'A new force is being formed for the Pacific.' During August and September 1940 this rumour spread throughout the training camps in New Zealand, waxing and waning in popularity as rumours have the habit of doing. However all doubts were finally resolved when a body of troops, given the name of B Force, began to be assembled, with its two main infantry units encamped at Ngaruawahia and Te Rapa, in the Waikato district. These were named 29th and 30th Battalions respectively. Other elements of B Force were organised in Papakura and Trentham. Brigadier (later Major-General) W. H. Cunningham, Cbe, Dso, was in command of this new force. Because of the departure of the third echelon for the Middle East he faced some difficulty in raising sufficient men for the force, particularly as infantry battalions were required to take their reinforcements with them. Finally volunteers were obtained from the newly assembled fourth reinforcements who had just arrived in camp in October. These brought the B Force infantry reinforcements up to 450 men, to whom were added sixteen officers from the two battalions (eight from each) including Major F. W. Voelcker, Dso, Obe, Mc, second-in-command of the 30th Battalion. He was appointed to command the reinforcements.

And so it began. There were many subsequent changes in personnel; its name was changed first from Training Battalion, to Reserve Battalion; then from Reserve to 34th Battalion. But it was the same unit that lived and worked from that day forward, until the ultimate disbanding of the New Zealand Expeditionary-Force in the Pacific nearly four years later.

It is a four-mile march from Suva wharves to Samambula, and on this day, 22 November, Suva gave our men an example of its typical weather—thick, warm rain and a humidity that pressed heavily on these newcomers—these 'white leghorns'—so used to New Zealand's fresh clean air. Up the hill, and out through an Indian settlement, the march brought us to a tented camp with a wide prospect over paddy-fields to the sea, a mile and a half to the east. This was Samambula Camp, known now to thousands of men, both New Zealand and American, who were later dispersed throughout the armed forces in all parts of the world.

There were five companies in the Training Battalion—Headquarters, W, X, Y and Z. From the 29th Battalion came Second-Lieutenant E. K. Norman, to be adjutant. Years later, in the Middle East, his name became well-known as the youngest Lieutenant-colonel in the British forces, and he was awarded the Dso and the Mc. Second-Lieutenant N. S. Triggs, also from the 29th, was appointed quartermaster, and he was faced with the initial problem of issuing out equally to the five companies the two 8-cwt trucks and four lewis guns that comprised the battalion's warlike equipment, apart from rifles. Handed down through the years is the story that, for the four lewis guns, there existed but one return page 11spring, and this precious article had to be handed around from company to company to fit in with the periods when the lewis gun was being taught. For a lewis gun will not work without a return spring. Nevertheless, the scarcity of equipment did not daunt these new troops. Most of them were all but untrained, and they had to endure the discomfort of a make-shift camp under trying weather conditions, with the mosquito as an added burden. But the New Zealand habits of 'acquisition' and ingenuity served to offset these troubles. There were awkward questions asked concerning some 5000 feet of timber which vanished from the construction work going on alongside the camp, and much narrow suspicion was directed a few days later at Captain S. S. Pennefather, Dcm, MM, and T. B. Allen, who sported chairs and tables of a similar type of wood. Everyone was remarkably keen, and it was typical of the enthusiasm of the whole team that Second-Lieutenant A. G. Morris and Lieutenant J. Osborne started what was called 'The Arsenal of Democracy', carving dummy bren guns and mortars out of rough timber and piping, to assist in the training.

'Though their rifles were of 1914 pattern
And their lewis guns had fought at "Waterloo
Though their rounds were mostly misfires
And their air force had no Spitfires
They were out to show the world what they could do'
from The Army in Fiji a song by an unknown composer.

While on literary subjects, mention could be made of an extract from the battalion's Routine Orders of 14 December 1940, which read:

'The Blue Light.
All copies distributed must be retained and destroyed.'

This magazine, produced by men of the 7th Field Ambulance, attained a tremendous popularity and circulation by virtue of the quaint frankness of many of its articles. As souvenirs, its earlier numbers commanded high values in later years.

By January 1941, a new camp had been built with huts, electric light, and some of the amenities similar to mobilisation camps in New Zealand. It was known as 'A Camp'. The battalion moved there just in time, for at 11 am on 20 February, the worst hurricane since 1910 struck the Suva peninsula. In camp, there was time to take the specified hurricane precautions—lashing down anything page 12loose, striking all tents, and strengthening the huts with cross-beams and bracers. Nevertheless, with the wind at one stage reaching no mph, considerable damage was caused, six buildings being wrecked. The battalion mess room was blown over, and the quartermaster's store destroyed by fire. The battalion earned the praise and gratitude of the local people by the manner in which it took its share of clearing up the wreckage in the Suva district. Over on Nukulau, a little island a few miles offshore, buildings and foliage had been almost completely levelled, and part of the island itself had been actually washed away. We sent a party of men there to help. April, 1941, saw some bad weather too. No less than 49.7 inches of rain fell in that month. Fire and flood and acts of God were all part of life in those early days. For instance, the official battalion diary laconically, and without further explanation, simply states that on 14 January the battalion regimental aid post (Rap) was destroyed by fire. As an act of God, one could cite the day, also in January, when the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Ltd. presented the battalion with a supply of pineapple juice.

The early months of the year passed by. The permanent guards on the petrol and ammunition dumps, and on the radio stations, came and stood their turn, week after week. Training continued. Concerts and boxing tournaments, and leave in Suva, combined to thwart that indescribable tropical sensation called 'malua— the desire to do nothing, or if it must be done, then leave it till tomorrow. But in May came welcome news—that a large draft of officers and men was to leave Fiji en route to the Middle East to join the Second Division. Almost the entire battalion was chosen to go. Lieutenant-Colonel Voelcker (whose promotion had been announced in January), a few of the other officers, and a mere handful of the other ranks, were retained to form the nucleus of a battalion of new men who were to come from New Zealand to relieve our departing draft. The change-Over took place in the last week of May, the first section of the new troops marching in on the 23 rd, and the remainder six days later. As they came, the 'old school' marched out, the original 'Samambula boys', who began this battalion, and did it well.

With the arrival of the new men, the battalion changed its name to 'Reserve'. It had just moved to B camp at Samambula, where a depressing expanse of rice fields spreads along the coastal flats. Two more trucks were added to the battalion's fleet of wheeled transport, page 13 making the total four. New web equipment, manufactured in Canada, was issued, and wild stories circulated that bren guns might even be in the offing. In the meantime, training with the decrepit lewis guns and the dummy mortars continued. They were better than nothing. The months that followed for the men of the Reserve were, at best, tedious and exacting, with none of the spur that would have been given them by a definite objective. As yet, Japan was still a neutral. The job of defending Fiji against the stray German raider was too little on which they could form any enthusiasm. It was garrison duty of the dullest kind.

Many of the new draft had had only six weeks training before being sent to Fiji. For these men, laborious hours had to be put in on the parade ground, and on the elementary weapon-training courses. It was not till July that we enjoyed any variation from this weary, if necessary, routine. Then digging started, tunnelling under the hills, wiring defence positions. The parade ground in B camp, apart from its official functions, saw many an odd incident. There was the occasion when some cows strayed on the hallowed ground, and were discovered there by the battalion adjutant, who was possessed of a loud voice. He drilled those cows with meticulous attention to giving commands on the correct foot, with the result that the poor beasts finally found themselves marched off in column of threes in the direction of Samambula village. On another night one company sergeant-major, a notoriously heavy sleeper was carried, bed and all, and deposited in the exact centre of the parade ground where he continued sleeping until dawn, in blissful oblivion. Tragedy and pathos surrounded a little scene that was enacted at one side of the parade ground, near the quartermaster's store. There had been a number of wild dogs about the camp and a general license given to the troops to dispose of them. Doing his duty in this respect one day was the quartermaster, Lieutenant D. J. Maxwell, armed with a rifle. With dogged skill he stalked a particularly mangey specimen of the canine breed, took aim from a distance of five yards and fired. The shot missed. The dog looked up abjectly, trotted up to the quartermaster and gently licked his hand.

As the year advanced, the works programme was intensified. The digging of weapon pits and gun emplacements assumed a higher priority as conditions in the Pacific deteriorated. At Delaimbilo (more generally known as Bilo) a new camp was sited in a steamy gully, where the mud lay inches thick after rain. Anti-tank ditches were page 14dug to protect Suva peninsula from attack on the landward side. We dug weapon pits out of the mangrove swamps, in the tidal mud, and strung out barbed wire entanglements around the shore-line. More new faces appeared in August, when a draft of reinforcements from New Zealand took the place of those of the original Training Battalion who had not left in May, but now departed. There were indications, futhermore, that the Reserve Battalion would later be brought up to full strength. Manoeuvres and trial manning of battle stations had their share of our time. The area near Samambula known as the 'Three Trees' came to be a familiar battle ground.

On 7 December 1941, with no inkling of the momentous events that were to fall within the following 24hours, the battalion went out to its defence posts for a trial standto.