right royal visit p2 7 bde's grand send - Department of Defence

30 FEATURES Army February 4, 2010
Survivor: Dudley Warhurst takes a look at the plaque, with his son Peter, after the commemorative
ceremony in the western courtyard at the Australian War Memorial. Photo by Sgt Andrew Hetherington
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Kokoda vet
remembers
By Sgt Andrew Hetherington
“IT WAS bloody awful. We lost 113
killed on the Kokoda Track and 132
wounded. It was too many.”
This was how Kokoda veteran Dudley
Warhurst, 90, recalled his service fighting
with the 2/14 Aust Inf Bn during World
War II. He was speaking at the unveiling of
a plaque for the unit at the Australian War
Memorial in Canberra late last year.
The 2/14 fought in many locations,
including Maaten Bagush, Mersa Matruh,
Syria, Lebanon, Gona, Kakoda and Borneo,
suffering significant casualties between
1940 and 1946 of 245 killed and 379
wounded.
Mr Warhurst was one of six surviving
members of the unit at the ceremony.
Before the war he was a carpenter. He
joined the Army on May 20, 1940, and
finished with the rank of sergeant on
September 16, 1945.
He fought at Mersa Matruh, Syria,
Kokoda, Gona and Balikpapan.
The ceremony brought back many memories
for him, particularly of mates who
didn’t make it home.
He vividly remembers the living conditions
he experienced during the time he
spent fighting in the jungle.
“We got a tin of bully beef and a packet
of biscuits a day. For breakfast it was cut
into three, so three of us could share one
tin,” Mr Warhurst said.
He remembers once when he and his
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section travelled to a place where rations
were meant to be located.
“The Americans were supposed to drop
it there from 10 DC-2 aircraft. They lined
up the aircraft fully loaded and the Japanese
cleaned up all of them,” he said.
He and his mates had to wait until the
next day for a feed when finally two aircraft
flew over at 200 feet and dropped the
food in a grass-covered dry lake.
“Twenty-five per cent of the food was
lost after the drops, mostly the biscuits,
hitting the ground at 100 mile-an-hour
wrapped up in blankets.”
Sgt Warhurst finished the war at
Balikpapan in Borneo, but he had the
choice to continue fighting.
“They said do you want to go home or
on to Japan?” he said.
His answer was predictable for someone
who had been fighting for more than
five years. “I said no thanks, I want to go
home.”
He also remembers the day when the
war ended. “It was a great relief, it was
throw your hat in the air if you had it on,”
he said.
“We were near an airstrip when we
heard about it and we were allowed to go
for a swim in the nuddy. But it was a hell
of a shock when the Australian nursing
service turned up, we had to put our clothes
back on.”
The plaque can be viewed in the grounds
of the Australian War Memorial.