Four Brothers in the Pacific War

Dave Rohrlach - Rabaul March 1942the mangroves at the patch of cloudy sky. Deciding he had imagined the droning of an aircraft, he glanced around the deck of the schooner Bavaria. She was blotched with improvised and hastily-applied camouflage paint instead of her smart peacetime white and blue, and the usually tidy rigging was adorned with mangrove branches. It wasn’t much, but it might hide them if a Jap plane chanced by. The Japs were the only people flying around out here these days. Of course, if the Japs did discover them, they were finished. The Army had issued him with a World War One Lee Enfield .303 rifle when he ‘volunteered’ a month ago, and there was a case of grenades aboard, but they wouldn’t be any use against a fighter armed with God knew how many machine guns. He turned away. It was hot and steamy, but he needed to catch whatever sleep he could. They’d push on tonight. Those diggers who’d escaped the Japs at Rabaul would be pretty desperate, and there were probably a few missionaries and planters who would need help too. He offered a brief prayer for Clara and the kids. They were well away, but he wished that he’d had more news from Clara in Australia before he’d sailed from the Finschhafen Mission. Morris Rohrlach - Balikpapan June 1945 Morris swung over the rail of the troopship Kanimbla, feeling for footholds in the cargo net secured to the landing craft heaving and tossing below. Nothing was slung across his body; his .303 rifle was on one shoulder so that he could quickly discard it if he fell into the water. He wore a small life preserver, a flotation device, but if he fell into the landing craft surging and slamming below him, the best he could hope for were broken bones on its hard steel edges. If he fell between the landing craft and Kanimbla he would be crushed. The lower end of the cargo net was lashed to the landing craft, rising and dipping unevenly in the swell. The net jerked as other soldiers clambered down. Morris needed to move smartly to ensure the man above didn’t crush his hands, but he didn’t want to tread on the hands of the man underneath. His pack was pulling him backwards and away from the net, and his .303 rifle swung awkwardly. He breathed a sigh of relief as his boots found the steel deck of the landing craft. He steadied himself and turned to help the soldier following him. With the last man on board, the cargo net was cast off and the landing craft roared away to join the holding pattern off the bow of Kanimbla. As the landing craft thumped and lurched and rolled its way to the beaches, Morris and his mates peered at the shore with some interest and anxiety; the uneasy feeling in the guts wasn’t just the lively motion of the landing craft. Deep black clouds from burning oil tanks cast shadows onto the dust and smoke lingering after the naval bombardment. Naval shells still rumbled overhead. Rifle and machine gun fire could be heard above the steady thrum of the landing craft engines and the thump of waves against the bow ramp. The coxswain of the landing craft bellowed a warning. Morris and his mates buckled their equipment securely, and braced themselves; some beachings could be abrupt. As the landing craft lurched to a halt and the ramp slammed down into the shallow water, Morris moved smartly down the ramp into knee-deep water, rifle ready. Alex Rohrlach Tokyo Bay August 1945 After refuelling at Okinawa on 28 August 1945, Shropshire anchored in Tokyo Bay on 31 August. Two days later, on 2 September, Japan officially surrendered on board the USS Missouri. Shropshire was one of 258 warships in Tokyo Bay for the surrender; there were even more outside, and seemingly unending squadrons of aircraft flew overhead. Alex and his shipmates were well aware that this was a historic occasion. The armada crammed into Tokyo Bay, and the roar of hundreds of aircraft passing overhead, were designed to impress and intimidate the Japanese. The sheer military power anchored in the Bay certainly impressed Alex. I estimate about 2½ thousand of Aus. whole pop. were there … I will never forget that wonderful feeling & privilege of that day. Violet, probably with a deep sense of relief, clipped a newspaper story reporting that Shropshire was in ‘Tokio’ Bay. Alex wrote to Violet from Tokyo, using airmail for the occasion; Neville Rohrlach still has the envelopes, significant for those interested in philatelic history. A concert was performed by members of Shropshire’s ship’s company on 3 September. Alex would have attended. Liberated PWs were being embarked on other ships and sent home, and were cheered as they departed. There was visiting between the Australian ships. There was an attempt to introduce peacetime naval routines aboard Shropshire: the timber over the ship’s steel deck was to be ‘holystoned’ - scrubbed until it was white with soft stones about the size of a bible - the ‘holystone’. This practice was suspended when most of the holystones were ‘lost’ overboard by a wartime crew with little tolerance for that kind of activity. Painting continued, no doubt catching up on months of unavoidable neglect, and this was accepted as reasonable and necessary. Those painting at the waterline, however, seemed to regularly ‘fall’ into the water. There was some