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Pacific Pioneers: the story of the engineers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Pacific

Chapter Eleven — Wharfies

page 65

Chapter Eleven
Wharfies

In the pioneer days of darkest Fiji the unloading of boats was not an unknown feature of sapper activity, but it was never a popular one. The Wharf Operating Company of the works services took over official responsibility in New Caledonia, but since they were not near enough to help unload LSTs in the Solomons, the task of playing wharfies was never confined to one of the companies alone.

In fact the most comprehensive work of this nature was done by the little flock in Norfolk. When N Force hit the piers and moles of Cascade and Kingston. Norfolk, they were not only in a bad state of disrepair but had obviously never been intended for the loading and unloading of a great amount of stores and equipment. At Cascade a little old concrete slipway was broken up, then enlarged and regraded for the hauling up and berthing of barges. The pier adjacent was enlarged to sufficient width to accommodate a mobile crane. At Kingston the old stone mole of the convict period was in very bad repair also and under the heavy loads of vehicles and equipment began to disintegrate rapidly. During heavy seas portions were washed away. Reconstruction was therefore carried out by re-setting the limestone blocks and filling in at the back with concrete up to the original surface. Because of the need of working with heavy steel barges and of beaching all craft at night, a concrete slipway was made adjoining the mole.

Two launches, two whale-boats, two flat-topped steel barges were taken over from American stores and the port was worked by sapper personnel with the help of parties from other units page 66A 10-ton Le Tourneau portable crane worked with the RD-8 bulldozer, and these, with a locally made jib mounted on the back of a Mac truck with winch, were the only available machinery. The ports being located at opposite sides of the island were worked according to the weather; and it was necessary to haul the equipment over the island according to whichever one was in use. This entailed a considerable waste of time but it was not possible to decide which could be used until the actual day of the operation. Furthermore during a ship's stay it was often necessary to move from port to port daily. While unloading took place the bulldozer and crane could not be used on the airfield so that other work was held up. The average unloading time for these jobs is given by the Ronaki, the usual supply ship. She carried a total of 220 tons and was unloaded into whaleboats and usually cleared in three days. On one occasion, however, the ship Karsik was off the island for a period of 23 days in order to unload some 1.500 tons.

Daily work entailed the placing of launches and whale-boats in the water and, if it was possible to use them, the barges also. Before dark each evening they had to be hauled out again. For one period ships were being handled for 30 days continuously and the D-8 was accordingly tied up for that period. It further fell to the lot of the engineers to carry out salvage of the Ronaki when, in spite of weather report warnings given during the day, she went aground off Kingston on the night of 17 June, 1943. The crew was got off in rough seas and later salvage of the cargo and equipment completed in three days. During this period engineer personnel kept watch on the vessel, secured her by steel cables and worked for every long periods under extremely;, adverse weather conditions.

Népoui Dock and the unloading of the early New Caledonian transports was the first job for most of the actual 3 Div Engineers. The unloading was made more arduous by reason of the need for haste. Dock facilities at Noumea were already seriously overtaxed but, since only one boat at a time could dock at Népoui's rudimentary wharf, speed was essential. Considering the rate at which we put through the loads of beer, ammunition, pears and other army necessities and laid them out on Népoui Flat to simmer, we are rather inclined to think that we scabbed on the watersiders' rates. T 51, T 52, T 53 went quickly through the hands of the 20th Field. On Christmas Day, 1942, we were still page 67in the hold, even when the turkey was being eaten. A smart getaway up north left the 37th Field Park holding the baby and they carried it for another three months until the Népoui staging became a wharf with craft for the harbormaster to scoot about in and other facilities for refreshment. The works unit chapter tells the rest.

The use of the captured Jap barge—christened Confident—on the Doveli-Maravari run at Vella, made necessary the next adventure with wharves proper. Near Maravari the sudden drop from shore line to coral depths had been amply demonstrated on landing day by the abbreviated CSM who, crying heartily, 'Follow me, my men,' stepped off the landing platform of an LCT into eight feet of water. The Confident drew about seven feet but it was the location of the ASC stores at Maravari which really determined the locale of the new wharf. An interesting feature was the unusual tides (one tide cycle in approximately 24 hours) and the average variation between high and low tide of only two and a quarter feet. Hardwood jungle timber served as a base for this jetty, the logs being set into a coral shelf. Ten-inch diameter coconut logs formed a simple crib superstructure which was packed up with coral spells. Old truck tiers made good fenders and when access road and mooring bollards were finished the 14th Brigade had a first-class jetty of its own. Along with this work other mooring bollards were requested for the LCTs and LSTs which were the regular supply ships. On several of the beaches therefore along the eastern strip of Vella solid mahogany blocks 18 inches in diameter were sunk to a depth of four feet six inches into bankers of coral on the foreshore bottom. The use of these made it less likely that a bulldozer would be called upon to push off an LCT which had buried its nose too deeply in the margin of the bay. It was also found necessary to call in an engineer to do the diving necessary at some of the Biloa jetties on Vella. To blow up underwater coral, with or without a diving helmet, by engineering one's way underneath coral mushrooms to fix electrically fired charges was a job worth mentioning in despatches.

Later developments in the wharf line came on Nissan. At the mission landing there we made a decent landing stage for the daily ferry Lct and the smaller Lcvp boats which dashed about the lagoon with mail, working parties and 'tourists.' The coral page 68and coconut made into a neat little bunker were all that was necessary here. For the field ambulance at Pokonian we erected a wooden jetty for unloading patients and then got on to two bigger jobs with which we made our parting bow to the stage of Pacific operations.

The Nissan lagoon, eight miles long by three and a half wide, was well stocked with fish, and clear, but without the coralline beauties of off-shore Vella and Mono. Moreover it was shallow and difficult to enter by reason of coral reefs. The heavy demands on LSTs for more forward areas made it necessary, after the first few convoys, to supply Nissan with liberty ships. These, however, could not get into the lagoon and since unloading docks on the outside coast were impracticable, it became necessary to tranship stores from the Liberty boats to the LCTs. The latter were slow unloading from the end so, to speed things up, two docks for side unloading with cranes were ordered. Naturally the engineers got the rush job and while the 20th got busy at Halis, the 26th dashed ahead with construction work at Salipal. Timber was supplied by the 37th Field Park sawmill platoon and from the coconut logs of the Tangalan plantation. Bulkhead piers of 200 feet, providing for two LCTs end to end, and four feet above high water mark were built. With these were required mooring bollards, light standards, corner fenders and cleared and fenced areas for storage immediately inland. There were again peculiar comings and goings of the tide. The normal cycle was 12 hours but about every 14 days it changed to a 24 hour cycle, taking three days to make the change to and from its 24 effort. The maximum tide variation was only two feet nine inches and so no great difficulties were presented to the jetty builders.

The Halis job was particularly memorable for a 'Light that Failed' to shine at the appropriate time for offshore boats. During the early course of its construction, too, the logs for cribbing, to the incredulous amazement of US officers, were handled not by cranes but by submersible sappers. Two power saws bit heavily into the coconut logs, the bulldozer filled the finished crib with spoil and, a matter of 12 days after construction commenced, the dock was already busy. End unloading as well as" side unloading was provided at this pier but, even with that addition, the need for immediate use lengthened the period necessary for completion to three weeks.

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At Salipal the first task was also the clearing of dump areas with the bulldozer and rooter. But here the coral had to be shifted with explosives and, from the blasting, huge coral blocks of one cubic yard or more in size, were dropped by crane behind a retaining wall to fill up the steep slope of the lagoon at that point. Cranes handled the heavier timbers, as shown in the photograph, the cribs being constructed later on shore and launched. Many days were spent waiting here for some bar steel which was finally located joy-riding backwards and forwards on the LSTs from Guadalcanal.

Over each job hung the shadow of impending departure. This factor, however, in no way impeded the work. If the building of a wharf were to bring us any nearer the day of crawling up the ship's gangway—or even, if need be, of crawling up the nets again—then we were 100 per cent, there! It was in fact from the Halis jetty that, on one sunshiny afternoon of May, 1944, the engineer remnant hustled aboard a LCT and, heading out towards the green haze of Sirot, said 'good-bye to them all.'