by Ernie Badham

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We sailed from Suez on the troopship "Orcades" late in January 1942, reaching Colombo ten days later where we stayed for a day. No leave was granted and as we were supposedly under very tight and strict security. After leaving Colombo, we sailed south-east with no doubt in our minds that our next port of call would be Fremantle. However about three days later, when coming on deck after breakfast, Hugh Cory drew my attention to the fact that the sun had set on the starboard the previous day and risen this morning again on the starboard. This was soon realised by most of us and meant only one thing, that we were headed northwards.

Approximately five days later, we sighted land that turned out to be Sumatra. That same evening, we dropped anchor in the Sumatran Harbour of Oesthaven. On embarkation at Suez, we had on board the 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion and 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion. Both of these units had seen service in Syria. Now on arrival at Oesthaven, men from these units were assembled on deck with elements from my own 2/2nd A.C.C.S and were transferred by ship’s boat to shore. As I had previous infantry experience, I was attached to 2/2nd Pioneers.

Once ashore, we were loaded onto trucks and driven through the night over good bitumen roads as Oesthaven at that time was the major port for the oil city of Palembang. In the early hours, we finally arrived on the outskirts of Palembang. Here we were deployed around the town and oil-fields particularly. We still did not know what to expect, although news had filtered through that Singapore had already fallen or was in dire circumstances with little hope of survival. In this case we naturally thought the next Japanese move would be toward the chain of islands that made up the East Indies. No doubt rather vital to the stretched out Japanese lines of communication was the oil field at Palembang - hence our occupation there.

About mid morning the following day we heard the sounds of aircraft and then we saw them! By the time they were over Palembang they were fairly low and soon began discharging paratroopers. No sooner had these planes discharged their loads than another squadron would arrive with more paratroops, until there were virtually what seemed like, thousands of Japanese everywhere. As we were under Dutch administration our Commander had difficulty in relaying orders until eventually the position was so hopeless that it was decided to retreat along the road towards Oesthaven. I personally did not see a Japanese after they landed, but of course we all fired at them in the air. As to what toll was taken in this manner it would never be known.

With the knowledge that a Jap could be behind every tree, I was not sorry to be heading back. There were explosions as the Dutch authorities blew up all the oil-refinery installations before retreating and together with the noise of small arms fire, plus field weapons, it was chaotic. We had no idea how the battle was going as the Japanese were spread over such a wide area and to this day I do not know how many casualties we had or what happened to the wounded who had to be left behind. Trucks again began to pick us up and men crowded into each vehicle until all were vastly overloaded. Chaos reigned and all that afternoon and through the night we were stopping and starting as the road became jammed with retreating troops.

Foreword	Page 2