Australia’s last two WWII coast watchers die, aged 100 and 101

The last two World War II coast watchers, Jim Burrowes (101) and Ron “Dixie” Lee (100) passed away in Melbourne on Sunday and Monday, respectively.

The courageous deeds of the legendary and secretive WWII coast watchers represent one of the most illustrious chapters in Australia’s military history.

Coast watchers Ron “Dixie” Lee (left) and Jim Burrowes.

Despite their losses, the coast watchers’ contribution to reporting on Japanese shipping and air movements had a real strategic impact. Their finest hour was in the Guadalcanal campaign, where they reported on incoming waves of enemy aircraft, rescued the future president John F Kennedy, and launched lethal guerilla raids on the Japanese with the assistance of fearless Solomon Islanders. Their actions led Admiral “Bull” Halsey to remark: “The coast watchers saved Guadalcanal, and Guadalcanal saved the South Pacific.”

Prior to World War II, the Royal Australian Navy detailed a former New Guinea District Officer, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, to establish a network of expatriates who could covertly report on enemy movements around the coastline of New Guinea and the Solomons in time of war. In short order, he recruited planters, patrol officers and even priests for this potentially dangerous assignment.

When the Japanese invaded the islands in 1942, these coast watchers undertook their mission with courage and at great personal cost. Some were beheaded, others simply disappeared, while others continued their clandestine task for months on end with the help of local villagers.

Jim Burrowes in 1942.

As the value of the coast watcher network became fully appreciated, servicemen from the three services joined for this most dangerous of assignments. Signalman Burrowes and Able Seaman Coder Lee were among a cohort of radio operators who provided that crucial communications link using the cumbersome AWA Teleradio, portable with the help of half a dozen local men who also risked their lives.

Jim Burrowes, born in Melbourne, served both on the north coast of New Guinea and then on the island of New Britain, where he and two fellow coast watchers reported on the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul. That town had a special meaning for him, as his older brother Bob had been in the army and was captured there in 1942. Bob lost his life when the Japanese prison ship Montevideo Maru was sunk later that year by the submarine USS Sturgeon, with the loss of over 1000 prisoners of war and civilians. Jim’s twin brother Tom was a wireless air gunner in a Beaufort bomber that was lost off Rabaul in 1943.

On his website The Last Coastwatcher, Jim wrote: “As one of the coast watchers, I was also a signaller, and proud to play a key role in their operations. This was because the singular mandate of coast-watching was not to confront the enemy but to report their movements. Hence, without a radio operator, there would not have been any coast-watching parties. I am the last signaller coast watcher to tell the history of the coast watchers.

A group of coast watchers – the arrow points to Jim Burrowes.

“I was lucky to be selected to be a radio operator instead of infantry. I was lucky to be replaced as the radio operator in the disastrous Hollandia infiltration party when the original guy, Jack Bunning, was ambushed by the Japanese and killed.”

Jim Burrowes in later years.

Burrowes was selected as the signaller to go on that Hollandia (now the West Papua capital, Jayapura) venture, led by Captain “Blue” Harris, but at the last minute, Bunning replaced Burrowes after recovering from sickness.

“I was lucky not to be caught and killed by the Japanese while hiding in the jungle. Thirty-eight other coast watchers were killed. I was lucky to come home.”

For his part, Lee, born in Ulverstone, Tasmania, served in the Treasury Islands, the nearby Stirling Island, and then Finschhafen, Milne Bay and Bougainville. At the later location, he served with one of the most famous coast watchers, Lieutenant “Snowy” Rhodes, and provided some of those valuable reports of Japanese aircraft approaching Guadalcanal.

Ron “Dixie” Lee signed up as a coder with the navy aged 17.

“Dixie” had joined the Royal Australian Navy as a coder at the age of 17 and was a high-spirited young rebel who got into his fair share of scrapes. He was still only 19 when he was encouraged to join the Allied Intelligence Bureau and volunteer for coast-watching duties.

In 2020, he told the Australian War Memorial: “We were sent to a little island called Stirling Island in the Treasury Island group, which was just off Bougainville.

“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 frightened me. Some of our blokes were beheaded and terrible things … But I just did my job. The fighter pilots, and tail gunners, and things; they were the brave ones.”

Ron “Dixie” Lee in 2017.Credit: Australian War Memorial

After the war, Jim Burrowes qualified as a chartered accountant, a chartered secretary and a licensed company auditor. He joined the then-largest house-building company in Australia, A.V. Jennings Industries, as assistant to the company secretary. He was to work at Jennings for 33 years, progressively becoming executive director of the Jennings Mining and Manufacturing Groups.

After nearly five years in the navy, over half of which was as a coast watcher, Lee was discharged in early 1946. He became a successful land surveyor. In the 1970s, he hand-built a 30-foot wooden ketch but gave her up after forever chasing leaks occurring after rough weather. He then had a larger and dryer steel-hulled 45-foot 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, worked there as a surveyor. It was like stepping back in time, and “Masta Dix” was reunited with many of his local wartime friends.

In 2015, Lee was one of a few World War II veterans selected to visit Papua New Guinea as part of a commemoration marking the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Pacific.

Burrowes is survived by his wife, Beryl, four children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, while Lee is survived by his wife, Mem. He had 10 children, seventeen grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

The coast watchers invariably deployed to an enemy-held island as a pair, and it is fitting that Australia’s last two coast watchers joined their comrades together.

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