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Dennis Burns

@DWB55

Feb 22

🧵
All seven Hutchins brothers volunteered to serve during WW2.
Only three survived.

Alan, of 2/22nd Battalion died as a POW at Rabaul, New Guinea.
Eric, Fred, David, plus cousin Tom Hutchins, all of 2/21st Australian Battalion, died as prisoners of the Japanese on Ambon Island.

Tom Hutchins 2/21 Battalion, of Rainbow, Vic.
One of six brothers who served in WW2.
A POW at Ambon since Feb 1942, he died of malnutrition & disease aged 32 on 4 September 1945, still a prisoner of the Japanese.
Four of his brothers served O/S and one in Australia.
All survived.

Sapper Fred Wallace, of Daylesford, Vic.
A cousin of the Hutchins men who served in WW2.
He was in the Royal Australian Engineers recovery team which visited Ambon in October 1945 to expose mass graves of Australians and identify remains, including those of his four cousins.

END

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Dennis Burns

@DWB55

Feb 15

🧵
17 Dec. 1941:
The Australian 2/21st Infantry Battalion made up the bulk of "Gull Force".
It was sent, in an act of military absurdity, to assist a Dutch contingent “protecting” the tiny (680sq. km) strategic Ambon Island, with its harbour and airstrip, from Japanese invasion.

The Gull Force commander Lt Col Roach MC considered the mission hopeless.
His well-trained but poorly armed and poorly supported men were being sacrificed.
Many of their weapons were WW1 vintage.
He complained to High Command.
He was quickly relieved of his command, and replaced.

January 30 1942:
Maj. Gen. Takeo Itō’s “Itō Detachment” (228th Infantry Regt plus 1st Kure Special Naval Landing Force) landed at points around Ambon.
The local Royal Netherlands East Indies Army’s 2,400 men and Gull Force’s 1,131 Australians were overwhelmed in just three days.

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Dennis Burns

@DWB55

Oct 19, 2021

🧵

Ambush at AMBASI
From mid-January 1943 the bedraggled few thousand survivors of Major Gen. Kensaku Oda's forces on the Papuan coast around Gona-Buna were desperately trying to escape .
Their beachhead was being reduced day by day.
They fled in groups by night, silently.

1/21

2/
For about three weeks, 3,400 Japanese stealthily fled the battle zone in small groups, many on barges, and some by foot.
They quietly evaded the Australian and American besiegers, then headed north along the swampy Papuan coast towards their base at Salamaua, then on to Lae.

3/
Most of the escaping Japanese travelled on barges. Due to overwhelming Allied air superiority at this time, these were carefully hidden along jungle-covered creeks and riverbanks in daylight hours.
The Japanese barges were all manned and controlled by the Army, not the Navy.

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Dennis Burns

@DWB55

Aug 25, 2021

THREAD
1/30

At the outbreak of war in Europe, Tonga (then pop. 33,000) had been a British protectorate since 1900, administered by New Zealand.
In Sept 1939 tiny Tonga declared war on Germany’s 79 million.
On 8 December 1941 Tonga also declared war against Japan’s 73 million.

2/
Queen Sālote called for volunteers to join the Tonga Defence Force (TDF).
Almost every adult male in the kingdom stepped forward. By 1942 the TDF had 2,000 men.
9th May 1942: To help withstand the Japanese southward juggernaut, 7,650 men of US Task Force 0051 arrived at Tonga.

To the west, the crucial Battle of the Coral Sea was in progress. Its result thwarted a Japanese thrust to Port Moresby, Papua.
The TDF, organized & commanded by New Zealand officers, carefully chose 28 men to join the First Fiji Guerrillas at their training area at Navua, Fiji.

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Dennis Burns

@DWB55

Aug 10, 2021

The Fijians on Bougainville
Thread
1/17
The First Commando #Fiji Guerrillas had so impressed the American South Pacific Command while fighting in 1942-43 in the Central Solomons that Fijian Commandos and a Fijian Battalion were requested to join them on Bougainville in late 1943.

Dec 1943: When XIV Corps took over the Torokina base from the 3rd US Marines, Maj-Gen Oscar Griswold was concerned about the inability of his raw units to gather intelligence in the harsh tropical conditions.
He’d seen the “Pacific Scouts” in action in the early Solomons actions.

3/
Due to the Fijians’ clearly superior jungle skills, they were given scouting and harassment roles behind enemy lines in the dense wooded hills.
Aerial surveillance was inadequate so the Fijians sought out enemy locations on long patrols, frequently skirmishing with the enemy.

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Dennis Burns

@DWB55

Jul 20, 2021

Thread
1/15

In the SWW 8,000 Fijians fought mainly as scouts and light infantrymen against Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands campaign, 1943-1945.
Their knowledge of tropic environments and a skill for ambushing made them feared by the enemy and much respected by the Allies.

2/15
First Fijians to see action were 30 Commandos sent to Guadalcanal for guerrilla operations in support of the American forces there.
They also saw action on the nearby island of New Georgia in 1943, tasked to locate and destroy a party of IJA's 13th Regt defending the island.

3/15
On New Georgia at Munda Point the Fijians suffered their first death in action when Lieutenant B. Masefield was killed when a his patrol was caught in a Japanese artillery barrage.

The First Fiji Commandos also served on Florida Is. (aka Nggela Island) and Vella Lavella Is.

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