II
Building A Hospital

By mid-August, 1943, an outline of the construction programme which lay ahead was known to include the 4th New Zealand General Hospital in the Dumbea Valley which was to become the most elaborate general hospital in the South Pacific war zone; the New Zealand Kiwi Club, and the convalescent hospital at Kalavere. Repairs and maintenance to roads, vehicles, water points, electrical lighting plants and further construction in the Nzefip base area was to come under the charge of Lieutenant Gilmour with a detachment of 50 men and Lieutenant Scott of Hq Works. The construction company was to move down to Dumbea for the construction of '4th General.' Before the general exodus an invitation to dinner and a dance was extended to members of the Kiwi Waac company, stationed at 4th General Hospital, Boguen Valley, and to sisters of the hospital page 140staff. A committee under the chairmanship of Lieutenant Tremain lost no time in preparations. Sergeant Lipanovic was roped in to paint a mural 10 feet by five for a stage background. The scene, a group of hula girls distinguished by the scantiness of their grass skirts and the abandon with which they performed their dance, aroused doubts in the minds of the more mature sappers. But their scruples were crowded out by the more serious question of supplying sufficient variety and amount of savoury dishes. The canteen was cleared of all stocks of tinned oysters; the cooks were authorised to dip into the ration of sugar and butter which they did so well that the entire camp was butterless and sugarless for the following 10 days. They were urged to camouflage spam, M. and V., vienna sausage and dehydrated potatoes.

The field bakery, through the courtesy of the Patriotic Fund Board, supplied a block of fruit cake; the cooks, Tony Radisich, Maurie Corrie, Maurie Campbell, Steve Nash and 'Scotty' Scott, combined to produce a dinner and supper that was excelled only by that on Christmas Day. The canteen was raided for sweets, cigarettes and talcum powder, this last for a dance floor made up from warehouse roof panels. By Friday night everything was ready in the bure for the big dinner and dance. Many sappers took the precaution of visiting Steven Arthur to avoid a Iast minute disappointment. What had not been anticipated was the spark which set the thatched roof of the bure into a blazing flame on Saturday morning. Fortunately all hands were at breakfast. Though it was only a matter of seconds before the ladders were lined up against the building the flames were scorching along the roof; the relay of buckets kept up a stream of water that would have done credit to a metropolitan fire brigade in the time of our grandfathers. In the panic one over-zealous sapper rushed the cookhouse for a bucket of hot water which he promptly threw over Bill Charleton, who took much longer to cool down than did the fire.

The first week in September. 1943, found construction company Hq and personnel in the Dumbéa Valley, where a camp had been established by advanced parties. The division had moved into action, it was rumoured. The hospital site was still much of a wilderness. Bulldozers were terracing great chunks of earth in three shifts. Operators Ike Smith, Joe Andrews, 'Red' Brownlie, Arty Carey, Jack Telford and Ron Bishop were working the page 141machine three shifts a day. The dozers were refuelled, greased and serviced on the spot under the charge of Sergeant Palmer, who carried out this arduous task through the three shifts.

In the camp hot showers were quickly installed; insect proof kitchen and hot water system erected for a constant supply of boiling water, and every precaution taken for the elimination of waste and refuse in the coming heat of summer. An electric floodlight system was installed at points on a hospital site where prefabricated parts were to be unloaded from convoys of trucks, and prefabricated huts erected for company administration. A deadline had been set for the completion of phase one of the hospital. No one in the ranks knew what the date was, but there was a shrewd suspicion that it would mean the skill and stamina of the sappers against time. When Major Blacker announced that from 11 September the work would be on a seven-day week basis everyone welcomed the call which demanded of their best!

Here is a résumé of opinion at random among unit personnel on the question: 'Can we meet the deadline?'

I'm b—— sure we can.—Herme Palmer.

We showed what we could do with the warehouses: we'll do it with this job.—Jimmy Ellery.

Look here, all we need to do is get together.—Ray Barnaby. Don't worry about what we can do.—Jim Taylor. It would be a fearful thing if the casualties arrived before we had the hospital readv.—Jim Paterson-Kane.

Show me an engineering outfit that can't do the job.— Gordon Berry.

I'll work these wheels (grader) till they won't go round. —'Bog Ape 'Macale.

We can keep the cookhouse end up.—Maurie Corrie.

Sure we can, but we'll be so b—tired we won't know whether we're coming or going.—' Red 'Brownlie.

Do it? Of course we can. What the hell do you think we are?—Bill Morrisey.

Sure, we'll make it, if I have to mend boots night and day.—Les Day.

This was the spirit of the men who were to build the 'million dollar' general hospital; it was part of New Zealand's answer to the challenge from a hostile neighbour. What the casualties would be, and how long the contest would be fought were questions page 142that did not press for an immediate answer. But the 640-bed hospital was one of the answers New Zealand made to her soldiers who were to join in baptising this new battlefront in blood and sweat.

Works services personnel were not as well equipped with heavy machinery as the job demanded. Of the two graders only one was serviceable; of the four planers only two were up to mechanical standard; the six tractors could hardly be certified 'fit for active service in the tropics.' The advantages of heavy equipment to men working to a deadline, as these works men were, was well illustrated when, with the loan from a United States engineer regiment, a power earth auger with one operator, one truck driver and two labourers dug 85 holes per man per eight hour day. Men using hand methods—picks and spades—were able to dig only 24 holes per man per day. And the men who did the digging will not have forgotten how tough the going was.

One of the answers to the irritation and annoyance caused by frequent breakages was summarised by the way in which one of the Perkins graders, which was always breaking down, became known as 'Mrs. Perkins.' 'She' became the 'old lady' who was always in trouble. Suspicion attached itself to operator 'Bog Ape' Macale who was suspected of harbouring questionable intentions towards the 'old lady.' In an official report on equipment the grader is referred to as 'Mrs. Perkins 'without the dignity of inverted commas. Such is fame!

On 14 September prefabricated parts for the building began to arrive on the site. Thirty-seven United States and New Zealand GMC trucks made up a convoy that worked a continuous 17-hour day from Noumea wharf for almost a week. Tn the course of delivery there was a fine 'batch of scones baked' when it was discovered that prefabricated parts belonging to the United States forces had been mixed up with New Zealand parts. Works Services liaison officer at Noumea, Lieutenant S. R. Mann and Sergeant 'Skip' Bark, both subsequently swore they worked a 25-hour day for weeks on end during the period.

The working day began with whom? With the cooks who rose at four o'clock in the morning? With the orderlies who arrived on the job at 4.30 a.m. ? With the dozer drivers who started the first of their three shifts at 5 a.m. ? With the first stirrings in the tents as the dawn broke over the valley? Or was page 143it when the only saw bench on the job at 6 a.m. began to screech its way through the prefabricated parts that had to be trimmed down ? Yes, it was at 6.30 a.m. that the saw, the metal crusher, the workshops, grader and trucks opened a day which did not close till 5.30 p.m.

On the terraced hillside where the ward sites had been cleared a survey party moved in for the main setting out. Next came a 'template' party which placed pegs in correct positions for the men who dug the holes for the ward piles. Another survey party gave the levels for men who set in the piles and these were followed by another party which set sleepers and flooring. In this way walls, roof, windows, doors, interior finishings and hurricane stays were all erected on the assembly line principle. The method was exceptional. With the exception of the warehouses, prefabrication was new to the men. The method adopted of erecting the wards presented a problem that was not just an academic exercise to those planning the work. A clumsy plan at the beginning would cause endless delay and dishearten the men who were ready to give of their best. Yet willingness to experiment, preparedness to take risks and back one's judgment against the future was unavoidable.

With the arrival of the prefabricated hospital parts from New Zealand on 14 September phase one of the hospital started in earnest. Builders set to on the erection of the four 60-bed hospital wards, an operating" theatre in which all major operations could be performed, a hospital laboratory and dispensary, kitchen and cooking facilities, and a skeleton staff quarters for hospital personnel.

Services section had on short loan a Barber Green ditching plant, but for the most part the sappers were the ditching plants. Pipes, joints and all the hidden paraphernalia of sewerage systems had to be made in the concrete yard, cured and carried up to the job where they were promptly put underground and covered up. Culverts had to be dug. Roads had to be formed round each ward and the' whole scheme had to be designed to withstand the possible torrential downpour of a hurricane—which did come in January. The proximity of wards, operating theatre and kitchen to the roads made tar sealing essential.

The building of the Kiwi Club involved a water supply. After much argument a well was sunk at the expense of the page 144National Patriotic Fund Board by a French contractor using native labour. The preliminary haggling and final siting of this well are another story, but it is sufficient to say that the methods employed aroused the interest of works personnel, many of whom disclaimed any responsibility in the affair.

About this time Lieutenant Ralph Torrie, by great self-denial, had saved from his pay £30 which he proudly remitted home to his wife. Some weeks later he received a copy of the home town newspaper carrying a column heavily underlined in a feminine hand, which recounted the exploits of the Torrie family at the school sports. As is proper on such an occasion, the item was duly passed over for his brother officers to read. One of these idly scanning this effort of small town journalism discovered on the back page another column, not underlined, which listed, among other local donations to the Patriotic Fund, the following item : 'Lieutenant and Mrs. Torrie £30.' It was gleefully pointed out that this sum would just about pay for the Kiwi Club well and that, in all fairness as some recognition of a spontaneous gift, it should be, therefore, known as the 'Torrie Well.' The fact that the well shortlv afterwards dried up and resisted all efforts to have water coaxed from its depths is purely coincidental and no reflection on Lieutenant Torrie. But to the knowledge of this writer the entire history of the Third Division in the Pacific does not contain another instance of an officer of the Nzefip paying for his own memorial.