Caroline Hutchinson

92.7 Mix Fm Sunshine Coast

Kokoda soldier a hero to the end?

Sunshine Coast Daily
29th January 2010

IS it just me or does everyone love a murder mystery? In August I walked the Kokoda Track with Sunshine Coast tour company Kokoda Spirit.

Wayne Wetherall is the company GM. He was also my trek leader and is passionate about the track and the heroes who died there.

One of the great mysteries of the track is what happened to famous Australian Captain Sam Templeton.

Born in Belfast at the turn of the century, Sam Templeton served in the Royal Navy in WWI before immigrating to Australia in 1920, and soon after joined the 5th Battalion of the Citizens Military Force as a private.

He quickly advanced to corporal then became a sergeant. He met his sweetheart Doris and together they had four children.

At the outbreak of WWII Sam tried to enlist in the AIF but was turned away because of his age.

Sam’s family say he felt very strongly about the war and was busting to get into it, eventually joining the 2nd/7th training Battalion AMF (Militia), then enlisting in the 39th Battalion. There he received his commission as an officer.

Sam travelled to Port Moresby on Christmas Day, 1941. He was 42 years old. The 39th Battalion was very fortunate to have Sam. He was a strong, capable soldier and his experience would prove invaluable.

Uncle Sam (as he was known by his heartbreakingly young soldiers) stood 5 ft 10 inches (1.75m), was powerfully built and into everything.

His charges called him straight as a gun barrel. If it was wrong, Uncle Sam would put it right.

Wayne Wetherall is a devoted student of the events of 1942 in PNG.

He says Templeton was one of the few company commanders who understood the track, instilling strong military disciplines to keep his men fit, happy and free of disease.

Wayne says that had Captain Templeton and the boys of B Company not been as successful as they were in the initial battles on the track, the course of history could have been very different.

There is a crossing on the track named in honour of Sam Templeton, but the man himself has been missing-in-action for 68 years, lost on July 26, 1942 in the Battle of Olivi.

This week, with the help of a former Japanese soldier Kokichi Nishimura, it seems Wayne Wetherall may have solved the mystery.

Nishimura is better known as the bone man of Kokoda. For 25 years following the war he scoured the Kokoda track for the bones of his fallen comrades, determined to return each and every one to Japan for a proper burial.

Last year Wayne flew to Japan to meet Nishimura. They got into a conversation about Sam Templeton and the bone man claimed he personally buried Captain Templeton after the Australian was killed for taunting a Japanese officer.

Nishimura claims it appeared that in the heat of battle, Captain Templeton withdrew to the rear of the battle field to warn oncoming Australian troops about the Japanese, got lost, and fell into enemy hands.

After being dragged to an officers’ camp for interrogation, Templeton laughed at the Japanese officers claiming, “Don’t you know there’re 80,000 Australian troops waiting for you in Port Moresby? How many of you will see out the day?”

Nishimura says when the Japanese commander was unable to silence Templeton, he became so enraged he stabbed his prisoner in the stomach with a bayonet, wounding him fatally.

Sixty-eight years on Mr Nishimura assured Wayne he still remembered the exact spot the Captain was buried, and last week they returned together to dig for clues.

Unbelievably, after 68 years of rumour and conjecture, it is possible it can be confirmed that Sam Templeton was a hero to the end.

Wayne Wetherall can’t reveal if they found any human remains but says he hopes the personal effects uncovered, including a watch and a compass, will prove significant

Pilgrimage honours our brave Diggers

Sunshine Coast Daily
28 August 2010

Is it just me or has everyone just "come off the track"?

That's right, "just off the track" is how we Kokoda trekkers say it. We're very cool.

Papua New Guinea is truly spectacular. Words can't describe the lush, cool jungle, the sweeping green valley, the pristine villages and the fireflies that light up the night-time bush like Barleycorn at Christmas.

It's 3am, Wednesday, and I'm lying in my tent at Hoi – officially the bottom of the track – waiting for a 5am wake-up call to start the short walk into Kokoda township.

I could just lie here and watch the starry night through the fly of my tent, but I'm frightened the memories will slip away as fast as the past eight days.

Like meeting the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel who claimed to be 103 but %was probably closer to 90, who shuffled out of his hut while proudly sporting his Australian war medals and sang us a quiet song about the bombs that shook his homeland in 1942.

Or the kids with massive grins at Menari School who sang about Jesus then crowded around our cameras, pointing and giggling at themselves on film.

I don't want to forget the site where Stan Bisset – a war hero still living on the Sunshine Coast – held his dying brother, Butch, in his arms while the fighting raged on around them.

Or the hut occupied by Nishimura, the Japanese Bone Man, who left his wife and family for 20 years after the war, determined to collect the bones of every fallen comrade.

Most of all I don't want to forget 21-year-old Havuka, my beautiful Kokoda Spirit porter, who shyly held my hand across 50 odd rivers and never let go of the back of my pack as we clamoured together up 6000 metres of clay wall and tree root and then down 6000 more of the muddy tracks and slippery rocks that make up the Owen Stanley Range.

Crossing the track is bloody hard but completely achievable – you've just got to train for it.

There are three days I can only describe as like walking up and down Mt Coolum for 10 hours with the odd break to eat lunch or catch your breath.

In our group there were people from their 20s to 60s and we all made it.

There were plenty of tears and the occasional chuck chunder as well as a thousand laughs – like the time we were menaced by cranky cows or when 25-year-old Jacinda's porter, Gibson, sick of 20 questions from his relentlessly curious charge, jumped in the river for five minutes of peace.

The Kokoda Track is untouched.

The closest thing to an amenity is a hole in the ground covered by two planks of wood, separated just enough to fit your business through.

Truly, truly disgusting.

There is no electricity or even a generator at any village on the track, and not a single shop or supply store.

Because the jungle grows so fast, the trek leader – ours a very handsome young man called Scarfy – carries a machete and a shovel to clear a path for those in his wake.

I know I'm nearly out of space but I can't finish without mentioning the singing.

The porters and people of the Kokoda Track are largely Seventh Day Adventist, with resonant voices of an angel choir.

Our porters sang as we walked, ate lunch and honoured our fallen soldiers, and some nights they even sang us to sleep.

I feel so lucky to have walked the Kokoda Track.

It wasn't a holiday and it wasn't just a physical challenge.

Wayne from Kokoda Spirit ensures a meaningful pilgrimage to honour the brave young Diggers of 1942, and the people of PNG might just change the way you see the world forever.

That's what they did for me, anyway.

Kokoda still elicits valour in adversity

Sunshine Coast Daily
7 August 2009

Is it just me or does everyone suspect they've never really been tested?

In just over a week I am going to attempt to walk the Kokoda Trail. Since the day I booked with Kokoda Spirit I have been training, whining, sweating and (every once in a while) tearing up, forcing everyone around me to endure as much of the preparation as possible.

Yesterday I trained with a bloke planning to do the track later in the year. Kurt Fearnley is 28 years old and a champion athlete.

His challenge makes my effort seem embarrassingly feeble.

Kurt was born without the lower section of his spine, a condition known as agenesis which severely restricts the development of a sufferer's legs. Kurt can move and feel his legs they just aren't strong enough to carry him.

Subsequently, Kurt is planning to crawl across 96 kilometres of dense rainforest, rocky cliffs and treacherous river crossings.

There's no doubt he is up to the challenge. Kurt is the world's leading wheelchair marathoner, aiming for a fourth consecutive gold medal at the 2012 Paralympics in London.

I had read a lot about Kurt before I met him and I think I assumed crawling up mountains would probably be reasonably achievable if you knew what you were doing, especially for an athlete as accomplished as Kurt. I could not have been more wrong.

I'm no physics expert but it seems to me the energy expended for ground covered is completely out of whack when you're on your hands.

Kurt was sweating like a demon at the top of Mt Coolum, still smiling and cracking (very poor) jokes but make no mistake, most mere mortals could not do it.

Kurt was raised in central west New South Wales in a tiny town called Carcoar. The youngest of five kids, he spent his childhood crawling or being dragged across paddocks creeks and bush tracks by brothers and cousins.

Very early he learned to flip himself over barbed wire fences (or risk being yanked through by an impatient older sibling) and he won his first school athletics medal in the high jump –seriously.

For Kurt Fearnley family is everything. In November he's crawling Kokoda with 16 brothers, cousins and friends to raise awareness for Movember and cash for beyondblue. The trip was planned after the death of a cousin last year.

Kurt says like most blokes, the men in his family find it difficult to reach out, something he'd like to change.

"One of the reasons I'm going is to put across the message that blokes can ask for help," Kurt said.

"There's nothing wrong with turning to the fella next to you and just asking for a hand. I know there'll be parts of Kokoda when I'm going to have to ask for help.''

As well, Kurt said his trip was about the diggers and he's very quick to point out he won't be the first man to crawl Kokoda.

Very close to Kurt's heart is the remarkable story of Corporal John Metson who served with the 2/14th at Kokoda.

In August, 1942 Corporal Metson's ankle was smashed by a Japanese bullet.

On makeshift stretchers it took 8 men to carry each of the wounded and, reluctant to be a burden, Metson refused to lie down, insisting instead that he would crawl, asking only that his mates help wrap his hands and knees in torn blanket to protect them.

Corporal Metson crawled and fought like that for three whole weeks, before finally falling to a Japanese ambush.

I'm travelling with Kokoda Spirit on August 17 and like everyone before me I'm nervous about what lies ahead.

Unlike the diggers I'm probably not going to be shot at and I definitely won't be doing it on my hands.

Meeting Kurt Fearnley was a great privilege and I suspect a not so subtle message from the universe to shut up and keep walking.

Chocolate soldiers had hard centres

Sunshine Coast Daily
8 May 2009

Is it just me or does everyone value courage under fire above all else?

I don't romanticise war but am unashamedly drawn to tales of our Diggers.

About 15 years ago, one freezing Canberra morning, I stood shivering in the dark at the ANZAC dawn service outside the Australian War Memorial.

As day broke to the sound of the Last Post and the crowd began to disperse, I found myself beside a quiet but friendly man who was keen to know what had brought me there.

Because he was wearing medals, I asked how he planned to spend his day, but he told me there were no plans – he was just going home.

I couldn't believe it. No two-up? No "once-a-year day" with army mates at the RSL? He smiled and shook his head.

"I don't have any army mates," he said. "My unit went in to the Kokoda Track. Only seven of us came out."

Alongside Gallipoli, the Kokoda Track is arguably Australia's most significant military engagement, yet we don't know much about it.

While Gallipoli probably shaped our national psyche, the Diggers at Kokoda were actually fighting for Australia. If the Japanese took Port Moresby, their next stop was almost certainly north Queensland.

As with all good Digger stories, Kokoda is about victory against incredible odds, with very little help from the brass.

In short, in mid-July 1942, American general Douglas MacArthur ordered a force of Australian infantry and American engineers to move across the Kokoda Track to construct an airfield and hold off any advancing Japanese.

Because soldier numbers were already stretched to the limit, the Australian men MacArthur sent to PNG were known as "chocos", or chocolate soldiers – young and inexperienced, considered capable of wearing the uniform but not much more.

They were troops with an average age of 18 who had little training and few supplies or much ammunition. In their baptism of fire, our boys met a hardened Japanese force that outnumbered them 10 to one.

From his GHQ in Brisbane, MacArthur just didn't get it and as battle wounds and disease took their toll, he openly criticised the continued retreats as evidence the Australians were inefficient jungle fighters. When asked for more planes, he refused.

Anyway, while history records the Allies were eventually victorious in the mud and blood of Kokoda, it was at a terrible cost.

Next Tuesday on Mix FM, thanks to Wayne and Michelle Wetherall of Kokoda Spirit, we will auction a chance to walk in the footsteps of those young men. For the benefit of Mix FM's Give Me Five for Kids, a nine-day Kokoda trek departing on Monday, August 17, 2009, will be sold on air, all inclusive, with absolutely every cent going directly to the children's ward at Nambour General Hospital.

For better or for worse, I'll be joining the buyer.

Trekking Kokoda will fulfil a long-held dream for me. I'll probably cry at the site of every battlefield and quite possibly in between, considering this piece from The Spirit of Kokoda by Patrick Lindsay,

100 things to do before you die....

14 August 2007
IsItJustMe.com.au

Is it just me or does everyone wonder what they’re going to do next?

My name is Caroline and I am 39. That’s right, 39 years old. If you’re older than me, you probably get it. 40 kind of sneaks up on you. Deep down, you know, I don’t think I ever really believed I’d be 40…and I know I’m not just yet, but it’s only a hop skip and a jump!

If you’re younger than me, don’t get too cocky tiger…it happens to the best of us….

Anyway, what have you done lately?

There’s a show on channel nine at the moment, it’s called things to try before you die and as 40 looms large, I thought I should get my own list together.

I can cross off the Sydney city to surf, did that on Sunday. Loved it…

I’ve jumped out of a plane a couple of times (not that keen)…been on a reality tv show…(loved it)…

I did the Mudjimba to Mooloolaba Charity swim…had three babies…backpacked around Europe, wrote a book! They’re all good, I know but I have to grow the list.

So here it is…I’ve actually done some of these – I googled the list, but I thought it was pretty good….

Swim with a dolphin.
Skydive
Spend the whole day naked
Watch the launch of the Space Shuttle
Walk the Great Wall of China
Listen to the Dalai Lama Speak
Ride a camel into the desert.
Get to know your neighbours.
Learn to ballroom dance properly.
Fall in love - unconditionally.
Write a novel.
Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
Stay out all night dancing and go to work the next day without having gone home
Learn to play a musical instrument
Work a night in a soup kitchen
Walk the Kokoda Track
See a lunar eclipse
Ask someone you've only just met to go on a date.
Sleep under the stars.
Touch a Tiger
Drove slowly around Australia
Be the boss.
Learn to juggle with three balls.
Wear the best costume at a party.
Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring.
Buy your own house and then spend time making it into exactly what you want.
Grow your own vegetables
Spend a whole day eating junk food without feeling guilty.
Give a speech in public
Scuba dive off the Great Barrier Reef.
Go up in a hot-air balloon.
Give to a charity -- anonymously.
Make love on the kitchen floor.
Go deep sea fishing and eat your catch.
Create your own web site.
Make yourself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
Create your Family Tree.
Learn to Ski.
Walk to the crater of a volcano
Run a marathon
Have a baby…and watch him grow up.
Reflect on your greatest weakness, and realize how it is your greatest strength.
Make a hole in one
Pull a beer
Get drunk and kiss a stranger.
Visit the Holy land
Have your portrait painted
Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details
Be an extra in a film
Attend at least one major event, The Olympics, The World Cup
Learn another language
Learn not to say yes when you really mean no
Send a message in a bottle
Be on a TV show
Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away
Plant a tree
Witness the birth of a baby
Shower in a waterfall
Live in a share house
Sit on a jury
Shave your head
Make love on a forest floor
Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
Ride a motor bike through Mexico
Write down your goals and then do something about them
Experience weightlessness
Make friends with a famous person
Own a Porsche
Write your will
Attend the Anzac memorial at Anzac cove
Visit new York
Learn to camp
Fly First Class
Go Whale watching
Draw on a wall
Set off a fire extinguisher
Win an Award
Win a trip
Queue for something for at least 24 hours
Fly a kite
Make a complete and utter fool of yourself
Wake up on a beach
Learn to surf
Be interviewed on TV
Stage Dive
Release an Album
Go to confession
Make someone cry of happiness
Participate in a protest
Ride in a military jeep
Be debt free
Sponsor a child
Have a coffee on the sidewalk in Paris
Be a guest in a VIP tent - ANYWHERE
Visit ground Zero
Visit Area 51
Buy your Mum flowers and tell her you love her
Visit Machu Picchu
Live in another country for a while