by Major General Brian Howard AO, MC (Ret’d) with Greg Ivey
Sergeant Katue came from Gora Village in the Kikori Delta of the Gulf District and was the fourth recruit (PN 4) for the Papuan Infantry Battalion (PIB). The Papuan Infantry Battalion was raised in Port Moresby as part of the AIF in early 1940. Like most of the first recruits, Katue enlisted in June 1940 from the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary in which he was already renowned. On one occasion, he had saved three white Officers in a flooded river which he swam with a rope around his waist. He was about 35 years old when he joined the PIB at the recently-established Murray Barracks.
Shortly after the Japanese landed at Gona in July 1942, Sergeant Katue was a member of a PIB patrol tasked with locating Japanese positions so that the PIB could deploy to slow their advance on Kokoda. The patrol was successful in pinpointing the enemy positions on several occasions allowing his unit to achieve its mission. Sergeant Katue was prominent throughout as cited in the recommendation for a Military Medal:
“In the Awala-Buna area (Northern Papua) during the night of July 22-23, 1942 at great personal risk and alone, this native NCO penetrated to the rear of the enemy lines for a distance of several miles and returned to his headquarters with valuable information of the enemy strength and disposition, thereby enabling his unit to take up a strategic position and greatly retard the enemy advance.
This NCO repeated his feat again on July 26 and 27, 1942.”
This was the first award of a military decoration to a Papuan member of the PIB.
Subsequently, Katue spent 73 days in the Northern District when he was left in a village to recover from intense muscular pain brought on by too many mountain patrols. While recovering, he decided to wage his own jungle war and picked two men to help him. Coming across three Japanese soldiers on bicycles near Ongahamo, he stopped his companions from taking pot-shots: “If you miss, plenty trouble; but if Katue shoot, no miss.” He didn’t.
The following day, he picked off a Japanese soldier climbing an orange tree. That shot brought 16 Japanese out of a nearby hut but only to be met by a hail of bullets which left 4 dead and the rest in flight.
Katue recruited a private army of 14 men in the bush. At Biama he burnt a store full of food and attracted the attention of 6 Japanese and 2 Orokaivas with them. All were shot.
Katue urged local leaders not to support the Japanese. At one village Katue was told by a village councillor that they would support the Japanese because the Japanese were paying them for their work and issuing rations to the women; and he had been given a large medal, three stripes, a coat and long trousers. When Katue shot the councillor and his main supporter, he was ringed by angry men with bush knives and spears. He ordered them to disperse and they took refuge in the bush.
Similar incidents followed with Katue being ably assisted by a policeman, Christian Arek whom he promoted to lance corporal in the field. He eventually made his way to Wanigela and was flown back to Headquarters accompanied by a terrified Japanese prisoner he had captured.
Katue returned to headquarters in Port Moresby with stripes, badges and insignia of the 26 Japanese soldiers and marines he had killed. As he carefully explained to noted war correspondent (and later a novelist) George Johnston, he had tried to concentrate on killing Officers and NCOs but some of his victims, as privates, had “nothing worth taking”. But just to prove that he still killed them, he brought back one marine’s cloth cap. George Johnston devoted all of his diary entry for October 8 1942 to Katue’s saga in the Northern District:
Sgt. Katue returns.
One of the most picturesque stories we’ve had from up here, I got today at Hanuabada village, from a fierce-faced native soldier, Sergeant Katue,’ problem child’ of the PIB (Papuan Infantry Battalion). Aged about 35 and a farmer of the western districts until a few years ago, Katue had been on patrol when the Japs landed at Gona and (he) was cut off. He arrived at Moresby today after 73 days in the jungle and brought with him a prisoner, a Japanese corporal who had surrendered. On his uniform he had sewn stripes and badges and explained that they were from just a few of the Japs he had killed. He had sergeants’ stripes, marines’ badges and a lieutenant’s insignia. He explained that he had only gone for the top men. Among his other work he had organised the tribes up in the enemy-occupied areas to resist the Japanese. He had burnt stock dumps likely to fall into Japanese hands, had armed the natives to guard bridges and villages, and had shot dead two village councillors who signified their intention of helping the Japs. The remaining village councillor – who was wearing three stripes, a huge tin medal given to him by the Japs, as well as long coat and trousers – hastily showed his allegiance by scaling a coconut palm and pointing out to Katue three Jap soldiers who were walking toward the village. Katue walked out to meet them, shot two of them dead and the third surrendered. Katue leaves tomorrow to go back to the jungle and has promised to bring me back a ‘general’s stripes’.
| Little information is known of Sgt Major Katue after the War. Fittingly, his image is prominently sculpted by David Yardley as part of the Rotary Kokoda Memorial Wall at Broadbeach, QLD. | |
 (L to R) PIB Warriors – |
 Sgt Katue |
Sources:
- Byrnes, G. M.“Green Shadows: A War History of the Papuan Infantry Battalion”
- Sinclair J. & Pears M. “To Find A Path” Vol 1
- Johnston G. “War Diary 1942”