The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea--The Forgotten War of the South Pacific by James Campbell Page A
Authors: James Campbell
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Alley.” Those who had it worst, though, slept on sheets of plywood in the bowels of the ship. As the convoy approached the equator, men vied for space on the deck to avoid the stifling heat.
The officers, though, enjoyed a bit of pampering. They slept two men to a stateroom, dined at tables set with fine china and silverware, and were treated to sumptuous meals because the ship’s food locker was still full of fare that would normally be reserved for its paying civilians.
Although officers held mandatory orientation courses emphasizing Australia’s people and customs and staged battalion conferences, the men still had lots of time to fill. They spent their days doing calisthenics, walking around the ship’s crowded deck, writing letters home, singing, and watching the sea. The novelty of flying fish, ocean-wandering albatross, gliding hundreds of miles from land, and moonlit nights did not last, however. The “Abandon Ship” drills and fire drills and the “Order of Neptune” ceremony, performed when the division crossed the equator, provided some excitement. But it was the poker games—instigated in some cases by Gus Bailey—and the craps games that did the most for the men’s spirits.
For General Edwin Forrest Harding’s staff, it was get-acquainted time, and they liked what they saw. The division’s new commander had an agile mind. He could quote T. S. Eliot or Tennyson or Kipling, or discuss astronomy and history like an Ivy League professor. But he did not put on airs. He had sparkling eyes and a midwesterner’s common touch. And there was no one who understood the modern military better than he.
Harding had written the book on it. When George C. Marshall went to Fort Benning to become the school’s assistant commandant entrusted with updating the army, he brought his friend Forrest Harding with him as an instructor and put Harding in charge of Benning’s influential Infantry School publications. In 1934, Harding edited
Infantry in Battle
, which disseminated across the world the school’s new ideas on modern military strategies. The triangular division was one of those ideas, and no one understood its simple genius better than Harding did. Unlike the square division of World War I, which was designed for attrition warfare, the smaller triangular division, consisting of three regimental combat teams and a simplified command structure, emphasized agility, adaptability, and a lower casualty rate.
On May 7, the convoy crossed the International Date Line, and eight days later the ships docked at Port Adelaide in South Australia in the early afternoon. The 32nd Division had traveled 8,500 miles in twenty-one days.
Throngs of Australians turned out to greet the division. As the men walked down the gangplank, they received a hero’s welcome that rivaled MacArthur’s. Some of the men expected “to be met at a primitive wharf by aborigine porters on kangaroos.” What they got instead were young Australian women who swooned at the handsome American GIs.
“I could get used to this awful quick,” Willie La Venture said, winking to his best buddy Stan Jastrzembski. La Venture and Jastrzembski had been through a lot together, but they had never seen anything like this reception. They had not even fired a shot in defense of Australia, and already they were being celebrated as heroes. According to Jastrzembski, “Young women were throwing flowers, blowing kisses, waving handkerchiefs, and crying.”
The adoration was short-lived. Officers herded the men onto trains as swiftly as they could, and shortly after six that evening the division was bound for one of two camps outside of Adelaide—the 126th went to Camp Sandy Creek, and the 127th and 128th went to Camp Woodside, thirty miles from Sandy Creek. Two hours after leaving Adelaide, the battalions arrived at the appointed camps in the dark of the night without lights to guide them. Both Sandy Creek and Woodside were under strict blackout
The officers, though, enjoyed a bit of pampering. They slept two men to a stateroom, dined at tables set with fine china and silverware, and were treated to sumptuous meals because the ship’s food locker was still full of fare that would normally be reserved for its paying civilians.
Although officers held mandatory orientation courses emphasizing Australia’s people and customs and staged battalion conferences, the men still had lots of time to fill. They spent their days doing calisthenics, walking around the ship’s crowded deck, writing letters home, singing, and watching the sea. The novelty of flying fish, ocean-wandering albatross, gliding hundreds of miles from land, and moonlit nights did not last, however. The “Abandon Ship” drills and fire drills and the “Order of Neptune” ceremony, performed when the division crossed the equator, provided some excitement. But it was the poker games—instigated in some cases by Gus Bailey—and the craps games that did the most for the men’s spirits.
For General Edwin Forrest Harding’s staff, it was get-acquainted time, and they liked what they saw. The division’s new commander had an agile mind. He could quote T. S. Eliot or Tennyson or Kipling, or discuss astronomy and history like an Ivy League professor. But he did not put on airs. He had sparkling eyes and a midwesterner’s common touch. And there was no one who understood the modern military better than he.
Harding had written the book on it. When George C. Marshall went to Fort Benning to become the school’s assistant commandant entrusted with updating the army, he brought his friend Forrest Harding with him as an instructor and put Harding in charge of Benning’s influential Infantry School publications. In 1934, Harding edited
Infantry in Battle
, which disseminated across the world the school’s new ideas on modern military strategies. The triangular division was one of those ideas, and no one understood its simple genius better than Harding did. Unlike the square division of World War I, which was designed for attrition warfare, the smaller triangular division, consisting of three regimental combat teams and a simplified command structure, emphasized agility, adaptability, and a lower casualty rate.
On May 7, the convoy crossed the International Date Line, and eight days later the ships docked at Port Adelaide in South Australia in the early afternoon. The 32nd Division had traveled 8,500 miles in twenty-one days.
Throngs of Australians turned out to greet the division. As the men walked down the gangplank, they received a hero’s welcome that rivaled MacArthur’s. Some of the men expected “to be met at a primitive wharf by aborigine porters on kangaroos.” What they got instead were young Australian women who swooned at the handsome American GIs.
“I could get used to this awful quick,” Willie La Venture said, winking to his best buddy Stan Jastrzembski. La Venture and Jastrzembski had been through a lot together, but they had never seen anything like this reception. They had not even fired a shot in defense of Australia, and already they were being celebrated as heroes. According to Jastrzembski, “Young women were throwing flowers, blowing kisses, waving handkerchiefs, and crying.”
The adoration was short-lived. Officers herded the men onto trains as swiftly as they could, and shortly after six that evening the division was bound for one of two camps outside of Adelaide—the 126th went to Camp Sandy Creek, and the 127th and 128th went to Camp Woodside, thirty miles from Sandy Creek. Two hours after leaving Adelaide, the battalions arrived at the appointed camps in the dark of the night without lights to guide them. Both Sandy Creek and Woodside were under strict blackout
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