Seven times the Japanese attacked Horn Island in the Torres Strait, but the invasion never came and today those who were watching the bombs fall on their heads have been forgotten in the mists of time. I told a version of this story live on West Bremer Radio.

In the Second World War, Horn Island was the second most bombed place in Australia after Darwin. The Japanese sent their bombers and fighters seven times between March 1942 and June 1943.

If Japan had invaded Horn Island on the first attack, they would have overrun just eighty Australian soldiers who were there at the time. That would have given Japan a base from which to bomb the whole of the east coast of Australia, and the course of the war and world history may have been very different.

Up to 5,000 Australian and American military personnel were eventually stationed on Horn Island. It was Australia’s last line of defence, but very few people know about it, and the soldiers there said they felt like they were Australia’s forgotten garrison.

Almost one million Australians served in the Second World War. Six hundred and ninety enlisted in the regular army in the Torres Strait. Seventy-one of those enlisted on Horn Island. Only one of those was born in Ipswich, Queensland, and he represents many similar towns and cities in Australia that today also have forgotten war veterans.

His name was Victor William Munt and he was born in Ipswich in 1913. His family lived at 345 Brisbane Street. Today the address is a vacant block, which kind of seems appropriate for the home of someone from the forgotten garrison.

Victor was twenty-eight years old when he enlisted first in the Citizen Military Forces (CMF) and then the regular Australian Imperial Force (AIF) with 7th Field Company of the Royal Australian Engineers. He served in New Guinea during the darkest days of 1942 when the Japanese appeared unstoppable and certain to invade Australia.

At the same time, Victor’s brother Trevor Munt was serving in the Royal Australian Navy aboard the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia. Trevor saw action in the Battle of the Coral Sea to the east of Torres Strait. This was the largest naval battle that has ever been fought off the Australian coast. It was the first aircraft carrier battle ever fought and was the first time in the war that the Japanese experienced failure in a major operation.

The battle prevented Japan invading Port Moresby by sea where Victor was stationed. In the months following Coral Sea, the more famous Battle of Kokoda was fought, and that’s when Japan was stopped advancing overland.

Victor visited his parents in Ipswich while on leave in 1943 but was quickly sent back up north this time to the Torres Strait that separates New Guinea from the Australian mainland.

His father Walter Munt died in Ipswich in 1944 while both of the Munt brothers were away serving in the war.

When the war was over, Trevor Munt who had served in the navy, was killed in a hit-and-run accident while hitchhiking home on the same day that he was discharged.

In the meantime, our Victor Munt left the army and went to work as a boilermaker with the railways. He never married and died in Ipswich in 1989. He is buried at Ipswich cemetery. There is no acknowledgement that he ever served in Australia’s most northerly and last line of defence.

I was on Horn Island recently to raise money for the charity Drug ARM. (You can still donate through to the end of October.) I explored the wartime lookouts and gun emplacements that are still there today. One of them was on the tip of the island to the east of the airstrip.

It was there that I found two 50-calibre bullet shells that had been fired during the war.

Based on where I found them, they could well have been fired at the Japanese Zeros as they swept in across the island on one of their seven bombing raids attacking the airstrip.

I like to think that those two shells are good reminders of Australia’s forgotten garrison on Horn Island, and of Victor Munt who represents those CMF reservists that actually enlisted in the regular army on the remote island.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD OLIVE ON RADIO.

Photo credits:
World War Two gun defences still on Horn Island 2023 – Harold Peacock
Formation of RAAF Kittyhawk fighters near Horn Island 1943 – Australia War Memorial OG0506
Victor William Munt – National Archives of Australia
Trevor Richard Munt – Virtual War Memorial Australia
Torres Strait 2023 – Harold Peacock
World War Two 50-calibre shells found on Horn Island 2023 – Harold Peacock