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Shovel Sword and Scalpel: A record of service of medical units of the second New Zealand expeditionary force in the Pacific

III — To The Solomons

III
To The Solomons

Just two weeks after we left New Zealand we pulled out of Noumea Harbour for an unknown destination. The trip was devoid of incident, and on the morning of 25 September we sighted land on the port bow—the high rugged jungle of San Cristobal. We watched small islands appear and disappear around us during the day until, with nightfall, we were steaming well into the Solomons and wondering when we would strike page 138Guadalcanal. Next dawn we watched the mountainous ridges of the island we knew to be the 'Canal come closer and closer. Many attempted to identify every open patch of land as either a fighter strip, Henderson Field, or Hanson Field.

As we watched, many thoughts must have coursed through the minds of we New Zealanders, who had come to know the name of Guadalcanal more familiarly than any other battlefield of this war. Back at home we had seen the men of the US Marine Corps leave to go up into this area; we had heard of the deaths in action of many whose brief acquaintanceship we had made; we had seen so many of them return, shocked, ill and ridden with malaria; we had heard them talk of the horror that was Guadalcanal. Now we were lying outside Guadalcanal, waiting to be taken ashore. But what a difference! Whatever our feelings as we saw the numbered bearhes come into view, saw the numerous craft that jostled out to meet us, and saw the waving palms preluding the jungle behind, how different they must have been to the thoughts of the men of the marine division who launched the attack against Japan in the South Pacific on 7 August, 1942, when they landed on these same beaches. We knew we were going to build a camp under difficult conditions, that we would have to suffer the rigours of life and work in the tropical heat and were going into a zone that was still prey to air raids; but we would have no Japs sniping at us, no traps in the jungle, no excessive fear of malaria, and we would have the assurance of constant and safe supply lines. Indeed, we were very fortunate. In all humility, we felt a deeper appreciation of those Americans who fought and died there such a short time ago.

We thought we had seen the last of the James B. Francis when we stepped ashore, but for the next few days almost the whole unit was used to unload our two-week floating home. Working in the heat of the day certainly was trying. We were told that, after a while, when we were acclimatised, we would not feel it so badly, but sweating in that stifling hold was as close to hell as most of us will wish to be.

And so to the building of the camp. The company lines were situated on either side of a cleared ridge, flanked on each side by a jungle that had been mildly tamed. Once our tents were up and firmly secured we started on the longer job of building cookhouses, native style huts, digging sumps, making proper page 139latrines, recreation huts, and a score of paths through the wilderness. The addiction of some of us to ease and luxury made us rather out of place in our new environment. Associated with this addiction was a horrifying lack of manual ability and craftsmanship. This incapacity to serve in any other way than as manual labourers extended to those who belonged in civilian life in professional spheres. Whereas the one-time manual labourers, farmers, carpenters, roadmen, mechanics and plasterers directed operations with initiative and inventiveness, most of the white collar fraternity—led by Bohemian vocal virtuoso Gordon Hooper—a motley collection of clerks, accountants and pedagogic chalk-throwers stood around agape and could only assist with pick and shovel.

Occasionally we studied the jungle beside us. Bamboo thickets gave way to flowering hibiscus blossoms topped by tall trees. Extending from the beach and up past the road to the camp was a coconut plantation, but the palms seemed confined to this area and could not be seen in the jungle proper. Broken branches, often heavy ones, were scattered through the jungle and were only held up by the profusion of vines. The undergrowth was alive with every type of creeper and crawler imaginable—iguanas, land crabs, hermit crabs, centipedes, lizards, rats, snakes, spiders of abandoned colours and tremendous size, and a myriad army of ants, which were our greatest pest. The neighbouring jungle gave up its timber for the numerous conveniences that abounded around our tents. The natural initiative and ability which the New Zealand soldier possesses resulted in our company lines taking on the appearance of a Heath Robinson holiday resort. Makeshift showers vied with one another for mechanical grotesqueness in their arrangement of tins and cans. Shelves, clothes racks, bookcases and chairs completed the parody on the cottage for two.

Spare time in the evenings was filled in many ways—writing letters home, reading and talking. Some nights we went over to the movies at Field Maintenance Centre. The theatre, dubbed the 'Regent,' was situated in a clearing in the jungle, where the audience could sit and watch the films, smoke, talk, jeer at the actors and be nipped by ants. The screen was suspended between two huge trees, an arrangement that served a double purpose—if the show was lousy we could lie back and wonder at page 140the fascinating setting in which the inane celluloid was projected. Not that that was often necessary. The films were donated by the War Services Division of the American motion picture industry, and, as was usual with-the Americans, only the best went to their troops. Besides movie going, debating groups were started, discussion groups got under way, and a chess club was formed to sponsor the game within the unit.

At two o'clock on the morning of 11 October, 1943, and again at four o'clock we experienced our first air raid- We had been expecting these since the moon was waxing, and at last the Japs decided to take another crack at the 'Canal. Their efforts had previously been directed to the American end of the island, but this morning they tried a new stunt. An enemy plane flew in just over the top of the jungle in the same line as the American planes took towards Henderson Field. This tactic shielded it from anti-aircraft fire, and, as it flew on to the tarmac, it suddenly rose and shot out over the harbour, bombing a transport that lay in the bay before the gun crews realised they had been fooled. These details, of course, only came to us during the day. While the raid was on we had no idea what was happening, and the whole show was singularly uninteresting. We decided that air raids on Guadalcanal were very dull affairs at this stage of the Solomons campaign, though no doubt the sailors on board the bombed and burning transport would hardly have agreed with us.

The date, 25 November, 1943, had little significance for us until the cooks told us that a feast had been supplied by the Americans in celebration of their Thanksgiving Day. Considered historically, what a delightful paradox! We, British people, joined in celebrating the thanksgiving offered by the Pilgrim Fathers on the occasion of their first successful harvest—those Pilgrim Fathers who founded America, those Pilgrim Fathers whose deadly enmity towards the British Government drove them from England and led them to renounce their associations with the British people. Anyway, extra rations were supplied by the Americans to the New Zealanders serving with them in the Pacific, and the menu presented to us at evening mess was so good it bears repeating. Here it is, the meal adjudged by the boys the best they had had in the army:—Grapefruit juice, turkey, seasoning, beans, green peas, cauliflower, potatoes (baked and boiled), peaches and cream, followed by tea or coffee, with page 141candy and a packet of cigarettes for everybody. That, you will agree, was a meal hardly to be expected on Guadalcanal.

During this same evening the open forum committee sponsored a discussion—' Whether closer political, economic and cultural relations with the USA would be of advantage to New Zealand.' Speakers leading in the discussion were Lieutenant (Cultural) Christie, Alan (Economic) Low and John (Political) O'Shea. The open forum committee certainly kept cultural affairs bowling along merrily, inaugurating one December evening what they claimed was the first Brains Trust to meet in the South Pacific. Whether their claim was justified or not the evening's entertainment they provided was very popular. The Trust consisted of Lieutenant-Colonel Fea, Lieutenant Christie, Sergeant 'Anopheles' Belton, Driver 'Comrade' Dale, and Private O'Shea. The question-master for the evening was Sergeant-Major Les Hay, who plied the 'professors' with a variety of questions ranging from details about the planets and the Einstein theory to the melody of Toscelli's 'Serenade.' The 'professors' displayed a wide range of knowledge, and there were few spheres which their combined brain could not cover. The brightest spot in the evening came when the question-master opened the session to impromptu questions from the floor. After a string of (Whodunits,' George Reid drew a wellearned laugh with his perfectly timed, 'Who owns this hat?'

Just prior to Christmas, 1943, the entertainment committee presented 'Polynesia Purchase' to an audience of New Zealanders and their American friends. For some days rehearsals had been bawled out, curtain wings built to a large stage, seating space cleared and filled with logs and a couple of rows of seats. Sans champagne, the theatre, in a natural shell behind A company's lines, was launched with the grandiloquent name of 'Medicine Square Garden.' The farce was staged with a dark dome of night overhead, giant trees and vines dimly outlined through the haze of tobacco smoke, and mosquitoes lifting and falling in the floodlight. The dialogue might have stepped right out of the Bronx. You know the sort of thing—'Listen to dem boids.' 'Those are birds, not boids.' 'Well, dey choip like boids.' We think that most of our pleasure derived from the obvious delight with which the Americans in the audience received the quips and sallies against the 'Great American Way.'page 142We may have been a very small section of the forces on Guadalcanal, but we showed that our lighter moments were as good as our serious ones. The real measure of the play's success was that the players gave request performances to other units and went on the road to fulfil a USO itinerary.