister, Mabel Kettle, witnessed another kind of invasion, that of American
servicemen. For in this crisis, as John Curtin had foreseen, Australia had looked to America, not
to Britain, for military assistance in her defence. A new life had come to the major towns of
Queensland,
324
especially to Townsville and Charters Towers, where brash young GIs with new gold in their
pockets came at night to live it up. There were fights and shindigs as in the old days: broken
heads and hearts.
Mabel Kettle didn't care for the Americans in and around Charters Towers. There were several
thousand of them and they stayed for several years.
 |