Cafe, Edwin – NX31802
A s a boy Ernie Cafe nursed dreams of the father he never saw returning home from war. He imagined hearing a knock on the door to see his dad standing there, with a loving smile and rifle over his shoulder. Those sad dreams of a little boy could never come true, like the dreams of far too many other boys and girls whose fathers went to war, but never came home.
Ernie’s father, Private Edwin William Cafe, NX31802, a veteran of the Syria and Kokoda campaigns, died as a result of the Liberator crash. Brave in battle and still fighting to the end, he was the last of the Liberator crash victims to die, in hospital, after the tragic event that cost the lives of 60 2/33rd men, and injured another 90.
Edwin, known as Ted, suffered appalling burns in the inferno following the crash. A tough country boy he fought for 12 days to live. Doctors, nurses and mates in the 2/3rd Australian General Hospital willed him to live, but, in the end his burns were too serious and took his life.
The other tragedy was that Edwin, and mates who didn’t survive the crash, were eager for battle. They had been training for months ready to launch an attack on Lae and drive another spear into the heart of the retreating Japanese, with victory over the brutal aggressor ever closer. Ted originally hailed from Goondiwindi, Queensland, where he was born on February 12, 1915.
Edwin “Ted” Cafe.
His birth certificate gave his Christian names as Edward William, although all other certificates including his marriage certificate and Army papers gave his first name as Edwin known as “Ted”, the name he carried in life and in war.
A further sadness for Ernie is that he knows nothing about his father’s early life, other than that Ted’s father and mother were Thomas and Alice (nee Furness) and that Ted married Ernie’s mother, Ellen (nee Lewington) in Sydney on July 7, 1940. Ernie was born in Sydney the following year, April 28, 1941. “I don’t even know whether Dad ever saw me before he went to war”, Ernie said.
Edwin was driving tractors at Coonamble in western NSW when war broke out. He enlisted at Coonamble on May 5, 1940, two months before he married Ellen. He went by ship to the UK with the other members of the 2nd A.I.F where he was selected to join the 2/33rd Infantry Battalion, one of three formed as emergency battalions to help defend southern England in the event of a German invasion, which didn’t occur. The Germans withdrew their troops along the French coast after losing the Battle of Britain air war.
The 2/33rd then became part of the 25th Brigade, 7th Division, for the invasion of Syria against the Vichy French, a short but bitter hard-fought campaign.
The battalion was brought home to fight the Japanese. Edwin was a member of D Company which suffered the major casualties in the Liberator crash. He was 28 when he died.
His grave, along with those of other crash victims is in Bomana War Cemetery, near Port Moresby. Ernie and his wife, Beverly, made a nostalgic visit to the cemetery and the crash site in 2014 when Ernie saw his father’s grave for the first time. Ernie’s report on the sad visit was published in Mud & Blood and is published again here.
Their son, Matthew, made an earlier visit to Bomana in 2013 to see his grandfather’s grave, where he laid a wreath made by PNG porters.
THE CROSS OF SACRIFICE – BOMANA WAR CEMETERY
Those of us who have visited the Bomana War Cemetery in Papua New Guinea, where so many of our young men rest in hallowed silence, are left deeply saddened when standing at the Cross of Sacrifice and looking down on that sea of gravestones that stand row upon row almost as far as the eye can see, each one marking the bravery of a young man who made the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of Australia. A total of 4,320 servicemen and merchant seamen lie in this sacred ground. The cross of sacrifice was unveiled in 1953 by the then Governor General of Australia, Sir
William Slim. Sir William said. “Australians should never forget that their soldiers were the first to inflict defeat on the arrogant Japanese Army”. The Governor General went on to say, “This spot on which we stand is to Australians, indeed to all free people, especially hallowed ground, for here in this lovely garden, rest the men who flung back and defeated a Japanese Army”.
“Only about 25 miles from here, on the heartbreaking slopes of the Kokoda Trail, the great sweep of Japanese conquest in an arc across Asia and the Pacific was first halted”. “In the arduous campaign that followed, the enemy, resisting grimly, was pushed back over the Owen Stanley Ranges and on the beaches of Buna and Gona, was destroyed”. “It was Australian soldiers, airmen and sailors who broke the spell of Japanese invincibility on land”.
He said the ripple of this victory on land against the Japanese spread beyond New Guinea. To a haggard British Army in Burma, battered and bitter with defeat, it brought a “gleam of hope.”
The ceremony was attended by relatives of the war dead, Government representatives and Services leaders.
Above: Beverly and Ernie Cafe at the Cross on a visit to Bomana War Cemetery in 2014. Below: Port Moresby’s Bomana Cemetery where the 73 victims of the Liberator crash are buried and
honoured. Ernie Cafe’s father, Edwin Cafe NX31802 was one of the victims. Graves honouring men of the 2/33rd Battalion who died in battle against the Japanese during the Papua and New Guinea campaigns are also in the cemetery.
Ernie Cafe looks back on his visit to Bomana Cemetery, September 1l, 2014. Republished from Mud & Blood.
War historian Gary Traynor once told me that every day was Anzac Day for me and he is correct. Every day is also Armistice Day, V J Day, Australia Day and also the last time the Rabbitohs won a grand final.
I have attended Dawn Services for as long as I can remember and in some very iconic locations. Whoever put a cenotaph on Anzac Hill in Alice Springs for instance knew what they were doing. It is a magic time in a magic place.
Last Sunday, 7th September 2014, was the most special of all places and all times. It was not even Anzac Day and it was not even in Australia. The place was a paddock at the end of a runway in Port Moresby; among some stunted trees and some stunted tufts of grass and not much else. But everybody knew exactly why we were there, enveloped in the velvety New Guinea pre-dawn darkness.
We were there to give thanks and pay homage to the scores of men who died there, and later, as a result of the horrendous Liberator crash at that time on that day seventy-one years ago. Those of us gathered there took turns reading the names of the sixty- two soldiers and eleven Liberator crew members who died in a holocaust of bombs, bullets and nearly 4,000 gallons of burning aviation fuel. We tried our best with the hymns listed on the order of service but it was almost impossible to get the words out. It was difficult for me to read the four names allocated to me, one of which was my Dad’s name.
“I WAS GOING AT LAST TO MEET MY DAD.”
Ernie Cafe.
Even today, re-reading the order of service for this letter it is hard. It was to become even harder as the day went on.
Towards the end of our service of remembrance a soft, misty rain began to fall as if signalling an end to our ceremony. Looking around the area as daylight replaced the darkness, there was still some rusting bits and pieces here and there to mark the spot.
Bits of trucks, oil drums, some unidentifiable strips of metal; even things resembling belt buckles. One elderly Papuan gentleman came to me and asked “what will I do with these?” He held out his hand and showed me the end of a rifle pull-through, a rusting Rising Sun badge and a set of American dog-tags. I wondered what would turn up if that field was ever ploughed over. Should it be, do you think? Maybe that would not serve any useful purpose and only ask more questions than it would answer. After breakfast back at our hotel we were back on the bus for the ride to Bomana War Grave cemetery. I was going at last to meet my Dad.
Is it right to describe a cemetery as beautiful?
This one certainly is! Somewhere I read that there are Australian servicemen and women buried in war graves in eighty countries around the world, which is something of a sad indictment of course, but Bomana is every bit as good as it should be. This is hallowed ground — this is our sacred site and will forever be regarded as part of Australia. I struggled a bit here at Bomana, actually I struggled a lot. Again our assembled group read the names on our list, standing at each grave and placing a red poppy at each one. Reading the words of a song written by our son Michael brought me undone and my wife Beverley had to finish the reading for me.
A little while later Beverley and I went back to my Dad’s grave and marker and we placed a bunch of poppies, babies-breath tied with a brown ribbon (Mud and Blood), together with Michael’s song and also a letter written by our other son Matthew. I wonder if they are still there?
They were once and that is what is important! I don’t know if my father ever held me as a baby or if he ever even saw me. Did we ever feel each other’s heart beats? Or feel each other’s breath on each of our faces? This time at Bomana might have been as close as he and I had ever been.
Eventually, back to the bus and we were taken to Owers Corner and the beginning of the track to Kokoda, the much anticipated climb down to Goldies River for a swim never eventuated as by now it was raining fairly steadily and the track was getting a bit hairy. It would have been even harder to negotiate the climb back up from the river. Anyway, we were a pack of squibs. Beverley and I were eventually sorry to leave. Papua is astonishingly beautiful place, inhabited by the friendliest people on earth.
ERNIE CAFE’S DEDICATION TO HIS FATHER – EDWIN WILLIAM CAFE NX31802
- I have never known my father but I’ve missed him, that is true.
- He was En Ex Three One Eight Oh Two.
- I’ve sat by his grave at Bomana, left a poppy or two.
- And finally said hullo to NX 31802.
- He came from Coonamble and joined up as was his due,
- And was given the number, NX 31802.
- I remember all the April morns, so cold my nose was blue,
- Standing by the Cenotaph, to honour NX 31802
- I thought I saw him march one day with his mates – left, right, one, two,
- He and all his mates who’ve passed, NX 31802
- But wishful thinking didn’t bring him back between me and you,
- Just a faded photograph in an album, NX 31802.
- He fought the Germans, Japanese and French, sacre bleu!
- And lost his life to the Liberator crash, rest in peace NX 31802.
- Didn’t take too kindly if told what to do, punched an officer, NX 31802.
- He’ll grow no older now, he is buried where the sky is blue, NX 31802
- The grass is green there, and a few trees too,
- There lies a warrior – NX 31802
LEST WE FORGET (I never forget).