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only go 200 yards out and sit down. If they send us in again the Coys are going torefuse to go. So things are in a very bad state. Already two officers have been sent backfor standing-up for the men. Nearly all the boys have a vacant look in their eyes andlook dazed.163Towards the end of April Ewen recorded that ‘About 14 of the boys were up fora DCM [court martial] today … They refused to go out on patrol’.164 The fact thaton 21 April a small Japanese raiding party was able to infiltrate ‘under [the] noses’of one company, to attack a bridge on the main track, was illustrative of the levelof demoralisation.165 The battalion’s routine orders recorded that six soldiers wereformally tried at this time for refusing to go on patrol at various times between 28March and 22 April.166Matthews was not without his own problems in the 9th Battalion, and unlikethe 61st Battalion his unit continued having contacts until the day before theirrelief. In late March his diary recorded that one of his platoon commanders had‘dropped his bundle’ after reporting sick instead of leading a patrol.167 On 11 Aprilhe was informed that his battalion was ‘to push on as fast as possible and put agood finale on the Bde’s campaign’ before being relieved. He noted: ‘I don’t knowwhat the effect will be on the tps when the news is known, they are sure to be lessenthusiastic’.168 Later in April, whilst visiting forward, he recorded that a platoonhad ‘the jitters and would not go on … they were about to have a sit down strike.I went amongst them, cheered them up a bit and off they went’. Coming upon theremainder of the company he noted, ‘These lads seemed cheerful but a bit nervous.I told the Coy they would be there for a few days and I would relieve them frompatrols for as long as I could. The word got around quickly and spirits went up’.169He recorded no other significant problems before the battalion’s final relief.163 Ewen’s diary 2, 9 April 1945, AWM PR89/190.164 Ewen’s diary 2, 24 April 1945, AWM PR89/190.165 ‘Adjutant’s Diary April 1945’, p. 4, Appendix 14 to 61 Infantry Battalion War Diary,April–May 1945, AWM 52, Item 8/3/96.166 61 Battalion Routine Orders, 3 May 1945, 61 Infantry Battalion War Diary, April–May1945, AWM 52, Item 8/3/96.167 Matthews diary 14, 26 March 1945, AWM PR89/079, Item 5.168 Matthews diary 14, 11 April 1945, AWM PR89/079, Item 5.169 Matthews diary 15, 17 April 1945, AWM PR89/079, Item 5.38 — A tale of three battalions