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The Jane Morehead:
The Oldest Ship in the War by Ed Dennis General Douglas McArthur's first amphibious landing in World War II took place 19 October 1942, when soldiers from the I 28th Infantry went ashore at Pongani, New Guinea. McArthur had earlier said, "We wi ll defend Australia in New Guinea," and the landing was the first move in the long process to wrest contro l of the island from the Japanese. The Navy got the pick of the supplies for their own campaign in the Solomons , and they were also reluctant to send in any of their larger ships to the virtua ll y uncharted coasts of Papua New Guinea where they would be vulnerable to attack. The task of rounding up ships for what would become known as "McArthur's Navy" fell to two brothers , Bruce and Sheridan Fahnestock, who were commissioned officers in the Army and who had made several trips to New Guinea before the war for National Geographic . They bought or chartered anything they could find that wou ld float , from graceful Thursday Island pearl luggers and ketches to Tasmanian apple schooners and Queensland fishing trawlers. The Fahnestock brothers were also members of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, and the backbone of the fleet was made up of another 1,300 or so Coast Guard Auxiliaries and yachtsmen, many of whom were considered too old or otherwise unfit for active duty in the other armed forces. No merchant marine licenses were required and precise navigation wasn't needed. But as yachtsmen and fishermen , these men knew how to handle the trawlers and other small ships so desperately needed among the islands to the north of Australia. If you could handle a small boat and you didn ' t mind going into a combat zone in a virtually unarmed vessel, you were signed on. I joined McArthur's Navy in 1943 and sailed as engineer in the Jane Morehead. Burned into one of her deck beams near the cargo hatch was 1860 , the year she was launched as a two-masted coastal schooner in Tasmania. Her master, Captain Harry Simmonds , from Adelaide, said she was built by convict labor at Val lerne, Tasmania , and named for the wife of the Governor of Prisons. The Jane 's wrinkles spoke of an era long past , but the war lifted her Victorian veil and put the old lady to work hauling men and supplies along the reef-infested waters of New Guinea. Despite her age, she was a fair dinkum ship, reasonably comfortab le and dry during the sudden tropical storms we were continually having , and she didn't mind being hung up on a sand bar or reef every so often. The accomodations were spartan: the Captain and I each had a cabin by the charthouse aft, and the focsle was shared by the two local deckhands , Oswald and Wilkie; the French cook, Pierre; and the mate , Al Myers from Red Bank , New Jersey. It didn ' t matter much, because we mostly slept on deck where it wasn ' t as hot and didn ' t stink so much. When Captain Simmonds got the Jan e from the Neptune Shipyard in Sydney , she was rigged down and fitted with an old, slow-turning (400rpm) heavy duty Vivian diesel engine. The operating and service manuals had long since di sappeared , and we learned the inner workings of this machine from sheer necessity and lots of sweat. Cookie' s pride and joy was a n antique wood-burning stove which we later turned into a kerosene-burning monster. There were few other conveniences: no refrigeration , no head a nd no electricty, except for the binnacle and running lights (which we never used) and, if I remember correctly, a fan. For protection we had 4-inch planking and two SO-caliber machine guns which looked like they were of World War I vintage and which could o nl y be fired broadside , as otherwise the rigging and galley would be shot away. The cargo hoi st was powered with a one-cylinder, horizontal , open crankcase , slow-speed Imperial diesel engine SEA HISTORY , SUMMER 1987
At Pongani, October, 1942 , men and supplies come ashore from their transports, the trawlers King John and Timoshenko and the converted schooner Jane Morehead , of 1860. At left , the author with a captured Japanese rifle, an American rifle and his 45-caliber sidearm. which had to be stopped every half hour or so for oiling. The Jan e's first big mission came in the assault on Pongani. She sailed from the port of Wanigela, an Anglican Mission station which served as a base for the Australian/ New Guinea Administration Unit (ANGAU). Sailing shortly after the trawlers King John and Timoshenko , the Jane carried fifty or sixty Gls and ammunition. From Wanigela to Pongani you had to double Cape Nelson; but due to the reefs-the Jane drew eight feet-and its being dark, Captain Simmonds decided to go into Tufi fiord. While he was there, he asked Lt. Dave Marsh of ANG AU for two local guides to con the Jane around Cape Nelson and up the equally treacherous coast to Pongani. A Pongani landing had been decided on by the joint Australian and American Command because it was the site of a n ANGAU lookout station, and it was the terminal for several jungle tracks , one of which led to Buna. Buna was held by about 5,500 jungle-hardened Japanese troops , and it was finally taken in February , after som.e of the toughest hand-to-hand fighting in the war. There were 9,000 American and Australian casualties-half again as many as at Guadalcanal. The Pongani landing was interrupted by a bombing run not from Japanese planes , but from American B-25s flying out of Port Moresby, which were ordered to shoot at anything th at moved, In the attack, Bruce Fahnestock was killed , as was a reporter for the New York Times, Barney Darnton. But by the time the Jan e arrived the landing was under way. Her troops and supplies were offloaded into double-hulled native dugouts. A few hours later she turned around and went back to Wanigela for another load. Although the Jan e came out of the Pongani landings unscathed , when I sailed in her in 1943-44, we were bombed and strafed several times-at Lae and Dreger Harbor , and at Cape Gloucester, New Britain. And when we sailed between the islands , we were also attacked by lone Japanese Zeros equipped with pontoons. I left the Jan e in June 1944, when l was transferred to the FS 9A (the Atabrine Express) a non-Red Cross armed medical ship attached to the 13th Medical Corps at Finschhafen, New Guinea. But I will always be proud to have been a part ofMcArthur's Navy , the unknown few who answered our country's call in its hour of need, and helped in a small way to turn th e tide of battle until massive help could be sent from America. .t
Mr. Dennis, originally from Brooklyn , today lives in Hialeah, Florida. He is diesel editor for Motor Boating and Sailing magazine and field editor for Diesel and Gas Turbine Publications. 7
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