Edition 1230, March 04, 2010 - Department of Defence

26 HISTORY Army March 4, 2010
Fleet Network Pty Ltd D/L No. 20462
Memories:
Bede Tongs with
mementos of his
decorated war
service. He was
awarded the Military
Medal for heroics on
the Kokoda Track.
Photo by Rebecca Thistleton
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Still a
straight
shooter
Seventy years after being called up for World
War II, Bede Tongs tells Sgt Dave Morley and
Rebecca Thistleton about his military service.
WORLD War II veteran Bede
Tongs says the .303 was
the best piece of equipment
ever invented. “When
you hit them with that, they stayed hit.”
The Military Medal recipient is nearing
90, but his memories of his war service
are as sharp as the crack of a rifle.
Bede, who lives in Canberra, was
called up on February 24, 1940, and
posted to the 3rd Bn, Australian Military
Forces, where he became acquainted with
the .303 Lee Enfield.
“After survival training at Studleigh
Park near Camden we were sent to
Bathurst Camp. They made me a sergeant
the same day the Japs bombed Pearl
Harbour,” he says.
The battalion, along with other militia
units, was sent to Port Moresby where it
was initially used to unload stores from
ships between Japanese bombing raids.
After Japanese landings along New
Guinea’s north coast several militia units
were deployed up the Kokoda Track to stem
the Japanese advance until the arrival of AIF
troops just back from the Middle East.
“We knew how important the Kokoda
Track was going to be before we arrived
there.”
Bede was a platoon sergeant with B
Coy when the battalion was formed up
for an attack at Templeton’s Crossing on
October 17, 1942.
“I remember the date, it was my brother
Alf’s 21st birthday. He was with the
56th Bn and had been reported missing in
Malaya. He finished up a POW.
“Lt Richardson, the platoon commander,
was wounded as soon as we started
and the company commander told me to
get the attack moving. But there was a
Jap machine gun firing down a fire lane
and everyone just looked at me.”
So, with a grenade in his right hand,
and his .303 in his left, he crawled right
up to the machine gun pit. “They didn’t
see me, they were both looking the other
way.” He threw the grenade into the pit,
killing both.
He saw his men had fixed bayonets,
so he did too and led the attack. “We
fought the Japs for three days straight and
repulsed a counter-attack,” he says.
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With the arrival of the AIF 2/14th
and 2/16th Bns the Japanese were turned
back. Bede’s battalion participated in constant
and bitter fighting along the Kokoda
Track, culminating in the attack on Gona
in November 1942.
“At the beginning of 1943, we were
withdrawn to a camp at Wandecla, west of
the Atherton Tablelands, for retraining,”
he said. “Our battalion was disbanded and
we became part of the 2/3rd Bn AIF.”
Bede learned in April 1943 that he had
been nominated for the MM. “A runner
came and told me to report to battalion
HQ. When I got there the CO told me I’d
been awarded.”
It was not until more than four years
later that he received the medal from the
Governor-General, Sir William McKell.
“That was the norm then,” he said. “I even
got time off work to go and get it without
having my pay docked.”
After the war he went back to civilian
life as a carpenter.
Bede was born in the NSW town of
Narrandera on June 27, 1920. His father,
George, was a Gallipoli veteran who was
wounded at Quinn’s Post while serving
with the 13th Bn in May 1915. “But he
never bore any animosity to the Turks.”
Bede moved to Canberra in 1939
where he met his future wife Joan at a
dance. The war put their marriage plans
on hold and they were not able to get
married until November 16, 1944.
When the Citizen Military Force
(CMF) was re-formed in 1948, Bede
enlisted in the 3rd Bn CMF. He became
Support Company Commander and, as a
result of his expertise, he was sent to the
front lines of Korea for three weeks in
1953 as a CMF observer. He returned to
Australia to write reports on minefields,
booby traps and explosives.
A health problem as a result of scrub
typhus ended his military career and he
left the CMF in 1957.
Bede is very involved in the 3rd Bn
Association and is still called on to talk
to ARTC recruits when they visit the
Australian War Memorial in Canberra. He
described the ARTC recruits as “lovely
young dedicated people – fair dinkum
Australians”.
Dedication: Bede Tongs speaks to Kapooka
recruits at the Australian War Memorial.
Photo by Sgt Andrew Hetherington
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