Alternative WW2 News

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Australian Aboriginals, Australian poet, New Guinea Campaigns, Pacific War, poetry, World War 2

(What would have happened)

𝐀𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐖𝐖𝟐 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬

In news, the Japs have taken The South Land!
The aboriginals put up no fight.
We’d left this wilderness of scrub and sand
Since its discovery, untouched; no hand
From the outside had guided it — each band
And tribe had been protected from the light.
In news, the Japs have taken The South Land!
The aboriginals put up no fight.

— D.N. O’Brien

Pat

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, Shell shock, World War 2

Pat

To join his brothers he was keen.
In forty two at just nineteen,
With both he sallied of to war.
Though never under fire before,
Courage he showed, no lack of will,
But no rejoicing at the kill.
But then there rolled a hand grenade,
And with his life Pat almost paid.
Upon a stretcher he was placed.
With morphine were his veins then laced.
A brother’s hand upon each knee,
Pat asked: “What will become of me?”
“You’ve scored a homer”, they replied;
But twice under the knife he died;
For fragments lay close to his heart —
Cold iron with which he’d never part.
Evacuated back to home,
Not buried under foreign loam,
He thought now of the future peace
When murderous war would wane and cease.
So back to health young Pat was nursed,
For by good fortune he was cursed.
Brought back to life when all but dead —
“You’re fit to fight again.” they said.
Too much to ask of one so young,
Scarred by the blast and by the gun;
And in the morning he had fled.
A note his elder brother read:
“I’m sorry Noel, I’ve done my best,
I’ll wait this war out in the west.”
A tear ran down a weathered cheek;
Noel knew that Pat was far from weak,
So three words with a steady hand
He wrote: “Brother, I understand.”
The two boys fought three more campaigns;
Were members of the few remains.
They both returned in forty five,
And thus did all three boys survive.
Then Pat came back to pay his dues,
And to the state his honour lose;
But all three brothers then embraced,
For each had death in battle faced.
But Pat, the guilt bore all his life —
Cared for his mother, took no wife,
Trod the straight path, and bless his soul,
Revered his brothers, Ron and Noel,
Who kept his secret — his great shame —
They knew that he was not to blame.
And when he lay on his death bed,
A doctor turned to me and said:
“Those scars upon your uncle’s chest —
They’re battle scars, we all have guessed.”
“A hand grenade”, I then replied,
“It’s not the first time he has died.”

— D.N. O’Brien

Deathly Detachment

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7th Division 2nd AIF, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, New Guinea Campaigns, Owen Stanley Campaign, poem, poetry, World War 2

Deathly Detachment

You doubt this tale told to me long ago?
But wait! I heard it from their very lips.
Cruel circumstance may bring the noble low;
It’s bloody war sometimes the balance tips.

Was rendered then without embellishment;
No hint of sentiment — matter of fact.
No judgement; none had reason to repent;
And words once said, they never would retract.

I write it here as best I can recall.
Three men agreed it was at Butcher’s Flat.
They drove them up against a lethal wall
Of spitting guns, they died, and that was that.

The jungle floor a stinking sea of mud.
Like islands were the bodies of the foe.
The biting tropic sun soon dried the blood.
And where the victors sat no one would know.

Detachment was the normal state of mind;
Exhaustion of the body and the brain.
So seated, on a Spartan meal they dined —
Arose, and left the shambles to the slain.

— D.N. O’Brien

Nana’s Words

Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, World War 2

𝐍𝐚𝐧𝐚’𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬

My grandmother, when very old,
These things to me she quietly told:
“Your father, of my sons the third,
From him you’ll never hear a word
Of certain deeds performed in war;
And so, before I die, I swore
To tell you what he’ll keep from all —
What I was told — what some recall.
Your father was a thoughtful lad;
Inclined to muse and sometimes sad.
No innocents the boy destroyed,
And confrontation he’d avoid.
He showed no liking for the fight —
He’d rather dream — to read and write.
And yet when cruel war raised its head,
His brothers to the fray he led.
And but for him, they now confide,
In foreign lands they would have died.

So this, to you, his son, I say,
Just take his mother’s words away:
In some men courage is concealed,
Till by necessity revealed —
It is the pounding of the guns
That winnows out the bravest ones.”

— D.N. O’Brien

Shaggy Ridge

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7th Div AIF, Battle of Shaggy Ridge, Bird of Paradise, Crater Hill, Finisterre Range, Green Sniper's Pimple, Japanese 78th Infantry Regiment, Japanese mountain gun, John's Knoll, Kankiryo Saddle, New Guinea, poem, poetry, Ramu Valley Campaign, Surinam River New Guinea, The Pimple, Trevor's Knoll, World War 2

“The Pimple” was the name they gave
This blasted peak – this lofty grave.
I stand where kunai grass grows tall;
I’m careful lest I slip and fall.
How could men on this summit fight?
How could they scale this soaring height
Whilst from its top, from mountain guns,
Poured out the wrath of Nippon’s sons?

The jungle’s grown back on one side
And on the other old scars hide
Beneath the grass; it clothes the graves,
As with the wind it weeps and waves.
But in my mind armed men I see;
A soldier’s voice, it speaks to me –
My father’s words, the lost years bridge,
Here on the spine of Shaggy Ridge.

Five hundred Japanese sleep here
And fifty diggers slumber near.
I wonder – was it worth the price?
I spy a Bird of Paradise.

{In memory of the men of the 7th Division, Australian Imperial Force, and the Battle of Shaggy Ridge, October 1943, and of Allen Noel O’Brien Sgt 7th Div AIF}