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‘We have been in contact for seven weeks now, which is as long as any Bn has yetdone’.130 On 1 March the battalion received a signal from the brigade warning thatit would be withdrawn to a rest area on the coast. The signal was subsequentlycancelled, but not before the adjutant had advised the companies.131 Dexterbelieved ‘this signal was the final nail in the coffin for the Battalion … ApparentlyJohn Summerton, the Brigade Major, wrongly anticipated the Brigadier’s thinkingand sent the message without confirmation’.132Throughout the next fortnight the 61st continued having regular, but generallysmall scale, contacts with the Japanese. In an April report to Field the 61st’s RMOtraced a consistent decline in the battalion’s fighting spirit. On 12 March henoted signs of nervous strain in A Company and that ‘the men no longer showeddesire to get at grips with the enemy … The platoon commanders LTs Sloane andTomlinson, stated that men were refusing to go out on patrols’. In C Company asoldier refused to go on patrol on 8 March and at about the same time ‘LT Brinkleywhen ordered to take a patrol out … refused to do so, stating that his men wereincapable of carrying on as “their nerves had gone”’. D Company experiencedsimilar problems, with one lieutenant requiring a sedative on 18 March, along withfifteen other soldiers.133 The RMO’s observations are corroborated throughoutEwen’s diary for March. For example, on 9 March he noted that:130 Ewen’s diary 1, 23 February 1945, AWM PR89/190.131 ‘Adjutant’s Diary’, 1 March 1945, Appendix 12 to 61 Infantry Battalion War Diary,February–March 1945, AWM 52, Item 8/3/96; Dexter, ‘The Battalion – My Home’,p. 166, AWM PR01182, Item 4.132 A few days later, when Dexter spoke to Brigadier Field about the signal, the latterwas unaware it had been sent and told Dexter that ‘the situation did not warrantour withdrawal’. Dexter’s staff could not produce a copy of the message and he lateraccused the BM of covering up the mistake by hiding the original. However, boththe brigade operational report covering the period and the 25th Battalion war diarystate that such a signal was sent. Dexter, ‘The Battalion – My Home’, pp. 166–7, AWMPR01182, Item 4; ‘7 Aust Inf Bde Report on Operations 26 Oct 44 to 16 May 45’, p. 30,7 Infantry Brigade War Diary, August 1945, Appendices, AWM 52, Item 8/2/7; 25Infantry Battalion War Diary, 1 March 1945, March, May–June 1945, AWM 52, Item8/3/63. Summerton left the brigade shortly afterwards to attend a training course inAustralia.133 ‘Medical Report on 61 Aust Inf Bn, 10 April 1945’, pp. 1–2, AWM 3DRL6937, Item32, sub folder ‘W.R. Dexter’.A tale of three battalions — 27