ON its return to New Zealand the Fiji force was given the mobile role of army reserve, ready to operate in any part of the Dominion as required by the tactical situation but with particular attention to the Bay of Plenty, Auckland, and North Auckland districts and their vulnerable beaches. Headquarters closed in Fiji on 8 August, and the temporary headquarters which had been established by Potter in Quay Street, Auckland, to tide over the transition period, moved to Orford's House, Manurewa, which had been vacated by an American command. The two brigade headquarters were established at Papakura Camp, the 8th afterwards moving to Opaheke, with their battalions and services scattered widely over the surrounding countryside. The 29th Battalion was at Papakura, moving later to Hunua Falls, the 30th went to Karaka North, the 34th to Hilldene (Manurewa), the 35th to Paerata, the 36th took over buildings on the Avondale Racecourse, and the 37th went to Pukekohe. Some of these camps, temporarily erected to house American units while they trained for the Pacific campaign, were as bleak as the weather and ill-equipped, but all ranks went on leave, most of them suffering from colds and influenza induced by the sudden change from tropical heat to bitter spring wind and rain, against which battle dress and heavy woollens by day and five blankets and a greatcoat at night gave inadequate protection.

Although units were much below strength, commanders committed to paper their tactical plans for immediate movement and action, but it was generally assumed that the force would be built up to a full-strength division for service in the Pacific, in accordance with conversations between Admiral King and Mr. Nash in Washington earlier in the year in which it was stated that New Zealand troops, relieved from Fiji, could be trained for amphibious operations with United States forces if the essential equipment was provided. Such an assumption was also confirmation of General Puttick's conclusions, presented to the Minister of Defence on 3 August, that ‘the best course to pursue in furthering the security of New Zealand is to participate to the fullest in offensive operations against the Japanese and at the same time leave nothing undone which may serve to strengthen the forces for home defence’; but reorganisation for any immediate action to implement this conclusion was slow and involved, and further provoked by indecision regarding the use of the force.

Major-General H. E. Barrowclough, DSO, MC, was appointed to command 3 Division on 12 August and arrived that day to begin the exacting and prolonged task of reorganisation. He had commanded 6 Brigade of 2 Division from its formation in May 1940, and had taken it through the ill-fated campaign in Greece and later through bitter fighting at Sidi Rezegh in North Africa. When the Japanese drive in the Pacific threatened to reach striking distance of New Zealand, the need for war-experienced senior officers became urgent, and he was recalled on the assumption that he would take command of the forces then in Fiji. However, before he reached the Dominion, the Pacific situation had become critical and Mead had already been appointed. Barrowclough was therefore given command of 1 Division, with headquarters at Whangarei, where he remained until he took over 3 Division. His immediate task was beset by difficulties and recurring problems. The precise role of the division in the Pacific and its size were as ill-defined as its title, and its history, in the early months of reorganisation, was shrouded in ambiguity. The title ‘3 Division’ had been in use since 14 May 1942 after the appearance of Mead's operational order No. 3 in Fiji, and that date, for record purposes and convenience, was taken as the day on which the force achieved the status of a division, but throughout the whole course of its existence the force was never officially gazetted ‘3 Division’ but remained legally ‘Pacific Section, 2 NZEF’, the designation it was given on 25 February 1942 when the original title ‘8 Brigade Group’ was amended. The letters ‘IP’, indicating the theatre in which the division operated, were added on 10 November when Barrowclough's appointment from ’Commander 3 NZ Division’ was altered to ‘General Officer Commanding 2 NZEF in Pacific’.

In making its decision to employ a division in the Pacific theatre, the New Zealand Government considered at the time that such a risk in sending men out of the country was justified. Great quantities of war materials, including tanks and aircraft, had reached the country; her home defences were therefore stronger and better equipped than ever before, and the situation beyond her shores was more secure because of the increased strength of the United States navy and island garrisons as far north as New Caledonia. Five days before Barrowclough's appointment, American forces landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Gavutu, and although the Allied planners in London and Washington could not possibly be aware of the fact, Japanese orders for an attack on Fiji, New Caledonia, and Samoa had been cancelled in July, following the failure to capture Port Moresby and crushing losses of ships and aircraft in the Coral Sea and Midway naval battles. Political motives also contributed to the despatch of New Zealand forces to the Pacific theatre. The original intention of the American a command in asking for a New Zealand force was to use it for the relief of 1 Marine Division engaged in the Southern Solomons, but as the struggle for Guadalcanal developed critically by continued Japanese attempts to break the Americans on the Matanikau River line, any relief by other than American forces was not welcomed until the island was permanently secured. This was one of several contributing factors affecting the prolonged reorganisation of the division.

Delays in reaching a decision regarding the size of the force and the role it was to play in the Pacific campaign apparently stemmed from confusion over the expressed views of King and Ghormley, and were aggravated by manpower problems which had then begun to affect the supply of Grade I men for the three services as well as men for production at home. Although King agreed in June that New Zealand forces should take part in amphibious operations when the time came for offensive action then being planned, Ghormley, who had moved his headquarters from Auckland to Noumea, apparently had expressed other views. During discussions with Puttick at the end of July, he suggested that New Zealand might provide forces to follow up United States amphibious troops and hold captured areas, in order to release specially trained and equipped American forces for further operations, the size of the New Zealand force to depend on the scope and locality in which it would be engaged.

Four alternative forces were proposed by Ghormley to meet any emergency—Force A, built round one infantry brigade with attached anti-aircraft and coast defence artillery; Force B, the same with the addition of two heavy coast defence batteries; Force C, built round two infantry brigades; and Force D, increased to three infantry brigades, each with additional coast defence and anti-aircraft artillery. Any of these forces, the size of which was to be determined by the Government, was to be ready for embarkation at any time after 25 August, and the proposal was obviously based on the American belief that the battle for Guadalcanal would end sooner than it did, as all future negotiations hinged on its success.

Through November, December, and January the division moved overseas, though not before its carefully planned departure schedules were upset by changes in shipping and escorts. The Maui, carrying 1960 all ranks, mostly artillery units urgently required by the American command, reached Noumea on Armistice Day, the commemoration ceremony for which was attended by representative New Zealanders. The Brastigi, with 917 men made up from Divisional Signals, 20 Field Company Engineers and 16 ASC Company, disembarked at the small coastal port of Nepoui on 30 November, and was the first ship to use it; the Weltevreden, with 25, and the President Monroe, carrying 1796, mostly artillery, 30 Battalion and Base units, reached Noumea together on 6 December; the West Point, taking the main body numbering 7158, reached Noumea on 31 December; the Mormacport, with 249 members of rear parties, berthed at Nepoui on 6 January, and the Talamanca, with 226 more rear details, reached Noumea on the 11th. By the end of February another 1052 details, including the usual collection of absentees without leave, had reached New Caledonia.

The movement of these 13,383 soldiers, together with a vast amount of stores and equipment, was made without mishap or excitement and was a lesson in American transport methods by which every available inch of space on large transport vessels was occupied. On large ships such as the West Point only two meals a day were served, which those returning from Fiji in the President Coolidge had already experienced and found the intervals between meals rather tiresome. Bunks, only two feet six inches apart, were in tiers four high in holds accommodating between 600 and 700 men. Meals and recreation periods on deck were taken in rotation, but the voyage was too short to be anything other than an interlude, pleasant or unpleasant according to individual preference. The President Monroe provided an interesting comment on war for the historically minded. Named after the president whose dominant motive was the prevention of European interference in American affairs, the ship was now transporting New Zealand soldiers to a French possession to assist in a war against Japan which had its origin in the German invasion of Poland. Monroe's portrait still adorned the ship's lounge.

New Caledonia, where during nine months of garrison duty 3 Division fitted itself for the Solomons campaign and established its base for those operations, lies 1000 miles north of New Zealand and 700 miles east of Australia, with its southern tip just over the Tropic of Capricorn. This French colonial possession, 248 miles long, never more than 31 miles wide, and shaped like a huge bread roll, is the world's richest island as a source of minerals. In 1938, with the exchange rate at 200 francs to the £, New Caledonia exported 19½ million francs worth of nickel, 21½ millions worth of chrome, and 12 millions worth of coffee, most of the minerals going to Germany and Japan, the only countries which wanted them. Until 1894 France made use of the island as a penal settlement, 40,000 prisoners passing through the convict barracks on Ile Nou, the largest island in Noumea Harbour, before such traffic ceased, after which various colonisation schemes were attempted with little success. Despite infrequent hurricanes, New Caledonia enjoys a magnificent climate for nine months of the year, half the annual 40 inches of rain falling in January, February, and March. Like most Pacific islands it has its wet and dry sides, but in both there is an abundance of freshwater streams, fed from a central chain of mountains.

Life moved indolently in picturesque Noumea, the principal town, port, and seat of Government, until war suddenly transformed it into the largest forward Allied base in the Pacific, where its magnificent land-locked harbour, the entrance to which is guarded by a coral reef and a lighthouse presented by Napoleon III, sheltered every type of warship and transport. As the division's convoys reached the harbour they found it massed with ships, ranging from destroyers and landing craft to imposing aircraft carriers and battleships, several of them being repaired after disastrous engagements in and around Guadalcanal. Little space was available at the inadequate wharves, so that troops disembarked in the stream and were ferried ashore. Transports waited for weeks before they could berth and unload stores and heavy equipment.

Worse congestion was evident ashore, where headquarters of the South Pacific Command was established with all the subsidiary naval, military, and air headquarters and their staffs required for the conduct of an involved and widely dispersed campaign. Every vacant hillside and open space in and around the town was covered with hutted and tented camps. Vast dumps of war materials dotted the landscape for miles; aeroplanes linking New Caledonia with the battle zone and the network of Pacific bases extending to New Zealand, Australia, Fiji and beyond, were never absent from the sky, and ceaseless streams of motor traffic moved in dusty procession to and from the camps and aerodromes far in the country. Relations between the American command and French administration were strained, mostly because of the peremptory demands of war, but from the influx of thousands of servicemen flushed with money the local tradesmen and shopkeepers reaped their traditional wartime harvest.

But the men of the division saw relatively little of Noumea, except on brief visits. Temporary Base Headquarters was established in Rue d’Alma, in the middle of the town, with staging camps at Dumbea, some miles away, to which troops were moved in an antiquated train only slightly better than the Colonial Sugar Refining Company's modest system in Fiji, and at Nepoui Valley, 160 miles north and a few miles inland from the port of that name, where clouds of choking red dust coated the scrubby trees in the neighbourhood and departing aircraft on the nearby aerodrome were followed by mountainous dust-storms of their own making. Troops for Nepoui disembarked in Noumea Harbour and were staged up the coast in smaller craft to avoid the long haul by motor transport, which was never sufficient to meet the demand. These camps served their purpose as the division moved in and assembled, after which a transit camp was established by Base in Noumea to handle all through traffic while the New Zealanders remained in New Caledonia.

Immediately on arrival the division occupied an area on the dry side of the island stretching for more than one hundred miles from Moindou, where its southern boundary joined 43 American Division's territory, to the far north and included the Plaine des Gaiacs aerodrome, other airfields in the north, and the port of Nepoui. It consisted of gently undulating country covered for the most part with niaouli trees and rank grasses, rolling down to the coast from the central mountain divide and watered by numerous streams and rivers, all of which were subject to swift flooding.

Only two main roads served the whole area. One, Route Colonial No. 1, coiled its way from north to south and was the main arterial route. Despite the lethargic efforts of a few workmen using barrows and shovels to fill in the holes with soil from nearby pits, this soon broke under a constant stream of cars, trucks, and jeeps, each leading its individual cloud of dust. Narrow bridges, none too secure, crossed the larger streams; concreted fords to prevent erosion served the smaller courses, and in the far north, at Tamala, all traffic crossed the river by ferry. The other road crossed the island from Bourail through the mountains to join an inferior route at Houailou serving the wet and more verdant east coast, where most of the rivers were crossed by old-fashioned ferries controlled by hand winches. All subsidiary roads were unmetalled and soon churned to mud after rain.

The whole of the public services and amenities of New Caledonia were little better than those existing in New Zealand in the pioneering days and were typical of a neglect born of isolation, but the dry rolling country was excellent for camp sites and manœuvres. There were few distractions. Villages were few and far between along the main roads and all of them rather blistered by time, with large cattle runs, bounded by rivers, coast and mountain, sub-dividing the rest of this sparsely populated country and supporting their independent and thrifty owners. Mosquitoes, of the non-malarial variety, were a constant source of irritation, particularly in the marshy country near the coast and in river valleys, where they were unspeakably bad, but there were areas comparatively free from these pestilential insects. The only ports of any size and all the aerodromes were in the western side of New Caledonia, and round them the principal defences were concentrated.

On arrival Barrowclough's force became a component of First Island Command, under Lieutenant-General Rush B. Lincoln, and, as such, a part of Vice-Admiral Halsey's South Pacific forces. Barrowclough assumed command of the northern sector of the island on 17 December, with the tactical role of defending the aerodromes, radar stations along the coast, and the beaches, several of which were vulnerable and widely separated. From temporary headquarters established on 23 November at Nemeara, on the Houailou road, he moved to a site among the niaoulis on terraces between the Moindah River and the main road and opened permanent headquarters there on 12 December. It was 160 miles north of Noumea and twelve miles from Poya, the nearest village, but the mosquitoes were few and space was unlimited.

Mobility was the key to the division's role in New Caledonia, where amphibious landings were possible almost anywhere along the coast, but the central mountain range could be crossed only by large formations, guns, and vehicles along the Houailou-Bourail road, so that the east coast required little attention. The southern route to Noumea was narrow and tortuous, allowing only one-way traffic where it ran through the hills from the division's southern boundary to Bouloupari. This problem could be solved by using Nepoui as a port and establishing dumps north of Moindou in the event of enemy action. Natives in the area round Hienghene, a village on the north-east coast, were suspected of Japanese sympathies, and unconfirmed reports of enemy submarines off reef passages there lent some support to this suspicion, but the majority of the natives were friendly and displayed the liveliest interest in the men of the Division.

Barrowclough decided that the most suitable plan to meet the situation was the provision of ample coastwatching detachments and the disposal of mobile formations capable of moving immediately to any threatened area, for which motor transport was now reasonably assured. The arrival of Goss with the skeleton headquarters of 15 Brigade gave the GOC three brigades of two battalions each, a most unsatisfactory organisation in the field, but the only one possible until New Zealand clarified the position regarding additional troops required to bring the division up to full strength and until his other two battalions returned from Norfolk and Tonga. As all the coast and most of the anti-aircraft artillery had, by mutual arrangement, been diverted for the defence of Noumea Harbour, one of the most vital in the Pacific at that time, and the aerodromes north of Noumea, which were equally vital in staging aircraft to Guadalcanal, the task of defending the sector was accomplished with only field, anti-tank, and two batteries of light anti-aircraft artillery. In disposing his division over vast stretches of country, the brigade group was developed and from it the battalion combat team, which is a self-contained force with an infantry battalion as a nucleus, supported by field, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft artillery, and including sections of engineers, field ambulance, and ASC.

The northern sector was allotted to 14 Brigade, which established its headquarters on flat, tree-clumped country beside the Taom River near Ouaco, with 35 Battalion in the immediate vicinity and 30 Battalion some miles north at Koumac. Potter's group also included 35 Field Battery, 53 Anti-Tank Battery, 209 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, 20 Field Company Engineers, 22 Field Ambulance with a field surgical unit and a 50-bed field hospital, 16 Composite Company ASC, 37 Light Aid Detachment, and one section of the Reserve Mechanical Transport Company. His task was the defence of two airfields at Koumac, radar stations at Pam and Gomen, at that time manned by American technicians, and the beaches. All French and native home defence forces, not of any great consequence, came under his command.

Eight Brigade, with headquarters in the wooded Nepoui Valley, consisted of 29 Battalion, 1 Ruahine Battalion, the remaining units of 17 Field Regiment, 214 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, 54 Anti-Tank Battery, 37 Field Park, 7 Field Ambulance with a field surgical unit and a 50-bed hospital, 4 Composite Company ASC, 64 Light Aid Detachment, and the Divisional Mobile Workshops. Row's task was the defence of the Plaine des Gaiacs aerodrome and the port of Nepoui. The southern sector was occupied by the smaller 15 Brigade, with the task of defending the road through the mountains from Houailou. Headquarters was established at Nemeara, with 1 Scottish Battalion in the neighbouring valley and 37 Battalion on the eastern side of the mountains beside the picturesque Houailou River. Attached were 23 Field Company Engineers, 29 Composite Company ASC, one company of 7 Field Ambulance, and 144 Light (3.7-inch) Howitzer Battery.

Dove, who was both Base Commandant and Officer in Charge of Administration, established his headquarters and some smaller units in the town of Bourail, with his major concentration of Base units in Racecourse Camp, in Tene Valley, and Boguen Valley, some miles away. Sub-base remained at Noumea, 120 miles south over a dusty, pot-holed road. These dispositions were modified six weeks later when 8 Brigade moved south to Bouloupari to take over a sector vacated by 43 American Division: 14 Brigade then extended its southern boundary to include Nepoui and the Plaine des Gaiacs aerodrome. Units remained in these sectors until the division moved from New Caledonia, holding three-quarters of the island. With the exception of those anti-aircraft batteries allotted to brigades, the heavy artillery was disposed in areas outside the divisional sector. The 33rd Heavy Regiment, under American command, shared the task of defending Noumea Harbour with the 244 American Coast Artillery and a French battery. Its head-quarters were on Ile Nou, with one battery at Point Terre and its workshops in Vallee du Tir. The 28th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment had its headquarters and one battery and workshops at Oua Tom aerodrome and one troop of 204 Battery detached at Ile Nou; 29 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment was guarding the Plaine des Gaiacs aerodrome with the 208 Battery detached to 28 Regiment at Oua Tom.

In the mobile defence scheme brigades were given alternative roles for the mutual support of each other in the event of attack, and although more optimistic reports from the Solomons suggested that any danger to New Caledonia was becoming increasingly remote as the battle moved to New Georgia, alarm practices were regularly held on receipt of flash signals from Noumea. These tested the signals link throughout the whole island and kept the forces reasonably alert, for there was still the possibility of hit-and-run raids by Japanese submarines which waited along the sea lanes between the Allied Pacific bases.

From the time of arrival, tented camp sites were established and made comfortable by that fantastic atitude of the average New Zealander to make himself a home, providing he has a few boxes and nails with which to construct crazy but functional articals of furniture. Men lived in six-man Indian pattern tents, scattered irregularly among the trees and raised high off the ground by additional poles of the useful niaouli and bamboo to give plenty of head-room and air. The floors were sanded or metalled. Because of its usefulness the niaouli is worthy of mention. It covers vast areas of the dry side of New Caledonia and grows quickly. Its sparse, grey-green foliage resembles that of the Australian eucalypt, to which it is related, and its trunk is covered with thick bark made up of many layers each as fine and soft as tissue paper. The slender trunks are much used by the natives for constructing their huts, and the bark, which is dexterously stripped off without killing the tree, is used for roofing. The timber endures for long periods in the ground.

Everyone trained in New Caledonia. There was no option, since it was an instruction that all ranks of every branch and headquarters, even the less conspicuous elements such as cooks and batment, must undergo a fitness campaign and march certain distances. In a review of the state of training at the end of January, Barrowclough issued an instruction which included that: ‘It is essential that the whole division be trained in jungle warfare types of shooting. Artillery, signals, ASC, and ordnance must be trained with the rifle, Thompson sub-machine gun, and light machine gun to combat Japanese infiltration.’ He also suggested to Army Headquarters that the supply of grenades, which were ‘particularly suitable for jungle fighting because they did not locate the thrower’ be increased to 200,000. No time was lost in beginning a schedule of training for which the country is so perfectly suited, despite the mosquitoes, and where the soft warm nights are not attended with discomfort when sleeping out, though reconnaissance parties which explored tracks through the mountains rarely moved without their mosquito nets. These insects were at their worst in 8 Brigade areas in and around Bouloupari, where head-nets were often worn and office desks and signal equipments covered in an effort to overcome their agonising attentions.

Jungle training began on a platoon and company basis, using live ammunition, mortars and machine guns, over courses designed as a preliminary to manœuvres on a larger scale employing battalions and finally brigades. Small parties made four- and six-day trips through the mountains and along the beaches, investigating the state of routes, their availability for movement, checking supplies of food and water, and testing the value of certain specified rations over stated periods. Inaccurate maps gave little indication of the acutal state of the country, but this only stimulated interest and encouraged initiative, for training in New Caledonia was never monotonous, despite its tests of stamina and endurance. As training progressed, every form of exercise was undertaken by battalions, from beach landings, using Higgins boats, to attacks on objectives over specially prepared tracts of country, using concealed targets and supporting arms. This went on for months, always with an eye to combat in the Solomons.

Some of the more spectacular exploits involved operations with American forces, such as an 8 Brigade exercise in February using 29 and 1 Scottish Battalions, which co-operated with elements of 43 US Division and United States aircraft. Another 8 Brigade exercise in April stressed communication problems in close country, the use of four-wheeled vehicles over tracks through the bush, and the reduction of the load carried by the individual soldier. Throughout May and June this brigade embarked on its most strenuous exercises, the first of which, from 4 to 7 May, took place over rugged bush and mountain country in the Ouenghi-Tontouta region with units divided into New Zealand and enemy forces. This was followed on 14 May by a still more exhausting exercise designed for the capture of a high hill feature, culminating in a five-day manœuvre which involved carrying mortars and machine guns and other combat equipment up steep, bush-clad slopes and crossing rivers in assault boats and on floating rafts. Further exercises over long periods in June included attacks on La Foa and Moindou villages, for which sand models were used during discussions on problems and in lectures to the men to stimulate their interest, and for which they were invaluable. A recreational period at Thio, an attractive village on the east coast, was well earned by the whole brigade in the only respite it ever enjoyed from months of training.

In the dry, open country in the north, 14 Brigade had been equally busy, practising over an assault course, testing jungle rations during a beach landing on the Gomen Peninsula in April, and in defence and attack schemes which kept the units far from their camps. As a preliminary to the most thorough exercise undertaken by the brigade and involving all arms of the service, Divisional Headquarters held a tactical exercise without troops for brigade commanders, followed by another for unit commanders. Then, for three days and nights, all units of the brigade were employed in a night river crossing, followed by an attack on the village of Pouembout. For this exercise the opposite bank of the Pouembout River was presumed to be in enemy hands, a bridgehead had to be established in darkness, and a force with anti-tank guns pushed over in readiness for the main attack next morning. Engineers used assault boats and box girder bridging to cross the river, the ambulance set up its hospital and treated several accidental injuries, signals tested the efficiency of communications, both line and radio, supporting artillery played its role, and the ASC fed and maintained the force. There were several visitors to witness this most realistic and exacting exercise, including two senior American generals, Harmon and Lincoln.

Fifteenth Brigade, while carrying out its various exercise, proved the value of its training during a three-day manœuvre when not a man fell out. This brigade also tested the efficiency of various rations, and came to the conclusion that some of them would do little more than sustain men in action, leaving them no reserve for fighting. One of these was the American K ration, which was neatly enclosed in a cardboard package for easy carriage and contained ¼ lb. of cheese or meat in an airtight tin, eight small biscuits wrapped in cellophane, sixteen glucose tablets, three lumps of loaf sugar, powdered fruit juice for two drinks, one stick of chewing gum, and one carton of four cigarettes. Other similar rations contained soup cubes. These were all designed for use during assault landings, each man carrying three packages made up as three separate meals, and sufficient to last him for 24 hours. All of them were disliked after the novelty wore off, but they were efficient for their purpose.

Through May and June, also, the men were toughened by arduous marches, 8 Brigade beginning with 14 miles a day, increasing to 18 and finally to 40 miles over the last two days. Units of 14 Brigade marched 20 miles a day for three days, culminating in an ambitious military display in which every unit played a part, and ending during the weekend with a church parade and ceremonial march past. Later in July, 8 Brigade held a ceremonial parade and review during the visit of the Minister of Defence, the Hon. F. Jones, who inspected the men.

Although taking part in the various brigade exercises, other arms of the service continued their individual training, in spite of the distracting calls on their time for routine duty. When anti-aircraft artillery units could not obtain the assistance of aircraft for trail shoots, they improvised by using kites or balloons towed by jeeps; engineers experimented in floating jeeps across rivers, using kapok assault floats or tarpaulins, and in building bridges at night, using materials cut from the nearby bush; signals had practice enough in their work, which called for the erection and maintenance of miles of line through the roughest country, and the servicing of a radio net which extended from Noumea to Taom and a high-powered link sited at Base, which carried all traffic between the division and New Zealand.

Unlike other divisions in the field, 3 Division, the only formation other than American then in the South Pacific, was without the usual Army Corps organisation on which it ordinarily would have called. This meant that Army Headquarters and the South Pacific Command to some extent took the place of the larger formation. Its training, also, was entirely different from that laid down in the manuals, in which emphasis is placed on traditional methods used in open country such as the European mainland or the African desert.

New Zealanders of 3 Division, for the first time in history preparing for jungle and island warfare, were practically writing their own text books as their training progressed. All the months of works accomplished in New Caledonia were of immense value, and during that time the division experimented for future operations, adding to its ideas and euipment and discarding what was unnecessary. Long trousers and long-sleeved shirts were necessary because of mosquitoes; steel helmets were useless among trees and undergrowth because of the noise; gas respirators proved a hindrance in wooded country; canvas boots with barred rubber soles were superior to leather footwear in the jungle; some reduction in the amount of personal gear was essential. ‘Streamlining in the jungle is not merely a desirable appearance but is a military necessity,’ one unit reported. ‘A water-bottle and haversack hung on the sides of each soldier may well represent so many coffin nails.’ Tea proved to be the greatest stimulant for fatigued men and rice a popular food, though difficult to cook because water was often short. Troops soon tried of the American jungle rations, compact and efficient though they were.

Throughout the training period specially selected officers and men were despatched far and wide to gather the latest information on jungle fighting and amphibious warfare. Some went to amphibious training courses in the United States, returning rather too late to be of any assistance in the Solomons; others were sent to chemical warfare schools in Australia, Army School at Trentham, the AFV school of Waiouru, the tactical school at Wanganui, and staff college at Palmerston North.

Training culminated at the end of June with amphibious exercises using an American ship, the John Penn, off the beach of Ducos Peninsula in Noumea Harbour. Here a combat team of 1139 all ranks from 14 Brigade, made up of 37 Battalion and a machine-gun platoon, 35 Field Battery, 207 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, 20 Field Company, 22 Field Ambulance and 16 ASC Company, practised for some days all the complicated detail of embarkation drills, boat assignment tables, landing diagrams, beach organisation, loading and night landing, becoming so skilled in the routine that a landing craft could be filled in four minutes. Senior officers, both New Zealand and American, watched the operation, approving its speed and efficiency. So that other units might practise the essentials of embarkation and disembarkation, scaffolding was erected in some of the camps and here, on rope nets strung over the timber frames, men clambered up and down to familiarise themselves with the only method possible of going aboard or leaving a ship in shallow and unfamiliar waters.

In a summary of the strategical situation which went to every man in the division, Barrowclough, who believed in keeping his troops ‘in the picture’, emphasised the close co-operation between the three fighting services, particularly as exemplified by the battle for Guadalcanal. ‘We can see how dependent are the Navy, Army, and Air Force on one another,’ he concluded. ‘Only by the closest co-operation between all three services can island victories be won…. We shall be dependent on American sea and air forces, and we shall also rely a lot on the American divisions alongside us. With that great support we can go into action well trained and confident of victory.’

Recreation went hand in hand with training in New Caledonia and was almost as arduous. Apart from unit activities, which were given every encouragement, cricket, football, swimming, and athletics produced talent of high quality and a series of excellent contests, not the least of which was the Rugby final for the Barrowclough Cup presented to the captain of the triumphant 37 Battalion team, Private A. T. Long, by the General's wife, who flew from New Zealand for the occasion. The most spectacular recreational feature was the pride of 14 Brigade, units of which constructed a full-size racecourse at Taom where horses of doubtful pedigree, gathered from the surrounding countryside, competed at two meetings and attracted visitors from as far south as Noumea.

By the time 3 Division departed from New Caledonia it was as perfectly trained for jungle and island warfare as any force in the Pacific. Major-General C. D. Barrett, Commander of the First Marine Amphibious Corps, who was given the choice of 3 Division or any United States or Australian division for service in the Solomons, selected the New Zealanders, ‘of whose qualities he had the highest opinion’.

From January 1943 to the following July, negotiations concerning the expansion of the division continued uncertainly as every means was explored in an effort to carry out the original proposal to put a three-brigade division in to the Pacific. There were also political motives behind the desire that New Zealand should be adequately represented in that sphere of operations. On several occasions tentative negotiations were opened for the return of 2 Division from the Middle East, but each time the New Zealand Government, acting on the advice of the Allied leaders as to where that division could most usefully be employed, agreed to its retention in the Mediterranean theatre. Both Churchill and Roosevelt pressed for this and were supported by the New Zealand Chiefs of Staff. Any uneasiness on the part of the men in the Middle East that they should return were dispelled by Freyberg's assurance in March 1942 that the Dominion was adequately defended and that, by striking at the Germans in the Middle East, the New Zealanders were also indirectly striking at the Japanese as well. Moreover, he told his men, large quantities of armament had reached New Zealand from England and America and the American fleet had begun offensive operations in the Pacific.

On 19 November 1942, as 3 Division was moving into New Caledonia, Fraser expressed the opinion to Churchill that ‘Our own tried and well-trained troops [in the Mediterranean theatre] should be used for the defence of New Zealand in the Pacific’, and in emphasising that New Zealand should play her part in the Pacific offensive ‘to the fullest extent of our capacity’ he did not mean that 2 Division was to be returned and used only to defend the Dominion's shores. So that Nash could make this point perfectly clear to the Chiefs of Staff in Washington, he despatched a special message stating that if the division were returned it would not be used exclusively for home defence. During Parliamentary discussions in December Fraser criticised the ‘holding war’ in the Pacific, which he said he had always opposed, though a holding period was necessary in order to build up American strength of arms and was in accordance with the over-all strategy that Germany should first be defeated before the full strength of the Allies was turned against Japan. ‘Units of the New Zealand force have arrived in New Caledonia,’ he said in December. ‘It is only right that we should take part in the Pacific offensive which will keep the Japanese as far as possible from our shores.’

Although War Cabinet had approved the necessary increases for the division, Barrowclough still required a third infantry battalion for his 15 Brigade, as well as one field regiment of artillery, an ASC company, an engineer field company, an anti-tank battery, a light artillery regiment, less a battery already in New Caledonia, and the remaining units of 15 Brigade headquarters. Other units were required for the Base organisation. Puttick, in January, supported Barrowclough's request for these troops, most of which were being assembled in New Zealand, and commented on the urgent necessity for building up the division to full strength.

Early in February Major-General Peck, of Halsey's war plans staff, expressed concern at the strength of 3 Division and indicated that it would shortly be asked to undertake amphibious training, which 43 American Division had already started in readiness to move forward. Barrowclough was eager to get his remaining units to New Caledonia in order to acclimatise them. ‘There is a vast difference between the men from Fiji and those gathered later from all parts of New Zealand,’ he reported to Army Headquarters. Later in February Coates and Puttick visited New Caledonia and discussed with Halsey various problems concerning the division, including the relief by American units of the heavy coast and antiaircraft artillery to enable them to return to it.

On 6 March War Cabinet reluctantly agreed to the expansion of the division to 17,637 all ranks, with a first reinforcement of 1263, a docks operating unit of 90, and an engineer construction unit of 300, giving the force in New Caledonia a total strength of 19,290. One of the provisions was that 2211 coast and anti-aircraft personnel still in Fiji should join the division when they were relieved, as well as the battalions then in Tonga and Norfolk. But a third battalion still had to be found for 15 Brigade. The possibility of using a battalion of the Otago Regiment or a battalion of the Waikato Regiment had long been discarded, and when a suggestion to use 2 Maori Battalion, then in camp, was put forward Barrowclough replied that he welcomed the idea, but warned that some difficulty might arise through working Maori troops alongside American units which might subject them to some indignity.

Halsey and his staff, to whom the proposal was submitted, considered the inclusion of the Maoris would be both acceptable and desirable and discounted any suggestion of discrimination, but when the subject was referred to Colonel J. H. Nankivell, United States Military Attache in Wellington, he expressed the opinion that it would be unwise to send Maoris to serve alongside American formations. However, the Maori War Effort Parliamentary Committee gave no support to this suggestion; they desired to send their men to the Middle East, leaving no doubt of their intentions in a letter to the Prime Minister which concluded, ‘The Maori people of New Zealand are averse to their boys being sent to any other theatre of war where they could not be directly supporting their kinsmen. This feeling is paramount in the minds of the men of the 2 Maori Battalion’. This view was not supported by the Chief of the General Staff, who expressed the opinion that ‘every military and, as far as I can see, every economic consideration is in favour of the despatch of 2 Maori Battalion to 3 Division’.

When the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Stewart, toured Pacific formations the following month, he informed Barrowclough that 3 Maori Battalion, not yet formed, would be used to complete 15 Brigade. Although this was confirmed at a conference presided over by Coates and attended by the Maori members of Parliament and Army representatives on 21 April, the furlough scheme for men of 2 Division, which was influenced by strong public opinion, forced a drastic alteration of all previous decisions and required both 2 and 3 Maori Battalions to be diverted to support 1 Maori Battalion. It was obvious, also, that the Maoris did not wish their men to serve in the Pacific.

A suggestion to use the Fijians to complete 3 Division also ended in stalemate. The offer came from Sir Philip Mitchell, Governor of Fiji, to use the Fijian Brigade with the division, this force to include the Fijian Battalion and the commando units, led by New Zealanders, then employed with American forces in the Solomons, where they had established their reputation as jungle fighters. Barrowclough suggested, and Puttick agreed, that one battalion of Fijians could be usefully employed with each New Zealand brigade, thus making full use of their special qualifications as jungle fighters, but he insisted that they must be in addition to, and not in substitution for, New Zealand units still required.

When the suggestion was referred to the South Pacific Command it was received coldly, as the removal of the brigade from Fiji required the use of American troops to replace them in garrisoning the island and would also deprive the American forces of the use of the scouts and raiders in the Solomons campaign. For this reason South Pacific Command could not agree to the request, and a communication from Halsey's headquarters on 18 June made this clear. ‘In conference and correspondence concerning the reduction of home defences in New Zealand, it was our understanding that the 3rd Division would be brought up to full strength and that full strength would be such that the New Zealand division could be used interchangeably with American divisions in combat. Therefore, we prefer for the latter reason, and because of the reduction in strength of the Fiji garrison, that the expansion of New Zealand 3rd Division be not accomplished by the use of Fijian troops.’

Amphibious training for the whole division was completed on the island of Efate in the New Hebrides, to which it moved in three groups, each group spending five days at Vila before continuing the voyage to Guadalcanal. Almost before the green camouflage paint was dry on every article of equipment, convoys of vehicles moved south to Noumea through familiar clouds of choking dust. The little tented villages among the niaoulis disappeared almost overnight, leaving only the more sustantial bures as memorials to occupation. Fourteenth Brigade sailed on 17 August in three ships, the President Jackson, President Hayes, and President Adams; Divisional Headquarters and troops followed on 24 August in the Hunter Liggett and Fuller; and 8 Brigade on 4 September in the three President ships, which had disembarked 14 Brigade and returned. These transports were all employed in the original landing on Guadalcanal, during which the Fuller acted as guide ship for the whole convoy.

The three training groups were spaced so that one finished its exercises and departed before the next arrived. Transports were laboriously loaded from the beaches in Noumea Harbour, all equipment being ferried out to the waiting ships after being manhandled into barges. It was hot work but good practice for many such furture operations. From the day of embarkation anti-malarial precautions became compulsory, and all the futile stories of the debilitating physical effect of atebrin tablets were soon dispelled. Those little yellow pellets were taken daily, except Sunday, and when troops went ashore they wore long trousers, with canvas anklets, and long-sleeved shirts, and spread repellent oil on exposed parts of the body.

Vila, though intensely humid, was ideal for amphibious exercises. Outside the land-locked harbour, Mele Beach, washed by long, lazy rollers, curved in a golden arc of coral sand behind which a tangle of trees, vines, and bamboo thickets opened into coffee and cocoa plantations and the cultivated spaces which pass for farms in the tropics. There was little sign of war in the harbour, but at night the searchlights from Havannah Harbour, the immense naval base for servicing and repairing ships in the immediate forward area, spread their restless golden fingers across the indigo sky until down. As each convoy arrived, plans which were drawn up during the voyage were immediately put into operation. Every type of landing, made as realistic as possible by the use of aircraft and observers, was practised day and night, beginning with beach assaults, formation of defence permeters ashore, night landings beginning soon after midnight from blacked-out ships, as well as ship and net drill and boat discipline. Torrential rain added to the realism as troops waited for dawn under rat-infested cocoa trees, sheltered with only a mosquito net. Full equipment was carried, in addition to jungle rations for the period ashore.

Brigades exercised in combat teams, as they were to operate later in action, taking even their field and anti-aircraft guns ashore in small barges and manhandling them into position over the sand. Because they were the pattern of many similar landings, these exercises were invaluable in planning movement from the restricted space of crowded transports to allotted areas ashore and are worthy of record. First the transport's landing craft, small flat-bottomed boats with broad collapsible bows, are lowered into the water, coming under landing nets down which the men scramble in fours as they come up from their quarters, unit by unit. As each craft fills with its complement of men and equipment, it moves away to join others circling in disorder to avoid loss by enemy bombing. Then, at a given signal, each wave of these assault craft speeds for the beach, judging its arrival so that a given number of them simultaneously reaches the sand in a well-spaced line. Bows drop and small bodies of troops dash for cover and prepare for action. Speed and uniformity are two essentials of a synchronised landing, which is so calculated that each wave of boats withdraws to make way for the next. The reverse action of these high-powered craft enables them to retract easily from the beach. By the time the exercises were over, beach landings were as familiar as parade-ground drill.

Divisional Headquarters closed at Moindah on 15 August and opened the same day at Guadalcanal, where the area which was awaiting the division had been inspected some weeks previously by Barrowclough, Speight, Murphy, and McKay when they flew up from New Caledonia. Dove, promoted Brigadier, took over command of all New Zealand troops stationed in New Caledonia, which remained the division's base during its period in the Solomons. Over the long distances air travel became essential for the commander as the moved between components of his scattered force. He went by air to Vila to watch 14 Brigade at work, then on to Guadalcanal, returning by plane to be present when divisional troops and 8 Brigade exercised. Only one convoy was attacked during the three-day voyage in stifling blacked-out transports to Guadalcanal. Two days out from Vila a Japanese submarine, afterwards sunk by escorting destroyers, fired three torpedoes, but they passed harmlessly through the convoy carrying divisional troops, missing the Fuller by 200 yards.

The division concentrated on Guadalcanal as the convoys arrived on schedule from the New Hebrides—14 Brigade on 27 August; Divisional Headquarters and troops on 3 September (the day on which the Allies landed in the south of Italy); 8 Brigade on 14 September—and occupied areas vacated by American units extending 4000 yards on either side of the Matanikau River and inland to a depth of 5–6000 yards. Before the transports ceased to move, 500 yards from the shore in Sealark Channel, troops were ready to disembark over the side. Soon the beach between Point Cruz and the mouth of the river was a scene of strenuous activity as disorderly piles of equipment and stores grew higher with the arrival of succeeding waves of landing craft, and trucks, guns, and carriers lumbered ashore. Stripped to the waist and shining with sweat, chains of men handled crates and boxes without mechanical aid, even assisting trucks and guns when they stuck fast in the sand, in an atmosphere compared with which a New Zealand summer is almost chilly

By nightfall the most urgently required equipment was far from the beaches, and tents or shelters erected on the ridges to the rear where, when the sea breeze fell away with the setting sun, the stifling heat came down like an enveloping pall. Working at the rate of 119 tons an hour against a previous 104½ tons, 14 Brigade established a record in unloading a ship in the stream; not to be outdone, 8 Brigade went one better when it arrived and reduced the time still further, proving that esprit de corps could survive even the sweltering heat of Guadalcanal.

An artillery officer, in imitation of the travel agency brochures, produced a satirical description of the attractions of Guadalcanal, part of which read: ‘Come to romancedrenched Guadalcanal, you who wish to put the cares of civilisation behind you and seek (rapid) release from this world. Here no sound disturbs the serene stillness except the night-long yelps, squeals, squawks and groans of the happy denizens of the jungle. Come and bask on its sunlit sands, lulled by the soothing murmur of a golden nimbus of blood-sucking insects muscled like bull gorillas. Bathe in its ultramarine waters and sport with the festive sharks, long surfeited on the carcases of defunct samurai. Or would you taste the night-life of this delectable spot. Then come with me to a native village for experiences vouchasafed only to those who get off the beaten track. Share with the simple savages their tasty jungle meal of spam and K rations…. And as you wend your way home through the A/A spangled night you can look forward to a long sleep undisturbed by anything more than a 250 lb. bomb. Yes, come to lovely Guadalcanal—and bring your strait-jacket with you, you dim-witted clod.’

Guadalcanal is one of the largest of the Solomon Islands which, before they became a battlefield, were the least known and least developed of any island group in the British Commonwealth. Land could be rented for threepence an acre for five years, but the prevalence of the malarial mosquito, an exhausting climate where sleep refreshes neither mind nor body, and the unfriendly attitude of the natives did little to encourage development, except the cultivation of coconut palms for the production of copra in plantations along the coastal areas. Rainfall averages 164 inches a year, with temperatures at sea level ranging without seasonal change from 86 degrees by day to 73 degrees by night. Dense forest clothes almost every island, even coral atolls, to the water's edge. Mendana, a Spanish explorer, discovered the Solomons in 1568, but although exaggerated stories of their hidden wealth excited the adventurous, they were lost to the world for 200 years, until two French explorers, Bougainville and Jean François de Surville, passed through the group in 1768–69, but the mystery of the Solomons was not solved until Bruni d’Entrecasteaux, in 1792, recognised the islands from Mendana's records. French missionaries arrived in 1845, but their prompt despatch by aggressive natives only added to the grim reputation of the Solomons. White traders began limited activities in 1860, increasing when Great Britain took over the southern Solomons in 1893. Germany held the northern islands until 1900, when they were ceded to Great Britain in exchange for Western Samoa. Except for a change of attitude by the natives and the establishment of widely scattered Government, trading, and mission stations, and still fewer private plantation homes, civilisation had little effect on the Solomons until war's rampant violence brought it in the wake of such destruction and amenities as the islanders had never known. Soon thousands of men occupied the dim aisles of plantation and jungle which had previously known only the occasional presence of bare-footed natives.

When formations of 3 Division moved into Guadalcanal, the Japanese had been pushed back to the New Georgia Group, 200 miles to the north, and the island had become an immense forward base to support the American forces in action—navy, army, and air. Beneath the shelter of coconut plantations, hospitals and camps and vast dumps of stores, petrol, vehicles, and ammunition were established for a distance of 40 miles along the northern coastal region facing Florida Island. This was the only occupied area and centred round Henderson Airfield, named in honour of an American airman Major Lofton Henderson, lost at Midway, and three others, Koli, Kukum, and Carney fields, created after the American occupation. Sloping up from the plantation and flat coastal belt, broad ridges of dead coral covered with coarse kunai grass extended some miles inland until they met dense, forest-clad mountains rising to 8000 feet, over which billowing rain clouds piled like ice-cream cones. Forest trees growing ridge-high gave this landscape a deceptive uniformity, but roads and trails, born of the tracks made during battle, led through it to camp sites. Here the division spread for some miles, dispersing its tents over the treeless ridges, scene of bitter fighting, and still bearing such evidence of the conflict that any doubtful ammunition and discarded equipment were avoided.

Below their vantage point spread the panorama of Savo and Florida Islands and the moving pageant of shipping in Sealark Channel and Lunga roadstead, where destroyers moved alertly beyond ships unloading men and stores, and flotillas of small craft hurried between ship and shore or departed in convoy to the north battle zone. Warships sheltered behind submarine nets in a naval base established in the bay round Tulagi and Gavutu, with the blue mass of Florida immediately behind them where the seaplane base at Halavo was sited. Henderson Field was restless and noisy with the ceaseless activity of aircraft, most of them going to or returning from missions to the north as they bombed Japanese installations and airfields on Kolombangara, Bougainville, the Shortlands, and islands round New Georgia, or watched for submarines in the immediate sea lanes. They were comforting proof of Allied air superiority. Dust from the streams of traffic on the two-way road linking camps along the coast rose above the palms like gentle mist suspended in the heavy air. All along the curving beaches as far north as Cape Esperance, where men bathed in the sticky warm water, lay the relics of war—tanks and landing craft, disintegrating wrecks of ships and aircraft, backed by mutilated palms and trees, torn by shellfire, not yet healed despite the swift growth of tropical vegetation.

Guadalcanal was still within range of Japanese aircraft when the division arrived. They came from Kahili, Ballale, Buins and Rekata, usually on moonlight nights, dropping their bombs on dumps, shipping, and airfields. Sirens, linked with a net of radar stations, gave adequate warning, and lights flicked out leaving only vague shapes of tents and buildings on a landscape formerly peppered with the stars of candles and lamps. From foxholes laboriously gouged in the resisting coral, more as a protection against falling shrapnel than bombs, men watched the spectacle of weaving searchlights and bursting shells, and cheered on one notable occasion the valour of an American pilot who, disregarding his own anti-aircraft shells, sent down two Japanese planes in glowing spirals. The enemy occasionally sank transports and supply ships in the roadstead, eluding observation by following closely behind returning formations at dusk, and their haphazardly-strewn bombs sometimes found dumps among the palms which burned explosively for days, as one did soon after the arrival of the divisional convoy. But as pressure was maintained on the northern bases, enemy raids became fewer.

There can be no connected story of 3 Division's activities in the Solomons. Not once did the brigades co-operate in joint action. Each was employed on an island far from the other and linked only by wireless, aircraft, and landing craft. Barrowclough commanded from the particular island on which he had established his headquarters, finally 500 miles north of Guadalcanal and 1500 miles from his base in New Caledonia. The transport of men, stores, and equipment over such long distances with only a minimum of means was one of the recurring problems of this island campaign.

By the time the division arrived to take part with American forces in this campaign, which was designed to isolate and finally destroy Rabaul, the strategy of by-passing had been evolved. Briefly such strategy was to outflank enemy bases, forcing him to surrender or evacuate by cutting his supply lines and smashing his airfields and naval bases. In the Solomons this was achieved by capturing an island far ahead of an enemy stronghold and establishing there with the greatest possible speed airfields, naval bases, supply dumps, and radar stations to support the next move forward, most of these sites requiring the removal of virgin jungle. Such strategy requires the use of aircraft in strength to provide cover for landings, patrols and preparatory bombing; swift and powerful motor torpedo boats working at night to disrupt enemy barge traffic (hidden during the day) transporting men and supplies to his beleaguered garrisons; landing craft of all types to ferry men and materials to the beaches at the point of attack, and naval vessels to protect them during transit and as supporting artillery before landing. This meant the closest co-operation between all three services, planning in meticulous detail involved loading and landing timetables by Navy, Army, and Air Force representatives working as one committee. But most important of all was the saving in human life, by the avoidance of frontal beach attacks against strongly defended areas.

While waiting to move forward, units lost no time in becoming familiar with the jungle, in which they exercised for better efficiency when they were not engaged in moving heavy stores from the beaches, where parties from battalions laboured day and night as required. Because of stray marauding Japanese still hiding in the hinterland, beaches and ration dumps were patrolled from dusk to dawn, though indiscriminate shooting was discouraged. Guns of 29 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment were linked in with the island defences and went into action soon after their arrival. Engineers, as they were to do for months afterwards, immediately began improving access roads, water points and wells, bridges and accommodation, as well as a programme which included bomb and ammunnition disposal and the erection of semi-permanent buildings, all of which were necessary for units remaining on the island.

Timber was more readily available from a sawmill operated by the Royal New Zealand Air Force, happily sited close beside the main highway and a supply of giant trees. The dialy dose of atebrin was increased to half a tablet, with a whole one on Sundays, the prescribed quantity for everyone in the Solomons zone. During this time, also, troops became more familiar with all types of landing craft they were to use later in operations—LSTs (landing ship, tanks), LCIs (landing craft, infantry), LCVPs (landing craft, vehicles and personnel), and APDs (army personnel, destroyers). With the exception of the APDs, which were obsolete destroyers reconditioned as troop transports, all these craft were designed with broad flat bottoms to ride up on the shelving sand or coral, men, guns, and vehicles going ashore over ramps which fell as the craft ran on the beaches or into shallow water. American naval ratings were in charge of them.

Some reorganisation of the division in readiness for action took place on Guadalcanal. On arriving there Barrowclough was confronted with a dilemma. His division was an isolated British formation in an American theatre of war which was primarily naval in operation. He was required immediately by Harmon to take over command on Vella Lavella Island and clear it of Japanese, and at a later date use another part of his division for operations in the Treasury Group. This meant that his small force was to be split into three widely separated groups, thus throwing an excessive burden on his staff and signals, though to some extent this had been anticipated by the retention of certain officers and other ranks when 15 Brigade was disbanded. Plans to meet both impending operations and the dispersal of the force began immediately after the opening of Divisional Headquarters on 4 September, at which the first important visitor was the United States Secretary of State for War, Mr. R. P. Patterson, who called the following day.

A Field Maintenance Centre,

This was an ad boc. organisation created specially to serve the requirements of the division while it was in the forward area. No war establishment was ever committed to paper in the accepted army sense. Barrowclough always referred to it as a ‘Forward Maintenance Centre’.