Harold Guard Read online

  Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2011 by

  CASEMATE PUBLISHERS

  908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083

  and

  17 Cheap Street, Newbury RG14 5DD

  Copyright 2011© Harold Guard and John Tring

  ISBN 978-1-61200-064-0

  Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-081-7

  Cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

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  Contents

  Introduction

  CHAPTER 1: Osiris

  CHAPTER 2: A New Life

  CHAPTER 3: Pre-War Hong Kong

  CHAPTER 4: Singapore Defence

  CHAPTER 5: Attack on Singapore

  CHAPTER 6: Up Country in Malaya

  CHAPTER 7: Escape From Singapore

  CHAPTER 8: Escape from Java

  CHAPTER 9: Australia

  CHAPTER 10: Townsville

  CHAPTER 11: Port Moresby

  CHAPTER 12: The Northern Territories

  CHAPTER 13: Wau (Wow)

  CHAPTER 14: The War in New Guinea, Hans Christian Anderson and General MacArthur

  CHAPTER 15: Lae Landings

  CHAPTER 16: Passage to India

  CHAPTER 17: The Fortune Teller Was Right

  CHAPTER 18: Returning Home

  CHAPTER 19: Post-War

  Epilogue

  Introduction

  In March 1942, my grandfather, Harold Guard, arrived in Sydney, Australia, having narrowly escaped the Japanese forces invading Singapore and Java. He was a war correspondent working for an American news agency, the United Press, and at the time was acclaimed by the Australian press as being one of the top four newspapermen covering the war in the Pacific, as he often reported from perilous situations at the front line. Shortly after his arrival in Australia, a New York publishing house sent Harold a telegram, asking him to write a book “immediately” about his experiences, which he ignored, because as far as he was concerned the war was only three months old and far from finished.

  Over the next three years Harold was to have many more adventures reporting on the Pacific War, including firsthand experiences flying with the US Air Force on twenty-two bombing missions, camping with Allied forces in the jungles of New Guinea, and taking part in attacks from amphibious landing craft on enemy occupied territory. He also travelled into the undeveloped areas of Australia’s Northern Territories to report on the construction of the airbases that were being built in preparation for defending the country against the advancing Japanese forces.

  What made Harold’s achievements even more remarkable was that he was disabled and had to walk with a stiff right leg, which was due to an accident that he’d had while working as a naval engineer in the British navy. Harold had followed in the footsteps of his father and older brother by joining the Royal Navy when he was 16, where he trained as an engine room artificer. During his service he worked mainly on submarines, which at the time appeared to be at a developmental stage, and was a crewmember of the ill-fated K13 that sank to the bottom of the Gareloch in Rosyth, Scotland. The K13 was a special type of submarine that could operate on the surface as well as under water, but unfortunately, it sank due to its funnels not being closed properly. Despite this horrendous experience, Harold was not put off from serving on submarines, and in 1917 took part in a mission to the Baltic in support of the White Russian and international forces opposing the new Bolshevik regime. Their objective was to attack Russian warships inside Kronstadt harbour, which was located on Kotlin Island near the Gulf of Finland. It turned out to be a great success, and led to the award of Victoria Crosses to the fleet’s commanders, and recommendations for decoration of the submarine crews.

  Following this adventure Harold was assigned to another submarine, the H23, which was a training boat for senior officers. His duties included demonstrating how various procedures were to be carried out; among his students were the young lieutenants Lord Louis Mountbatten and Prince George the Duke of Kent. In 1922, as the government aimed to reduce public expenditure, especially redundancies in the armed forces (known as the Geddes Axe), Harold volunteered for service on the K-class submarine, which had a reputation for being accident-prone. The craft that he was assigned to was the K22—the same K13 model that had sunk to the bottom of the Gareloch in Scotland. Harold felt that he had little choice if he wanted to continue his navy career, and in spite of all the adverse publicity surrounding the vessel, he enrolled for service on it. During this time he learned how to correct a fault with the steering mechanism, which, little did he know at the time, would prove to be an invaluable skill many years later when reporting from an amphibious landing craft in the Pacific. Harold was eventually promoted to Chief ERA (Engine Room Artificer) of the first O class submarine, called Osiris. Following several trials, Osiris was ready to be commissioned, but before this could happen Harold met with an accident that resulted in him being invalided out of the navy. His right kneecap was completely shattered, and following surgery he was left with a stiff leg that he was unable to bend.

  After his naval career came to an end he sought a new future in the Far East with his wife Marie, who was an army schoolmistress soon to be stationed in Hong Kong. Harold tried his hand at a variety of jobs before eventually establishing himself in a career as a newspaperman working for the United Press. When war broke out in the Pacific in 1941, he found himself part of the news corps run by the British government’s Ministry of Information based in Singapore. Amongst his counterparts, Harold had the unique status of being an Englishman walking with a characteristic heavy limp while wearing an American army uniform. In fact, in many of the prefaces to the articles that he wrote, he was always referred to as an American correspondent, but no mention was ever made about his stiff right leg. This may have also been due to him not drawing attention to it, and just pursuing whatever story might be developing at the time.

  He always strived to find out the truth about what was actually happening in the battlefield, and this often brought him into conflict with the army censors at the Ministry of Information. Harold’s adventures also brought him into direct contact with some very influential figures, such as Gordon Bennett, General MacArthur, and once more, Lord Louis Mountbatten.

  Harold returned to Britain towards the end of the war, where he continued to work for the United Press up until 1959. Unfortunately he had ill health during the later part of his life, and suffered from macular degeneration that left him almost totally blind. As a youngster I would spend many summer holidays with him and my grandmother, and on many occasions would listen to him recount his tales. In 1976 my parents bought him a cassette recorder so that he could record his experiences, and after his death in 1986 these were stored away by my grandmother and not seen again for many years.

  I always had it in mind that one day I would retell his story, and after my grandmother passed a
way in 2001, I managed to locate the cassettes. To my amazement, in spite of the cassettes being over twenty years old, they still played. Since then I have undertaken the task of editing his work by taking dictation from his tapes, and also reading through some of the stories he wrote that I believe were his early attempts at starting a book.

  The majority of this book is an exact replica of Harold’s own words, and free from the censorship that so often frustrated him. It provides a firsthand account of the conflict in the Far East, with details of the combat that took place in the jungle, air and at sea. It begins with him recounting his accident on the Osiris submarine that dramatically changed the direction of his life and led him into many adventures.

  —John Tring

  Harold with the L8 submarine crew (second row, far right), with whom he took part in patrols of the China seas in 1926. Author collection

  CHAPTER ONE

  Osiris

  Osiris was commissioned to go out to the China station, and due to leave Plymouth in Devon on the day of the famous horse race, the Derby, 4th June 1929. Coincidentally, the favourite for the Derby was a horse also called Osiris, so it was natural that all the crew had a bet on it. We were docked further down the south coast at Fort Blockhouse in Portsmouth, waiting to start our journey. I started the port engine by opening the main airline valve, and as soon as I had done this there was a terrific explosion, the force from which threw me back onto the floor, filling the engine room with choking sulphurous fumes. I tried to struggle to my feet, slipping on the steel plates, which were by now covered with a mixture of oil and somebody’s guts. As I did so, I noticed that people around me had also been thrown backwards, and there was an intense pain running through my right leg.

  It had only been a year earlier that I had first been called to see Commander Lindsey, who told me that there was a new class of submarines to be built at the Vickers Yard in the northwest of England at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. The submarines were called the O Class, and Commander Lindsey, who was to be in charge of the works, wanted me to be his Chief ERA. He wanted me to go up to Barrow-in-Furness to do what was called a “stand-by-job,” which involved overseeing the building of the submarines. I was about to sign on for my second period of service with the navy, and I felt extremely proud that I had been promoted to such a position.

  I had comfortable lodgings in Barrow-in-Furness and felt extremely privileged, as I was getting seventeen shillings per day during a time when Britain was experiencing a severe depression, known as the “Great Slump.” The job was very interesting, and involved me checking through all the blueprints for the new craft. The first submarine was to be called the Osiris, and I was not completely happy with some of the materials being used in the construction, which included aluminium for the engine pistons. Also, the engine layout was very complicated, which made some of the parts very difficult to access. Finally though, the first trial trips could be made, and Osiris sailed to Campbeltown in Scotland. It dived well, but hairline cracks were found in the valve seating of our air compressors, and so we took the Osiris back to Barrow-in-Furness to be fixed. Then a problem was found with the engines, and the gears in the engine had to be dismantled so that the repair work could be carried out. More trials were then conducted in Plymouth, back on the south coast of England, and at last everything appeared to be satisfactory.

  Now though, I found myself on the engine room floor in Osiris, with a searing pain running through my right leg. The first person to arrive at the scene was the coxswain, who was called Joe Elvin. Part of Joe’s responsibilities also included him being the ship’s doctor, and he held a lamp over me to try and find his way round in the dark as the lights had gone out. Joe looked over the mushy, bloody pulp that remained of my right leg, and said, “Looks more like a dog’s dinner to me.” He did his best to make me comfortable, and poured half a pint of navy rum down my throat.

  Then somebody else came. More lights and crewmates stepped carefully over me as they carried sagging bodies through the engine room bulkhead door. Joe handed me another cup full of rum and had one himself, just to keep himself from feeling faint. Bracing himself, he did his best to put the pieces of my leg together, and then hastily lashed it all tight and tidy in a canvas roll before trussing me up in an emergency litter until I looked like an Egyptian mummy. A stretcher was brought, and I was carried through to the control room to await a hospital tug. I was told by one of my fellow engineers that the air-start valve had blown up, that large pieces of it had been scattered around the engine room like shrapnel, and that one of these pieces must have hit me on the right knee.

  Maybe it was the effect of Joe’s rum, but I started to find that I just did not care about anything anymore, and I was beginning to feel numb all over. I started to try and figure out what would happen next, as they hauled me with a winch up the vertical conning tower hatch, over the bulging saddle tanks of the submarine and into a waiting launch, which was wallowing badly in a heavy sea. How the launch got there and from where it came, I just do not recall, and it felt like I had just floated out of the submarine conning tower and wafted gently over the side. The helpers then dumped me with little ado on the heaving deck of the launch and injected me with morphine. The launch was then quickly shoved off before leaving the smoking hull of Osiris behind.

  It was then that I noticed a youngish-looking fellow in a somewhat weatherworn raincoat. He approached me with a friendly grin, dropped on one knee and asked, “What is it like down there?” Put yourself in my position, half slewed with Joe’s “neaters” of rum, wrapped up like a sausage with something somewhere inside beginning to hurt like hell, and you might better understand why I replied, “down where?” “In the submarine,” said the young fellow. Then he got all apologetic and explained, “I’m from The Herald. I want to get the story of what happened down there.” At the moment, the only Herald of my acquaintance was a pretty fast destroyer which I knew was a good few thousand miles away in the China Seas, and I was just about to tell the young fellow he was a long way adrift from his ship when it dawned on me that I was being interviewed by a newspaperman. Maybe it was Joe’s rum again, but I just told that youngster exactly what it was like, and he said “Thank you very much” and stuck a cigarette into my face when he saw something was hurting me pretty badly again.

  It did not take long for me to be transferred to a bed in Stonehouse Hospital, Portsmouth, where my leg was x-rayed, and it was explained to me that my whole knee joint had been shattered. I underwent an operation, and when I woke up I was not totally sure whether my leg had been amputated or not. With great apprehension I tried to wiggle my toes, and to my relief found that I could still feel them.

  My knee joint had been removed though, which left me with a stiff right leg that was unable to be bent. Later, though, there were complications and my leg turned septic. The surgeon who had performed the operation, Lieutenant Keating, discussed with me the problems, and told me that I had septicaemia. I ran some very high temperatures, and I often had hallucinations. More operations followed, and at times I think there were doubts as to whether I would survive. Gradually my condition improved and eventually I was allowed to get out of bed, using a calliper around my leg, and crutches. I was at times allowed out, and I remember one of my first excursions was to see my first talking film, The Thin Man starring William Powell.

  During my time in hospital I was, however, comforted by visits from a lady called Marie Guppy, who I had originally met on my travels with the navy out to Hong Kong. She had been working there as a Queen’s Army schoolmistress in the British colony, but had recently returned to Britain, which meant she was able to visit me quite frequently. Gradually my condition improved, and eventually I was allowed to get out of bed more regularly, and was at last able to walk again without the use of callipers and the support of crutches.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A New Life

  So my career in the navy came to an end, but a new part of my life was now about to begin. Marie
and I fell in love, decided to marry, and went to live in Purley, South London. I got a job as an engineer at the large department store Harrods, looking after the engine rooms that supplied power to the store. Marie was a teacher at the Guard’s Depot at Caterham, in Surrey, and we lived in lodgings that cost 30 shillings per week. I had to work shift hours at Harrods, which involved work at nights, and also sometimes on the weekends. As a result, Marie and I did not get to see as much of each other as we would have liked. Marie was aware that she would soon be due for another tour with the British Army, and thought that this was likely to be in India. She did not particularly want to go to India, and in order to get around this applied to go to Hong Kong instead.

  She already knew Hong Kong, and liked it there, but the main question would be whether she could take me with her. After she put in her application for Hong Kong I was called for an interview at Caterham with Viscount Marsham. He was very pleasant and welcoming, and we had a long chat together about the possibility of me travelling out to Hong Kong with Marie. As far as he was concerned there would be no problem, and I made the necessary arrangements for my passage. The only condition was that I had to pay an indulgence passage fee of three shillings and sixpence per day.

  We were due to leave on 9th October 1931. In the meantime we made preparations, including packing trunks, and for this my staff discount at Harrods came in very useful. We also had to transfer funds to accounts in Hong Kong, in advance of our arrival. The day of our departure finally arrived, and we were due to sail from Southampton on a troop ship called the Neuralia. On the quayside the band played “Good-Byee,” as we waved goodbye to our families, and the ship then set off on a thirty-three day trip to Hong Kong. We left Southampton water behind, accompanied by RAF seaplanes that circled about us skimming the water and then circling overhead with a roar of engines.