Deep in the jungles of the Philippines, an Australian soldier lays on a makeshift stretcher
made out of bamboo and leaves.
Using a mirror, a pocket knife, and no anesthesia whatsoever, the man starts making a small
incision in his abdomen.
Biting down on a wooden stick to avoid screaming out in pain, the soldier proceeds with the
ad hoc surgery, using his fingers to feel for his enlarged appendix.
In the distance there's the sound of gunfire as Japanese troops hunt down the Fillipino
guerillas sheltering the Australian.
Time is running out, and soon the guerillas will have to move to a new location, whether
the Australian man is ready to go or not- and that's if he even survives this self-surgery
in the middle of a disease-ridden jungle.
Born in Scotland in 1902, Robert Kerr McLaren emigrated to Australia in his teens, after
serving briefly in the First World War.
The land down under soon became his adopted home, and there McLaren learned how to be
a veterinarian.
Eventually he would work as a vet surgeon in Bundaberg, Queensland, unknowingly learning
critical skills that would one day save his own life and that of dozens of other men.
At thirty six years old he met his wife-to-be, Catherine Ahearn, and married her on June
18th, 1938.
With World War II heating up though, Britain would call on its colonies and commonwealths
to help defend her.
The Japanese were rampaging across the Pacific, and blockading or outright destroying British
forces all over her many colonies in the South Pacific.
On the 12th of March, 1941, McLaren joined the Citizen Military Forces, learning basic
infantry skills, transferring one month later to the Australian Imperial Force.
War wouldn't call for him though, until January the next year, when he was dispatched to Singapore
attached to the 2nd/10th Ordnance Field Workshops.
Unfortunately for McLaren, the British Commonwealth forces were quickly overrun by the superior-armed
Japanese, and McLaren along with hundreds of fellow soldiers were imprisoned in a POW
camp in Singapore.
Not particularly keen on Japanese hospitality, McLaren decided to escape along with two fellow
Aussies, and the men joined up with a band of Malaysian guerrillas fighting against the
Japanese.
It was with these guerrillas that McLaren would start to hone the deadly hit and run
techniques he would later employ to devastating effect against the Japanese, but for now he
and the men with him were betrayed by one of the other guerrillas and delivered straight
into Japanese hands.
The Japanese recognized McLaren and the other two Australians as escapees and made them
face firing squads for six successive mornings, only to have the execution order stayed each
time.
Instead, the men were put on a transport and shipped to Pudu Gaol in Kuala Lumpur, though
a few months later they were sent back to the POW camp in Changi that they were original
held at.
McLaren along with 500 other Australians and 500 British soldiers were eventually transferred
to a more secure facility in Borneo in March of 1943, which had formerly been a British
colony.
At the new facility McLaren and a Chinese prisoner made contact with local Filipino
guerrillas, who were quick to aid the two and several other men escape from their prison
camp.
Along with another Australian who had escaped weeks before, the small group decided that
their best chance was to get to the American-held Philippines, and from there rejoin an Australian
unit.
Thus the men made their way to the coast, but with no boats at hand they knew they would
have to build their own.
Using machetes the men made crude hollowed out canoes from fallen tree trunks, and then
incredibly, set sail across nearly 270 miles of the Pacific Ocean.
The men stuck close to the coast lines when possible, but were on constant alert for patrolling
Japanese vessels, which they knew they had no hope of outrunning in their crude little
canoes.
Along the way the men stopped at different islands, routinely raiding small Japanese
units for supplies.
In a small-theater production of what would later become the American island-hopping campaign
against Japan, McLaren and the men with him would hit one small island after the other,
killing or forcing the Japanese there to flee and raiding their stashes of food, medicine,
and ammunition.
Unfortunately, word spread a lot slower back then than it does today, and especially when
you've spent most of the last year and a half in a prison camp.
When McLaren and the other men landed in the Philippines, they discovered that the Japanese
had already forced the surrender of all American forces on the islands.
With no hope of being returned to an Australian unit or of being rescued, McLaren and the
others decided that they'd go ahead and just keep on fighting World War II on their own.
McLaren soon made contact with a group of American soldiers who had decided that surrender
simply didn't suit them very well, and had taken to leading a guerrilla force made up
of Americans and Filipino soldiers and volunteers.
By now a seasoned guerrilla fighter, McLaren partook in a deadly campaign against the Japanese
occupation force, destroying supply convoys, raiding Japanese depots, and generally making
life hell for the Imperial Japanese Army.
For their part, the Japanese brutally persecuted the Filipino population, hoping to discourage
any cooperating with guerrillas by terrorizing the villagers spread out across the islands
and threatening death to any sympathizers.
At this point though McLaren was struck down with appendicitis, a particularly troubling
condition given the fact that there was no local hospital he could hope to check himself
in.
If left untreated his appendix would eventually burst, and without a doubt kill him.
A trained veterinarian though, McLaren knew what he had to do, and given that none of
the other men with him had any medical training whatsoever, the procedure would be left completely
up to him.
McLaren took stock of his situation- he had few if any medical supplies available to him,
and no actual surgical tools.
Anesthetic, even if he had had access to any, was out of the question as he would be his
own chief surgeon.
What he did have available to him was a sharpened pocket knife, boiled river water, tough, stringy
plant fibers he could use as suitable sutures, a small hand-held mirror, and a half-bottle
of rum for the pain, which he passed on as he'd have to be completely sober for his own
procedure.
With the Japanese actively hunting McLaren and the combined American, Australian, and
Filipino force down, McLaren began his self-surgery.
He would have to not just endure the terrible pain of cutting into his own flesh, but successfully
cut the appendix loose and then quickly clamp vital blood vessels down to avoid bleeding
to death.
Over the course of four hours, McLaren took to his body with the small pocket knife, fighting
against the pain to dig into his abdomen and cut free the inflamed appendix.
Then, using a sharp needle and plant fibers, he stitched his own wound closed.
Four days later McLaren was on his feet again, and after an additional week of rest, he was
back once more to the deadly business of making the Japanese regret their part in World War
II.
In September of that year, McLaren decided that being a jungle-fighting guerrilla fighting
bad ass was good and well, but the supply of land bound Japanese was starting to run
thin, due in large part to America's vengeful counter attack against the Japanese all across
the Pacific.
The sea though was still full of Japanese soldiers to kill, and thus McLaren took command
of a small whaling ship and retrofitted it with cannons and any piece of firepower that
could be nailed down.
The makeshift war vessel began to prowl the waters off the island of Mindanao, and McLaren
now began his career as a pirate.
Renowned for his bold and aggressive nature in the face of the enemy, McLaren and his
makeshift war boat, appropriately named The Bastard, attacked many smaller Japanese vessels,
sending quite a few to the briny deep.
Always the opportunist though, McLaren would also target Japanese coastal installations,
bombarding them with cannon fire and retreating to the high seas before Japanese planes had
a chance to respond.
Occasionally though McLaren would lead combat patrols on land, and on one such occasion
he led part of a larger assault on a Japanese stronghold in Lanao province.
The garrison was completely destroyed, and American Lieutenant Colonel Charles W. Hedges,
reported that McLaren's actions ensured the capture of the garrison and the destruction
of roughly 450 Japanese troops.
By now though the American Navy was making the Japanese fleet a rapidly diminishing resource,
and having decided that they'd let McLaren run amok like a pirate warlord for long enough,
the Australian military ordered him to join with American and Australian intelligence
agents and parachute behind enemy lines in Borneo.
Leading one of several other four-man teams, McLaren and his men undertook a risky nighttime
parachute drop behind enemy lines, only to have one of his men captured in an ambush
by a Japanese patrol.
Another man was injured on landing, and perhaps worst of all, the Japanese managed to find
and capture the team's food, water, and radios.
Down to three men, one of which was injured, and with no food or water supplies, and no
radio, McLaren decided that all this made the odds just about even for the Japanese,
and decided to go ahead with his mission regardless.
Using his three years of jungle warfare knowledge, he was able to secure food and water, and
recon the Japanese positions defending the island, all while avoiding aggressive Japanese
patrols.
Then, his mission complete but with no radio to report in with, McLaren simply slipped
past enemy lines to deliver his critical report.
The intelligence proved critical in the successful American landings against the Japanese, and
American General McArthur himself would award him the US Silver Star, the third highest
American military decoration and rarely ever awarded to a non-American service member.
By now and end to World War II was in sight, but the stubborn Japanese refused to surrender.
Given that at this point McLaren was one of the most experienced jungle and guerrilla
fighters in the entire Allied command, he was tasked with leading an 8 man team on a
reconnaissance mission of Japanese forces in Talasia, British North Borneo.
Once more his intelligence proved vital in the successful destruction of Japanese forces
in the area, and the capture of a major enemy garrison.
McLaren would ultimately be awarded the Military Cross with an additional bar, and the American
Silver Star, all for gallantry and heroism in combat.
A terror on both land and the high seas, it's probably a good thing that McLaren never learned
to fly a plane or he would have surely taken to making life hell for the Japanese in the
air as well.
After the war's end McLaren refused to return home right away, instead remaining with his
8 man team in North Borneo and helping see to the needs of civilians ravaged by war.
Eventually he returned home to Australia, though he would soon take a job as a government
veterinary officer in Papua New Guinea.
In 1956 he retired from public service and took over running a coffee plantation, though
tragically there he would accidentally back his Jeep into a pergola and be killed when
a falling log crushed him to death.
One of Australia's finest soldiers though, McLaren's heroism and courage serves as an
example even today, and a testament to the quality of the men and women who defend their
home in the land down under.
Think you could've handled fighting alongside McLaren's guerrilla forces?
What if you had to cut out your own appendix?
Let us know in the comments!
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