Magazine Section

Unhappy Story Of Singapore

In The Solomons

When the Pacific War broke out on December 7, 1941, I was managing a rubber plantation for Burns Philp at Berande, on the coast of Guadalcanal—2o miles across the sea from what was then the capital of the Solomons, Tulagi.

I had arranged to go to Tulagi on December 16 to see my wife, but re ceived word a few days before that she and all the other women in Tulagi had left for Australia on a ship which had been diverted while on its way to the Gilberts.

The population of Tulagi at that time was about 40 or 50 whites, 180 Chinese and a shifting number of working natives. The British adminis tration had earlier started a small De fence Force of about 15 whites, five to six Chinese and about 150 native police, but apart from rifles their only equipment was two antiquated Lewis guns of World War I vintage.

Although there were elaborate trench systems on the island, they all protected the entrance to Tulagi Har bour, and there was nothing at the back of the island because the enemy was supposed to come in at the front.

There was an RAAF seaplane base on the island, with four Catalinas. A group of 20 AIF commandos, with a few Vickers machine guns, were quar tered at Gavutu Island, across the causeway. It would have been hope less to try to defend Tulagi with the forces available.

Although the women at Tulagi had left, there was no general evacuation of the group, the administration seem ing to be afraid of incurring any ex pense in the evacuation of all women and children, and so it left them to decide their own fate.

In January, 1942, the Malaita ar rived from Rabaul and brought news of the bombing by the Japs of that New Guinea port. The ship was packed with evacuees from Rabaul and the Bougainville coast, and also carried 25 Jap civilian prisoners, to gether with their families. The prisoners were installed in the first class cabins, and the European women and children were crammed in the remaining cabins and in the dining or music rooms. Men were camped in every cranny.

In Tulagi people were very jittery and full of rumours about Jap con voys being seen headed for the Solo mons. A lot more passengers were taken aboard the Malaita at Tulagi and she left for Australia on January 15. The ship was terribly over crowded.

With Alan Campbell, who was

Ken Dalrymple-Hay, who died in Sydney in May at the age of 74, is part of the history of the Solomon Islands. After serving in World War I, he lived there from 1929, first as a plantation man, and later as a lead ing businessman with wide interests.

He built the Hotel Honiara, and founded Guadalcanal Plains, with in terests in cattle and agriculture.

During the Pacific War he took to the hills and became a Coastwatcher. He wrote of his wartime activities in an unpublished manuscript, part of which is now published here. It recalls graphically those first weeks when there was something like near panic in the Solomons.

Burns Philp’s chief plantation inspec tor, I left by small cutter for Berande.

I found everything was going well on the rubber. Things on Guadalcanal were quite normal, and only a few women had left.

On January 22 two Jap flying-boats passed directly over Berande and went into Tulagi. We could hear the ex plosions and learned later that Tulagi and Tanambogo, where the RAAF planes were, had received their first bombings. There was no great dam age, and no casualties, at either place.

On January 25, Lever Bros, small ship Kombito, arrived with Bobbie Firth, BP accountant at Makambo, who told us that the Japs were just around the corner and expected at Tulagi at any time, and that the gov ernment and the Defence Force had evacuated from Tulagi, to Auki, on Malaita island. The Kombito would pick up people from Guadalcanal, and transfer them to the 300-ton Kuri marau,' in the nearby Russell Islands, and this ship would take everyone to Australia.

I decided to stay, mainly because I did not believe the story about the Japs being just around the corner.

Secondly, I had trained over the last two years an excellent lot of rubber tappers, and none of them could be paid or repatriated to their various islands in the four hours before the ship left. One of the particularly dis graceful things about the hurried evacuation of white people from other islands in the Solomons, it later turned out, was that none of the natives was paid money due to them, nor were they repatriated. The money was later paid by the government, but the delay was extremely bad for white prestige.

The Kurimarau sailed from the Russells on January 27 with 73 people aboard and arrived safely in Australia. I must admit that I felt lonely the first night, thinking that I was the only white left on Guadal

canal, apart from a few men in the goldfields. But I soon got some visitors —J. A. Johnstone, commonly known to all as “Johnno”, and J. Cramer- Roberts, who was manager of Mr. E.

G. Theodore’s goldmining interests on Guadalcanal. Both had come down from Goldridge and were amazed to learn of everyone’s hurried departure.

I had very little food for ourselves and only about two weeks’ supply of native food, so the first thing to do was !ry to get to Tulagi for supplies, if the Japs were not already there.

Johnno and I decided to leave that night by cutter while Cramer-Roberts stood by at Berande.

We were met at Tulagi not by the Japs but by Lieut. Don Russell, who was in charge of the AIF commandos and who was later killed in New Guinea. And the RAAF were still at Tanambogo, just across the causeway.

Don Russell told me that C. V.

Widdy, general manager of Levers Pacific Plantations, had remained be hind and was nearby on Florida.

Widdy had the keys to Burns Philp store, which I was anxious to get, but I was rather nervous at having to make contact with Widdy, as we had had a misunderstanding some three years earlier and had cut each other dead ever since. But this was no time for personal rows so I decided to go across and see him.

As I arrived at the wharf, Widdy was getting out of his launch. As soon as he saw me he walked across, put out his hand and said, “Hullo, Ken!

Damn glad to see you. I have the keys to BP’s store, which I’ll hand over to you. Tell me if there is any thing I can do for you, and while you’re here you can stay at my camp”. Widdy on many occasions after that proved what a real man he was.

I found that the BP store at Makambo island, which is about a half-mile from Tulagi, had been broken open and some looting had taken place, but there were still large supplies left. The general office was intact, with valuable records in the safe.

I decided then that instead of getting just enough food for us at Berande I would try to move the entire stocks to Berande, but it was obviously going to be a race between the looters and myself, because on a walk through Tulagi’s Chinatown I saw that the natives had broken down doors and looted everything.

All the Chinese storekeepers had fled when the government had left, abandoning their stores. What the natives could not carry away they had thrown into the street. I have never seen such a mess, and wondered why no effort had been made by the Resident Commissioner to protect essential stores.

I borrowed a vessel from Widdy, and that night went off with my first load—taking the stuff the natives were likely to loot first, such as tinned meat, tobacco, rice and calico. Of course they got to work on the stores as soon as I left, but I put an old boy in the store as a spy and he supplied me with a list of the looters’ names. I let them know this and some of the loot was returned by the more timid ones. But bolder spirits came along and collected it again!

Nevertheless I eventually managed to transport to Guadalcanal everything of value, making 23 trips in all.

It was now early February, 1942, and Widdy told me that the government had arranged for the Morinda to evacuate all remaining Europeans from the group, and she was expected to arrive about February 9. The

evacuation was not compulsory, but all Europeans were advised to leave, Having decided earlier to remain I could see no reason for leaving now, especially as I had taken on the re sponsibility of looking after the stores, It was about this time, while on one of our visits to Tulagi from Berande, that Johnno and I found ourselves under attack. We had been visiting the Tulagi Club in the hope of finding some beer when two Jap flying-boats attacked the wireless station, a few hundred yards ahead of us.

They dropped eight bombs from about 4,000 ft—one of them falling uncomfortably near the shallow trench we were in, a jagged piece of the “daisy cutter” flying in with us.

We later went up to see how the radio operator, R. S. Taylor, had fared, and found that one wall of his house had been knocked in by the blast. His house, I think, was the first to be dam aged at Tulagi, but certainly not the l ast - , , , .

We went back to Berande that night feeling rather proud that we had been under fire for the first time m this war.

My next trip to Tulagi was on Feb ruary 7, when I found Tulagi and Makambo had been > repopulated. All the government officials had come back from Auki, and people had ar rived from other districts, to evacuate in the Morinda. I took across 3,000 lb of dry rubber and all the Burns Philp records.

The Morinda was expected the next day. About 9 a.m. news came through by teleradio on Bougainville, where two coastwatchers were at work to tell us that two Jap flying-boats had passed over, and we could expect them in a couple of hours, The Morinda arrived at Makambo at 11 a.m. and Lieut, D. S. Macfarlan,

an Australian naval liaison officer of the RANVR, who had been on Tulagi for some months, went out by launch and warned her captain of the air raid. The Morinda made off towards Port Purvis, and shortly afterwards two Jap flying-boats arrived and made straight for her. They dropped their bombs without causing any damage and headed north again.

On Makambo there was a general scatter and the 80 natives who had been standing by to load the ship all made off by canoe for the Florida mainland. They moved across the short stretch of water like speedboats, and in their wake was a well-known plantation manager, unable to enlist because of a bad heart, rowing for dear life in a dinghy.

Without labour I now gave up the idea of loading any copra.

As soon as the raid was over the bustle began again. All the govern ment records were being landed on the Makambo wharf and there were also piles of luggage—even a carpen ter’s bench and toolcase—although everyone had been instructed to travel with one suitcase only.

The Morinda, however, went along side the Gavutu wharf, and the people at Makambo had to load their luggage into small boats and make for Gavutu if they were to get aboard.

I went to Gavutu to load the 30 bales of rubber and the Burns Philp records, and found the decks of the Morinda packed with people all clamouring for cabins. Captain Roth ery was extremely annoyed at the ship being mobbed, as he had asked the government to prepare a passenger list and check people aboard. TTiere were now more people on the ship than he had lifeboats for.

All the luggage was still on the wharf, but none of the would-be pas

sengers seemed anxious to collect it, the idea being that if you left the ship you mightn’t get back on.

Eventually about 12 people were told they couldn’t travel—these mainly being plantation men and miners. They included my old friend Johnno. None of the young govern ment officials was put off the ship.

One plantation man took it badly, and moaned about his dear wife being all alone in Sydney without him. I advised him, ironically, to “sneak back up on the gangway”, and by God he did—leaving his luggage on the wharf!

While all this was going on, there was an explosion at W. R. Carpenter’s workshop, which caused some con sternation. It was not caused by the Japs but by “Spearline” Wilson, who was blowing up the workshops as part of a scorched earth policy. The gov ernment officially had such a policy, set out in a circular headed, “Denial of Resources to the and ordering that all plant, machinery, launches, copra mills, etc., which could be of any use to the enemy in working plantations, should be de stroyed.

Most plantations carried out this policy, but the government didn’t.

When the Japs finally entered Tulagi, besides having no opposition, they were able to use the government facilities, such as the wharves, stores, offices and houses, and a hospital complete with X-ray equipment. The scorched earth policy on Tulagi was eventually carried out by the Ameri cans in bombing raids.

By late afternoon the government records had arrived at Gavutu from the Makambo wharf, but there were still no natives to load them. The AIF commandos took off their shirts and did the job, with the help of only one

government official. The rest of the officials looked down from the ship’s rail. My boat crew loaded my rubber and I handed over the BP records to Captain Rothery for delivery to Syd ney.

Widdy, who was leaving on the ship, was the only manager of the three commercial firms who had re mained behind until all his employees were evacuated. Even then he wanted to come to Guadalcanal with me, but I persuaded him that his job was com pleted. He came back to Guadalcanal later, landing with the American Marines as an RAAF liaison officer and was decorated by President Roosevelt with the Legion of Merit.

The Morinda sailed from Tulagi at dusk, but there were very few people on board I bothered to say goodbye to. I was too disgusted at the save your-skin-at-any-price attitude. The Resident Commissioner, Mr. W. S.

Marchant, who stayed behind with some of his officers to set up head quarters again at Auki, also told me he was disgusted at the scramble to get away.

After the ship left there were still piles of luggage and mail bags on the wharf.

This was February, 1942. It was another three months, on May 4, when the Japs actually arrived at Tulagi, Three months, and what a lot could have been done in saving valuable stores and equipment and hundreds of tons of copra had there been proper control. There was no opposition. The RAAF pilots were worked to death, even using Catalinas as dive bombers to attack Jap ship ping.

Winston Turner, an Australian war correspondent, later summed it up in an article in the Sydney Sun headed “Singapore in the Solomons”.