Keith Norrish OAM ... hero of Brigade Hill

Keith Norrish OAM

Keith Norrish OAM

We lost another remarkable Kokoda veteran yesterday when Keith Norrish OAM passed away in Perth aged 95.

 

Lt Keith Norrish, a Western Australian who served bravely with the renowned 2/16th Battalion, was wounded in the legendary attack at Brigade Hill.

 

He had previously fought with the 2/16th in the Middle East and was wounded fighting against the Vichy French in Syria. He recuperated in Australia before rejoining his unit for the Kokoda campaign.

 

At Brigade Hill, Keith was caught by a burst of Japanese machine-gun fire. He owed his life to a steel mirror his friend had given him shortly before the attack and to a wad of 17 letters he had received from his future wife Peg and his family that morning.

 

Keith stuffed the mirror and the wad of letters into his left breast pocket before the charge. When he ran into the machine gun burst, the mirror deflected four bullets down into his stomach muscles, another punctured his lung and damaged his pericardium and a six deflected into his bicep muscle.

 

That was the start of a remarkable six-day journey of survival as, after being patched up with field dressings, he was forced to walk back down the Track to safety, aided only by a young Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel.

 

Keith couldn’t lie down during the walk because his lungs were filling with fluid so he slept propped up against a tree or draped over a bush walking staff fashioned by his young Papuan ‘guardian angel’.

 

He eventually made it back to a Casualty Clearing Station where doctors operated and sent him on an arduous journey back to Australia.

 

Amazingly, Keith recuperated once again and transferred to the 2/22nd Battalion and saw further service in the Aitape-Wewak campaign in New Guinea.

 

Keith was Co-Patron of his beloved 2/16th Battalion and a revered figure in Perth at the Anzac Day march.

 

Lest We Forget.

Info
2 Comments
Written by patrick lindsay On

HE NEVER LOST A FORWARD SCOUT

The old veteran's tears fall freely.
He has come to farewell his old comrade, a man who saved his life more than 70 years ago in the jungles of Kokoda.
They are manly tears and Owen Baskett sheds them unashamedly as he raises his arm to salute the passing casket of his old commanding officer, Capt Bede Tongs.
In November 1942, Owen Baskett was a 21-year-old Digger serving in the 3rd Battalion's 10 Platoon. Bede Tongs was a 22-year-old sergeant who had just taken command after his platoon leader was struck down by a Japanese sniper at Templeton's Crossing.
"I've idolised Bede ever since," says Owen. "He took such care of his men and never asked them to do anything he wouldn't do himself.
"Bede never lost a forward scout. That's a remarkable achievement in a campaign where their life expectancy was measured in days, not weeks."
Bede Tongs was such an outstanding leader that he was later commissioned an officer in the field and was awarded a Military Medal for his bravery at Templeton's Crossing.
There, typically, he refused to put his men's lives at unnecessary risk. Instead, under heavy fire, he crawled up to a machine gun which was holding up his platoon's advance and silenced it with a hand grenade.
Bede led his men through the rest of the campaign with similar care and compassion until he was eventually medically evacuated suffering from malaria, scrub typhus and dengue fever.
Both men returned to civilian life, married, raised families, played prominent roles in their communities and led rich lives into their nineties. They kept in touch and recalled those perilous days over quiet beers. In 2012, 70 years after the battles, they returned to Kokoda together and farewelled their long-departed comrades.
Now Bede finally joins his mates and Owen bids him Godspeed with a soldier's farewell.

 

Info
Comment
Written by patrick lindsay On

Captain Bede Tongs OAM MM, Kokoda hero & Kokoda Track Foundation Ambassador

Captain Bede Tongs OAM MM, who passed away peacefully yesterday morning aged 94, was one of the heroes of the WWII Kokoda Campaign in PNG in 1942.

In recent years, as an Ambassador for the Kokoda Track Foundation (KTF), Bede worked ceaselessly to keep the Kokoda story alive and to improve the lives and futures of the descendants of his beloved Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, his comrades during the Kokoda campaign.

Bede spoke at schools, RSLs, clubs and functions around Australia – always accompanied by his beloved and devoted son Garry – and visited PNG many times, always taking a keen interest in the work of the KTF and delighting in meeting Papuan New Guineans of all ages.

 In 2013 at the age of 93, Bede brilliantly delivered the 2013 Ralph Honner Leadership Oration in front of a 350-strong capacity dinner in Sydney.

Bede was a wise and compassionate man with a remarkably active and nimble mind right to his final days. I have never met a Digger to match Bede’s extraordinary detailed recall, not only of his time on the Kokoda Track - where he remembered actions down to the minute - but also right through his final years when he retained an amazing capacity to remember people’s names and their personal stories.

Born Bede George Donald Tongs at Narrandera NSW on 27 June 1920, he worked as a burr cutter and rouseabout before completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter in Canberra. He joined the 3rd Militia Battalion in February 1940, the unit that spent the longest time serving on the Kokoda Track.

A 22-year-old Sergeant during the Australian advance at Eora Creek-Templeton’s Crossing, Bede took control of his platoon after its officer Lt-Col Richardson was hit in the chest and was evacuated.

Bede positioned his men for an attack based on ‘fire and movement’ and ordered them to fix bayonets. Rather than expose his men to a frontal attack on the Japanese positions, Bede crawled along an enemy fire lane alone and destroyed a machine-gun position with grenades. His action opened the way for his men to take the Japanese position and earned him the Military Medal for bravery.

Bede led his men through to see the Australian flag flying again over Kokoda, arriving there on 6 November 1942. He served with the 3rd Battalion through the battles for Oivi and the beachheads before Bede was evacuated from the beachheads back to Moresby suffering from malaria, scrub typhus and yellow fever. He recovered and, after the 3rd Battalion was disbanded in 1943, Bede joined the 2/3rd Battalion, rising to the rank of Captain. He served in Korea in 1953.

In his Ralph Honner Oration Bede said: “I landed in PNG on 27th May 1942. I met these lovely Papuan people. There has been an evolution in the meantime, but all the time to me they are such lovely people and we can never thank them for how they helped us and died for us in those grim days of the Kokoda track campaign and beyond.”

Bede was an accomplished poet and wrote many poems commemorating the sacrifices of his comrades and the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels who fought and died alongside them.

Bede will long be remembered for his many kindnesses and his great understanding of the people of PNG. The Kokoda Track Foundation will name a wing of the Kokoda College Teaching College after him.

Vale Bede.


Info
Comment
Written by patrick lindsay On