An Anzac reunion: the story of Joe, Jim and Rob

It is also true there are some stories that our parents are reluctant to tell us, for one reason or another.

I have found this is particularly true of ex-servicemen, my father Joe Willis being one of them.

We knew that Joe was involved in the Special Services units during World War 2 and he proudly wore a tie with a Z on it on occasions along with his war medals. But when asked about it, as with many others of his era and experiences, he would just shrug it off or change the topic.

Even though my interest was and still is researching and recording the stories of Australia for The National Library (NLA) I was reluctant to push the topic with my own father.

Joe died in 1994 aged 76 years and this prompted me to find out more about his military career. Through the wonders of technology, availability of his war records and other resources along with my love of research a bit of information was obtained, but not a great deal.

What we did put together was that Joe was part of the original Special Forces Units (Commandos). This consisted of two units Z Special and M Special, Joe was attached to M Special.

The story of these two units is enthralling and worth further investigation but I'll keep it brief.

Z Special were the search and destroy unit and M Special were placed behind enemy lines to obtain information about Japanese troop movements. By the secretive nature of their activities documentation is hard to find, as I soon recognised.

My interest was there but I had hit the wall as far as finding out more until the eve of ANZAC day 2023 when I tried, yet again, searching "Lt Joe Willis M Special". Imagine my surprise when this came up on a site entitled "The Last Coastwatcher' compiled by Jim Burrowes and his son.

"Our small Coastwatcher party comprised Captain Malcolm English, Lieutenant Joe Willis and myself (Sergeant), with ten Allied Intelligence Bureau-trained and armed Papuan troops. However, as we all experienced the same risk of capture and being killed, we operated on a first-name basis with the officers 'incognito'."

There were also contact details for Jim and it was with trepidation I called the number as Jim would have to be close to 100 years of age. A sprightly voice answered and indeed it was Jim and indeed he was 100 years of age and "still had all his marbles".

A couple of days later Ollie and I were on a plane to Melbourne with a recorder to capture Jim's life story, which apart from his war service was enthralling. Of course it is now archived in the NLA Oral History section. In the hours we spent with Jim we learnt not only about Joe Willis but also the role of M Special and the information they obtained. I'll let Jim give you an overview:

"After a lengthy trek through the jungle with a party of natives carrying supplies, in November 1944 I duly arrived at the established base camp in the Baining Mountains of the Gazelle Peninsula overlooking Rabaul. Our purpose was to observe and report Japanese movements whether by land, sea or air.

Thus I spent ten months in Japanese-occupied territory as a radio signaller with a small wireless set: a combination that was critical to the success of the Coastwatchers. As a Coastwatcher and also a signaller, I was proud to play a key role in their operations, as the singular mandate of Coastwatching was not to confront the enemy but to report their movements. Hence, without a radio operator, there would not have been any Coastwatching parties.

Our camp had been set up on a mountain ridge to avoid any unpleasant surprise from Japanese troops. At each end of the camp two or three of our faithful troops would be on sentry duty to provide warning of any attack.

We had a thatched shelter, built by the Papuans, in which we lived and stored our gear.

We slept in our clothes, with our weapons handy, in the thatched huts. Our beds were made of crossed boughs tied with vines to shafts along the sides and covered by a canvas sleeve.

As an aside, it transpired that English, Willis and I were the only white men to view Japanese-occupied Rabaul from land."

The full story can be obtained from Jim's site "The Last Coastwatcher"

It is impossible to express my sentiments about sitting down and recording the untold story of someone who had spent that time with my father on a Peninsula overlooking Rabaul observing Japanese movements. Yes there was, and still is, a strong connection.

After Ollie and I had recorded Jim, he produced the Morse Code key that he had with him in New Britain and proceeded to tap out a message about the movement of Japanese planes.

Just to prove he "still had all his marbles" Jim then proceeded to tap out the Morse alphabet - backwards.

Thanks for your memories, Jim, apart from preserving them for future generations you have filled in the gaps in the life story of Joe Willis.