Guadalcanal
p. 26 · Read in the full issue
A Dutchman's One-Man War On
By Harold Cooper
OUR Allies, the Dutch, who have fought with us on so many battlefields, from their own Low Countries to the jungles of New Guinea and Tarakan, may not know it, but they were worthily, albeit modestly, represented in the campaign to drive the Japanese out of Guadalcanal.
Their representative was a Roman Catholic priest, Father de Klerk, who was in command of a party of native scouts operating on the southern side of Cape Esperance, at a time when the Japanese were making their last stand there.
De Klerk had lost touch with his family in Holland after the Nazis had overrun Western Europe, but he knew enough about what was happening in his home land to be eager to snatch any oppor tunity of striking a counter-blow, how ever puny, at the hated Axis powers. His chance came after the Americans landed on Guadalcanal, and he made the most of it.
When I visited him at his quiet mission station in mid 1943 he had given up war faring, for there were no Japs left in his scattered parish, but he was full of stories of the good old days when he wore Marine uniform, and went out on regu lar patrols with his little band of poorly trained but enthusiastic riflemen.
He told me how, on the first of these patrols, he entered a remote hill village and inquired of the elders whether they had seen any Japanese in the vicinity.
Their answers were strangely evasive, and he began to wonder whether he was in the presence of Fifth Columnists.
Then one of the villagers decided to make a clean breast of it. He explained that there had been a number of Japanese
bivouacked nearby, and that they had be haved in an intolerable manner, ran sacking houses and looting gardens. In the end the villagers had seen nothing for it but to take the law into their own hands and had killed eighteen of their unwelcome visitors. Would Father de Klerk kindly say nothing at all about this unpleasant business to the District Officer, because he knew what an ugly view the Administration took of murder?
The Father explained, as clearly as he could without getting launched into a dissertation on international law, that the killing of Japanese soldiers who were ter rorising civilians on Guadalcanal was likely to be regarded as justifiable homi cide. The villagers were vastly relieved to hear this pronouncement. Two days later they sent a special runner down to the Father’s head-quarters to let him know that they had despatched another twenty-odd Nips. They thought he might like to bring his score sheet up to date.
DE KLERK had a little navy of his own, consisting of the ten-ton schooner “Kokorana,” loaned to him by the Government for the duration of his service with the armed forces. She had her adventures, the most exciting of which de Klerk recounted for me. She was lying one night in a bay on the north side of Guadalcanal —most of which was then No Man’s Land—when machine guns brought up by a Jap patrol opened fire on her from the beach at point-blank range.
The bo’sun hastily turned his ship about and took her out to sea, leaving the dinghy floating in the bay.
On shore three men from the “Kokor ana” had been stranded and two of them, both Americans, were casualties after the first burst of enemy fire. The third—a Solomon islander—dragged them to a hid ing place in the mangroves, out of sight of the Jap gunners, then swam into the bay and brought in the dinghy. Under sporadic fire from the enemy ambush he hauled the wounded men into the dinghy and rowed them round the point to safety.
In this action an American private was severely wounded and afterwards died.
His grave can be seen at le Klerk’s mis sion station. It is beautifully kept and de Klerk corresponds regularly with the dead man’s parents.
One story de Klerk told me was in lighter vein. Towards the end of the Guadalcanal fighting he was linked by telephone with the American head quarters at Lunga, and used to act as a one-man radar station, sending warnings of the approach of enemy bombers. One day his boys brought in an American airman who had crashed on his way home, and who was slightly wounded.
De Klerk rendered first aid, and the American, after a hearty meal, went to bed. During the night de Klerk was awakened by the hum of what he sup posed to be an aircraft engine, and he flashed a warning to Lunga, where a “Con dition Red” came into force at once.
After a while de Klerk noticed, to his perplexity, that the bomber seemed to be getting no nearer to its target. Instead, judging from the sound of its engine, which grew neither louder nor fainter, it was hanging stationary in mid air.
Then, suddenly, the explanation dawned on him. His American guest was snor ing softly next door. He had sent thou sands of men into their foxholes just because one man happened to be breath ing a little heavily!