(The continuing biography of the Northern Territory's great crusading editor, the late James Frederick Bowditch, recently offensively described in the NT News as an "eccentric " who could throw a "hissy fit".)
While running to catch a train at Sydney's Central Railway Station for another dangerous wartime operation , Jim Bowditch was stopped by a military policeman who said his jacket was not done up properly . Jim had an angry exchange with the MP and , surrounded by a ring of cheering soldiers , slugged it out with the officious man, eventually knocking him down.
Bowditch was then arrested by police and a burly detective , a renowned knuckle man , took him into a room and beat him up. Each time Bowditch fell to the floor, the tough detective said to onlookers , “ There’s the brave Digger .” Bowditch had enough sense to realise he was in serious trouble did not fight back .
After that episode a Z Force officer told Bowditch he was more valuable behind enemy lines and not to slug it out in Australia. Jim replied that he did not go looking for trouble and that the MP had chipped him over a trivial thing , a button.
The mission involved gaining pre- invasion information on Tarakan , Borneo, including the position of a well hidden gun which had been a problem for Allied shipping. Two parties were flown in by Catalina on April 24 , 1945 . The plane had to touch down a long distance from the island so that it would not be seen by the enemy and some hard paddling followed in folboats . One group became lost and returned empty handed. Bowditch and his offsider Ali bin Salleh , however, got ashore. Leaving the boat with bin Salleh, who had instructions to pull out if he did not return by a certain time , Bowditch then proceeded alone .
Apart from the fact that he was on an island with 2000 fanatical Japanese , anti tank mines were strewn about the place . Tarakan, 24 km from north to south and l6 km from east to west, was a strategic location with some of the world’s highest quality oil and an airbase from which the Allies could provide support for larger operations in Borneo. The Japanese knew an invasion would come soon. To prevent native slave labour from escaping their feet were mutilated .
Fortunately for Bowditch , he came upon a party of Japanese soldiers who had been out either swimming or hunting pigs , and he shadowed them. They eventually took a path which led to the gun emplacement area . Stealthily following, he came around a bend in the path and was suddenly confronted by an armed guard. Instantly , he smashed the butt of his carbine into the startled guard’s chin and cut his throat ... “ I could have shot him , but it would have given the game away . The butt of my carbine took half his head away. I panicked, and carved up his face , back and thighs with my knife in the hope the Japanese would think that he had been killed by a native . The guard seemed to be a young boy who looked no more than 14 ; he could have been a Korean. Although I killed lots of people, the mutilation of that boy stuck in my mind .”
His revulsion at the grisly work he did on the guard did not stop him from completing the mission. He discovered that there were two guns, not one , hidden under a limestone cliff and was able to get within six metres of them . A map he drew pinpointed the guns . At the end of three days he and bin Salleh withdrew from the island. Unfortunately , a radio failure prevented the invaluable information that Bowditch and bin Salleh gathered being passed on until three days after the invasion began . The May 1945 invasion was the most ambitious co-ordinated operation undertaken by Australian forces in the whole Pacific war. During the battle 225 Australians were killed and 669 wounded . Japanese killed were 1504 . Flame throwers were used to burn the defenders out of bunkers and foxholes.
Between April 24 and June 2 1945 ,Bowditch saw action in British North Borneo and took part in an enemy deception plan in support of the 9 Australian Division’s Operation Oboe V1. This involved launching raids to mask Brunei invasion plans, particularly that of Balikpapan . As part of Operation Stallion , Prentiss, Bowditch , Carter and bin Salleh , were flown out in Catalinas to pick up intelligence from the locals .
Soon after, July 6, Bowditch was a member of a party which parachuted into the Mahakan River Lakes area of Dutch Borneo for a special operation . As the leader of a sub party of two white men and 30 native guerillas, he organised raids against the Japanese falling back from the Balikpapan invasion , harassing them and blowing up their food and ammunition dumps.
Inspired by Jim's profile-a "Bowditch Monkey"
Bowditch was then arrested by police and a burly detective , a renowned knuckle man , took him into a room and beat him up. Each time Bowditch fell to the floor, the tough detective said to onlookers , “ There’s the brave Digger .” Bowditch had enough sense to realise he was in serious trouble did not fight back .
After that episode a Z Force officer told Bowditch he was more valuable behind enemy lines and not to slug it out in Australia. Jim replied that he did not go looking for trouble and that the MP had chipped him over a trivial thing , a button.
The mission involved gaining pre- invasion information on Tarakan , Borneo, including the position of a well hidden gun which had been a problem for Allied shipping. Two parties were flown in by Catalina on April 24 , 1945 . The plane had to touch down a long distance from the island so that it would not be seen by the enemy and some hard paddling followed in folboats . One group became lost and returned empty handed. Bowditch and his offsider Ali bin Salleh , however, got ashore. Leaving the boat with bin Salleh, who had instructions to pull out if he did not return by a certain time , Bowditch then proceeded alone .
Apart from the fact that he was on an island with 2000 fanatical Japanese , anti tank mines were strewn about the place . Tarakan, 24 km from north to south and l6 km from east to west, was a strategic location with some of the world’s highest quality oil and an airbase from which the Allies could provide support for larger operations in Borneo. The Japanese knew an invasion would come soon. To prevent native slave labour from escaping their feet were mutilated .
Fortunately for Bowditch , he came upon a party of Japanese soldiers who had been out either swimming or hunting pigs , and he shadowed them. They eventually took a path which led to the gun emplacement area . Stealthily following, he came around a bend in the path and was suddenly confronted by an armed guard. Instantly , he smashed the butt of his carbine into the startled guard’s chin and cut his throat ... “ I could have shot him , but it would have given the game away . The butt of my carbine took half his head away. I panicked, and carved up his face , back and thighs with my knife in the hope the Japanese would think that he had been killed by a native . The guard seemed to be a young boy who looked no more than 14 ; he could have been a Korean. Although I killed lots of people, the mutilation of that boy stuck in my mind .”
His revulsion at the grisly work he did on the guard did not stop him from completing the mission. He discovered that there were two guns, not one , hidden under a limestone cliff and was able to get within six metres of them . A map he drew pinpointed the guns . At the end of three days he and bin Salleh withdrew from the island. Unfortunately , a radio failure prevented the invaluable information that Bowditch and bin Salleh gathered being passed on until three days after the invasion began . The May 1945 invasion was the most ambitious co-ordinated operation undertaken by Australian forces in the whole Pacific war. During the battle 225 Australians were killed and 669 wounded . Japanese killed were 1504 . Flame throwers were used to burn the defenders out of bunkers and foxholes.
Between April 24 and June 2 1945 ,Bowditch saw action in British North Borneo and took part in an enemy deception plan in support of the 9 Australian Division’s Operation Oboe V1. This involved launching raids to mask Brunei invasion plans, particularly that of Balikpapan . As part of Operation Stallion , Prentiss, Bowditch , Carter and bin Salleh , were flown out in Catalinas to pick up intelligence from the locals .
Soon after, July 6, Bowditch was a member of a party which parachuted into the Mahakan River Lakes area of Dutch Borneo for a special operation . As the leader of a sub party of two white men and 30 native guerillas, he organised raids against the Japanese falling back from the Balikpapan invasion , harassing them and blowing up their food and ammunition dumps.
Inspired by Jim's profile-a "Bowditch Monkey"
The party had many dealings with dyaks who lived in long houses and used blowpipes. When the people of a dyak village thought one of their own had given information to the Japanese about Bowditch’s party, they beheaded him. Monkeys with large noses , proboscis monkeys, were common in the area and they became known as “ Bowditch monkeys” because of his rather prominent nose , which caused many jokes among his colleagues and the local tribesmen .
A holy man who claimed he could not be killed attached himself to the group. This revered man raised the alarm when some Japanese barges came into view . Bowditch’s friend Stan Taylor fired his bren gun from between the legs of the holy man who just stood there pointing at the enemy. In the fierce battle which followed the holy man plunged into the river and was never seen again . As a result of this battle Taylor later received the Military Medal .
One of the guerillas was a political activist who said he wanted to see the Dutch out of his country and Bowditch had a lot of time for him. They had long talks and became close friends. On instructions, Bowditch was sent in to reinforce another commando group at the mouth of the Kahala River which was being heavily engaged by a Japanese patrol sent out from Moentai to destroy them. Official records stated that Sergeant Bowditch was mainly instrumental in killing 30 of the Japanese and pinning down the remainder until they were destroyed. On that occasion Bowditch said he got the jump on the Japanese who were in canoes and quickly killed about 15 of them with a sub machine gun . He pursued the survivors and wiped them out in fierce battles.
During that operation a plane was called in to shoot up the Japanese but began to fire on Bowditch’s party . He sprang behind a coconut tree and a bullet from the plane split it wide open. He immediately jumped to his feet, grabbed a mortar and fired off a smoke shell into the area that the plane should have been strafing. The pilot realised his error and turned his fire on the enemy.
Aircraft, unfortunately , often shot up the wrong village. Bowditch went to one which had been mistakenly raked by Allied planes and found several people dead, a woman with a hole in her arm and a young boy who had been shot in the foot. The boy’s foot had been split in two ; it had turned gangrenous . In a bid to save the boy’s life, Bowditch took a knife and cut off most of the foot , leaving only the big toe intact. Then he called in a Catalina and had the wounded boy and woman evacuated to Balikpapan . Doctors amputated the boy’s leg at the thigh, but he lived.
A Dutch captain was parachuted in as the fighting died down and he caused tension in the party because of his arrogance . Bowditch had many dealings with native chiefs in Borneo and it was clear that they disliked the Dutch intensely. While he had found the continental Dutch he met on submarines in which he travelled easy to get on with , the colonial Dutch raised his hackles by being arrogant and harsh on the natives. Colonial whites-Dutch and English- were a problem , he stated.
Before the commandoes were taken out by flying boat , the Dutch captain insisted they dump all their ammunition and supplies in a place where they could not be used by the locals. Bowditch alerted villagers with whom he had been working and made arrangements to dump the supplies , which included American carbines, mortars, bren guns, pistols , hand grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition - in a stream from which they could easily be retrieved. Said Bowditch : “ I don’t suppose the Australian Army leaders would be happy to know that some of our weapons were used to oust the Dutch . No doubt some Dutchmen bit the dust because of what we did. ”
Apart from being sympathetic to the cause , Bowditch thought it would have been wrong to leave people without weapons in an area in which there were still many desperate, armed Japanese . In Balikpapan his dislike for the Dutch intensified when he heard that the political activist whom he had liked had been shot by Dutch police. “ I don’t know why he was killed, “ said Bowditch, “ but I suspect he probably said something against the Dutch. ”
Even when Bowditch was brought home to Australia and the war was over, the Army insisted on delaying his release into civvy street. He was made into an “escort sergeant ’’, charged with keeping troops in order who were returning home to Tasmania by ship from Melbourne. The troops making the voyage were told by an officer at the start of the voyage that Sergeant Bowditch would handle any trouble makers . They were also advised not to misjudge Sergeant Bowditch because of his size as he had been in Z Force. Bowditch spent a lot of time in his cabin boozing and brooding about the way the Army had treated him.
The tame task of escorting soldiers home made him feel bitter about being kept in uniform for so long. Rightly, he felt he had done his bit for the war effort and each trip to Tasmania involved a bout of seasickness. He felt the Army was acting in a malicious way , getting at him right up to the very end for bucking authority throughout his military service.
At war’s end many commandoes were offered jobs as security men on wharves and industrial sites. Bowditch would not have any of this as it sounded too much like working for the army . During the war , said Bowditch, unionists had often been portrayed to Servicemen as communist traitors. NEXT : Free at last- eventually interested in the Northern Territory.
A holy man who claimed he could not be killed attached himself to the group. This revered man raised the alarm when some Japanese barges came into view . Bowditch’s friend Stan Taylor fired his bren gun from between the legs of the holy man who just stood there pointing at the enemy. In the fierce battle which followed the holy man plunged into the river and was never seen again . As a result of this battle Taylor later received the Military Medal .
One of the guerillas was a political activist who said he wanted to see the Dutch out of his country and Bowditch had a lot of time for him. They had long talks and became close friends. On instructions, Bowditch was sent in to reinforce another commando group at the mouth of the Kahala River which was being heavily engaged by a Japanese patrol sent out from Moentai to destroy them. Official records stated that Sergeant Bowditch was mainly instrumental in killing 30 of the Japanese and pinning down the remainder until they were destroyed. On that occasion Bowditch said he got the jump on the Japanese who were in canoes and quickly killed about 15 of them with a sub machine gun . He pursued the survivors and wiped them out in fierce battles.
During that operation a plane was called in to shoot up the Japanese but began to fire on Bowditch’s party . He sprang behind a coconut tree and a bullet from the plane split it wide open. He immediately jumped to his feet, grabbed a mortar and fired off a smoke shell into the area that the plane should have been strafing. The pilot realised his error and turned his fire on the enemy.
Aircraft, unfortunately , often shot up the wrong village. Bowditch went to one which had been mistakenly raked by Allied planes and found several people dead, a woman with a hole in her arm and a young boy who had been shot in the foot. The boy’s foot had been split in two ; it had turned gangrenous . In a bid to save the boy’s life, Bowditch took a knife and cut off most of the foot , leaving only the big toe intact. Then he called in a Catalina and had the wounded boy and woman evacuated to Balikpapan . Doctors amputated the boy’s leg at the thigh, but he lived.
A Dutch captain was parachuted in as the fighting died down and he caused tension in the party because of his arrogance . Bowditch had many dealings with native chiefs in Borneo and it was clear that they disliked the Dutch intensely. While he had found the continental Dutch he met on submarines in which he travelled easy to get on with , the colonial Dutch raised his hackles by being arrogant and harsh on the natives. Colonial whites-Dutch and English- were a problem , he stated.
Before the commandoes were taken out by flying boat , the Dutch captain insisted they dump all their ammunition and supplies in a place where they could not be used by the locals. Bowditch alerted villagers with whom he had been working and made arrangements to dump the supplies , which included American carbines, mortars, bren guns, pistols , hand grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition - in a stream from which they could easily be retrieved. Said Bowditch : “ I don’t suppose the Australian Army leaders would be happy to know that some of our weapons were used to oust the Dutch . No doubt some Dutchmen bit the dust because of what we did. ”
Apart from being sympathetic to the cause , Bowditch thought it would have been wrong to leave people without weapons in an area in which there were still many desperate, armed Japanese . In Balikpapan his dislike for the Dutch intensified when he heard that the political activist whom he had liked had been shot by Dutch police. “ I don’t know why he was killed, “ said Bowditch, “ but I suspect he probably said something against the Dutch. ”
Even when Bowditch was brought home to Australia and the war was over, the Army insisted on delaying his release into civvy street. He was made into an “escort sergeant ’’, charged with keeping troops in order who were returning home to Tasmania by ship from Melbourne. The troops making the voyage were told by an officer at the start of the voyage that Sergeant Bowditch would handle any trouble makers . They were also advised not to misjudge Sergeant Bowditch because of his size as he had been in Z Force. Bowditch spent a lot of time in his cabin boozing and brooding about the way the Army had treated him.
The tame task of escorting soldiers home made him feel bitter about being kept in uniform for so long. Rightly, he felt he had done his bit for the war effort and each trip to Tasmania involved a bout of seasickness. He felt the Army was acting in a malicious way , getting at him right up to the very end for bucking authority throughout his military service.
At war’s end many commandoes were offered jobs as security men on wharves and industrial sites. Bowditch would not have any of this as it sounded too much like working for the army . During the war , said Bowditch, unionists had often been portrayed to Servicemen as communist traitors. NEXT : Free at last- eventually interested in the Northern Territory.
