Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea Press, 2012. xxvi, 246 pp. (B&W and coloured photos.) US$79.99, cloth. ISBN 978-9980-86-957-9.
This is a pretty nice book from the University of Papua New Guinea Press on the life and war of Ben Moide. The book covers the Kokoda Campaign from a first contact with General Horii’s forces at Awala (now on the Kokoda Highway), through the fighting retreat back along the Kokoda Track, then forward again on the mopping up operations towards the end of 1942, to the landing on Scarlet Beach near Finschhafen. This is book-ended with Mr Moide’s recruitment into 1 PIB (‘Papuan Infantry Battalion’) at the age of sixteen in 1940 and something of his early family life and personal life after the war.
It somewhat grates that the book is called “Nameless Warriors.” The author writes:
Over the years, people have also asked Ben Moide: why now? … Frustration at the lack of the taubada’s appreciation for assistance rendered; distrust at the motives of European writers; doubts … on the subject of WWII carriers and soldiers… . (5)
But Mr. Moide is a well-known figure around Papua New Guinea and, far from being nameless himself, was one of 35 PIB riflemen and Bren gunners who fired the first shots at Awala on 23 July 1942, commemorated in the annual Remembrance Day Holiday that all citizens enjoy. In what way do Ben Moide and his peers lack recognition and what evidence is there that historians have doubted them?
Two unit histories chart the course of the war from the perspective of the PIB / NGIB / PIR: Green Shadows by G. Byrnes (1989) and To find a path: the life and times of the Royal Pacific Islands Regiment by J. Sinclair (1990). Both are highly respectful of the Papuan and New Guinean enlisted men and give a good insight into the context of the times. They both detail the exploits of the unit war heroes—whose kill rate, if official sources are to be believed, was astonishing—recounting many of the same actions that Ako does, complete with the medal citations, a full list of all who served and the Roll of Honour (those who died). The latter has a physical presence at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, in brass, just as there is for all other units from conflicts that Australia has taken part in since the nineteenth century. The list of those who served has been publicly searchable on the AWM’s website for many years, and Ben Moide is in it under his service number, PN67. It must be said that the AWM’s oral history programs are weak on the experiences of Papua New Guineans, but the cold arithmetic on the original numbers of enlisted men, and numbers of survivors today, from Australia, Japan and PNG, means that only a few PIB men like Ben Moide have survived into the 2000s to add their reminiscences. Which is why the book under review is an extremely welcome addition.
Sinclair’s book gives us clues about the treatment afforded to “native” soldiers during the war. While the Australians they went into combat with held them in high regard, niggling incidents at the hands of those who didn’t reminded them of their official station while in the Australian forces. As well as low pay, an order later in the war was that men must wear their badges of rank on their laplaps instead of on their shirt sleeves like everyone else. This did not go down too well with battle-hardened men credited with killing dozens of their enemy. This theme of facing the same hardships as white soldiers in war, but being pushed back to the ghetto or village after it, is a familiar one worldwide and most recently explored in the highly acclaimed 2006 French-Algerian film Indigènes.
Ben Moide is credited and is briefly seen in the 1982 documentary film Angels of War (not mentioned by the author of this book). Again, a theme of the film was that the PNG veterans of World War II had been neglected in the postwar period and had received few of the benefits that white Australian veterans enjoyed. In that film, the son of one of the veterans, intoxicated at the Port Moresby RSL Club on Anzac Day, says aggressively “We know nothing about this World War. We only supported the Australians … We get nothing from Australians.”
However, 1982 is as distant from us today as it was from the end of ANGAU rule in PNG at the end of the war. The greatest gift to Papua New Guineans was in fact for Australia to walk away, an event that seems ever more remarkable in regional terms as time goes by. Subsequently, Australia has provided in the region of A$10 billion in aid. While aid is always controversial, for the first fifteen years after independence, 90 percent was in the form of untied support straight into the national budget—right through the period when the veteran’s son said “we get nothing from Australians.”
Historians are still writing that the Allies, led by America, were the winners of the two World Wars. The benefit of hindsight shows that this is a simplification. In reality, the World Wars were about who should rule other countries and the outcome was that no-one should. Ben Moide was one of the ruled who fought to be there when this was decided.
John Burton
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
pp. 398-399