Books, Reviews, Writers

From Benghazi To The Sepik

- The War Of One Australian

World War II gave many Pacific Islanders their first experience of modern war, its massive use of men and material and its miseries. The war is the subject of official histories of the nations which waged it, and of many books about the army units, naval ships, air squadrons, etc, which took part. But, as Francis Bacon observed, money is not the sinews of war. People wage war against other people, and it is the personal accounts of those who ex perienced it first-hand that often provide the best insight.

Geoff Fearnside had already writ ten two books, Sojourn In Tobruk (1944) and Bayonets Abroad (1953) about the 2/13th Infantry Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, in which he served. Now, more than 20 years later, he tells his own story.

The 2/13th, ‘Devil’s Own’, was one of the units opposing the Italian and German forces in North Africa.

The author took part in the success ful initial drive against the Italians and he was one of the many ‘entries’ in the ‘Benghazi Handicap’, the flight of Allied troops before the German Afrika Korps in 1941, The 2/13th was among units which dug in at Tobruk and defied the Afrika Korps’ attempts to dislodge them. Fearnside was wounded, eva cuated, and, following a spell in hos pital and leave, took part in the fighting in Syria against the Vichy French.

During one leave, he visited Gordon’s Calvary in Jerusalem: “We had come, not as pilgrims but as off-duty soldiers whose hands were bloody and whose minds were conditioned to hate and kill. We profaned the Garden Tomb, its peace and tranquillity, as surely as did the machine guns of the British police men down at the Wailing Wall”.

By July, 1942, the 2/13th was on its way to the Western Desert where it took part in the bloody fight ing with the Afrika Korps.

Fearnside writes about one of the many attacks: “It would be spring in Australia and the wattle would

be out . . . Could men die of mad ness and fear on a battlefield? A thousand deaths of madness and fear? ‘The valiant never taste of death but once . . .’ Where is the valour of cowering in the dust, swamped by a fury of frightening sound? Oh God, for a golden beach and the sound of surf”.

The 2/13th sustained 285 casual ties, about one-third of its strength, in that campaign. Several of the author’s mates were among those.

The 9th Division 2nd AIF, of which the 2/13th was part, went home soon after. After three months at an officer cadet training unit and other training. Lieut Fearnside was sent to the 2/3rd Infantry Battalion which, with other units of the 6th