Those South Pacific Cane Cutters

Last week SBS repeated a Doco on the White Australia policy. In it the Kanakas got a mention and that prompted me to write about one man I knew in Darwin.

My father was in Lybia in early April 1941 Retreating eastwards and demolishing bridges and fuel storages etc.

While my father was demolishing stuff and retreating to the east and ultimately to Tobruk. In the west at the very fiery edge of the looming disaster, the artillery, at the rear guard of the 2/13th Battalion were buying every one some time.

One of those brave souls, was to be a mate of mine some 20 years later.

His name was Frank Simmons and he was a beautiful man. Tall broad shouldered and strong, totally deaf in his right ear and able to overcome by sheer willpower, a stutter, that floated just under the surface in all his conversations.

We met when I was in Darwin NT, during the ‘Konfrontasi’, (the simmering war like period between Indonesia and Malaya before Suharto over threw Sukarno) we both worked for the NT Civil Defence. Frank was a Queenslander of Kanaka ancestry. He had a huge grey fuzzy head of hair, like a giant wire wool pot scrubber.

He had joined the AIF the same time as my Dad and Frank was fighting the rearguard action during the Benghazi handicap as a gun -layer on 25 pounders. The 25 pounder was a snappy field artillery piece which could very accurately place a 25 pound High Explosive (HE) shell, about the size of a Darwin stubby, nine miles down range. These guns played a huge part in the defence of Tobruk and most certainly in the mad retreat from Benghazi.

Frank told me that he lost his hearing at that time by firing over open sights at the advancing Nazi tanks at point blank range.

He explained to me: “The drill was, we would be dug in, hull down with the muzzle of the gun just above the ground level, still attached to our gun-tractor, a special truck carrying the ammo and towed the 25 pounder. We remained hidden and camouflaged, some times by burnt out truck that may still be smoking, we would hold our fire until the Nazi tanks were right there in front of us.

The thing about this gun was when you were firing a long distance, the barrel would be elevated and its recoil would be short, but over open sights and in a horizontal position the recoil would be long, bringing the muzzle right back almost to the bullet proof shield in front of the gun aimer, who was seated to the left of the barrel”.

“You could almost reach out with your right hand to the place where the mouth of the gun came back to. It was that close”, frank demonstrated by stretching over to his right front, from the stool he was sitting on, that humid day in Darwin.

“The noise was deafening”, Frank said. “One Tank was only about 200 yards away when I let loose, the turret was torn off and tumbled to the side of the road. The explosion, the flash, smoke from exploding ammo and dust immediately cloaked us.

What happened next, we up and shot through like a blooming ‘Bondi Tram’ in a cloud of dust, racing away before the Germans could get a bead on us through the smoke.

Some mad miles further on we waved to the men in the next ambush while we moved to our newly position prepared by our engineers and we hid ourselves again, waiting in silence with the only sound, the blood pulsing in our temples, waiting for the enemy to come searching for us up that bloody road.”

Seven days later the division was safely entrenched in Tobruk on the 11 of April 1941. They were ordered to hold the town until relieved by a force from Egypt.

Frank went on to survive the Tobruk siege with his hearing gone forever. As far as I am concerned he was a hero, loved by his mates and a respected Rat of Tobruk. Of course, when frank got back to Australia his mates knew he was one of that special band, but to the rest of the population he was just another black bastard.

Many Aboriginal men who served Australia in the same way as frank, suffered the same bitter experience. That racism persists, as the result of the indifference, stupidity and ignorance that is a faint, dull, throb in the back of the nations mind, is indeed a national disgrace.

We know we shouldn’t be this way but it is always the other bloke who is a prick, while I am tolerant and welcoming and compassionate to people around me who are different.

Bullshit!!