Lest we forget - the brutality of the battle of New Guinea

There have been many published photographs of World War II depicting loss, bravery and the brutality of war. For Australians, there is no more an enduring photograph than the beheading of Sergeant Leonard Shiffleet in New Guinea on the 24th of October 1943.

Naval officer Yasuno Chikao gained infamy for the beheading Australian prisoner of war Sergeant Leonard Siffleet in Aitape, New Guinea in 1943. After being captured himself, Chikao escaped the death penalty by hanging as the order was given by Vice Admiral Michiaki Kamada.

Instead, Chikao was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in conditions vastly superior to the POW camps the Japanese military ran. Had Chikao not requested a subordinate to take the photograph of him wielding the execution sword, he may have had escaped punishment for his war crimes.

Shiffleet volunteered for the Services Reconnaissance Department of the Allied Intelligence Bureau in Melbourne in 1942. Shiffleet was then transferred to Cairns with the Z Special Unit and promoted to the rank of sergeant in 1943. Later that month Shiffleet was transferred to M Special Unit that was deployed to New Guinea.

Shiffleet's unit landed in New Guinea in July 1943, midway through September 1943 a small patrol including Shiffleet operating behind enemy lines was discovered by New Guinean natives and captured after a brief fight. The patrol was handed over to occupying Japanese forces and taken to Malol for a ruthless interrogation over a period of two weeks - in layman's terms, torture. 

On the afternoon of 24th of October Private Pattiwahl, Private Reharin and Sergeant Shiffleet were marched to Aitape Beach; bound, blindfolded and forced to kneel and executed by beheading in front of a crowd of Japanese soldiers and locals. The photograph of the execution was found on the body of a dead Japanese Major near Hollandia still in New Guinea in 1944 by American forces.

Apparently the photograph was widely distributed within the Japanese military as some sick form of memento and eventually ended up in Life magazine showcasing the brutality of the Japanese Imperial Forces.