“WE WERE in the war not by choice but because we had to go, we were conscripted,” Frank Mallett said.
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“There was no great sacrifice or hero stuff at all, we had no choice.”
The 91-year-old World War 2 veteran, who was born in Williamstown, Victoria and now lives in Pambula, was conscripted 15months into the war on his 18th birthday.
He and his team played a vital role in the South West Pacific theatre, routing ship convoys by plotting paths on maps and gathering intelligence on where Japanese forces lay so they could be avoided.
When he was conscripted into the army he had already applied to join the navy, so spent three months in the military before his application was accepted.
He was sent to Port Melbourne where his first job was stiffening up merchant ships by reinforcing the bows and sterns to hold anti-aircraft guns so they became what were known as “DEMS” – defensively equipped merchant ships.
It was after the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 and when the Japanese were “well and truly active in the South Pacific” that he was thrust into convoy management in Townsville, which meant he had to plan routes through the Great Barrier Reef.
It was highly specialised work, as Mr Mallett and his team of six would have to prepare sailing orders and charts to get convoys to sea, a time consuming job which meant he often worked 24-hour days.
There were usually 16-20 ships in a convoy travelling three or four abreast, with ships that had the most lethal cargo – such as shells or artillery – placed in the middle for protection, because if a Japanese submarine or vessel hit that ship it could blow up and destroy the whole fleet.
While most vessels were painted camouflage colours, the white hospital ships were also placed at the centre of the convoy and while it was a convention of war not to be targeted Mr Mallett said they often were.
The convoy would travel at the speed of the slowest ship – usually an old coal burner – which would be put at the rear to protect the centre, but if they couldn’t keep up they were left behind, and Mr Mallett said many stragglers who couldn’t keep up were torpedoed by the Japanese.
Mr Mallett and his team served at various locations around New Guinea as the war progressed after arriving in Milne Bay, where he recalls the debris of war was very obvious, such as seeing a US plane which had crashed into the water and had been left tail-up.
Mr Mallett helped organise the late-1944 invasion of the Philippines, led by US General Douglas MacArthur, and his job was to dispatch 140 ships from Oro Bay to “Position X” off the Philippine coast – a huge amount of work.
On August 15, 1945 Mr Mallett finally came home after spending four-and-a-half years in service, for which he considers himself lucky to survive.
Survivor of two plane crashes in one day
NOT many World War 2 veterans can say they survived two plane crashes in one day during their service, but Pambula’s Frank Mallett can.
In June 1944 Mr Mallett had been waiting in Townsville for five days due to a cyclone grounding everything, when the navy decided to send him to Milne Bay onboard the HMAS Matafele, but as he was leaving a message came through saying he could fly to the bay the next day if he wished.
He chose to fly, as he “did not relish wild seas on a small vessel”, and later he learnt that after departing Townsville the Matafele was lost and went down with all hands, the reason for its disappearance and its location unknown.
On the morning of June 13 he boarded his Douglas DC-3 plane, choosing to sit at the rear as he was worried they could get into trouble due to the cyclone.
As the plane began to approach Cooktown the propellers on both engines began to scream as they hit an air pocket, and the plane dropped into an almost vertical dive.
Mr Mallett was able to grab a safety bar above his window, but most passengers were thrown from their seats to pile up against the forward bulkhead of the pilots cabin.
Ten miles north of Cooktown, the pilots managed to pull up and the plane plummeted into stunted gum scrub, the fuselage at an angle of 45degrees, and Mr Mallett was thrown on top of the pile of people against the cabin in the impact.
Mr Mallett was trapped inside for a time, before two construction workers who had seen the crash cut them out with axes, and Mr Mallett was able to escape with two others.
While he was largely unscathed he never heard the fate of the other passengers and crew.
At Cooktown airfield he was told another army DC-3 would fly him to Port Moresby that afternoon, and he chose to sit in the back again for safety.
When flying over Cape York the weather took a turn for the worse as they were encountering the tail end of the cyclone.
In the midst of rising tension and fear in the cabin, the plane flew into an electrical storm and the aircraft was thrown side to side.
Then disaster struck – lightning hit the radio antenna and destroyed the radio communication equipment, meaning the plane became lost.
The co-pilot said fuel was running low and the plane may have to come down in the ocean, which if happened would mean no chance of rescue.
The fuel began spluttering, but Mr Mallett saw lights below the plane as he looked out the window, which was unusual in wartime as no navigational lights were allowed on the sea in WW2.
He told the co-pilot, when spotted them and followed the lights as he thought a crash on the shore would be better than at sea.
As they approached the lights, the pilots thought it was an airstrip and descended to land, but as they got closer they saw it was not an airstrip at all but a row of US army tents with vents in each roof, making the lights visible.
With the last dregs of fuel, the pilot gunned the plane over the tents onto what was luckily a real airstrip, and as the wheels were kept up to conserve fuel he stalled the plane and made a belly-landing.
When the shaken-but-alive passengers made their way out of the plane, they had landed in Milne Bay.
Getting supplies for comrades
DURING his time in Oro Bay, Frank Mallett said everyone at the Port Directorate was dependent on Australian ships bringing food.
But when there was a wharf strike in Australia, no supplies arrived for six weeks.
There were 27 people on the naval signal station nearby, and as they had run out of food as well Mr Mallett thought he would get some from New Guineans.
He took a boat 30km down the coast to Tufi and because it was hot decided to put a line out the back and be towed along, as he got back on board saw two large sharks start swimming behind the boat.
He traded various gifts for fruit and produce in Tufi, and on his way back to Oro Bay the boat broke down and they started to drift towards shore.
On shore, they could see a large group of Japanese soldiers watching their boat drift closer.
Mr Mallett saw a landing ship out to sea, so the crew took off their shirts and put them on a pole and waved it as a flag – luckily 100 metres offshore they were rescued and towed back.
Befriending Augustine
FRANK Mallett recalls a friendship he struck up with a man from New Guinea.
In 1944 he was serving at the Port Directorate in Oro Bay when he met Augustine Jalula, in his mid 20s and six feet tall who had been named by a Christian mission.
He and some other young New Guineans were trained by the Australian New Guinea Administration Unit to be manual labourers, performing such tasks as keeping the grass trim around Mr Mallett’s living quarters with their machetes.
Augustine had an Australian 303 rifle with 16 notches carved into it – he would make a new carving every time he killed a Japanese soldier.
“We weren’t supposed to fraternise with the native boys but I did,” Mr Mallett said.
“When I went to go [from Oro Bay] Augustine came running down, tears running down his face and some running down mine as well as we were so closely associated with each other.”
As a parting gift, Augustine gave Mr Mallett a handmade comb to take home.