from 29 March 1957 to 23 August 1961
The Final Year, 1961
The CO was a bit cross that there had been a delay of a week in the return home. He had expected that Dick would board the plane Mauri got off. Without drawing another breath, he went on to say that he had a list of all the men to be found guilty, and those who were to be punished and one who he thought had been just watching, therefore not guilty. Dick a normally placid man was disappointed. As much as a captain can be insubordinate to a lieutenant colonel, Dick stood up to him and said that he was no rubber stamp. He would hear the evidence and if a prima facie case was proved, he would add his vote to the president of the board. The pair glared at each other for what seemed several minutes. Norrie finally broke away and returned to his office. Nothing more was said.
The trial began and several men were discharged, a few demoted, some fined and most were found not guilty due to the excellent work of the defending officer Lieutenant Ian Stuart Angus Fisher, officer commanding the Recruit Company at Goldie River. What the “Head Shed” had forgotten was that Professor Konrad Hirschfeld from the Queensland University had spent a week conducting an “Orthopediatric Survey” and had measured every soldier’s foot. They naturally believed that boots would follow in the future. Elephants might forget but PIs never do. That may have had something to do with their attitude to the order “No Boots”.
B Company returned soon after the trial and Dick returned to the 2i/c job. Jim Devitt and Geoff Chipman, time expired, both returned to Australia and a young second lieutenant John Maddams replaced Bill Lunney who had disappeared. Another crisis occurred. A PATAIR aircraft flying from Jacksons Airstrip to Popondetta had not landed on time. Without any time at all just about every aircraft that could fly from Jacksons Airstrip was in the air looking along the route to see if wreckage could be spotted. The Press became involved and somehow or other the CO became involved in a discussion in The Papuan Hotel. One bright spark apparently asked why the Pacific Island Regiment was not out there looking. Taking the challenge, Big Jim returned to Taurama and ordered Wal Campbell, the Adjutant to get some patrols up to Kokoda to start a search. C Company was out at the Goldie and B Company was the duty company. It was about half strength what with discharges and leave personnel depleting it. The company Commander was away in town at the time so Wal ordered Dick to get as many fit men he could find and to be ready as soon as possible. He rounded up about forty mostly from Hori Howard’s platoon and the rest a composite from Five and Six platoons to be led by Maddams. Ten days rations and cold weather jumpers were hastily issued and while it was a frantic effort, the trucks arrived at Jacksons to find a DC 3 ready to take off.
Just before dark the plane landed and both patrols dossed down for the night to be ready to move to the Kumusi River by local trucks. The plan was for Hori to break left and head along tracks which probably might eventually reach the Asisi district that was on the probable flight line. John Maddams would go to Wairopi in the other direction. Both would ask about whether the locals had heard anything. There was not much more that they could do. The CO was adamant that they should stay until they found something. Wal shrugged his shoulders and said to Dick better think of a resupply method. “Yeah right.” said Dick. The next morning the DC3 was again made available, quickly filled with most of the Press on board. Dick squeezed in with Greg Warland and an A 510 radio set and 400 rations of European bully beef and biscuits. (There was nothing else at short notice.) The plane flew along the bearing Moresby-Popondetta, but nothing was seen.
The Press guys started hazing the CO. They said “Colonel, where are your patrols?“ A little later, “You don’t even know where they are do you?” Big Jim had a fairly short temper, and he was visibly angry. He turned to Dick and said, “When will they report?” Dick replied, “Not due to report until they based up for the night sir” The CO insisted “Try them anyway.” Feeling a bit exasperated at the Colonel’s hasty judgment and his lack of understanding of what went on during patrolling, Dick puzzled as to how he was going to meet that requirement. He had brought the A 510 along to contact the patrols at Kokoda if they landed there. He figured that as a ‘di-pole’ aerial was parallel with the ground, then one out the back of the plane ought to work too. A crewman opened the back door a crack and the aerial was played out by Dick and Greg gradually. The establishing communication drill was begun and by nothing short of a miracle Hori answered a bit curtly straight away with “We can’t do anything worthwhile here Sunray Minor we are nearly out of tucker.” The co-pilot held a mike close to the headset so that the CO could hear all this going on. Almost immediately Big Jim said to Dick, “Tell them to go back to Kokoda and tell us when they get there.” He turned to the reporters and said “I knew where they were, and they do exactly what I tell them. Don’t ever print that PIR can’t do anything for the Administration.” He crowed all the way back to Moresby boring it up the pressmen. He had saved his face. Dick‘s heart fluttered. He said to 2 Lt Greg Warland who had come with him “How did we do that? Maybe I have been wrong all these years about A 510s.”
The plane recovered the patrols a week later. The missing plane was never found. The CO never thanked B Coy for their job, and never mentioned the magic transmission.
The time to go was approaching. Captain Jim Tattam arrived and became 2i/c B Coy, so Dick was more or less ‘supernumerary’. The Adjutant relayed several jobs ordered by the CO like a 100% stocktake of the Taurama Barracks, a Court of Enquiry on the death of Private Bankin killed in a training accident at the Goldie Camp and several other jobs which needed doing. He even worked in the Q Store helping Ron Green to balance the books and the Provision Supply Account queried by Doug Webb, the Area Finance Officer. Northern Command finally gave the go-ahead to report for the family movement to Hawaii, so without much of a backward look the Flint family departed for Jacksons Strip with tearful house staff wailing. B Coy (what was left of it) lined the aircraft departure gate and solemnly gave the ‘one shake’ farewell hand clasp reserved for ‘wantoks’ and there were glum faces all round. There was no farewell interview with the CO. None asked for or offered and he wasn’t present when the mob had some farewell drinks. The family left on 23 August 1961.
That was the end of four years and six months with an incredible Regiment. A great training venue for young officers who were given sometimes impossible tasks with no good maps, poor communications, no proper resupply organisation and if anything went wrong the man on the spot fixed it as best he could without a superior within sometimes hundreds of miles. Dick ‘Found a Path’ as all “Black Handers” were expected to find.
Captain (later Brigadier) R. S. Flint
April 2012
(Editor’s note: Dick Flint recorded his memories 50 years after the events took place. Place names have been checked on the Internet, if possible, while Surnames have been verified, where possible, from a 1968 list of then-current PIR Officers. More information about the disturbances in the PIR can be found in “To Find a Path Vol 2” by J. Sinclair with M. B. Pears and in “Guarding the Periphery” by T. Moss.)