Milne Bay

The heat and the wet is what you remember with dread
When Australian Servicemen and American engineers stopped them dead
The first defeat of the Japanese in New Guinea in their empire race
It was Milne Bay in August and September 1942  such a god forsaken place

There were the 25th, 55th and 61st militia with antiaircraft battery men
And the 2/10 with the 2/12 AIF brought back from the Middle East then
With the Kittyhawks of the 75th and 76th squadron RAAF flying hard
Who with some Americans of 46th Engineers fought for every yard

It was the mud that stopped the Japanese marines 
When their 2 tanks were bogged and destroyed when they were seen
Then the Japanese were reinforced with more troops from the Rabaul base
As they made their way to the Number 3 air strip in their war race

The Japanese were harassed by the RAAF Kittyhawk fighter planes
To the point where they only moved during the dark hiding from them was the game
They waited until daylight to attack the Milne Bay strips
And were cut down by the Allies without another thought for it

So all that was left was snipers in the palm trees
Shooting at Allied soldiers and harassing as they pleased
Then one time fighter pilot with malaria and dysentery 
Was warned by the ground crews about the snipers in the trees

So he said to the ground crews 
“Point my fighter at the trees”
And he climbed into his cockpit readying his guns and the triggers he squeezed
He ripped the palms all apart 
Making sure the snipers would be gone in his Maxim gun art

These stories showed how it was for the Allied troops
At Milne Bay in the muddy tropical soup
When they stopped the Japanese dead
And Australia was on the edge worried about invasion dread.

© Paul Warren Poetry

rememberwarballad

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