For Wheeler... a new post

 One thing I like about doing these posts is that they come and go from everywhere. This one began in some distant part of the USA when I bumped into the work of Wheeler via Vimeo.

Seems like just the other day  but it was about five years ago when I stumbled upon some of his work and also work by Gwendolyn. I had no idea then that they were partners in life and they had both responded to something I'd posted on Vimeo at the time. That was before the experiment with Facebook and the nightmare of Covid and before the onslaught of Ukraine by the Russian war criminals who are greatly upset that Ukraine might have made a tiny retaliation on Russian soil... can you beat that? 

Well Wheeler is prolific, it's really hard to keep up with the amount he puts out, but recently he responded to my little A Tree for Ukraine and we had another round of what are you up to these days?... you know the way it goes: 

"What have you been doing recently Wheeler?"

So he sent me Slip Stream:

Slip Stream from Wheeler Winston Dixon on Vimeo.

Well, what's it about? I leave that up to you, it will mean different things for every person. 

How does Wheeler come across such astonishing sources of imagery and sounds? By sheer hard work, tremendous research into the vaults of found footage and sources of audio... and then he finds a way to put it together, many different ways for so many different sources of inspiration.

One thing you can bet on, he ain't gonna run out of ideas any time soon! His areas of interest are all around us, issues which impinge upon all of us, and he just taps into new ones and old ones every other day. This time about the hop potato of AI. Everyone's worried about what AI is going to do in the near future, but what about what it is already doing everyday. It's not new folks, it's been around a while and it's been messing with all of us... we all use forms of AI every day, especially with out fascination for our mobiles and endless netsurfing. But the great fear is that there is much worse to come... I reckon that's a reasonable fear:

AI

AI from Wheeler Winston Dixon on Vimeo.

Now I'm going back to something I posted a long time ago

"Mob Mentality"

Mob Mentality from Wheeler Winston Dixon on Vimeo.

 I came across this work while surfing among Wheeler's huge output and it really grabbed me... such a dark piece which reminded me of so many sources, film noir movies, the photographs of Weegee and other "street photographers" of the forties and fifties, and all those novels which deal with unreasonable mass emotions, such as "To Kill A Mockingbird"... in some way Wheeler's "Mob Mentality" encapsulates them all. In just a few minutes of images and sound derived from "found" sources.

I must admit I'm envious of what Wheeler has done here, a brilliant HAIKU of film noir.

So just to end this little post on a different tone, a recent discovery 

"Ordinary Events"

Ordinary Events from Wheeler Winston Dixon on Vimeo.

It's very hard keeping up with you Wheeler, but thanks for making me try!

pt

A Paean for Ian

 A Paean for Ian

I met many fine people when I was on Facebook, you know who they are. Ian Gibbins was one such. I liked a lot of his work which I picked up on Vimeo and I've posted a few items since we started this blog which carries on from where we left off on Facebook.

Today I'm going to introduce to you some of Ian's smaller pieces which I did not know of until he responded to my email about the presentation I made to U3A last weekend "Little Miracles, Big Puzzles!"

Let's start with "Dragonflies"...

DRAGONFLIES from Ian Gibbins on Vimeo.

Dragonflies are amazing insects, having evolved back in the Carboniferous era when the earth was dominated by massive forests that ended up forming most of the coal deposits we have today. There has been much research done on how they fly and how they see. Amongst other things, they have a different set for the parts of their eyes looking up compared with those looking down. 

Like most insects, they probably can't see red, but they can see ultra-violet and they also can detect the polarisation in the sky that they can use as a compass for navigation (bees and many other insects can do this too). The integration between the flight biomechanics and the visual system is one of the reasons that are such successful aerial predators. They have a three stage life cycle: egg (laid underwater), an aquatic carnivorous nymph, and the adult flying form. 

We have a couple of ponds in our garden to support populations of frogs and various insects including dragonflies, so we always have some around. But on this occasion, there were hundreds of them. Indeed, all across Adelaide, they were seen swarming for several days. It seems most likely that our cool wet summer created ideal conditions for their breeding.

The video itself was made by taking the raw sequences, duplicating them, shifting one duplicate by a few frames compared to the other, and then getting the difference between them. This means that only things that move a lot are detected. Then I generated visual echoes and used a variety of sequential thresholds to pick out various elements of the results and then composite them back together. The audio is just what was going on the garden at the time and ends with the call of a kookaburra, one of most distinctive birds.

Ian has told me a bit about his background, his lifelong pursuit of science including zoology and neuro science.... for more details, see notes below. He retired from his position as Professor of Anatomy at Flinders University, South Australia, in 2014.

"I retired as soon as I hit 60, for a few reasons: I was totally tired of the pressures of working as a senior academic, with not enough time or resources to do my research teaching, and even admin (!!) properly; my UniSuper was good enough to live off; and I was increasingly drawn to my creative work, having pulled together a massive collaborative project that was exhibited later in 2014.

I’d be very happy for you to create something with those videos (and / or any others) - I can add some more explanatory text for them, if you like."

So, here's one simply called "MAGPIES"...

MAGPIE from Ian Gibbins on Vimeo.

The Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) has extraordinary vocal ability, trilling and carolling a wide range of calls, often together, and often at night. It not related to the European or North American Magpies.

The audio for this piece was developed around a recording I made of a magpie singing at night behind our house. I transcribed two of the melodies and then worked out how to play and arrange them. The chorus includes the actual voice of the magpie. The audio during the credits is an unedited sample of three magpies carolling on a still winter's night.

The video is animated from footage of magpies around our house, in Belair National Park, and on the Victorian coast during a storm; local trees at night; and the word "magpie". The abstract nature of the video reflects our incomplete understanding of magpie society.

As the world heats up around them, as we push the environment closer to total devastation, perhaps we should be listening to what the magpies have to say.

From a technical level, the audio was made in Logic Pro, and used its inbuilt tools to work out the pitch and duration of the notes in the magpie songs. I then repitched them to a common tonal centre, and worked out the rest of the arrangement from there.

The video animations were mostly done in Final Cut Pro, using a plug-in that converts the grey scale values to a 3D plot, which is then rendered with points, lines or a solid surface. Although this is designed for creative use, we used similar algorithms for plotting and analysing complex multi-dimensional data when I was a scientist. The title sequence was built around an image of the text "MAGPIE" that I processed and animated in Isadora, a fabulous video processing environment, primarily designed for use in live performances.

The text in the video contains samples from the following sources:

"Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird"
by Gisela Kaplan, 2004, CSIRO Press

"Australian Bird Names: Origins and Meanings"
by Ian Fraser & Jeannie Gray, 2nd ed, 2019, CSIRO Publishing

"A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia"
by Graham Pizzey, 1980, Harper Collins.

The next piece attracted me greatly, the world we live in, dog eat dog, insect scale:

"The Spider and the Ant"...

The Spider and the Ant from Ian Gibbins on Vimeo.

The spider here is a female red-back spider, which is the same, or very closely related species, as the American Black Widow. It has a potent venom that can quickly immobilise large prey. I have seen them catch and east small lizards many times their own size. The venom is a neurotoxin that causes the release of all of the stored neurotransmitter in the ends of nerves that control the muscles. This has an effect similar to nerve gas and causes the muscles to lock into a paralytic spasm. One of my research projects over many years was understanding how the process of neurotransmitter release works in different types of nerves, and we sometimes used red-back spider venom in our experiments. Botox (botulinum toxin) also works on the same mechanism, but in this case blocks the transmitter release, causing paralysis due to the inability of the muscles to be activated by the nerves. Sticking botox into you body when you don't have to is one of the dumbest things you can do...

Red-back spiders are common where we live, but we don't fuss about them usually. They live under things and generally feed on whatever comes their way and gets trapped in their strong net-like web. The males are much smaller than the females and look quite different.

The ant is a bullant (= bulldog ant or inch ant, depending where in Australia you are). These a big, up to 2 or 3 cm long and live in large underground nests. They are very aggressive: they can bite you with their massive jaws and then sting you with a stinger in their tail. Both hurt!! These are a very primitive ant species and have existed with little change for millions of years.

Here's another piece which comes from a different zone altogether, the life of the Earth.

"Anomaly"...

ANOMALY from Ian Gibbins on Vimeo.

From Ian

This was filmed at a beach not far south of Adelaide. The actual video is composited from several different shots to show the sea coming in and gradually taking over from the people sunbathing on the sand. The data is taken straight from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and refers to sea surface temperatures along this region of the coast. As the temperatures rise, sea levels will rise dues to several factors: thermal expansion of the ocean, increased volume of the ocean due to melting polar ice, and larger storm surges due to more intense storms. All these things are already happening and will continue to do so at an increasing rate. Yet, people still want to live on the coastline and expect councils and governments to cover the cost of largely futile efforts to protect their properties.

Well, I just love the word "anomaly" Ian, and I was going to write an entire new post called Anomaly, but now you have saved me from having to do so.

The world we live in is full of anomalies, overloaded with confusion, unprecedented comparisons, obfuscation, outright lies from LIARS IN HIGH PLACES as good old Ezra Pound might have said, yes, he was a known antisemite, but he still had a few good lines of poetry in him despite his fascist and racist streaks:

And Kung said, and wrote on the bo leaves:

If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;

And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;

And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.

I wonder what Ezra would have made of our world?

But he too was an anomaly!

Just like you Ian, and most of my friends. 

I'm greatly drawn to people who are anomalies.

NOTES:

Ian Gibbins is a highly-successful video artist, poet, and electronic musician working across

diverse styles and media. His award-winning poetry videos and video art have been shown to

acclaim at festivals, exhibitions and installations around the world and have won or been

short-listed for multiple awards. 

His audio and video work has been commissioned or selected for high-visibility public art

programs locally, nationally and internationally. Ian’s poetry has been short-listed for many

national prizes and has been selected for several anthologies, including

Best Australian Poems 

and 

Best Australian Science Writing. 

Ian has published four collections of poetry: Urban Biology (2012); 

The Microscope Project: How Things Work (2014, with artists Catherine Truman and

Deb Jones); 

Floribunda (2015, with artist Judy Morris) and 

A Skeleton of Desire (2019). Ian has collaborated widely with artists on projects bridging art and science,

culminating in several major exhibitions (2009, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022), 

and 

two projects with Australian Dance Theatre (2010, 2012). More recently, he has been

collaborating with performing artists to create events integrating video and live action.

Ian has a central role running the 

Adelaide Festival of Ideas and works extensively to support the Adelaide poetry and spoken word scene.

For details of Ian’s creative work, visit

www.iangibbins.com.au.

Video art: https://www.iangibbins.com.au/bio/video-works-published-performed-or-exhibited/

Poetry: https://www.iangibbins.com.au/bio/published-poetry/

Sound art: https://www.iangibbins.com.au/bio/sound-art/

Public art: https://www.iangibbins.com.au/bio/public-art/

Collaborations with other artists: https://www.iangibbins.com.au/bio/collaborations/

Until his retirement in 2014, Ian was an internationally recognised neuroscientist and

having originally trained as a zoologist. He was internationally recognised for his research

on the microscopic organisation of the nerves communicating between the spinal cord and

the internal organs, with more than 120 papers and book chapters on the subject, garnering

around 5000 citations. He also had a major role in designing, implementing and teaching

the innovative Flinders Medical Program. Along the way, he won awards for his research,

teaching and curriculum development, and communicating science to the public. He was

awarded Emeritus Professor from Flinders University and an Honorary Doctorate from the

University of Göteborg.

Although no longer an active scientist, Ian continues to keep track

of the latest developments across many fields of neuroscience,

zoology, botany and the environment. He is regularly invited to

talk or write about the links between science and the arts.

For most of Ian’s published scientific papers, go to 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=gibbins+il

pt

Our friend Darko's latest foray, a feature film! "Santa Mafia Mon Amour"

Uploaded just 3 days ago and only 17 people in the whole world have seen it so far, we are getting a sneak preview, so to speak.

"Santa Mafia Mon Amour"

I have no idea what the film is about but I imagine it will be full of engaging images and ideas, and perhaps it will give us some insight in Darko's current dilemmas which I'm told are numerous.

It will probably be laced with a sly irony and is likely to encode many cinematic cross references.

I'm hoping it won't all be spoken in Croation because I have not yet mastered that language.

So we're in for a surprise.

Have a good ride!

Thanks Darko!

pt

New information relating to people mentioned in "Journey to the End of Night"

Following the recent screening of "JOURNEY TO THE END OF NIGHT " I received this email from Julie Jolliffe via Bill Mousoulis:

Hi Peter,

I was given your email address by Bill Mousoulis as I am interested in seeing your 1982 film "Journey to the End of Night".

My interest stems from the people pictured below pre 1942. L-r Lance Howlett (lost on Montevideo Maru, was my great uncle), Bill Neave, Russell Howlett (my grandpa, joined up but was badly injured in Melbourne, hospitalised for 10 months, discharged, was friends with Bill post war) and we believe George Coates - died in jungle escaping with Bill.

All 4 were from Dergholm/Casterton Vic. and joined up together, same day mostly. They were mates from working together.

I discovered your film about 6 yrs ago when my daughter had to do a school assign on a POW and I suggested she look into my great uncle Lance, only knowing that he was lost after being bombed on an unmarked POW ship, the Montevideo Maru….I haven’t worked out how to watch the film in all this time. Then I fluked seeing that it was shown in Melbourne in April this year. The timing was around the discovery of the wreck of the Montevideo Maru.

Could you please let me know if it is possible to see this? I know a bit about Bill’s life post war but want to see if he mentions Lance in the film.

I’ve been lucky, meeting Marian, the daughter of the chaplain of the 2/22nd (Padre/Canon John May). Marian has shared with me letters & photos of her dad’s time in Rabaul - many showing Lance as he was the Batman/driver for the Padre. Marian would put a poppy on Lance’s name at the Australian war memorial each time she visited as she never knew if he had family to do so and she grew up knowing how much Lance meant to her father. I’ve heard through family legend that Lance chose to stay and be loyal to the Padre rather than escape with Bill & George, (apparently told to grandpa by Bill Neave)….hence my further interest in your film.

In 2016, we had 15 of Lance’s family go to the 75th commemoration of the sinking, from 4 states of Australia after my learning so much of his time in Rabaul and subsequent death. A few family have then made their way to Rabaul to pay respects - including the eldest of Lance’s nephews now in his 80s who we have in a picture as a baby on Lance’s knee, with Lance in uniform.

Many stories come from this - apologies for the rambling! Hope you are happy to help.

kind regards

Julie Jolliffe

Julie mentioned that Bill Neave was second from left, and she thought George Coates was the person on the right of frame.

As you read on you will find that more information has come to us which changes all that.

After receiving the email from Julie I responded:

Bill, what a great outcome from the screening at Thornbury leading to Julie’s personal historical connection with Bill Neave, and the others!

About the actual photograph…

Bill is almost unrecognisable as the man he eventually became as shown in the film. He is the second from left, a strong young man full of confidence and ready to take on the world. And if it is George Coates on the right of frame, an even bigger, stronger young man, possibly a farming hand?  Not so far away from his early horrible death by malaria and dysentery in a foreign jungle hut.

In the images I sent you and Adrian, there are two shots of Bill in uniform. In one he is preparing an improvised explosive device, a hand grenade trap. 

The other shot is a formal one of the young Bill Neave in uniform,

probably taken before he departed for New Guinea:

He is a confident young military man in these shots who has no idea of what's in store for him.

I'm so glad Julie responded to your Facebook entries Bill!

pt

Then I sent Julie a copy of the film from my Drive and she responded:

Hi Peter,

Thank you. I was able to watch your film last night (yes, on a big telly).

Think I cried a river.

It was extremely meaningful to me - having known much of Bill’s story and how it was entwined with my great uncle Lance who he mentions a couple of times, and their mate George Coates. 

To hear him describe events that did happen exactly as he recounts, 40 yrs prior, was harrowing, his recall shows that he really couldn’t forget. Yet, also humbling to hear the good things - that George was buried with flowers and PNG people sang ‘Abide with me’ over his grave…I recognised most of the names he mentions and the places he had to travel….I felt touched by the kindness shown by the father at the missionary, who I believe was killed by the Japanese later for helping them.

So thank you for capturing this story. 

On another note - am I able to forward the film to my Aunty in Mt. Gambier, SA? She grew up knowing Bill (post war) as he was still friends with my Grandpa Russell Howlett who signed up with Bill & the others (but didn’t leave Oz due to injury)? If you say no, I won’t. 

I know there are others interested in viewing your film as I originally mentioned my knowledge of it’s existence on a Facebook page (Rabaul & Montevideo Maru Society) which many of the 1000+ families of the MM descendants are on and have interest in this area. Do you show it/sell it for viewing?

Thank you again!!

Julie

Julie attached these images to her second email:

Dergholm Recreation Reserve 

I think you should be able to read this plaque:

                                                           Coates G

                                                           Howlett L W

LANCE HOWLETT

Then I received this email from Mr. Barry M. Kent, President of the Casterton RSL

Peter,

Let me introduce myself, l'm the President of the Casterton RSL Sub-Branch. 

Peter there's been some posts etc on FB with regards to your 1982 film, "Journey to the End of Night" on the exploits of the late Bill Neave of Casterton. 

Peter what I am asking, is there any chance that the Sub-Branch can obtain a copy of the film. We would like to show it to our members, school groups, and maybe a showing to the Casterton community at the Town Hall? 

Peter we are happy to purchase a copy from you. We think that it's appropriate for the Sub-Branch to have a copy of the film within its collection at the Sub-Branch for future education. 

I myself have a personal connection, as my uncle Michael Kent served in New Guinea as a signaller during WWll.

Peter if you could help us out or point me in the right direction, that would be great.

Cheers

Barry M. Kent

President Casterton RSL Sub-Branch 

Because DVD copies have become a thing of the past I sent Barry a link to the film, just as I had done with Julie and he responded:

Peter,

Peter thanks very much for allowing the Sub-Branch to obtain a copy of this piece of history. 

FYI, in the opening scenes, those superphosphate train bins are what my father used to have bought in by rail for his super spreading business. They are long gone now.

In time I will let you know how the viewings of the film go.

Thanks

Barry 

Later, another email from Barry:

Thanks again Peter for honouring my request, we had our monthly meeting today and I informed the members of what I'd been up to. One of the ladies present said that the Neave's used to live next door to her and others could remember going to the drive-in to see the film in the early 80's, so there you go, interest in it already. 

Cheers,

Barry.

I MENTIONED TO BOTH JULIE AND BARRY THE IDEA OF CREATING A BLOG POST TO INCLUDE ALL THIS NEW INFORMATION RECEIVED SINCE THE SCREENING IN APRIL.

From Julie

Hi Peter,

Yes, I’m happy to be put in contact with Barry Kent regarding this and for you to do a blog post. Use any photos that you like as I believe in sharing the past. May I suggest involving my Aunty Erica & Uncle Peter Smith, they live in Mt. Gambier.  Erica is originally from Dergholm, Peter is originally from Casterton. I live in NSW and am a generation younger than them.

Erica is one of Lance Howlett’s nieces (there were approx 12 nieces/nephews) and she grew up knowing Bill Neave, her father Russell Howlett is in that pic with Bill and Lance.

But I was wrong about the 4th man on the right, it is not George Coates, it is Jock Wood who joined up with them. Bill mentions Jock in the film as escaping with them, but recalls him not acknowledging Bill and others upon his return to Casterton, without saying his name.

Peter Smith shared my Facebook pic about the 4 men (Erica has the original) and Jock’s niece contacted me to say that it is Jock…..I had tried to match the photo to their enlistment pics on Australian archives but didn’t know Jock’s real name (Herbert) and I thought it looked like George’s enlistment pic.

So, no pic of George that I know of but surely someone in Casterton would have one?

Ron McFarlane Lance Howlett

with baby Ron on his knee

The split pic on the right is Lance Howlett at home in Dergholm with his eldest nephew Ron McFarlane on his lap as a baby & wearing Lance’s uniform hat.

Ron McFarlane is now in his early 80s and the photo on the left, shows him holding the photo of himself as a baby on Lance’s knee, whilst standing in front of Lance’s name on the wall at the Australian War Memorial. This was taken on the 75th commemoration of the sinking of the Montevideo Maru in 2017 when many family members went for the first time in memory of Lance. Ron would also have known Bill Neave.

My other error was the name of the Dergholm sports ground. It is actually ‘Dergholm Recreation Reserve’ that the gates are on, next to the Dergholm & District Soldiers Memorial Hall. Like many small country towns there isn’t much left in Dergholm - only the ‘Pub in the Scrub’, that includes the post office/general store. 

Thanks again for your interest & sharing with us,

Julie

……………………………………………………………….

Now a month since the screening, the film continues to bring back stories of the past, new connections are being made between descendants of the boys who went to war, bright eyed and bushy tailed, with no idea of what horror was in store for them!

14/5/23

Then Julie sent a newly discovered photograph of George Coates.

GEORGE COATES

Because she is really good at researching things I asked Julie if she could get us any further details of these young men. Here’s what she has come up with:

Hi Peter,

Here’s extra info for you - I just heard back from Australian archives, Bill’s records should be digitised by September this year. Not sure if Jock Woods came back on the boat I’ve mentioned….am sure you will be able to shorten this to suit your blog:

Casterton boys of the 2/22 Battalion

On 8 June 1940, the five mates George Coates, Lance Howlett, Russell Howlett, Bill Neave and Jock Woods enlisted in the AIF together. All of them hailed from Casterton and Dergholm and reputedly worked together around Dergholm in Victoria’s Western Districts. 

The men became part of the 2/22 Battalion known as Lark Force. Part of their training included a 235 km march from Trawool to Bonegilla near Wodonga Vic. The battalion embarked from Sydney on 17 April 1941 aboard the Zealandia arriving into the Rabaul Harbour on 25 April 1941, disembarking the next day into Rabaul, New Britain (now Papua New Guinea). 

The role of the force was to protect the aerodromes of Lakunai and Vunakanau and the seaplane base at Rabaul and provide early warning of Japanese forces movements to the north of Australia.

For nine months, Lark Force protected Rabaul - until 23 January 1942 when 5000 Japanese soldiers invaded, the under provisioned Lark Force were given the order to evacuate and escape: ‘Every man for himself’! 

VX24162 George Duncan Coates of Casterton was 25 at the time of enlistment. 

George escaped from Rabaul into the jungle after the Japanese invasion of 23 January 1942. He and Bill Neave were almost captured at Gasmata. Weak from malaria at the village of Tui, George and Bill were already skeleton-like with long beards and wearing lap laps. The villagers allowed them to rest for two to three weeks. Sadly George died 26 March 1942 with his mate Bill holding his hand to the last. The local villagers buried George and sang ‘Abide with Me’ in their own language.

VX24188 William James Neave (Bill) from Casterton was the oldest in the group at 27 years of age upon enlistment. 

After escaping into the jungle with George and holding his hand as George died 26 March 1942, Bill himself was saved by another soldier who gave him quinine. A message from the missionary Father ‘Ted’ Harris told them that a boat they could escape on would leave Jacquinot Bay, a 48 km walk away that took Bill and his group 4 days. Unfortunately, by the time the group arrived the boat had left and would not return.

Luckily NGVR (New Guinea Volunteer Rifles) member Dave Laws found a 5 metre boat but its engine had seized. Dave was clever with mechanics and for the following weeks, Laws, Neave and others worked to get the boat going. They finally left with 17 people on board. At one stage, Bill was comatose with malaria and as he was thought to be dead was almost thrown overboard!  

After 6 nights and being off course by 322 km the boat finally beached at Sio on the Huon Peninsula. Local villagers rescued the group from the coral reef.

They were able to find food at an abandoned homestead and some aviation fuel was dropped to them, which caused ongoing problems for the boat. They set off again in the boat for Bogadjim south of Madang where they rested for some weeks at another missionary. 

Bill’s group of thirteen men were told that if they wanted to get to Port Moresby from Bogadjim, they had a 322 km walk to Wau ahead of them. This involved 3 weeks of walking - over the Finisterre Ranges through inland Ramu Valley to Bena Bena central New Guinea. Upon arrival in Wau, they were flown to Port Moresby.  

After spending 183 days since the fall of Rabaul, now back safely in Australia Bill was hospitalized for malaria. Upon his recovery he fought again in New Guinea with the 2/4 Battalion.

VX24179 Wilfred Lancelot Howlett (Lance) of Dergholm turned 21 two weeks after enlistment, his birthday landing only one day after his older brother Russell’s.

Lance enjoyed his time in Rabaul as the batman/driver for Lark Force’s chaplain (TX6004 Padre John Lovatt May). The Padre was an excellent photographer and letter writer, regularly sending home to his Tasmanian family very detailed photo albums and letters with many pictures and references to Lance - he is pictured climbing the active volcano, handling coconuts, viewing crocodiles and sea turtles when driving staff around seated in the back of his army truck in deckchairs whilst mixing with missionaries and locals. (note: the week after the Montevideo Maru departed. Padre May, with several officers, was sent aboard the hellship Naruto Maru to be held POW in Japan until 1945).

Lance initially escaped but was captured at Warangoi River and held POW on Rabaul for five months. When the Japanese were unable to cope with feeding both Japanese soldiers and Australian POW due to shipping lane supplies not getting through, they made a decision to send the POWs to the island of Hainan.

On 22 June 1942 (Lance’s 23rd birthday), he was marched down Malaguna Road with 1052 other Rabaul POW, some being carried on old doors due to their weakness. They were marched past the Padre who wrote to Lance’s parents after the war saying that he saw Lance that day and reported that he was in good spirits and Lance gave a cheerio as he passed.  The Australian soldiers were marched into the hull of the hellship Montevideo Maru and its hatches were nailed down. 

Lance died 1 July 1942 in the unmarked Japanese POW ship when it was torpedoed by the United States submarine USS Sturgeon. Of the 1053 POW on board, 845 were military and 208 civilians. There were also 88 Japanese crew. Only 17 Japanese survived the sinking. Not a single POW survived.

VX24212 John Frederick Clarence Woods (Jock Woods) from Casterton turned 23 just after enlistment.

Jock did escape the Japanese through the jungle to join Bill and George, and was assumed to be at Father Ted Harris’ Mal Mal mission in time to escape aboard the boat Laurabada, overloaded with 156 people on board. It left on 9 April, arriving 12 April in Port Moresby. The men were put on the Macdhui from there. Jock was a Lance Sergeant and was discharged from 107 Convalescent Depot, 30th November 1943.

VX24163 Russell Mervyn Howlett of Dergholm turned 23 two weeks after enlistment.

Russell was injured whilst on leave in Melbourne shattering his right fibula in July 1940 and spent the next 10 months in an army hospital. He was discharged from service on 11 August 1941, not having served overseas.  

Conclusions:

You can see from all the information Julie has dug up how different a film would have been made if it was a standard format documentary or a typical Aussie feature film.

As a postscript for friends who have seen my film, it never entered my mind to make such a “standard format” film, I was only concerned to make a film which would allow Bill to tell his story in his own words. 

I would like to say another thing about some people’s reaction to my film.

A number of people have said to me it was the most powerful anti-war film they had seen. But I never intended that it be seen as an “anti-war” film. It takes place in a theatre of war, which is always horrific as we know, but it really is about a man trying to come to terms with events he has experienced in his life which have transformed him from a normal sort of young person into a monster. A monster he can never forgive himself for becoming. And that can happen in many other situations of human life where people are tested beyond their capacity.

I recall talking about this to Adrian Rawlins shortly after him seeing the film in 1982. I had mentioned to Adrian that some people thought it was an anti-war film. He agreed with my view of it saying in the way only Adrian could do:

“Well, they’re wrong… it's a deeply humanist document!”

That statement struck a chord with me.

But now we have come to another reckoning since the screening at Thornbury in April.

Forty years after it was made it was shown to some people who had seen it previously and others who had never seen it. I was struck by the fact that people from each of these groups were deeply moved by the film.

I want to thank Julie Jolliffe for her wonderful commitment to fact-finding the stories of these young men who sacrificed themselves for our country.

Julie's work has shown me that the film serves another purpose, entirely different from what I had in mind when making the film. The film speaks to a generation of people whose family members were caught up in the same set of circumstances which engulfed Bill Neave and changed his life forever.

Peter Tammer

21.05.2023