Warren Clemens RIP

**Kyt** · 06-09-2009, 11:48 AM

Lone hero on Guadalcanal and pillar of the community

WARREN FREDERICK MARTIN CLEMENS,
OAM, CBE, MC, LoM

CIVIL SERVANT, WAR HERO, COMMUNITY STALWART
17-4-1915 — 31-5-2009

By Anne Latreille

MARTIN Clemens, who played a lone yet key island role in preventing Australia and New Zealand from being cut off by rampaging Japanese forces in World War II - to the extent that he was dubbed a "living icon" - has died at Cabrini Hospital. He was 94.

Clemens, a Cambridge-educated Scot who was marooned on the strategic island of Guadalcanal when it was occupied by vast Japanese forces, took to the hills with trusty Melanesian "scouts" and provided vital intelligence to United States forces that eventually retook the island in a famous and bloody battle.

All the while Clemens, who had been sent to the Solomon Islands by the British Colonial Service as a cadet and then became district commissioner and coastwatcher on Guadalcanal, cannily evaded Japanese sweeps to find him.

Once the United States Marine Corps had landed to defend the Solomons - whose strategic importance was such that had they fallen, Australia would have been cut off from her Western allies and open to immediate invasion - he and his islander 'scouts', often working at night, provided information on the challenging terrain and on the likely movements of the Japanese. This was an intelligence service second to none.

As a volunteer in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate Defence Force with the rank of major, he had the longest combat service of any officer in the Southern Pacific Command, yet never wore a uniform and carried no military identification.

In 1942, he was awarded the British Military Cross and the American Legion of Merit for heroism on Guadalcanal. And, for his contribution to the first great Allied counter-offensive of the Pacific War, he was dubbed a "living icon".

When he descended in August 1942 from his small mountain-top coastwatching eyrie he was gaunt, bearded, dressed in rags, and barefoot - a far cry from the immaculate, genial presence who would argue in 1947 in favour of reserving the Gaza Strip for Palestinians, and who was to defuse major disagreements between Greeks and Turks on Cyprus in the 1950s. Still later, he became well known in Melbourne for his support of good causes, particularly the education of young people and helping the disadvantaged. His modesty also camouflaged in his adopted country his deeds in World War II.

The eldest of four children, Clemens was born in Aberdeen, and his father, a church organist and choirmaster, died when he was nine years old. Educated in England, he won scholarships to Bedford School and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was an honours student in agricultural and natural sciences (1933-37). Among his friends there were two Australians, John and Bill Turnbull, whose sister, Anne, he married in 1948.

He rowed for Cambridge, and treasured his membership of the Leander Club; he was reserve for the (winning) eight in the 1938 British Empire Games team. He joined the Colonial Service in 1938, and his lengthy and heroic posting to the Solomons was followed by stints in two other trouble spots - Palestine (1946-47) and Cyprus (1948-49, 1951-57 as district commissioner, 1959-60 as defence secretary). In 1960 he received the CBE to add to an OBE bestowed in 1956, and settled in England with his wife and four children, not altogether coincidentally at the rowing mecca of Henley. Offered a posting to Burma, he decided instead to move to Australia. His wife's brothers had died on war service, her parents had died, and Dunraven, her family home in Melbourne, beckoned.

On arrival in 1961 he took Australian citizenship, found a role as pastoral superintendent for his wife's extensive family holdings in Queensland, joined a variety of clubs and leapt into community activities.

Many community groups remain grateful to Clemens for his guidance through the 1960s, '70s and '80s. They include Austcare, the International Council of Social Services, the Red Cross and the Australia-Britain Society, where he helped initiate the Plain English Speaking Award. He chaired a major fundraising appeal for Geelong Grammar School, was active in the Higgins branch of the Liberal Party, and served as a director of companies including GTV9.

This was his public face. But at 'Dunraven' his door was always open to anyone in search of an opinion - friends, his children, people in positions of responsibility including politicians, policemen, leading sportsmen. His summing up of a difficult situation was invariably understanding and prudent, accurate and candid; his advice was highly valued.

The notion of 'community' was pivotal. Everyone he interacted with was soon at ease, energised by his bright and optimistic personality, warmth and dignity. At parties and social gatherings he was invariably at the centre of an animated group, in latter years with a glass of the best Scotch whisky parked on his walking frame.

In 1993 he was awarded an Order of Australia for service to the community; he also published Alone on Guadalcanal. He prepared the manuscript in the 1950s but could not find a publisher until 1998, when the Naval Institute Press in Maryland in the US heard about it by chance. It is in its third printing.

In 2003, his exploits on Guadalcanal became available to a much younger generation with the release of the "Rising Sun" episode of the popular Medal of Honor video game. Three years later, at the age of 91 and at a time of great unrest in the Solomons, he sent an encouraging email to the islanders: "I am sure you can turn things around. We made something out of nothing during the war. Do it again."

Representatives from Britain, the Solomon Islands and the 1st US Marines flew from the US and Canberra to attend his funeral at St John's, Toorak.

Clemens' wife, Anne, died earlier this year. He is survived by his children Charlotte, Victoria, Alexandra and Mark, and nine grandchildren.

Anne Latreille, a Melbourne writer, is a relative of Martin Clemens.

**liverpool annie** · 06-09-2009, 12:30 PM

It was nice that they were able to talk to him and record his experiences - I love those kinds of projects !

RIP Martin Clemens - Guadalcanal Coastwatcher

Pacific Wrecks - Martin Clemens - Guadalcanal Coastwatcher

**Antipodean Andy** · 06-09-2009, 04:59 PM

I'm afraid I missed any reference to his passing in the news services. A very interesting man.

The bravest of men. RIP.

**CXX** · 06-24-2009, 03:29 PM

Major Martin Clemens - Telegraph

Major Martin Clemens, who died on May 31 aged 94, was the district commissioner responsible for supplying the American 1st Marine division with intelligence as they sought to dislodge a 30,000-strong Japanese force from Guadalcanal Island in the Pacific during the Second World War.

Aided by some 300 islanders, policemen and planters, he established a hideout on Mount Austen. It was not as high up as he would have liked, and mountain mists affected his transmitter. Nevertheless he and his men had a good view of both Tulagi, the Solomon Islands' capital 25 miles away across the straits, and the airfield directly below the mountain, which the Japanese were frantically trying to build.

General Archer Vandegrift's marines landed on August 7 1942, capturing Guadalcanal and renaming it Henderson Field. A week later, Clemens descended with flag and scouts. Although cutting an unprepossessing figure – gaunt, bearded, dressed in rags and barefoot – he was not shot by the astonished sentries, but welcomed and appointed British liaison officer with US XIV Corps.

As commander of the Solomon Islands Defence Force, he now led a battalion, which included a former police sergeant-major who was awarded a George Medal after being tortured, bayoneted and left for dead. His scouts proved invaluable since the Americans knew little of the terrain, had a habit of becoming lost and lacked combat experience. They detected an enemy attack being launched along the Tenaru river; the attack was duly annihilated, and they accompanied Colonel Merrit Edson's men who held what is locally called Bloody Ridge in the heaviest fighting of the campaign. Clemens's gallantry was recognised when he was awarded an MC and the American Legion of Merit.

The son of an organist of Moravian missionary stock, Warren Frederick Martin Clemens was born in Aberdeen on April 17 1915. He won a scholarship to Bedford School and then to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he read Agriculture and Natural Sciences and had the novelist CP Snow as his tutor. He was one of the notorious "night-climbers of Cambridge", whose feats included capping the pinnacles of King's College Chapel with chamber-pots and hauling an Austin 7 above the Senate House. Although he narrowly missed a rowing Blue, Clemens was a reserve for the winning Eight at the Empire Games in 1938, the year he joined the Solomon Islands protectorate service.

When war was declared the following year his reserved occupation meant that he was refused permission to join the Army. But as a member of the coastwatching network set up by the Australians after the First World War, he was ordered to rescue all the expatriate missionaries, planters and officials, then to move to Guadalcanal as the only government representative, with responsibility for the 15,000 native inhabitants.

Since it was clear that the Japanese were coming, he paid off the staff at his government station at Aola with several months' advance salary. Then, exuding characteristic self-confidence, he sat down in a circle of sympathetic tribesmen, who feared that he was going to leave until he assured them in pidgin that he would remain and that their only hope of deliverance was to stick together. Reassured by his promise and happy at the thought of returning to their traditional occupations, they set about gathering information, working mostly at night and keeping him constantly on the move to avoid regular Japanese patrols.

One of his major problems was food. He persuaded his scouts to bring a large crate containing tins of assorted meats, and on the first night was delighted to find one with his favourite scallops, which went well with wild yams. But it soon became clear that the crate contained nothing else, with the result that he ate scallops fried, smoked, boiled, curried and cold until he could not face another. There was one welcome present of a duck. By the time he came down from the mountain he had lost four stone.

Clemens remained district commissioner in the western Solomons until the end of the war, then was sent to Samaria and Gaza during the British withdrawal from Palestine, where he learned to speak Arabic in a month. After being transferred to Cyprus as district commissioner in Nicosia, he arranged with Sir Hugh Foot, the governor, that the two of them should demonstrate their confidence to the public by walking the length of Nicosia's Ledra Street – the "death mile" where British forces were murdered periodically by sharpshooters; he considered the experience more hazardous than his Guadalcanal exploits.

After being promoted the island's defence secretary, Clemens was offered a post in Sarawak. But his wife, Anne, had been left a house in Australia. So he resigned and emigrated to Melbourne, where he was pastoral superintendent of her family's grazing property in Queensland. Highly gregarious, he was president of the Australia-Britain Society and a frequent visitor to Henley as a member of the Leander Club. His wife died earlier this year, and he is survived by their three daughters and son.

Martin Clemens was appointed OBE in 1956, CBE in 1960 and OAM in 1993. At his funeral the congregation sang Onward Christian Soldiers, just as his men had done while they removed the bodies of 17 marines and 450 Japanese killed on Bloody Ridge.

**Kyt** · 06-25-2009, 11:22 PM

He wrote a book about his experiences which looks rather good, especially for those interested in coastwatchers

Amazon.com: Alone on Guadalcanal: A Coastwatcher's Story: Martin Clemens: Books

And how many people can claim to have been featured in a video game?!!

Martin Clemens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He has also been featured in the video game Medal of Honor: Rising Sun.