Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

George Gnezdiloff, then a 20 year old private in the north Queensland raised Infantry Battalion was told to block Ross River Road with his bren gun carrier. Other soldiers were issues with a password, Bucks, as they deployed to bottle up the Americans. Gnezdiloff & his crew were ordered to shoot the mutineers on sight. “We had ammo, the lot,” the now 90 year old recalled from him home in Proserpine, 300km south of Townsville. “We weren’t mucking around, I can tell you.” The disgruntled African-Americans were from the US 96th engineers, a labour battalion that had the thankless job of building the airfields & barracks around Townsville. Racial tensions had been simmering for months, creating a poisonous atmosphere on the base at Kelso Field, southwest of the city. On the night of May 22-23, 1942 it boiled over. The men of A & C company took up arms against their white officers, angry at claims a black sergeant had died at the hands of a white superior. The old digger phoned in to local ABC radio, pleased to be able to tell his story at last. “We finished up on Ross River Road & were told to stay there”. Gnezdiloff said “We had the bren gun (light machine gun) set up. If any of the negro soldiers came near us, we were told to shoot them.”
Would he have fired? “I don’t know … that was up to my sergeant” he said “I was thinking about it, about what I would do. “And I would have probably told the gunner to shoot over their heads. I didn’t mind those Americans at all… some of them seemed all right. And I couldn’t see the sense of shooting them when they come over here to fight a war with us.” Gnezdiloff was not put to the test: none of the Americans came his way, & his team was recalled at about 3am, according to the brigade war diary.