Marshall, Douglas – VX80717
The pages of history are filled with touching and enduring stories about soldiers in war falling in love with nurses. VX80717 Douglas James Marshall was one of them. Like so many others who fought in the disease-ridden jungles of Papua, New Guinea and Borneo in World War II Doug suffered recurring bouts of malaria which took thousands of Australian soldiers out of action for long periods.
Doug was still suffering serious bouts of malaria when he came home from Borneo in 1946. He was sent to Mildura Base Hospital for treatment where local Red Cliffs nurse, Joan Howie, cared for him and caught his eye.
After recuperating, Doug returned to Melbourne to live with his parents at East Kew. He was 29. Born at nearby Richmond on March 27, 1920, Doug was one of four children – three boys and one girl – of William and Elsie Marshall.
When he finally joined the A.I.F it’s a wonder he didn’t finish up as a bandsman. As a lad he was a talented musician with the East Kew band. He played the bass drum, piano and organ. As a teenager, drums were replaced by motorbikes. He rode and raced a 500cc Indian motorcycle.
Doug joined the C.M.F. on August 10, 1940, and the A.I.F. on January 23,1941. He served with the 37th Battalion, the 3rd Army Artillery Training Regiment, the 1st Australian Artillery Training Regiment before being called up for overseas service with the 2/33rd Battalion on July 22, 1942, at the age of 20. He saw his first action with the 2/33rd.
Doug Marshall.
Doug was a Liberator crash survivor, but suffered severe burns. After treatment he rejoined the battalion for the Ramu Valley, Shaggy Ridge and Balikpapan campaigns.
He returned to Australia in February, 1946, but wasn’t discharged until September that year due to his ongoing treatment for Malaria. He served in the Army for 1,513 days which included 1051 days of active service in Australia and 462 days overseas.
Army for 1,513 days which included 1051 days of active service in Australia and 462 days overseas. On returning to live with his parents, Doug began studies in accountancy. He and Joan married in 1949. They had two sons, Rodney and Stephen.
Doug and Joan built their family home in Chadstone, in south east Melbourne. He was a founding member of the Bayview Tennis Club in Mt Waverley and President from 1964 to 1966.
He was the chief accountant for Winton Plastics before starting his own accounting firm in 1959, later joined by his son Rodney. Some of his many clients included major fresh food suppliers who rewarded his services with Christmas gifts such as King Island crayfish and fresh fruit and vegetables.
Doug was a great supporter of the 2/33rd Battalion Association and served as president of the 2/33rd A.I.F. Victorian Chapter for a period before poor health caused him to hand over the President’s role to Max Moon.
Doug’s special annual Battalion Ladies Day at Green Acres Golf Club, where he was a long standing member, are well remembered, particularly his packs of hand-made gifts he and Joan picked up on their many caravanning holidays.
He died in 2009, aged 89.
Liberator crash story: Doug Marshall and best mate, Ray Fewings. See below.
Republished by courtesy of the Herald Sun newspaper, Melbourne, September 4, 2004.
Among friends at Gona. Ray Fewings fourth from left.
Australia’s SECRET TRAGEDY
It was Australia’s worst air disaster, for years shrouded in military secrecy as survivors endured the scars in silence. NEIL WLSON reports.
Scarred by silence: Doug Marshall and Ray Fewings witnessed the aviation tragedy.
PICTURE: Peter Wilson.
Few visitors who arrive at Port Moresby Jackson’s airport realise they have flown into the site of Australia’s worst and possibly least known a disaster.
Tomorrow at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance two mates will lay a wreath to recall 73 young servicemen wiped out in New Guinea without a hope of defending themselves. Not a single enemy shot was fired at the wartime airfield in the cool early hours of September 7, 1943. Yet, nearly two companies from the 25th Brigade – many veterans of his Syria, Kokoda and Gona campaigns were to lie dead or horribly injured in a fiery hell at end of the runway. In all, 90 were wounded bringing the total casualties to 163.
Ray Fewings and Doug Marshall, the final Victorian survivors, will lead The Shrine ceremony in memory of the 60 men of the 2/33rd Battalion who perished, most from D company. Two 158 Company transport drivers also died, along with the 11 crew of the Liberator.
Now in their 80s Ray and Doug recall the carnage that wartime censorship insured stayed secret. Diggers were prevented from writing to their mates’ families to explain exactly how they died.
Such was the brutal military logic of the New Guinea campaign that other men of the 2/33rd battalion were remustered within hours and ordered onto planes for Nadzab and the eventual attack on the Japanese garrison at Lae. Officers believed no one should be given time to grieve over the catastrophe. In D Company only 14 men out of 130 were fit to answer roll calls the next day.
“The command was frightened these men would never want to go back into battle again”, says Doug Marshall president of Victoria’s 2/33rd Association The 2/33rd Battalion’s convoy of 18 Studebaker trucks had arrived at Jackson’s about 4 am.
The mustering area was at the end of the airstrip. Trying to sleep was difficult as American B 24 Liberators of the 403rd Bomb Squadron roared just overheard.
They were taking off on reconnaissance sortie to Rabaul. Doug Marshall recalls being invited onto the truck’s tray by an 18th section friend, the temperature so cool they had huddled together to warm up. It saved his life. “Slim Whittle, a big solid bloke said come up here and I’ll keep you warm”, Doug says. “He wrapped his arms around me.”
“You could hear the roar from them taking off – bombers then their escorts. But this plane was much louder.”
Others recalled the high-pitched screaming of the US Liberator as it careered down the runway in darkness at 4:20 a.m. trying to lift off with his belly full of fuel and bombs.
“ We watched the bomber, it’s exhaust spurting sparks and flames, come on,” Battalion historian Bill Crooks said in 1971.
“Someone yelled ‘It’s going to hit us’ and somebody was running and screaming ‘Look out, look out.’ ” The pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Howard Wood could not get his plane over the foliage. It’s left wing hit a tree and came away while the fuselage smashed down like an arrow into the trucks,” Bill Crook records.
Doug thinks it hit the ground 40m from the line of troop trucks. The Liberator’s 2800 gallons of fuel exploded on impact, throwing debris and flames into five trucks along with its four bombs.
Two bombs exploded. A third went off later. Thirteen men died instantly.
“Everything went white. The sky was white with flames,” Doug says. “I could see the flames coming towards us, straight in front of us. By gee it was cruel. I think I was blown out of the truck.”
Ivan “Slim” Whittle was killed instantly on the tray when sliced by a piece of propeller blade. “To see that happen to a good bloke who is just trying to keep me warm, trying to help me”, Doug says. “As he got it he just pushed me clear over the side of the truck. “
Doug held “Slim” in his arms but he bled to death before medics could assist. “Everyone was running everywhere but what was the good of it. The ground was alight. The trees were alight, “ he says. I saw blokes I knew running away completely alight. They were screaming wildly.”
Ralph Ewings was half asleep in the fourth or fifth truck, which took the brunt of the explosion.
“I put my hand up to try and protect my face. I got a blister on my left hand and it burnt down the side of my face. I’ve still got a wrinkle there.
“There were blokes worse off than me. Some where completely alight, desperately running around and yelling ‘Put me out. Put me out’ ”
Ray says most of their officers were badly injured or killed, including captain J.H. Ferguson, brother-in-law of POW hero Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop. Many diggers were in combat kit ready to fight. Most carried 100 rounds of ammunition and hand grenades. Some had 2-inch mortar bombs strapped to them. They went off like firecrackers.
“I could see a bloke running down the embankment on fire,” Doug says. “ I ran after him, made him stop, pulled his clothes and made him stay. I should’ve known not to put his clothes off. His skin came with it.”
Ammunition explosions in the trucks prevented firefighters reaching some victims for an hour. And official inquiry in December 1943 could not find a precise cause. One of Ralph and Doug’s greatest resentments was the secrecy.
“We were told never ever to mention it. They would pull your mail to pieces. They never even told us about your inquiry,” Doug says. “There was always talk about sugar being put in the petrol supplies or cottonwool in the fuel lines, but that was never accepted by the inquiry.”
Doug says the plane was just overloaded. Ray says survivors were more concerned about looking after injured mates than finding blame.
“They saw me just wandering around. Two men just helped me into an ambulance. The next thing I was vomiting in the hospital ward. The shock got to me. I remember apologising.”
Every bed in the 2/5th and 2/9th Australian general hospitals was full. Some men choked to death because they couldn’t swallow.”
One of Ray’s mates covered in bandages was lifted by his blankets into a saline bath. He lasted three days. Others with blackened faces would stick their heads in buckets of water to seek relief.
“A couple were taken to the American hospital and Normie Rose stayed there,” Ray recounts.
“Mrs Roosevelt (wife of the US President) was visiting and presented him the Purple Heart.”
Ray was in hospital and a convalescent camp for 10 weeks for his hands but later fought at Shaggy Ridge.
Doug became an officer at Balikpapan, but Slim Whittle’s death still causes him grief.
Many of their mates are buried at the Bomana Cemetery outside Port Moresby, but their gravestones give no clue they were victims of an aviation tragedy.