The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944

by Ian W. Toll

The Bougainville-based coastwatchers continued to send their priceless forewarnings of southbound enemy air formations. Jack Read, whose beard had descended almost to the neck of his shirt, enjoyed the afternoon ritual of watching the surviving remnants of Japanese flights as they flew overhead in groups of two or three.36 The Japanese knew perfectly well that two Allied coastwatchers were hiding in the bush at the northern and southern ends of Bougainville, and were determined to get rid of them. Paul Mason learned from native spies that a hundred Japanese troops and a number of tracker dogs had gathered at Buin and would soon come after him. He called in an airstrike that killed the dogs in their cages. Both men had remarkable success in holding a tenuous grasp on the loyalty of native villages. Though their presence was known by hundreds of people in dozens of villages, none betrayed them to the Japanese.