Darcy true to his colours

KATINA CURTIS
A KIAMA World War II veteran recently returned to Gemas in Malaysia for the first time since he ambushed Japanese soldiers at the nearby Gemencheh Bridge in 1942.
Darcy Pickard was asked to go back to Malaysia to officially present the colours of his battalion, 2/30th Infantry Battalion, to the Australian Army Land Command Liaison Section at Butterworth.
“There’s a team in Malaysia of Australian soldiers and they want to call themselves the 2/30th (Training Group) because we were the first Australian soldiers to fight the Japanese,” Mr Pickard said.
“They’re using our flag so our flag will last forever.”
Mr Pickard was part of the battalion’s B Company which, on January 14, 1942, was sent to ambush the main Japanese advance into Singapore.
“We were sent four miles ahead of our battalion and waited in the jungle for the Japanese to come,” Mr Pickard said.
“When they came, they were riding pushbikes, hundreds of them. We waited until they were on the bridge and then we blew them.”
Land Command Support Group Commander Colonel Mark Shepard said the ambush killed between 700 and 1000 Japanese soldiers.
Only one of the Australian soldiers was killed. Ten were wounded.
“The Japanese said (the 2/30th) were the only soldiers in the war they thought were brave,” Mr Pickard said.
After the Allied surrender a month after this ambush, the remaining members of the 2/30th became prisoners of the Japanese.
When the war ended in 1945, those who survived, including Mr Pickard, returned to Australia.
Mr Pickard said the Land Command Liaison Section wanted someone who had been part of the Gemencheh Bridge ambush to go over and present them with the battalion’s colours.
He was the only member of B Company they could find who was still alive.
“If any of them are left, they couldn’t find them so they had to take a little short-arse like me instead of a big soldier,” he said.
When first asked to go, he said he was a bit concerned about returning to Malaysia, but that once there it was a great adventure.
As well as presenting the colours, during the four-day trip Mr Pickard, with Neville Riley who was in the HQ Company of the 2/30th, dedicated a memorial to the 394 members of his battalion who died in action or as prisoners of war.
They also visited the Kranji War Cemetery, where Mr Pickard visited the grave of one of his mates, Teddy Gill.