Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels – and a genuine, tough, and inspiring old Medicine Man.

A previous Postcard ‘Reluctant Heros – Hate, compassion, and daring’, introduced Raphael Oimbari, a Papuan New Guinean who represents many thousands like himself who cared for, carried, and maintained Australian troops in the vicious fighting on the Kokoda Track, Papua New Guinea in WW2. Raphael was a ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel‘,(Wiki has an excellent in-depth report) although the Aussie Diggers just called him mate. Men like Raphael were the unsung heroes of this important military campaign. No commendations and little formal recognition found their way to Raphael’s jungle home. Another unsung hero worked alongside Raphael, Dr Geoffrey Hampden, we will meet him soon. This is their story, in a much-abbreviated form.

Nothing is ever as it seems. This statement has inspired my interest in time travel, IE: the study of history. The itching desire to find the truth, what really happened through time. Often our school education perpetuated myths and half-truths, even complete bull shit. Driven by the motives of government, religion or such. We learn things from our parents, siblings, and friends. Often, they speak through bias, or perhaps complete ignorance. Contemporary social media has made bull shit and fake news a constant attack on objective fact. Nothing new in this as Mark Twain, reminds us time travelling from the 1890’s:

“I was educated once – it took me years to get over it.”

Mark Twain 1890.

Heroes, Lies, and Half Truths enter my World.

Books and the printed word have a certain legitimacy. We often readily accept their contents, even though its more frequently biased than objectively true. Even Winston Churchill, Britain’s World War 2 Prime Minister and prolific writer knew this to be true:

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it myself.”

Winston Churchill.

Winston was a brilliant man, inspiring Leadership skills, remaining studied to this day. However, he was also deeply flawed, and not beyond spinning ripping yarns of self-promotion.

So it was with the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, I first learned of them at school in 1971. The ‘Queensland School Reader’ read like a travel blog promoting the former glory of the British Empire, Winston Churchill would have been proud. Hero’s and heroine’s exploits lived in vivid detail, and an expectation planted that we would aspire to be like them. Most of them were men involved in war, or other colonization pursuits.

Honour, courage, bravery and loyalty to Queen and Country. Worthy aspirational traits, well if you ignore Australian republican aspirations.

But it inspired me and prompted my lifetime interest in time travel.

Not so much lies as sparing on objective truth.

Such textbooks were anachronistic, something from a previous time, like Australia in 1890. 1970 Australia, involvement in yet another Asia war, this time in Vietnam. Australians, a growing number, believed war was not noble, or honorable, just savage and this time unjustified. Historical documents like the ‘Queensland School Reader’, provide a waypoint in time against which Australia’s progress as a multicultural society can be measured. The problem was that it only reported the good stuff, the history filtered through the ruling white establishment. So yes, the Papuans who assisted Australian troops in WW2 were brave, and loyal. But that’s not anywhere near the complete objective story.

The following summarizes objective facts omitted from the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel story:

• Often little more than slaves, driven by Aussie masters;
• Physically beaten and intimidated;
• Worked like beasts of burden;
• Poorly fed and paid, often not at all;
• And many simply melted away into the jungle;
• Many wanted nothing to do with this Australian war; though
• Many were armed and deadly soldiers, as brave as the Aussies.

To understand something of the Papuans, let’s review where they came from, and some brief history:

Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels and European Empire Building.

Papuans arrived some 60,000 years previously having walked from Africa. Their lives did not change all that much until the dreaded European empire builders turned up in the 1880’s. Noting that the Dutch had taken and controlled the west, Dutch New Guinea from 1660 till 1966. The British colony, not yet the independent Australia, grabbed the southern half of east New Guinea, Germany the northeast.  The Europeans had no interest in the welfare of Raphael, other than his cheap labor on cocoa and coffee plantations. Of course, European Christian missionaries followed, their interest being the saving of Raphael’s soul. No one bothered asking Raphael if his soul was in peril, but it certainly was now!

With the 1914 outbreak of World War 1, Britain decided the presence of a German colony in the Pacific was unacceptable. The newly formed independent Australian Navy steamed North to forcibly expel the German presence. After a violent but brief encounter, Australia found itself in charge of another large piece of someone else’s Country. It would remain so until 1975 when Papua finally achieved its independence.

There was off course several years, 1941 till 1943, when the Japanese Empire decided that their ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’, absolutely required invasion of Papua and a march down the Kokoda Track to secure Australia. Japan’s fine words actually meant: ‘Japan will prosper, whilst the rest of Asia simply COoperates‘.

And the positive impact on Papuans of all this frantic European activity? Diddly squat! Raphael and his village effectively gained nothing but hard work for minimum wages. In 2024 Papua remains one of the Planet’s poorest Nations. Raphael’s descendants remain largely in a subsistence existence.

Fuzzy Wuzzy’s and their Aussie Mates.

In retrospect the Papuans had little reason to be loyal to their Australian colonial masters, who often treated them as second-class citizens in their own country. Nonetheless many worked until they dropped. It is said that no living soldier was ever abandoned by the carriers, not even during heavy combat. Their compassion for the wounded and sick earned them the eternal gratitude of the Australian soldiers, who called them ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’.

One of my attractions to time travel, the study of history, is its ability to inform you of the more objective truth of any subject. Let’s have a quick captain cook at what Raphael actually thought of his Aussie Mates:

Go away, leave us alone!

After the war researchers were astonished to learn that Papuans were united in one opinion:

“We just want the ‘whites’, Japanese and Australians to go away, leave us alone.“

Raphael Oimbari

Australia did, but not until 1975.

Such an opinion, if broadly known would have been a shock to the wartime generation, who never gave much thought to what colonial rule meant for and did to indigenous populations. But,

This opinion should take nothing away from the commitment, bravery, sacrifice, and endurance that men like Raphael provided to and for wounded Aussie boys.

Benevolent masters versus Japanese Prosperity.

Australia treated men like Raphael as at best very low paid workers, if you can call rice and tobacco pay. But one opinion unified the Australian troops with their Papuan load bearers – Disdain of the Japanese! Quite simply the Papuans hated the Japanese – Who stole their food, raped their women, made them slave labourers, and killed indiscriminately. I guess by comparison Aussies were benevolent masters!

My school textbooks failed to mention that the Fuzzy Wuzzy were not just beasts of burden, they were also brave warriors. As much so as the Aussie troops, and they played a completely unrecorded role in stopping the Japanese advance.

The Papuan Infantry Battalion (PIB)

The Papuan Infantry Battalion was raised in 1940 by the Australian Army. Though all Officers and most NCO’s were Australian or New Zealanders, it should take nothing away from the bravery and courage of the Papuan troopers. Most significantly, few Australians even know of the Fuzzy Wuzzy Warriors. History was limited to portraying the loyal black servants of the dominant white Australians – History itself is more frequently biased than objectively true.

What little I knew of the PIB was of a poorly equipped force lead by a ‘Dad’s Army’ of old Australian Papuan resident plantation owners.

The objective truth is that such a Dad’s Army knew the rugged unmapped Papuan jungles as their back yard. As coast watches reporting, by air dropped radios, on the movement of Japanese forces, they contributed critical intelligence to the successful defeat of the Japanese. But then there were lethal Fuzzy Wuzzy Warriors.

Green Shadows and Fuzzy Warriors.

Soldiers of the Papuan Infantry Battalion (PIB) were the first to offer resistance to the Japanese invasion of their country. PIB Captain Harold Jesser said that the Battalion was called the ‘green shadows’ because of an entry found in a Japanese diary in Papua.

“The local natives moved silently in the jungle, inflicting casualties on us-and then are gone, like green shadows.“

Japanese War Dairy.

Sergeant John Ehava, won the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the highest bravery award given to a Papuan during World War two. At the end of the Papuan campaign an element of the Papuan Infantry Battalion under Ehava was ambushing Japanese who were escaping north along the coast towards Salamaua. Ehava’s award citation describes what followed.

“On February 8, 1943, at the Kumusi River mouth a patrol under Sergeant Ehava attacked an enemy party attempting to cross the river. During this engagement Sergeant Ehava saw another enemy party approaching on his left. He immediately detached himself from his patrol and, at great personal risk, took up a commanding position and armed with a Bren gun held his fire until the enemy was less than 40 yards distant. He repulsed the attack and personally killed 30 of the enemy.”

Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) Citation.

Men like Sergeant Ehava fought as bravely as any of the Aussie Diggers who have been written into my Country’s mythology. Sadly, and dishonestly their stories simply were not passed on. It seems the white fellas were more interested in their own place in history.

Another Reluctant Hero:

Men like Raphael had one white fella in their corner: Doctor Geoffrey Hampden “Doc” Vernon Military Cross (MC).

Geoffrey was an Australian doctor and surgeon, resident in Papua growing coffee and providing medical services to remote communities. World War 1 had smashed enough war and slaughter into Geoffrey’s life. From March 1915 to August 1918, he served as a Regimental Medical Officer with the Australian Light Horse at Gallipoli and in the Middle East, where he was awarded the Military Cross for devotion to duty under fire. When the Japanese knocked on the door, Geoffrey lied about his age, enlisted again, pulled on his boots – He was 61!

Geoffrey may have been deaf, in consequence of a near miss with a Turkish artillery shell at Gallipoli, but nothing wrong with his legs – He was one of the few Aussies who could keep pace with Raphael up the brutal Kokoda Track. He also had command of pidgin English, the language of the Papuans – his years of diligent care of the Papuans meant that they had enormous respect for this skinny old man.

Raphael and the Aussie Myth.

Men like Raphael were held in great respect by my Grandparent’s and Parent’s generations, somewhat less by my own, and tragically rarely known to my children’s.

The respect and reverence for men like Raphael is captured in the following verse, written by a soldier of the 39th, which I had to learn in school in the 1970’s:

Many a mother in Australia,
When the busy day is done,
Sends a prayer to the Almighty
For the keeping of her son,
Asking that an Angel guide him
And bring him safely back
Now we see those prayers are answered
On the Owen Stanley track,
For they haven’t any halos,
Only holes slashed in the ears,
And with faces worked by tattoos,
With scratch pins in their hair,
Bringing back the wounded,
Just as steady as a hearse,
Using leaves to keep the rain off
And as gentle as a nurse.

The problem with such myths, is they disguise the truth. They invent a white man’s view on what happened to Papuan’s who really had little if any choice in the matter.

Raphael Oimbari said in 1982:

“We worked hard despite all the danger. We were promised compensation and I ask now for what we were promised. Australian government said you work, you will be like us, but it hasn’t happened. Work for us, we all sit down at the same table, same spoon, same food hasn’t happened. Worked day and night so that things would change, I thought of nothing else. I worked hard for nothing. Australian men went home and got pensions. I’m just rubbish. Old men like me are dying without getting anything … nobody counted how many of us were killed.”

Raphael Oimbari.

And with that quote Raphael disappeared from history, or did he?

Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels – Often reluctant, yet nonetheless Unsung Heroes.

The truth of Raphael’s words came home to me in researching this article, easy to find precisely how may Aussie (625) and Japanese (10,000) boys died on the Kokoda Track, not even an estimate in regard Papuans!

Alongside the romanticized myth lies a contradictory and unpleasant truth of what life was really like for some Papuan carriers. They were not all volunteers, nor were they all treated kindly with the respect and friendliness that the myth suggests. It has remained in Australia’s public consciousness with varying significance, yet always concealing the negative aspects of this historical narrative. What is most important is to recognise that without the help of the Papuan carriers, reluctant help in many cases: Australia may have had a very different outcome on the Kokoda Track.

And what of Dr. Geoffrey Vernon MC?

Geoffrey followed the 39th Battalion up the Track. From the first contact with the Japanese, Dr. Vernon placed himself just behind the front line. He surprised an old Warrant Officer friend from WW1 when walking up the track and out of the mist he simply said in classic Aussie laconic understatement:

“Jack, I heard there was some action here and thought you may need some assistance. Where do I start?”

Dr. Geoffrey Vernon. MC.

Without Geoffrey’s immediate aid, many more boys would have been lost or indeed suffered more than they already had. Dr. Vernon similarly cared for the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels who gave unrelenting care at tremendous loss in evacuating Aussie Troops down that horrible, hated Kokoda Track. Geoffrey survived Kokoda, how he managed to evacuate wounded, and reestablish front line triage, with the constant moving warfare up and down the Track, well that is indeed the work of an unsung hero.

Dr. Vernon simply largely disappeared from Australian History; Geoffrey died in Papua of malaria in 1946.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Warriors – Lest we Forget.

In June 2008, and Australian senator called for Australia’s Parliament to give official recognition to Papua New Guineans’ courage and contributions to the war effort.

I was stunned to learn that Australia has not officially recognized these wonderful Papuan nationals who saved the lives of Australian servicemen. They carried stretchers, stores and sometimes wounded diggers directly on their shoulders over some of the toughest terrain in the world. Without them I think the Kokoda campaign would have been far more difficult than it was.

In 2009, the Australian government began awarding the ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Commemorative Medallion‘ to living Papua New Guineans who assisted the Australian war effort, usually bringing survivors and their families to Port Moresby for ceremonial presentations.

Lest we Forget, those Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels!