Fragments of an Epic

THE TOUGHEST FIGHTING IN THE WORLD--George H. Johnston--Duell, Sloan & Pearce ($3).

Australian Newshawk George H. Johnston went through New Guinea's green hell of fever-infested swamp and jungle and its red hell of dubious battle where men were shot, stabbed, bayoneted and blown apart without ever seeing the enemy concealed a few feet away. The Toughest Fighting in the World is Newsman Johnston's firsthand report from the inferno. Despite level stretches, the book contains some of the clearest reporting that has come out of the little-known New Guinea sector.

Johnston left Sydney for New Guinea in February 1942, a few days before Singapore surrendered. The Japanese had also seized the harbor of Rabaul in New Britain. Australia was terrified of invasion. The friends who said good-by to Johnston thought it was forever. When he reached Port Moresby, he did too.

Ordeal by Jungle. Johnston arrived in the "sheer unadulterated loneliness" of Port Moresby when one anti-aircraft battery and a handful of Catalinas and Hudsons were all the United Nations could oppose to ever-increasing Japanese air Strength. The first half of Author Johnston's book recounts some of the exploits in which the outnumbered U.S. and Australian pilots checked the Japanese in the air and made the land victories on the Owen Stanley Range possible.

They are tales of imperishable heroism--of teen-age youths who drove their planes into the heart of Japanese aerial formations and saw their colleagues streak toward the earth and death. When the survivors were able to land their bullet-and shrapnel-battered planes, they wanted only to get into the air again against the Japanese. Johnnie Jackson was typical. "So far," says Johnston, "we can tell only fragments of that epic. The story, for instance, of Johnnie Jackson, who took a single fighter across to Lae on a daring reconnaissance . . . saw his own brother shot down into the sea. . . was [himself] shot down in flames over Lae, and made his way through terrible jungles and swamps. . . . Still ill from his dreadful ordeal, [Johnnie] insisted on taking his fighter up against an overwhelming force of Zeros, and died as he had lived--with consummate bravery."

Ordeal by Land. When the Japanese landed on the northern side of New Guinea and began their drive across the Owen Stanley Range, the heroism of the pilots was matched by the men who in the "tangled wilderness of rank vegetation and evil swamps" fought "the most merciless and most primeval battles of the war." Correspondent Johnston neither minimizes nor magnifies the jungle prowess of the Japanese. They fought, he says, to the death, employed all the arts of camouflage, the best tactics of infiltration. Their snipers were sure-fire marksmen; their scouts went naked and silent through the jungle armed only with knives, frequently undetected until "the awful bubbling scream" of their victim gave the alarm.

"All I ask of you men when you go into action," General MacArthur told the U.S. and Australian troops, "is that each of you shall kill one Japanese. If you do you will win." They did. They fought in mud four feet deep, often in continuous, drenching rain (the survivors of one battalion had been in action for 40 days, on 36 of which it rained). And, as in the aerial battles, which preceded the jungle and mountain fighting, individual heroism sustained and inspired the collective resistance, won the final victory.

Correspondent Johnston has especially kind words for a German-born American and a native Papuan. The American, Herman Bottcher, led twelve volunteers into the Japanese positions, built fortifications on the beach. Constantly under fire, Bottcher provided a diversion that resulted in Allied victory. "By a conservative count . . . Bottcher and his twelve men . . . killed more than 120 Japs." The Papuan, Katue, conducted a one-man guerrilla war against the Japanese. In the jungles he killed innumerable Japanese and scared many New Guinea natives who had gone over to the Japanese back to the Allied side. After 73 days of individual exploits, Katue turned up with a Jap prisoner. Asked what he intended to do next, the Papuan replied: "Go out again quicktime. . . bring back stripes of Japanese general."

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