Bonham, Harry – NX95329
Harry Bonham with medals.
Harry Bonham in uniform.
Despite wanting to forget, there were the inevitable mental scars of war. In a family history, his wife, Marcia, wrote that some years after the war ended Harry visited a psychologist who asked: “What did you do when you came home?” “I went bush,’’ Harry replied. “Bush” in this case was Duramana, a rural area near Bathurst, where his grandparents had a farm.
Marcia wrote: “And that’s just what he did, especially if he was having another bout of malaria. To get there, he had to drive in off Turondale Road, through a neighbour’s property and across a creek. There were no houses nearby, so if he wanted to shout, scream, cry or wake up at night, he could just let his feelings out. It was a good place for him to recuperate from the horrors of war. It was peaceful.” Harry suffered eight bouts of malaria.
In a moving eulogy on Harry’s death in October, 2004, aged 83, the former O.C. of Harry’s A Company, Phil Curry, M.C. paid him the ultimate tribute. “Harry to me was always the quintessential Australian soldier,” he said.
“He was straight and brave and tough. You couldn’t ask for a better mate to be by your side. If Harry considered you a mate there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you. Sadly, they don’t make them like Harry any more.”
The Footsoldiers records Harry’s role in a number of battles in the Lae, Ramu Valley and Balikpapan campaigns, among them a fierce encounter at Lane’s Bridge in the Markham Valley in 1943 where the 2/33rd Battalion was involved in a famous bayonet charge during the advance on Lae.
Harry was born on April 29, 1921, at Bathurst, on the Central Tablelands of NSW, the second of four children of Victor and Bell Bonham. The family lived in the centre of town. During the tough times of the Great Depression when there was no such luxury as “pocket money”, Harry used to collect empty beer bottles left by after-hotel-hour drinkers in laneways near his home, cashing them in at nearby hotels for 6d each.
He attended Bathurst High School where he was a champion athlete, winning the Open Mile championship, attributed in part to the hard physical work he did on his grandparents’ farm at Duramana. He was also a champion rugby league player, winning two cups playing for the Graham Football Club. On joining the 2/33rd Battalion he played hooker in the Battalion’s 7th Division Premiership winning side a few weeks before the start of the Lae Campaign. Harry left school after 4th year at high school. He worked for two years in a Bathurst cake shop before moving to Sydney where he became an apprentice pastrycook.
With the outbreak of war Harry wanted to enlist, but his father wouldn’t sign his papers. He finally joined on April 21, 1942, eight days before his 21st birthday. After basic training he was posted to the 2/33rd Battalion, by which time the main force was suffering heavy losses on the Kokoda Trail.
Harry was one 300 re-enforcements sent to Port Moresby in November, 1942, to join the fighting at Gona, but arrived on the same day the badly depleted and exhausted battalion, down to eight officers and 128 other ranks, was stood down from action, after which the battalion returned to the Atherton Tablelands for rest and rebuilding.
During this period, sport, especially team sports, such as rugby league, were greatly encouraged by the C.O. Lt Colonel Tom Cotton. His greatest pride was the battalion’s representative rugby league team that beat the 2/25th Battalion 13-10 in the 7th Division Premiership final in 1943, and with Harry playing hooker.
Marcia’s family history records: “The main aim for the infantry was hard training, marching up to 30 and 40 miles carrying up to six days food. The day after the divisional football match the men were on a route march. They had stopped for a rest when Lt Col Cotton arrived in his Jeep.
“ ‘ What are you doing here, Bonham? You played in the football match yesterday. Get in my Jeep and I will give you a ride back’.
“ ‘I got this far, Sir, so I will make it back the rest of the way, thanks.’
“ ‘As you wish, Bonham.’ ”
“From then on Bonham’s name was never on the route march list.”
Harry’s A Company had a stroke of luck in the Liberator crash, but, sadly at the expense of D Company which suffered horrendously. The battalion was supposed to be airlifted from Port Moresby to Tsili and then Nadzab for the advance on Lae on September 6 but bad weather delayed the airlift until the following day, September 7.
For the September 6 airlift A Company was in the middle of the convoy of trucks, with C and D companies on either side. However, A and D companies swapped positions for the delayed September 7 airlift, with D Company in the middle, with calamitous results when the blazing Liberator crashed into the centre of the D Company trucks, exploding in a sea of flame. In one D Company truck 14 of the 21 men in it were killed instantly.
The crash claimed the lives of 60 2/33rd soldiers, mainly from D Company.
Immediately after the massive explosion Harry dived into a ditch with exploding bullets and other ammunition going off all around him. He never forgot the sight of men with their hair and clothes on fire, and screaming for help. He and others rushed to help. At one stage Harry was given a syringe full of morphine with the instruction: “Here, use this.”
One of the few battle memories he shared was the extraordinary experience during the battle for Shaggy Ridge where the steep one-man tracks to the top of the razorback mountain were so narrow he and his mates had to tie themselves together with their belts to prevent them falling hundreds of feet down the sides of the tracks.
At Balikpapan, the Battalion’s last action of the war, Harry was fortunate to escape being court-martialled for punching an officer after a sniper shot one of Harry’s mates in the knee. Badly wounded, the only way to get him out was to make a stretcher by putting two saplings through two shirt sleeves. However, the officer said: “No. We can’t do that. A sniper might hear us cutting down the branches.” During the brief argument that followed Harry punched the officer and said: “Yes we will.” They carried the wounded man to safety on the makeshift stretcher.
Harry was discharged, with the rank of Corporal, on June 24, 1946, having served 519 days active service overseas (New Guinea and Borneo) and 1011 days active service in Australia.
As a qualified pastrycook he had no difficulty finding work after the war in the Gordon Edgell & Sons Ltd Soup Kitchen at Bathurst.
Harry met his wife-to-be, Marcia, on his 28th birthday in 1949. He was to have gone on a “pub crawl” with his best mate whose birthday was the same day, but called it off saying: “I’ve got a date with that good sort I have had my eye on.” They went to the “pictures” and became engaged three months later. They married on January 28,1950, and had four children.
Harry worked tirelessly for the Bathurst Division of Legacy raising more than $33,000 by running Legacy Days at Bathurst City Bowling Club. He was a Life Member of the 2/33rd Australian Infantry Battalion A.I.F. Association.
In delivering the eulogy at Harry’s funeral, the Association President, Phil Curry, M.C. paid Harry a glowing a tribute for his war service and work for Legacy.