COMMANDOS ESCAPE FROM RABAUL
by Don Hook
Mick Morell and Wally Hook became mates in a military hospital in Rabaul in late 1941. Both were corporals in the 1st Independent Company, a commando unit with headquarters at Kavieng on New Ireland and with sections scattered from Manus Island through Bougainville and the Solomon Islands to New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). But that was about all they had in common.
Mick, who’d just turned 21, was an office worker in Sydney before joining the AIF. His parents were sheep farmers and Mick had a good education. He was single, although he did have a girl friend back home. On the other hand, Wally Hook, 40, was a widower with three sons aged six, 14 and 16.
He was a knock about bloke who’d jumped the rattler to cut cane in North Queensland, worked on properties in the Riverina, was a paid lifesaver at Sydney’s Coogee Beach, a labourer on relief projects during the great depression, and a park ranger when he enlisted in 1940.
Early in January 1942, – after several weeks in hospital – both men were declared fit for light duty but there was no way they could get back to their unit or to Australia, so they attached themselves to the 2/10 Field Ambulance ‘Q’ Store.
Some three months later, in a letter to his parents written aboard the Macdhui soon after escaping, Mick described the hours leading to the Japanese invasion.
The morning (of 22 January) was full of suspense but nothing else. I spent the time getting round the town with a truck commandeering things we were short of at the hospital. During the afternoon we received a lot of new beds and I was putting the mosquito nets on them when there was a terrific explosion.
After a few minutes we got word on the phone that it was our own demolition. An ammo dump in fact, and that Rabaul had been evacuated. The powers that be had overlooked us. We were about half a mile out of town. Immediately (there) was a rush to evacuate the patients to Kokopo, about 40 miles away. After establishing a new hospital, the medical staff found there was a shortage of many things they needed. Mick and Wally agreed to return to Rabaul by truck to try to find some of the items.
At the time it was not known whether the Japanese troops had landed.
In fact, they found Rabaul deserted. They loaded what they could find and left. On the return trip, headlights from the truck quickly attracted attention from Japanese aircraft. They drove on without lights for several miles before leaving the road and dropping into a ditch about 3ft deep. The vehicle was towed the rest of the way to Kokopo, arriving late at night. The two men unloaded the vehicle and went to bed but woke a few hours later to the noise of heavy mortar and machine gun fire. They found people leaving or preparing to leave the hospital. They had no idea who had given the order to evacuate. They just followed those who were leaving.
We moved into the mountains late that afternoon and began a trip that lasted 11 weeks. Going over the mountains was an ordeal.
I wouldn’t like to face it again. We climbed to 7,000ft and then climbed again with practically nothing to eat. One meal a day. Perhaps a biscuit a man with a tin of herrings between eight of us. A drink of tea as a second meal kept us going for the seven days it took us to reach the coast.
At the coast they found an abandoned Chinese tradestore and helped themselve to food and other supplies. Their (2/10 Field Ambulance) colleagues, exhausted from the journey over the mountains, decided to put up a white flag and stay put.
Wally Hook and I didn’t agree with them so we filled our packs with tin stuff, took a duck, and moved on. There was never at any time any attempt at an organised retreat. It was just every man for himself and the only idea we had was to move as far down the coast as we could, how we could, and if possible get a boat or sailing canoe across to the (New Guinea) mainland.
Weeks later they reached Drina Plantation where a large number of troops escaping from Rabaul were camped, waiting for Navy ships or flying boats to take them to safety. Instead of staying at the camp, the two commandos built a shelter about a mile inland near an airstrip…and stayed there until they were evacuated on the Laurabada commanded by Ivan Champion. They reached Port Moresby in time to catch the Macdhui just before she left for Australia. In the letter to his parents, Mick said he was having a great trip, and had just been served an ice cold beer by a ship’s steward.
“For dinner tonight I had soup, fish, lamb brains, roast leg of lamb and all the vegetables, plum pudding and brandy sauce, coffee and finished off with a good apple. Can you imagine what that sort of food is like to us?
On return to Australia, Mick was married in Sydney to his girlfriend June. Wally was at the wedding. Mick was promoted to sergeant and served as an infantry instructor.
However, he constantly suffered from malaria and eventually was discharged as medically unfit. He had time recovering on his parents’ property and spent the rest of his working life in rural ventures including several years as a sugar cane grower in Queensland. Now in his 90s, Mick and his wife live in retirement in Bundaberg.
Wally Hook also was promoted to sergeant and served on Army movement control in Sydney Harbour. He too constantly suffered from malaria and had long periods in hospital. On New Year’s Eve 1945 – still in uniform – he died after being injured in a vehicle accident.
In Bundaberg a few years ago, I met Mick Morell for the first time. We’d spoken briefly by telephone some time ago and I’d met his son and grand daughter at the Canberra launch of the book “We were the First” – the history of the ill fated 1st Independent Company. I was taken aback for a few moments when Mick welcomed me to his home by saying he owed his life to me. He went on: “Your father was so determined to get back to Australia to see you that he kept me motivated. On occasions, I felt like surrendering but Wally’s determination to see his youngest son kept driving me on.
“At Tol Plantation …we’d reached there late in the day… I was exhausted and wanted to stop. Wally was not happy but eventually agreed to have a rest. But at four o’clock in the morning he woke me and said we must leave immediately. We later learned that the Japanese arrived at the plantation about two hours after we left.”