Pilot's Nightmare Struggle - Keith Wakeman

[Dave Homewood]

BACK TO BASE

PILOT'S NIGHTMARE STRUGGLE

(R.N.Z.A.F. Official News Service.)

BOUGAINVILLE, Feb. 6,

Forced to bale out between the Australian and Japanese front lines on Bougainville, a Christchurch Corsair pilot, Flight Sergeant W. K. Wakeman, made his way safely back to base after battling waist deep through jungle swamps and floating down a crocodile-infested stream. Flight Sergeant Wakeman was taking part in a dawn patrol when his aircraft was caught in the slipstream of his patrol leader's aircraft. From practically a stall position his Corsair was thrown into a violent spin, and in spite of the pilot's desperate efforts to right it, it was still out of control at 3000 ft.

Realising that his struggle was hopeless, Flight Sergeant Wakeman jettisoned his canopy and dived over the side. Although dazed from striking the aircraft as he went over, he was able to pull the ripcord, and his parachute deposited him in the branches of some trees on high ground. That was the only time he was on dry ground until he reached safety 37 hours later.

SLEEPLESS NIGHT.
Hearing artillery fire overhead, Flight Sergeant Wakeman began to force his way through the jungle, sometimes wading waist-high through water and mud. The going was so bad that he had made only a mile and a half by sundown, when he crushed down a mass of vines above the swamp to make a bed for the night. Mosquitoes, wet clothes, and cold kept sleep away, and before dawn he was on the move again.

Even rougher country slowed progress to about 100 yards an hour. He saw an aircraft during the day, but could not attract attention to himself. Towards evening he found a swift-running stream, inflated his "Mae West." and floated down. Snags caused difficulty, and while climbing over a log that was blocking the stream, he heard a splash and saw a crocodile diving about five yards away.

"I splashed furiously," Flight Sergeant Wakeman said, "and saw nothing more of the 'croc.' I presumed he was just as scared as I was." About half a mile farther down, he saw another crocodile, splashed vigorously again, and again was unmolested. Eventually, he came upon a bridge, climbed the bank and followed a road until he met a party of Australians who took him to his base by jeep. It was almost nine o'clock when he arrived, scratched and bruised, but otherwise in good condition.

EVENING POST,  7 FEBRUARY 1945

[shorty]

I spent sometime in the adjacent bed to Keith in Christchurch Hospital about 10 years ago.

[davidd]

I think my late dad was responsible for sending Keith's casualty signal from Bougainville to Air HQ in Wellington after this incident (that was his job, Wireless Operator, Group II). He also particularly remembered the story of the crocodiles! Fortunately they were not over-large ones, but when your only feasible means of travel through this wild country is a Mae West, your view of a curious crocodile is pretty much eyeball to eyeball! Have an idea Dad knew him slightly, but he certainly knew quite a bit about the stall/spin incident. I have also read quite a bit on the Australian Army's long war with their Japanese counterparts during the Bougainville campaign, and despite most people thinking that the Australians must have had it all over their enemy in a technical sense, it was in fact a grim, slow and demoralising war right to the bitter end; the Japanese Army kept building ambushes and fortifications, and they never hesitated in trying to get around behind you. Despite having no air support, nor naval forces, whereas the Australians had every apparent advantage, the latter had to respect their opponents for their cunning and tenacity, as they seemed to know every trick in the book, and rarely missed an opportunity to attack, however hopeless their situation seemed. The worst of the Australian's problems seemed to be that their own countrymen (on the whole) thought this war was not even worth fighting, but as their politicians thought it had to be done, the servicemen on the frontline had to keep going.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

Considering modern historians now reckon that the Australian government knew full well that Japan had no intention of invading Australia, and only kept up the pretence that mainland Aussie was in direct threat to keep their military motivated, sort of makes you wonder. However I really don't think Aussie would have enjoyed having the Empire of Japan sitting right next to them in PNG and Indonesia had they done nothing about pushing them out.

[chinapilot]

Bougainville certainly was an interesting campaign. However it was needed to provide airstrips for attacking Rabaul and it was the American Marines who first landed and secured the beachhead and enough territory to build the strips.

Evidently the Americans were happy with the status quo - the Japanese after initial resistance were more concerned with feeding themselves as they were starving at this stage ( their gardens were regular targets) and generally didn’t cause any major problems on the perimeter.The Australians were ‘Johnny-come- latelies’ and apparently decided to go on the offensive and poke the hornets nest which in hindsight was a waste of men and material especially as Rabaul had been bypassed with the landings in Hollandia and elsewhere.

Interesting about the crocodile story - I lived in Buin and on days off used to go fishing up river near the Torokina area. Some rivers were a good float down on inflated inner tubes - being quite deep in places and a gentle flow so I can imagine Keith doing this. The locals maintained there were crocs upstream but luckily I never saw any but did hear some strange noises at times...

As for Australia knew they weren’t going to be invaded I’ve never read that Tojo called John Curtin and said “don’t worry mate we’re not going to invade you”.

Plans were also in hand for Samoa & Fiji so as to block any chance of supply from the States to Australasia which the Battle of the Coral Sea put paid to.

[Dave Homewood]

I feel exactly the same way you do, the Australian government cannot have had any certainty of what Japan was planning, and I have no idea how these modern historians have come to the conclusion that Aussie was not going to be under threat. It sounds rather revisionist to me. The first I heard of this notion was in the recent ANZAC Day episode of Dan Snow's History Hit, episode "Australia, Anzac and History", where the guest Mat McLachlan, stated it. You can find that on this page at the moment:
www.historyhit.com/podcasts/?pg=3

As you rightly say they were indeed planning to take Fiji and Samoa to cut the shipping routes. And they also had plans well in place to take New Zealand. When the war was over apparently such plans were discovered at Rabaul as well as maps and even a big stack of currency printed specifically to replace the New Zealand pound.

[davidd]

Remember also that as Australia and New Zealand were fully paid-up members of the British Empire (Ooops, British COMMONWEALTH!) they were expected to act on Britain's behalf in the South and South-West Pacific campaigns, usually under the general operational command of the respective American Theatre commanders. It was also presumed that Australia and NZ forces would be employed, along with the much larger United States forces in these theatres, on re-taking "British" territory that had been overrun by Japanese forces earlier in the war, and the welfare of all British subjects, including natives of these territories, were supposed to be taken into consideration. This last point was frequently used to justify the continuation of the "pointless" campaigns against the remaining Japanese forces north of NZ and Australia, although the Americans seemed to take a dim view of European "Empires" and their colonies, based on their general contempt for the supposed legitimacy of such empires. All the American lend-lease equipment supplied to Allied forces engaged in the campaigns against Japan was provided on the specific understanding that it was mainly intended for OFFENSIVE operations against the armed forces of Japan. So the Americans did rather have the upper hand as to what Australia and New Zealand's armed forces (that is, those units and formations armed with American equipment, which would have been about 60-70% of the RAAF's operational squadrons, and about 100% of the RNZAF's) were employed on, and where and when, although later in the war, this principle lost some of its importance when the Americans themselves could provide most of the forces required for the on-going campaigns. Certain home-defence forces could be maintained for the defence of Australia and New Zealand in the short term (1942/43) so long as these could be justified (thinking here of the rather minor submarine threats to shipping, which mostly affected Australia), and the Americans (read Fleet Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations) also resented British attempts to participate too much in the Pacific campaigns as the Japanese perimeter shrank and the United States Navy and Army (including USAAF) as well as their Marines closed in on the Japanese home islands in 1945. So these responsibilities, and questions of who did what, changed and morphed over time, and did cause many problems for the Anzac dominions, but more particularly for the Australians. I have read quite a bit of the Australian official war histories, with particular emphasis on the Army view of things and their often turbulent discussions with the politicians. Swot it up on-line, well worth the investment in time if you have got it.
Dave D

[chinapilot]

The 'Official' War Histories are useful up to point but can sometimes reflect the views of those commissioned to prepare them and can be fairly broad brush. Mostly they were written in the late '40s/early 50s without access to all available records. The few research projects I've done included visits to view 'primary sources' with a few weeks spent at the UK and USA National Archives, after some of the material was recently declassified which puts an entirely new perspective on some of the official histories already published.


America was definitely anti-colonial - a good example of this was the liberation of Hong Kong which the Americans wanted to give to the Nationalist forces. This produced a race which the Royal Navy won arriving in time to thwart a American OSS contingent from Kunming. Fortunately for HM Government the Royal Navy was in the vicinity having been in action in the Ryukyu Islands. I don't want to go off thread here but after looking at all the records available and being able to talk to some of the participants ( this was the late '90s so some were still around - OSS, 14th AAF and Royal Navy)) it really was close run thing. Also quite fascinating to meet some of the participants.Not in the official history either.

Going back to Bougainville, Paul Mason, one of the original 'coast-watchers' arrived back there in 1944 and having being a plantation manager before the war knew the area and recruited a group of locals and started harassing the Japanese killing over 2,000. I got to know him and although like most of his generation he rarely mentioned his exploits he was very dismissive of the Australian forces there even though he was an Aussie. The people in the area in the '70s were interesting to talk to - one couple I knew, the husband as a small boy was 'adopted' by Japanese pilots and helped out at the base at Borpop just up the road from his fathers plantation in New Ireland and his wife had been evacuated from Bougainville by a US Navy submarine just before the invasion.He could remember aircraft flying over and witnessed a strafing attack (which could have been RNZAF...)

I met Keith a few times, undoubtably a character, before I had been to the area but of course it would have been really interesting to chat to him about it. This is where Dave is doing such a great job interviewing people before their experiences are lost forever.

Davidd - don't want to offend but is there any chance you could break up your posts into paragraphs - just too hard for my old eyes

[Dave Homewood]

Doing my best Ian, but lately I am struggling to find many to record now.

[davidd]

chinapilot, never thought of breaking up posts into paragraphs, but if it will help, I promise to do that in future, although having eye problems of my own at the moment (detached retina, etc)!

Incidentally the writers of the official (Australian) histories I have been reading (often they were career journalists, frequently former servicemen, not high ranking officers, although as you say, always under the critical eye of their superiors) were somewhat critical of Army attitudes and seemed to me to be doing their best to give a fairly balanced view of the problems their politicians and high-ranking officers wrestled with to try and employ their very large wartime Army, as well as meeting all standing obligations to their Allies, etc., whether the civil population at large agreed with it or not.

However the worst things I have seen about Australian forces in WW2 (and in the Bougainville/Solomons area in particular) was their propensity (when off duty) for thieving anything not nailed down (this from official NZ histories of some of our Servicing Units, as well as HQ personnel), drunkenness, and some casual ill treatment of prisoners (although much of this might be excused by known mistreatment of the Australian's relatives by Japanese forces earlier in the war of course.) Needless to say, NZ soldiers often got accused of thieving too, in both World Wars, but I think the Australians were just more blatant about it! It often seems that the higher commands believed it was best to keep soldiers in combat situations as much as possible, they tended to be much better behaved towards their fellow man when fighting somebody else, than they did when in idle hours away from all that stress.

One particular case was remembered by my Uncle. It took place on Bougainville a few weeks after the surrender, and my uncle was a sergeant Signals NCO at the time, in charge of a working party of Japanese charged with helping clean up the camp and roads - Tom reckons they were the best workers he had ever commanded! Anyway, I don't think it was a member of his particular work party (as he would naturally have intervened), but he saw an Australian infantryman quite close by attack a Japanese prisoner with his rifle butt after the prisoner was too slow in handing over some of his personal belongings. The belongings in question were the prisoner's identification documents, and a few photos of his wife and children, which were cursorily inspected by the Australian, then torn up and thrown away.

Now my Uncle Tom was by nature a very gentle fellow who lived by simple, clear principles, and was deeply shocked by all this - he had heard that the Japanese themselves routinely acted in this way, but had absolutely no idea that white men did (yes, he was an innocent), and in full view of whoever happened to be walking past at the time, it just seemed to him rather too casual, although that was the only case of such sadistic violence he witnessed. Even when he told me of this, perhaps 40 years ago, you could still see the deep-seated disgust and contempt he felt about the behaviour of that particular individual. Mind you, Tom also had strong opinions about the behaviour of certain of his own officers and NCOs (some caused by alcohol), opinions which he had to hold in check somewhat. He also saw several aircraft crash and men die horribly, and had, like everybody else, to try and forget such sights. He also (like everybody else) had to put up with active service in the tropics, but on balance I think he was overall glad enough to have had most of the experiences he had been exposed to (he was a pre-war Territorial, so was on continuous duty from 4th September 1939, till early 1946, with two Pacific tours under his belt).

Hope this answers some questions, and does not offend anybody too much on this Board.

David D

[Dave Homewood]

May 26, 2020 11:00:02 GMT 12 davidd said:

chinapilot, never thought of breaking up posts into paragraphs, but if it will help, I promise to do that in future, although having eye problems of my own at the moment (detached retina, etc)!

Thanks David it does make it a lot easier to read with the broken up paragraphs, as chinapilot has suggested. I appreciate it. Sorry to hear you are having issues with your eyes. By the way i sent you a couple of emails earlier.

[davidd]

Dave H, Might be easier for you to post them on the forum as open questions, then I can pipe up and respond, still cannot post e-mails, but I usually receive them OK.

[Dave Homewood]

Oh I thought your email was fixed. They were not history questions. I will send you a PM.

[chinapilot]

Davidd - sorry but wasn't aware that there were any questions asked.

Regarding treatment of prisoners - I think what has to be remembered that the Australians and the Americans had borne the brunt of the Pacific war up to that time. The Australians especially with the fighting in New Guinea including the Kokoda Trail.

Any Allied serviceman falling into Japanese hands had a very low chance of survival - if he didn't become a plaything ( i.e. tied to a coconut tree and used for bayonet practice ,skinned alive etc) and made it to Rabaul POW camp where unless he was an officer and sent to Japan he was dead man walking. Just over the way from Bougainville is Ballale where the airstrip was constructed by allied POWs of whom virtually all were killed.

The resolve shown by the Americans to defeat the Empire was immense - I met a Pan Am captain in the '70s who had been a Marine and survived two beachheads and had learnt to fly under the G.I. Bill post WWII.
When talking about it after a few beers his comment was "I was trained to kill Japs and I did my job extremely well" ...

The locals were treated very badly as well. There were some who sided with the Japanese especially on Bougainville and its interesting that Paul Mason,the 'coast watcher', (mentioned iin my previous post) and his band caught some of these collaborators and they were sent back to their village after a 'good talking to' and not summarily executed.

It was interesting to be there when some of these people were still alive and hear their recollections.( Incidentally some of the older ones still spoke German) Being in Rabaul when a mass grave of POWs was discovered was sobering also.

All in all if Keith had bailed out a bit further east his chances of coming back to NZ and starting an aviation company would have been very slim indeed.

[davidd]

chinapilot,
I have absolutely no problem with anything you say, and indeed have read a great deal on the treatment of allied personnel captured by Japanese forces, including the long and tragic retreat of the Australian Army from the township of Rabaul along the southern (and I think also northern) coast of New Britain - heart-breaking stuff, I am well aware of the savage reputation of the "average" (dangerous word) Japanese soldier of those times. All I was pointing out was the one incident, in peacetime remember (I called them PoWs, but of course Japan as a nation had unconditionally surrendered by then), involving one particular soldier, and the effect it had on my late uncle. Tom was also at Henderson Field (Guadalcanal) in later 1943 (and later at Munda), admittedly well after the Japanese had been pushed from the island, but also very aware that many thousands had died there, Americans as well as Japanese - if you went too far from the main camps you could come across the stench of thousands of rotting bodies in creeks and rough jungle, or in burial pits at many locations, all casualties of war. I was not born till 1951, so have never experienced anything like that.
David D

[dannycarlsen2023]

My Poppa served with Keith during this time and after Keith made it back to base safely (along with his life saving parachute still in tow) he ripped it up and gave a piece to each of his mates as a keepsake. I still have that piece of parachute.
Does anyone know if Keith is still alive or may have a contact for him or his family? I'd love to connect with them,

[Dave Homewood]

That is an amazing keepsake Dan. Sadly Keith passed away in 2004.

What was your Poppa's name?

[dannycarlsen2023]

Thanks Dave, my Poppa's name was Bill McGechie in the airforce officially - William Frank McGechie

[Dave Homewood]

Oh wow, I have come across his name in the past in my research. Would you happen to have his Flying Logbook or any photos from his RNZAF days, Danny?

[dannycarlsen2023]

Awesome! If you have any research you'd be willing to share, that would be fantastic. I don't know where his flying logbook would be but see if mum has it. I have a bunch of awesome old photos I can share. Please let me know what your email is Dave.