Four Veterans Meet

Memories of Rabaul and The Coast Watchers

FOUR Australian officers who served together in the 22nd Battalion in Rabaul, when the Japs invaded in 1942, had a happy reunion in Melbourne on July 27, when they attended an in vestiture at Government House, to re ceive war decorations. They were: Lieut.-Colonel Leggatt, now Chief Sec retary in Victoria, who left Rabaul for Timor to command the 2/40th Battalion.

He received the DSO.

Captain W. B. Bowring (MC), who left Rabaul and was posted to Malaya to the 2/29th Battalion, and later was taken prisoner at the Muar Road action.

Captain J. Mack Hamilton (MBE,

Military Division), and Lieutenant R. K.

Walls (MC), both of the 2/22nd Battalion, who took part in the now famous over land trek south through the jungle of New Britain to elude capture. After two and a half months they reached Cairns.

When they were together in Rabaul, Leggatt was a Major, being 2nd-in-Com mand; Bowring was a Captain; and Hamilton and Walls were Corporals.

Later, Walls and Hamilton became members of the famous Allied Intelli gence Bureau (Coast Watchers), and won their commissions and both spent years in New Guinea. According to the re cords, both earned very fully the decora tions which were later awarded to them.

Suva’s rainfall for 1949 to September 3 is 160.85 in., already a record. The average annual rainfall for 57 years is 120.85 in.