Go Back   Professional Soldiers ® > At Ease > The Early Bird

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-18-2016, 18:39   #1
The Reaper
Quiet Professional
 
The Reaper's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,813
Daring deeds that history forgot

Daring deeds that history forgot
by Judi Millar, Daughter Of Sergeant Frank Wigzell

m.nzherald.co.nz

They answered the clandestine call to arms. Parachuting deep into the Borneo jungle behind enemy lines, they trained native headhunters, formed ruthless guerrilla resistance groups, gathered critical intelligence and embarked on some of the most audacious raids of World War II.

Many survived but some were captured by the Japanese, tortured and beheaded. Others vanished without trace.

There were 22 New Zealanders attached to Z Special Unit (ZSU), the crack Australian military unit that would form the genesis of the present-day New Zealand SAS (Special Air Service).

After the war, they were silenced by 30 and 40-year secrecy agreements. Their existence never appeared on official army records. Many died without their own families ever knowing what they did in the war. Today, all 22 of the elite Kiwi soldiers are dead.

But, more than 70 years since the war ended, they will finally gain official recognition for their extraordinary feats.

On August 1, a memorial plaque dedicated to the men of ZSU will be unveiled at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

At least eight New Zealand families hope to attend the memorial dedication service, including Judi Millar, daughter of Sergeant Frank Wigzell - the first New Zealander to parachute behind enemy lines into Japanese-held Borneo.

"These men, who put their hands up and disappeared without anyone ever knowing where they had been, have sat nowhere in history. So to be recognised by Australia now is great, to say finally that yes, they were there," says Millar.

Hamilton-born Francis "Frank" Alexander Wigzell was an 18-year-old New Zealand Railways junior clerk at the outbreak of the war. He lied about his age and in August 1942 became a sergeant with the Light Armoured Fighting Vehicle regiment.

After a two-year posting at New Caledonia, and itching for more overseas service, he spotted a notice inside the Trentham military camp barracks, asking for volunteers to a "special assignment".

Kiwi Frank Wigzell lied about his age to join the war effort.

Along with five others, he was part of the second intake of New Zealand volunteers seconded to Special Operations Australia and its Z Special Unit. They were wrapped in secrecy, with only military top brass being aware of their existence.

Wigzell's journey into the elite unit is typical of most of its recruits.
"They were not professional soldiers but rather ordinary men - tailors, surveyors, shop-keepers - who volunteered for special operations," says Christine Helliwell, a New Zealand-born anthropologist and associate professor at the College of Arts and Social Sciences at Australian National University in Canberra who drove the move to getting the men recognised at the Australian War Memorial.

"One of the veterans I interviewed just had a vague idea that he'd volunteered for something pretty special. He went off for training and suddenly gets told, 'Tomorrow you're off to Borneo where you're going to be dropped in by parachute into the heart of the jungle'."

On June 9, 1945, Wigzell parachuted into the Kelabit Highlands jungle of Sarawak as part of Operation Semut, tasked with "passive intelligence gathering" and training and arming native guerrilla fighters.

Making a wet landing in a paddy field, he was met by Kelabit tribesmen who helped him up and disposed of his parachute.

"These natives ... light olive-skinned, clothed only in loin cloths, and some with bark jackets, were my first introduction to Borneans," Wigzell would later write in his book, Blood Brotherz - The true story of a New Zealand commando in Borneo during World War II with Australia's top secret Z-Special Unit.

"Smiling, laughing ... and amused at my wet condition they appeared to be a happy and contented people."

Another New Zealander, Ernie Myers from Invercargill, also parachuted into the jungle - landing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Within days, the 21-year-old former telegraph worker was captured by the Japanese who tortured him savagely before he was beheaded.

Wigzell spent nine tough months in the dense, stifling and disease-rife jungle, living with the native headhunters who accepted him as a member of the tribe, naming him Tuan Pukal, or white drum-beater. They taught him jungle craft, sleeping huddled on the jungle floor together when the temperatures plummeted at night.

At ever-present risk of discovery by the occupying Japanese forces, not to mention the risk of dysentery, malaria, fungus, infections, leeches, snakes, and tigers, he established a radio link back to Australia and picked up crucial intelligence about enemy movements, transport, and traffic, for sabotage actions.

Wigzell also trained a guerrilla army, armed with both automatic and carbine rifles, but also poisonous blowpipes and machetes.

The natives were also keen to collect Japanese heads, a move encouraged by the British commander of ZSU operatives in Borneo, Major Tom Harrisson - a figure despised by Wigzell and his Kiwi comrades - who paid them a bounty for each head taken. The skulls were hung with pride from the rafters of villagers' longhouses. "Now with the help and supply of arms from their 'Z' friends from the sky, vengeance was being exacted on the Japanese for their treatment of the tribespeople of Borneo over the last three years," Wigzell wrote after the official secrecy had lifted.
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
The Reaper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2016, 18:40   #2
The Reaper
Quiet Professional
 
The Reaper's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,813
Continued below.

"I was glad I was on the right side of the fence at this point in time. To be confronted by these well-built, strong muscular-figured native warriors was menacing indeed."

Major Gordon Senior "Toby" Carter, an Aucklander who had worked in Sarawak prior to the war as a surveyor and road engineer for Shell Oil, served with the British and Australian armies and took command of an Operation Semut unit.

He would later be awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his covert work in controlling a 15,000 square km area and causing havoc for the enemy.

Carter's citation noted that his forces were responsible for killing 258 Japanese in hit-and-run operations.

"His full strength of white personnel was 17. His own casualties were 5 guerrillas [sic] killed. The excellent results reported above were obtained mainly by Major Carter's enthusiasm, ability and self-sacrifice ... On several occasions this officer personally led his guerrilla bands into attacks which inflicted heavy casualties upon the enemy," his citation read.

Four New Zealanders were killed during operations in Borneo, including unit leader - another Aucklander - Donald Stott, who was also awarded the DSM.

The 29-year-old Battle of Crete veteran, who had escaped from a German prisoner of war camp and had worked with the Greek resistance, died in tragic circumstances.

On March 20, 1945 as commander of Operation Robin 1 tasked with sabotage and intelligence missions in Southeast Borneo, his boat got into trouble sneaking ashore. Stott and a fellow Kiwi Captain Leslie Thomas McMillan of Dunedin were never seen again, and were presumed drowned.

Once the veil of secrecy around Z Special Unit's activities was finally lifted, details of one of the most daring and successful raids of World War II was revealed.

In September 1943, 11 Australian and three British army and navy personnel headed for Singapore harbour in an old Japanese wooden-hulled fishing vessel, renamed the Krait, in what was codenamed Operation Jaywick.

Disguised as a Malay fishing boat, its crewmen endeavoured to look Malay by staining their skin.

As they got close, they climbed into three canoes and silently paddled into the harbour.

They attached limpet mines to several vessels and snuck off before the mines exploded early on September 26, 1943.

Some of the Malayan headhunter tribesmen taught Frank Wigzell jungle craft.

Seven Japanese transport ships, amounting to 39,000 tonnes, were sunk and the crew successfully made it back to Australia.

But in a subsequent mission, Operation Rimau, the raiding party was detected by the Japanese, hunted down, and 17 men were executed.

Helliwell has spent the last 30 years working with indigenous Dayak people in Borneo.

In 2014, she began a project with the Australian War Memorial (AWM) on memories of World War II in Borneo. It was then that she first became aware of the ZSU and its remarkable exploits.

She interviewed the two remaining veterans of Operation Semut and was "appalled" to discover that they'd seemingly been forgotten by history.

She and 96-year-old Australian Jack Tredrea, the oldest surviving ZSU veteran who was on Operation Semut with a number of New Zealanders, wrote to the AWM director to make a special case to recognise the men.

"We got a letter back the next day to say we were right. He approved it immediately," Helliwell says.

Discovering that there were 22 "extraordinary" New Zealanders who also served with the commando unit, she started tracking down their families to invite them to the ZSU plaque dedication ceremony at the AWM on August 1.
"The men of ZSU did extraordinary things, yet there is almost no knowledge of their activities within either New Zealand or Australia. As a result, their activities have never been publicly recognised - something which deeply grieves the surviving veterans and their families, as well as the families of those who did not survive," she said.

"For many family members this will provide their first real opportunity to publicly recognise and mourn those who were lost."

Millar will be there. Since her father's death in 2008, she has kept in touch with the Australian veterans.

"It's so important to ensure that New Zealand's contribution is never forgotten. After all these years, it's the least we can do," she said.
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
The Reaper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2016, 06:11   #3
JJ_BPK
Quiet Professional
 
JJ_BPK's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: 18 yrs upstate NY, 30 yrs South Florida, 20 yrs Conch Republic, now chasing G-Kids in NOVA & UK
Posts: 11,901
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Reaper View Post
Continued below.

"I was glad I was on the right side of the fence at this point in time. To be confronted by these well-built, strong muscular-figured native warriors was menacing indeed."


An unknown piece of history gets a little sunshine..

Thank you, TR.
__________________
Go raibh tú leathuair ar Neamh sula mbeadh a fhios ag an diabhal go bhfuil tú marbh

"May you be a half hour in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead"
JJ_BPK is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2016, 07:23   #4
miclo18d
Quiet Professional
 
miclo18d's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Occupied Northlandia
Posts: 1,697
One of my favorite movies as a kid (1981) (I loved the silenced M3s!!!!!)

A few years ago I read some things that were more in line with the article. Amazing men and an amazing mission. I always felt more in line with this group than the Jedburghs. Uniformed, larger combat role, train and use the population, as opposed to more spy like. There is a time for both.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg image.jpg (110.3 KB, 44 views)
__________________
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." — Jeff Cooper
miclo18d is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2016, 12:03   #5
Flagg
Area Commander
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 1,423
Memorial at Unit camp that includes Z Force:

http://i64.tinypic.com/2s1kkz7.jpg

Some interesting history there along the British SOE org model.

Op Jaywick was a very successful raid on Singapore Harbour sinking 7 ships via commando kayak infil using limpet mines. There was a movie and or mini series about it made that is well regarded(saw it once and agree), but can't seem to find it on the net.

Not much out there, maybe for the best as modern journalists sniffing around about historical and current capabilities having gotten much. Maybe due to the use of restricted access islands, then and now.
Flagg is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 20:02.



Copyright 2004-2022 by Professional Soldiers ®
Site Designed, Maintained, & Hosted by Hilliker Technologies