Chinese propaganda banner : 1 Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, Christmas Day 1952

Rectangular calico banner painted in poster paint with two United States soldiers facing explosions and Chinese bullets within wire entanglements. To the right a figure of Uncle Sam dressed in a red and white striped shirt and star spangled tie, holds two fistfuls of dollar notes. Beneath, in red letters, is 'YOU RISK YOUR LIFE, BIG BUSINESS RAKES IN THE DOUGH'. The 'SS' in business is written '55'. Two pieces of fabric have been joined down the centre with a simple seam before the banner has been painted.

This propaganda banner was tied to the branches of a small tree during a heavy snowstorm on the night of 23/24 December 1952 by an advance enemy patrol of Communist Chinese Forces (CCF) in No Man's Land close to the front of a salient position on Hill 355 (also known as Little Gibraltar), which had been held by 1 Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR) since late October. The Battalion were due to hand over control of the position to 3 RAR on 28 December. Ever since 20 December, 1 RAR had been expecting such propaganda material - Intelligence Report (Intrep) 48 of 20 December warned 'although no enemy Xmas cards have been found on the Bn front to date, it is to be expected that he will make attempts to deliver them.' On the night of 23 December, the Battalion War Diary records that 'five fighting patrols and two snatch parties were sent out - to ambush enemy 'Xmas Cheer' parties moving in to leave propaganda in our FDLs. The Santa Claus patrols returned without bagging either Xmas presents or any big hearted CCF.'

At 1.00 am on 24 December 1952, Lieutenant John Sullivan of 12 Platoon, D company, 1 RAR heard the loudspeakers announce 'Presents have been left for you on the Kowan-ni red. We will not fire on you'. Sullivan, from Narrandera, NSW, relates that he spotted the banner in the morning light and sent some members of D Company to retrieve the presents. 'There were little glass swans, some propaganda leaflets and several small diaries written in English, with a propaganda message for each day [which] - had been illustrated with coloured drawings,' he told The Bulletin on 18 January 2005, while the War Diary notes 'The material which was placed on minefield fences - appears to bear a greater souvenir value to our men than any noticeable psychological effect'.

Sullivan's D Company did not retrieve the banner, and the Intelligence Officer, 240028 Captain HT Sayers, sent one of his Intelligence staff, 3400473 Corporal Ken Goudie out to investigate. Goudie, a surveyor from Drouin, Victoria, who had been mapping the changing minefields in No Man's Land for months, was unimpressed when Lieutenant Sullivan assigned a small group of 12 Platoon men to accompany him as he expected the group would be observed and fired upon. He personally removed the banner from the tree, but recalled 'when I'd got the thing off the tree, I looked down and saw a rectangular black metal object sticking about half an inch out of the snow. I said 'I think we're in a minefield!' I don't know to this day whether this box was a mine but ever since I have assumed we had actually walked through an unmapped minefield. I told the other blokes to turn around very carefully. We could see our tracks clearly in the top layer of snow, so we stepped on our own tracks all the way back.'

Once back safely in their own lines, Goudie and Sullivan argued about possession of the banner. 'I told him it was needed for further study by Intelligence' Goudie recalls 'He said 'bullshit' and that was probably right. But I reckoned that possession was nine-tenths of the law'. Goudie and fellow Intelligence Officer Sergeant EJ O'Sullivan were photograhed holding up the banner on 1 January 1953 by Official Photographer Phil Hobson' see AWM photo HOBJ3869.