May, John Thomas – NX13643
After having survived dozens of skirmishes and major life-and-death battles for fi ve years in Palestine, Syria and in the Lae, the Ramu Valley and Shaggy Ridge campaigns , luck for Lieutenant John Thomas May NX13643 ran out just days before the Japanese surrender ended World War II.
His 16 Platoon D Company landed at Balikpapan, Borneo, with other 7th Division troops, on July 2, 1945, for the last action of the war. Five days later, on July 7, his patrol was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a mortar attack. May received serious leg and other wounds and was lucky to survive.
One soldier was killed. May’s batman, standing alongside him, Eric “Snowy” Lewis, NX97195 was mortally wounded. Ironically, it was “friendly fire” from an Australian mortar battery that ended Lieutenant May’s war.
Born at Bundarra, new Barraba, NSW, in 1908, he enlisted on May 3, 1940. He initially served in Palestine and Syria with the 2/4th Battalion, but transferred to the 2/33rd Battalion as a replacement after the Kokoda campaign, and served with the 2/33rd for the remainder of the war.
Like most soldiers he never talked about the horrors he’d experienced in so many life and death battles. He wanted to forget rather than remember.
Lieutenant John May.
His daughter, 2/33rd Battalion Association committee member, Margaret Mudford, said: “ I had no idea what he and other soldiers had been through until I read the fi rst edition of The Footsoldiers. I was horrified by the stark reality of the fighting especially against the Japanese, a brutal and ruthless enemy who fought to the death.”
When with 2/33rd mates, a few stories were told such as the time a death adder slithered over him in Darwin, and how he used to wedge himself between rocks to stop him rolling down the treacherous sides of Shaggy Ridge while sleeping or resting.
The serious leg wound he suffered in Balikapan plagued him for the rest of his life. Before returning to Australia he spent 10 weeks in hospital in Moratai followed by two months in Holland Park Hospital, Brisbane, then six months recuperating in Sydney hospitals and the Lady Wakehurst Convalescent home. He was discharged in April 1946.
Margaret recalled: “ Mum told me that on his wedding day in 1947 he was determined to shed his leg callipers so he could do the Bridal Waltz with her.”
His injured leg had been reconstructed. Always a good sportsman he played tennis until his 60s despite his injury. As a young cricketer before the war he played in a country representative match against Don Bradman. In retirement he played lawn bowls.
The mortar attack also left him with a permanently locked-up bent middle finger. It was such a nuisance he thought it might have been better for it to have been amputated. X rays showed he also had shrapnel fragments throughout his body.
After the war he worked seven days a week for a number of years as a dairy farmer before his injuries forced him to leave the land and become a newsagent and postmaster.