Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

The war in PNG had a profound effect on my grandfather, Colin Rosetta. He told me some stories in the last few years of his life, some gruesome. His anecdotes were all told in a fatalistic, laconic way.
He had little respect for authority - one of his quotes in reference to an officer "dogmatic, half-bred Pom". Grandad took part in a mission to rescue American pilots from the Coral Sea battle - he picked up two. They went out in American and Japanese dinghies - "Jap ones had net as a base, so sharks would be swimming around everywhere with your bum in the water". They were only meant to be out for 6-8 days, ended up being 6 weeks. Camping out on small islands lousy with mosquitoes, and rats crawling over them at night. In the end the Officer in Charge "received a medal, the soldiers received a pouch of stale tobacco."
Grandad said everyone smoked because "it was the only pleasurable thing you could do". He relates a story about blokes sitting around with bits of rag in their bums to plug the effects of dysentery. Grandad suffered many bouts of Malaria during his service. He said they were eating rations from WWI, and using weapons from the previous war as well. His legs were shredded between the bottom of his shorts down to his ankles by the "blady grass". In old age his skin was like bruised purple paper.
He didn't like the "yanks", but hated "the Japs". Mind you, he connected with an American Nurse, Ione, in Milne Bay who he spoke very fondly of. She wrote to him from California after the war. Grandad never sought accolades but was always disappointed by the support and treatment from the Australian Govt after the war. He kept his horrible experiences inside him for most of his life, and I believe his ex-wife (my grandmother) and his children suffered for it. He was as tough as hell and didn't care what anyone thought - I guess he felt he'd paid his due. It amused Grandad to no end that people in modern times would pay money to walk the Kokoda Track! Grandad, Colin Rosetta, died in 1996. I miss him.
Cathy Rosetta