On the morning of January 23, 1942, C.C. Jervis, the sole inhabitant of the tiny South Pacific atoll of Nissan, situated between New Ireland and Bougainville, switched on his cumbersome Teleradio and sent a brief signal via Morse Code: “Unknown ship stopping at lagoon entrance.” It was the last anyone would ever hear from him.
As he sent his signal that thick tropical morning, 250 kilometres to the west, Japanese forces were overwhelming the then capital of the Australian Territory of New Guinea, a protectorate since 1914. For Lark Force, a token and poorly trained battalion of infantry sent to defend it, it was a rout and the battle was over almost before it had started.
On Nissan, Jervis, a civilian plantation owner, had been stationed as part of the Coastwatcher organisation to report all Japanese activity in that remote corner of the Pacific via radio to intelligence analysts in Port Moresby. As the long-awaited Japanese assault on Rabaul and its surrounding islands began, Jervis was warned not to expect the arrival of any friendly vessels, and that the chances of evacuation were slim. As the mysterious ship entered the mouth of his horseshoe-shaped ribbon of sand and palm trees which, at no point rose more than 20 feet above the blue Pacific, Jervis was in no doubt that it was Japanese, and that there was nowhere for him to run nor hide.
Of the 37 Australian and British Coastwatchers to die at the hands of the Japanese in the Second World War, C.C. Jervis was the first.
Five months later, another Australian Coastwatcher sent another signal, this time from a high jungle lookout on the island of Bougainville. On a morning in early June, Paul Mason lifted his binoculars to count a passing formation of Japanese dive bombers heading to the south. Picking up the microphone of his radio, he gave the secret three-letter code indicating his location before uttering in a clear voice: “Twenty-four bombers heading yours.”
