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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2014

Karl James
Affiliation:
Australian War Memorial
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Summary

On 19 April 1945, 29-year-old Sergeant John Ewen looked at the map on the wall of his weapon pit. His unit, the 61st Battalion, had been in action in southern Bougainville for more than three months. In his journal he confessed to shuddering every time he looked at those dashes on the maps that indicated tracks. They looked so ‘cold and matter-of-fact’, but they meant more than just lines or features.

There are two inches of track which I mapped under fire the whole way and which cost 3 of our boys wounded…To us it means blood and sweat and days of intense nervous tension…Perhaps when years later school-kiddies pick up maps of these islands and find names of roads and hills and rivers such as Blanche's Junction, Holland's Stream and Slater's Knoll [they] may wonder how they were named. How are they to know that somewhere along the road lays the body of the man it's called after. Or that that little blue stream running along over the map once held hidden Jap foxholes in its banks, and out of which a stream of bullets cut the thin line of life of the soldier – who was the first to attempt to cross it.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Hard Slog
Australians in the Bougainville Campaign, 1944–45
, pp. 1 - 8
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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  • Introduction
  • Karl James, Australian War Memorial
  • Book: The Hard Slog
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139196307.001
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  • Introduction
  • Karl James, Australian War Memorial
  • Book: The Hard Slog
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139196307.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Karl James, Australian War Memorial
  • Book: The Hard Slog
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139196307.001
Available formats
×