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CODER Ronald George 'Dixie' LEE o/n 24856
“We were sent to a little island called Stirling Island in the Treasury Island group which was just off Bougainville,” he said. “The islands were completely controlled by Japan, and we set up a little camp there. “There were three of us – an officer, a sergeant in the army, and then me, a coder from the navy. “Your heart probably beats a little bit faster because you don’t know what’s ashore… but I realised early on that I was immortal, so nothing sort of frightened me. “Some of our blokes were beheaded and terrible things … But I just did my job. It wasn’t a case of coming back saying, hey, I’m a hero; you didn’t think about it, and I just came back and did ordinary work – the fighter pilots, and tail gunners, and things; they were the brave ones.” Dixie had joined the Royal Australian Navy at the age of 17, and was a high-spirited young rebel who got into his fair share of scrapes. A month after enlistment, Dixie joined the Flinders Naval Base, HMAS Cerberus, where he was allocated to a new category, an adjunct to the Naval Signals Branch, known as Coder. These were specially selected bright youngsters who could be trained in crypto analysis. Coder was equivalent to an Able Seaman. After 2½ years adventurous service on the Armed Merchant Cruiser HMAS Manoora, and still only 19, Dixie was posted to the Brisbane base, HMAS Moreton, for duties in General McArthur’s new temporary Brisbane headquarters at the AMP Building in Queen Street. He remained there for about a year, mainly involved in coding and decoding signals. Dixie, in common with a number of other Coders, because of their signaling/morse and radio skills, was encouraged to volunteer for coastwatching duties. While a coastwatching training facility had been established at Tabragalba near Beaudesert in southeast Queensland this was a recent initiative and was not available to Dixie. So without any formal training the boy from Tassie, who had rarely seen an aircraft, was sitting in the back of a RAAF version of the B24 Liberator bomber enroute to Vila in the Solomon Islands. “It was so secret they didn’t allow any of what we did to get out,” Dixie said. “We had our headquarters in a place called Hahndorf House in Brisbane, but we couldn’t go straight in; we had to walk around the block to make sure no one was following us. “It was just part of the war, and we knew that we were a very secret society.
“If you look up my record, there’s nothing; it says I spent
the rest of the war from ’43 to ’46 in the naval depot, but
I wasn’t there, I was in the Coastwatchers.”
They were code-named "Ferdinand" after the popular children's book character Ferdinand the bull, who sat among the flowers and refused to fight. The name was chosen as a reminder to the Coastwatchers that their job was not to fight and draw attention to themselves, but to sit quietly and spy on the Japanese and gather information.
Hidden behind enemy lines, the Coastwatchers warned of
Japanese air strikes, reported on the movement of Japanese
shipping and troops, and saved countless lives, including
that of future US President John F. Kennedy. Their reports
gave vital warning time to the Allies and allowed them to
take a decisive toll on the enemy, changing the course of
the Pacific War.
Dixie then spent about four months inserted in Combined Operations Intelligence Unit gathering information in the Treasury group and the nearby Stirling Island, with the Japanese ready for the next big push to take Guadalcanal with its strategic air base. When activity quietened down Dixie was posted back to PNG, firstly at Finschhafen and later at Milne Bay. His next move was north to the island of Bougainville, the largest of the Solomon Islands administered by Australian New Guinea. Bougainville is over 120 miles (194km) long and 40 miles (64km) wide, a mountain chain forms the backbone and heavy rainfall feeds short but swift rivers and streams leading to forested hinterland and coastal swamps where mosquitoes abound.
It was in this environment that Dixie then operated, where
rank did not matter and for survival they all worked as a
team. His leader – with whom Dixie spent most of his
time in Bougainville, and greatly admired – was Lieut.
‘Snowy’ Rhoades, RANVR, a First World War officer who became
like a father to him. To Dixie, Lieutenant Rhoades was
“fearless, but smart and resourceful”, and “the glue that
held the team together during difficult operations”.
Dixie and Snowy, widely separated by background and age,
were kindred spirits.
“He was a bit of a rebel himself, and I think he saw
something of himself in me,” he said. “I was like a son to
him, and I would have done anything for him; I would have
died for him.”
The Coastwatchers were supplied with teleradios, a heavy and unwieldy radio and telegraph combination set. It was battery operated, with a voice range of 650km and a telegraph range of around 950km. The radio was sturdy and very efficient but because of its weight, batteries, charging engine and benzene fuel, it needed several native carriers to carry the lot. The Coastwatchers were trained in the use of the ‘Playfair’ code, a low grade cipher based on a list of key words. It was during this period that radio warnings of impending Japanese bombers and escorts were regularly dispatched to the US Forces at Guadalcanal to enable their defence preparedness in the air, sea and on land, thus saving countless lives.
Because of their local knowledge and ability to operate
behind enemy lines, the Coastwatchers were engaged in
finding small isolated units and reporting enemy positions.
In December 1944 raiding parties were taken to Choiseul
Island which was defended by about 500 Japanese marines.
Snowy Rhoades’s party was attached to one of these patrols
in which the commanding Army lieutenant became sick and for
eight days Snowy led the patrol which conducted guerrilla
warfare and guided air strikes from NZ squadrons. This
harassment led to the Japanese withdrawing by barge to the
relative safety of Bougainville.
Dixie remembers almost coming to grief while fishing with grenades. One time he dived in to get the fish … but one grenade had yet to explode. It left him badly stunned. “We had hundreds of grenades – TNT – and we used to cart them around in case the Japanese came,” he said. “I didn’t know where up or down was, and I was burning and stinging all over, and I couldn’t hear anything".
“My mate didn’t know whether I was going to live or die, but
I couldn’t get onto the radio and say, ‘Hey, I’ve been
fishing and I’ve blown myself up – you can’t send a sub in
for someone who has done that, so I persevered, and I lived
on Aspirin for a week, or so, and eventually came good, but
I’ve always had problems with my ears, even now.”
During his time as a Coastwatcher, Dixie also made friends with the local people, who provided valuable intelligence support, such as information on airstrips and gun placements. “The Japanese had a gun placement in a cave overlooking a waterway so that you couldn’t see it from the air, but the locals told us about it, and we were able to get the coordinates,” he said. “The next thing, the Americans came racing in, wiped it out, but the only way they got that information was through the Coastwatchers.” It was a dangerous business, and the men knew they faced being tortured and killed if they were discovered. He remembers capturing a Japanese soldier who was lost at sea.
“He’d been out sailing on a homemade thing and he got blown
away,” Dixie said. “He was going past our island, so we
raced out in our folboat, and captured this hapless Jap; he
was not a very imposing figure – he was very skinny – and
they sent a PT boat and we handed him over.
“Another time the PT boats came around and we asked to go on board … they were made of plywood, but they had big Rolls Royce engines and they would go like the hammers of hell. “We went out hunting for barges … The Japanese would bring them down at night to take supplies and we would blast them out.
“We were using an American plane to help us; we found a
barge and the captain said ‘Drop a parachute bomb – a
parachute flare – just above where we are’, so the next
minute it came down and opened out … and then it was just
like daylight over the whole area.
“We were just about to go into the barge, and then suddenly boom, a bomb blew up, I suppose, about 50 yards away from us. Our captain said [to the American pilot]: ‘Where the hell are you? What are you doing?’ “A Japanese float plane had taken off to do some reconnaissance, and when they looked down, suddenly there was daylight and a PT boat, so they cut their engines, came in quietly, and dropped a bomb from probably 1,000 feet, and then went on their way quietly.
“If he’d touched it about a second before, we wouldn’t be
here talking.”
Ronald "Dixie" Lee was born at Ulverstone, Tasmania, on 4 July 1924, and was fascinated by the Navy ships he saw as a boy growing up. “These ships would come in to Burnie and they were wonderful,” he said. “The smell, and the tar, and just everything about it; they would give kids cakes from the gallery, and the sailors just looked terrific in their uniforms, and I thought, ‘That’s for me.’” Dixie’s father and uncle had both served during the First World War and Dixie was determined to follow in their footsteps when the Second World War broke out. His father had died when he was eight, and the Navy became like a second family to him. “I was at a friend’s place one Sunday, and it came on radio that we were now at war with Germany,” he said. “It was September the 3rd, and I thought, ‘Bugger, I’m going to miss it,’ because that was ’39 and I was only 15. “I was so keen … and I was determined to get in, so I did my medical when I was 16; then on July the 4th, I sent a telegram, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m 17 now,’ but by the time I got down to the naval depot in Hobart, I was 17 and one day.”
He joined the communication branch, learning all about codes
and cyphers.
Instead, Dixie was posted to the Armed Merchant Cruiser HMAS Manoora, doing convoy duties. He arrived in Singapore Harbour the day before Japanese forces bombed the city and Britain and the Dominions declared war on Japan in December 1941. “I wasn’t even 17 and a half, and I got on a warship, and we got bombed,” he said. “When the bombers came over, I thought I’m going to die if one lobs on the ship, so I’ll get right down into the bowels of the ship, and right down to the engine room, and if we get a direct hit, I’ll live. “I was very fit and very young and I was like a little monkey. I knew all these secret places, and I had this method of going down the companion steps. I’d put both legs over the brass rail and swoosh, I’d go down like that, but while I was down there I thought, ‘Hang on, if a bomb misses, and goes down alongside, and blows open the plates, the sea will come in, and I’ll drown,’ so swoosh, I was off again.
“There’s two decks – an upper deck and a lower deck – and I
finished up there, so that if a bomb went through a couple
of decks, I’d still live, but if it started to sink I could
swim ashore, and [I was thinking] all these little things to
try and keep body and soul together.”
He remembers seeing the pride of the Royal Navy’s Eastern Fleet, HM Ships Prince of Wales and Repulse, just days before they were sunk by the Japanese. “When we went out of Singapore on to Calcutta, we passed the Prince of Wales and Repulse,” he said. “Everyone said look at them – the battleship and the battlecruiser – and they were beautiful, but three days later they were under the sea and they were gone.” He also recalls the night the Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour in May 1942 and attacked Allied shipping. Manoora had returned to Cockatoo Island for a scheduled docking on the 25th, and Dixie’s shore leave had been cancelled once again. “There were 640 of us on board, and I was the youngest,” he said. “I had to be belligerent to keep up with the 21-year-olds who were four years older, so I was a bit of a rebel, I can tell you, and I got my fair share of punishment. “We were taking convoys in the middle of the Indian Ocean – thousands of miles from South Africa, India, and Australia – and I went up on deck to marvel at the height of the waves of the Southern Ocean and the big albatrosses following the boat.
“An officer on board came down and saw me; I was out of the
rig [uniform] of the day, and we were at war, but he took me
before the officer of the watch. They gave me ‘stoppage of
leave’ which was a bit of a lark and I had to get up early
and mix with the able seamen in rubbing down the bulkheads
and getting rid of the salt and all that sort of thing.
“When we got to Sydney, we had to do a degaussing – that’s when they put heavy cables all around the ship to [neutralise the magnetic field and] stop the magnetic mines. “We were in dry dock in Cockatoo, and I was still doing stoppage of leave for being cheeky, or not getting my hair cut, or something like that. “The phone rang in the signals office and … they said, ‘Kuttabul, torpedo,’ and I couldn’t believe it. “A friend of mine was on the Kuttabul because he was going to another ship; he’d taken his bag and his hammock, and he gone there for a couple of days while they sorted things out, but he died. “I raced down to the captain’s cabin, but the captain was ashore. He’d taken shore leave, but the Commander was there, and so I knocked on his door. I could hear him snoring, and so I opened the door a little bit, and there he was sound asleep. I went, ‘Ahmm, ahmm,’ but nothing happened, so I raced over to the bed, punched him on the chest, and then raced back and closed the door. “When I heard him coming to, I opened the door again, and I said, ‘Sir,’ and showed him the message…
“Well, I tell you, if it had been a cartoon, the eyes would
have popped out of his head… And that was the night when
they discovered the midget subs.”
A few months later, Dixie had another lucky escape. “It’s just the luck of the draw,” he said. “I wanted to get away from this officer and a boat came alongside us – a Corvette called HMAS Armidale. One of my friends – a coder – was on board, and he said they wanted another, so I put in for it, and went before the officer in Sydney Harbour, but he said, ‘No, we need Lee here… Dismissed.’ “It was just one of those things, but it would have been a death sentence; the Armidale was sunk about a month later, up in the Timor Sea with nearly everyone on board.” Instead, Dixie was posted to the Brisbane base, HMAS Moreton, and reported for duties in General McArthur’s new temporary Brisbane headquarters at the AMP Building in Queen Street, doing coding and decoding. It was there that he was encouraged to join the Allied Intelligence Bureau and volunteer as a Coastwatcher. Post War
Throughout the war, the information transmitted to the
Director of Naval Intelligence by the Coastwatchers was
comprehensive and accurate so there was little the Allies
didn’t know about the strength and location of the enemy.
Knowledge of the terrain in which they operated and the
friendship and assistance of the local natives operating as
Scouts were the essential elements needed for the
Coastwatchers to operate and evade Japanese patrols.
In fact, without local native recruitment, it would have
been very difficult, if not impossible, for the
Coastwatchers to have achieved anywhere near the success
they did.
Dixie remembers there was “great rejoicing” when the war ended and they were finally able to return home. After nearly five years in the RAN, over half of which was as a Coastwatcher, Dixie was discharged on 4 March 1946. After such an adventurous early life it would not have been easy settling down to a steady job. However this he did and he became a successful land surveyor. In the 1970s he first hand-built a 30 ft wooden ketch, but gave her up after forever chasing leaks occurring after rough weather. He next had a larger, and dryer, steel-hulled 45 ft ketch custom built, and sailed in her for three years through much of the South Pacific retracing some of his wartime adventures. He was especially anxious to reach the Treasury Islands and Bougainville and for a time gained work there as a surveyor. Here it was like stepping back in time and ‘Masta Dix’ was reunited with many of his wartime friends.
In 2015, he visited Papua New Guinea as part of a
commemoration marking the 70th anniversary of the Victory in
the Pacific and laid a wreath at the Coastwatchers Memorial
at Madang.
Dixie has now eased into retirement with his fifth wife Mem, they have been together 44 years. They live in the Melbourne suburb of Werribee, having 10 children, 17 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren. Wife No 4, Robin, was the daughter of an ex-New Guinea patrol officer who earned fame as a Coastwatcher, LEUT Malcolm Wright, DSC, RANVR. Dixie remains in contact with Phillip Rhoades, a nephew of the great Snowy. US Ambassador To Australia, Caroline Kennedy’s Meeting with Australian Coastwatchers at the Australian War Memorial
On 27th July 2022, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and General
Mark Milley, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met
with two Australian veteran Coastwatchers and their family
members at the Australian War Memorial. The
Ambassador reaffirmed the strength of the U.S.-Australia
alliance and expressed her gratitude for the service and
sacrifice of Australians during World War II, highlighting
the Coastwatchers, who played a critical role in rescuing
future President John F. Kennedy after his patrol torpedo
boat was destroyed.
Ambassador Kennedy met Ms. Eve Ash, daughter of Australian World War II veteran Mr. Ronald (Dixie) George Lee, and Mr. Tom Burrowes, son of veteran Mr. James Burrowes OAM, at the Australian War Memorial. Mr. Lee and Mr. Burrowes joined the meeting virtually from the U.S. Consulate General in Melbourne. In their meeting, Ambassador Kennedy said “It was a great honor to meet two Australian Coastwatchers, who played an essential role in keeping the region secure during World War II. I owe personal gratitude to an Australian Coastwatcher and two Solomon Islander scouts who saved my father’s life. These men represent the best of their generation and are an amazing example of the bonds of the U.S.-Australia alliance.” Mr Lee's daughter, Eve Ash, said meeting Ms Kennedy brought decades of family history to life. "It has personalised history from 80 years ago, to today, and just brought it to life with a very personal touch." Ms Ash said Ms Kennedy's earlier video call with both her father and Mr Burrowes had been "a lot of fun". "They seemed to be very cavalier, both of them, about being behind enemy lines and surrounded by the enemy, the Japanese, and yet they seemed to thrive in it." Dixie now involves himself with the odd game of chess and remembering those coastwatching days in amateur radio, using call sign VZ7HP. He is 98 years old.
Sources:
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It was the middle of the night and Ronald
'Dixie'
Lee was in a small boat with two others. The men were
Coastwatchers and they were preparing to go ashore in the
middle of enemy territory to spy on the Japanese during the
Second World War.
