Interesting Little Tale !

[Bencld]

I am an taxi owner operator and part of the job is to transport surviving veterans from home to medical appointments. There are not many of the WW II vets left being mostly in their nineties now so it is a privledge to have them in my car and hear some of the tials and tribulations of their war experiences that they are prepared to share with me. I had one such fellow on board today who served with the Australian  2/4 field artillery regt. 7th division in New Guinea and Borneo against the Japanese Imperial Army.

 

He was 19 when he landed in New Guinea. He told me about how 95 percent of them had malaria and about a tiny pink bug that carried the typhus virus and insects that burrowed under your skin, very appalling conditions. Some of his mates that were KIA and some that died of disease. He was rather forward with his experiences which I was very privleged to have heard. One instance where they pitched their tents to close to the 25 pounder field artillery guns and the guns where fired ripping their tents out of the ground and some yards away. They were so exhausted that they did not even care. 

 

This fellows unit was in Boeneo when the Japanese surrended and they played a role in co ordinating the surrended soldiers and disarming them. This means swords and it was at this point that I got real interested. I sort of wielded into the conversation that I am interested in Japanese swords and that I collect swords and he pipes up and says I have one of those. Well I started to imagine one of the lost national treasure swords in this blokes cupboard ! Funny how your mind runs away sometimes. Anyway, when we arrived back to his place I asked if I may have a look at his sword and he agreed. 

 

He shuffled into his room and I was talking to his wife for what seemed like an eternity until he finally came out with it. It had the leather combat cover over the saya so a good start I am thinking. When I drew the blade, I immediatly realised that this was a blade made by Australian soldiers out of a willy jeep spring, practically worthless. This is the third one of these I have seen over the years, Australian enginuity at its best. He took the news well though !

[Greg F]

Hi Chris,

 

A bit of an anti climax for you but interesting story nonetheless. Cheers

 

Greg

[Bazza]

Well, as an Oz collector of some 50+ years I have had my share of "jeep springs".  I remember one in particular.  The old soldier's wife had been admitted to hospital for an operation and plainly money was an issue.  As such he had decided to offer his WW2 souvenir sword for sale.  He was a decent old bloke and I truly felt for him, however his sword was a (relatively) worthless jeep spring.  Had I been better heeled I would have offered him a decent price for his sacrifice in the war, but sadly such was not the case.  Like the OP, the Old Digger took it well.  I have always had an immense respect for these men who served their countries in war.

 

Bestests,

BaZZa.

[SAS]

There is a book called "A Bastard of a Place" that documents the New Guinea campaign in WW2.....sounded rough when I read it. Lot of good historical information. I just remembered that when the Allies were almost finished taking one last major objective, a Japanese general came out and drew his sword and stood there until he was taken down by a machine gunner. 

[Ron STL]

Maybe Barry will recall this, but "many years ago" when this topic was underdiscussion -- Barry and I were prolific letter-writers back then -- he sent me a cartoon from an Aussie newspaper. It depicted to guys hammering out a sword from recovered satellite parts, chatting about making "Jap swords out of Jeep springs." Pretty funny stuff. Sadly, I "lost" that cartoon somewhere in my papers files since then. It wouldn't surprise me to see Barry find that cartoon tucked away in his well organized filing system.  

Ron STL