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

Chapter Six — Trucks and Dozers

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Chapter Six
Trucks and Dozers

Since this has been a mobile war, a war of mechanised movement, the engineers have had to be extra busy. No longer are their tasks confined to mamelon and ravelin, to sap and bay, but, as do their vigorous colleagues, the tanks and the army service corps, they have hurtled along the highways of the world Where there were no highways, as in many Pacific islands, they have first dozed and then trucked them.

The fleet of trucks upon whose transport we depended for work and play demanded constant attention. In fact it was quite surprising that so many men did manage to get employed about transport and technical lines of the NZE, and to draw extra duty pay into the bargain. We are not concerned here with such technical details as the peculiar demerits of any one make of truck; nor yet with the intricacies of the diesel engine or any of those stationary engines which stationary sappers choked, or felt like choking, at all hours of the day and night. Suffice it to say that transport did a wonderful job. The drivers who negotiated the miles of jungle mud, winched themselves and their companions out by anchoring themselves to coconut palms, buried themselves in dust and clothed themselves in coral, were not always having a Joy ride. Midnight breakdowns and emergency calls, convoys, picnics, working parties, swimming parties, ball games and manoeuvres, involved long hours and, too often, not much thanks.

In Fiji, we chained up the tailboard on the lorry loads of sappers and infantry working parties and rushed them, no faster than an Indian taxi-driver, down the Walu Bay by-pass road to page 35work on tunnel shift. This was no trouble so long as a hornet didn't enter the cab. In the wee sma' hoors we hung about while reluctant and sleepy pioneers tottered dirtily on to the back of the truck and wet, with honest sweat, our insufficient seating accommodation. For miles and miles of dusty scenic beauties we crawled in convoy; and over the newer glories of our own soap-stone creations we bumped the gelignite and detonators tor the next big blow. A taxi service into Lautoka by a certain 'Dunkirk 'driver was a daily thrill for loads of chattering Indians until they were finally tipped once too often into the ditch. There was sufficient road hogging on the dry side to make anti-truck ditches in camp a necessity in order to lessen speeding habits and the resultant dust nuisance. We never found it necessary, however, as did the sappers in Norfolk, to lay sawdust on the road to lay the dust, then to set fire to the sawdust with sparks from the exhaust pipes. Borrowed horse rides from Nandi or borrowed bicycle rides into Suva were not unknown. The Don R had his motorcycle practice into town for a select brand of sausage roll each morning tea time. If MP's sought to chalk him up he was getting the OC's laundry. Waving merrily at the black ladies along the way, we transported the sportsmen to Davuilevu School through the rice fields, or loaded to the gunwale we devoured the dirt down to Saweni Beach and raced the sugar cane train, the CSR express. However, we didn't try to emulate the train's little trick of breaking in half on the hills. Occasionally we washed the trucks, hosed and groomed them, tried on their vau-bark overalls, and led them down to the car-park to stand in shining lines of green and yellow camouflage paint.

The value of jeeps having been amply proved in the Kaimai operations we had these added to the fleet by the time that New Caledonia was reached. Batmen drove them into streams, officers drove them into bridges, but the three or four per unit were invaluable. With chains they would take us over the paddocks to the scene of a manoeuvre in the worst of mud, without chains they would burn up the red dust of Plaine des Gaiacs until the jeep was as red as the dust beneath its wheels. They could also, if we were clever, be floated across streams. Experiments using eight kapok assault floats, tied in various positions, were a source of much delight, while one unit effectively floated their jeep in a 'magic carpet' tarpaulin.

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Sunday by Sunday, the two six-by-tour GMCs, so scheduled, hit Voh or Koné just before lunch, or made 60 to 70 mile trips into the wilds to look at nickel or chrome mines like Tiebaghi or Chagrin. There were jaunts to Thio or Houailou for the lucky ones and a scenic tour down to the capital, Nouméa, when bush life began to pall. We recced with officers around the peaks of Koniambo and Kaala, up jeep trails which were deer tracks; by jeep, truck and quad we transhipped excited French friends to the races, or having trucked gravel, bamboo and niaouli bark for many miles we roused Charlie at the Temala Ford from his midnight slumbers and ran the gauntlet of his pet mosquitoes. We might, to suit our own convenience, sometimes use a ralentir ford instead of a ferry; but running instructions or no running instructions we contrived to use up our share of the rationed petrol.

Not satisfied with the existing transport, one Hone Heke in New Caledonia, experimented with a jungle sledge. This created a furore and even the general and two brigadiers came to have a ride on it and gain a first hand knowledge of its possibilities. A full dress rehearsal was held in the mangrove and the niaouli sectors. The D-7 bulldozer and locally constructed bush sled, fifteen feet six inches by seven feet one inch, demonstrated the effectiveness of New Zealand bush methods of log delivery in a country impassable to motor traffic. The military value of similar methods in the type of jungle warfare we were anticipating was clearly suggested. A load of six tons was carried by this sled, not including the inventor. In passing it should also be mentioned that there was a command car in the HQ Div Engineers. At one time when the job of CRE was thought vacant, a certain unit newsrag confidently advanced the following allocation of prize money to the prospective candidates: 1st: The Job; 2nd: the Command Car; 3rd: Toiler Grant, the chauffeur.

On Guadalcanal, Vella. Mono and Nissan Islands the really favourite pastime of all drivers was carting coral. Bulldozer drivers assisted by filling up the trucks through a loading bin located in the coral pit. Actually our first experience of quarrying had been at Lami in Fiji, where the dubious privilege of a couple of shotfirers was to supply metal for gangs of some 200 Fijians. The urgent upkeep of routes coloniales in New Caledonia gave us further insight into the mysteries of quarrying. Hundreds of yards of soft rock were excavated here for use on the original page 374th General Hospital roads, the Bourail-Houailou stretch as well as the main highway maintenance from Moindou northwards. Javanese and Kanaka labour gangs provided most of our needs from the French roadside quarries, although a whole platoon of the 23rd Field spent two months supplying the roads of BTD. When we moved on to Guadalcanal we began to operate the coral pits for ourselves. The average output of the 20th's pit near Lunga was 200 yards a day and of that operated at Maravari on Vella, a regular 6,000 yards a month in spite of bulldozer breakdowns and shortages On Mono the mud swallowed up over 10.000 yards of 23rd Field coral in a short six weeks, two pits giving a daily average of 250 yards; while on Nissan, the 26th Field, having buried their hopes and tears in the famous Vella drain, 800 feet long, two feet six inches wide, and three feet six inches deep, were able to turn out enough coral from the Tora-hatup pit to metal the main island highway from Halis to the mission landing and half a dozen access roads in addition. This work was done in conjunction with the 93rd CBs but was complicated by the excessively wet weather and the constant traffic. The heavy jungle, if cut back to the originally planned 60 feet width, was found still to keep out the sun and breeze and so prevented the quickly cut up coral surfaces from drying out. A final width of twice that intended was therefore provided with permanent surfacing. On such work we used up much of our explosives and in spite of the CRE's reiterated warnings about singing out 'Shot!' we contrived to wing at least one NCO.

As well as carting coral all day we found the usual busman's holiday at night. In clouds of dust and endless streams of headlights we rode around the highways to CB picture theatres, and there might well mislay our truck. Blacked out at one stage, with much inventiveness and variation in design, we had to crawl along with a half inch glimmer through the black visor slit; but in the later stages, with red and green will-o'-the-wisp lights of our own planes overhead, these precautions were no longer necessary. Through the gloom of semi-formed trails we poked our way, loaded with water-tanks, or struggled to the beach distilling plants to get a few drops of purified sea. Sometimes we got right into 1he sea. At Joroveto, until the 'million dollar' bridge was built, we had to chug our way over an American formed ford, which at high water might well let us in for a wetting from below.

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Other and more obvious dangers lay in the brakeless trucks we inherited from allied 'Ben Hurs,' but these were gladly repaired till something better offered. At least they kept the technical staff in a job.

The glory of later days was the heavy equipment. Bulldozers were so common that they appeared on Christmas cards in 1943, and even the most ignorant knew that there were at least D-4s and D-8s. Of the D-7s, which had once been in use, obituary notices read that they could not be kept in order by reason of age and should be regarded as junk. They were. The D-8, however, proved to be essential, as the D-4 was too light to tackle the heavy jungle clearing work. There were complications when the difficulty of manoeuvring big dozers on and off little landing craft led to the dozer, as at Pakoi on Vella, diving off into 'the drink.' No Moindah course of instruction had educated for such a contingency and when it was a borrowed dozer too, the saltwater in the works rather injured our chances of further borrowings. We recall a similar mishap to one of our earliest borrowings in Fiji. The Sambeto River rose to flood level and over. The dragline and the dozer together disappeared beneath the water and it was several days before the successful fishermen came to light with everything.

Such a story of roads and coral strips, of pushing down coconuts and rooting up larger jungle trees may seem to grow monotonous by its mere repetition of very hard and dirty work. There is, however, a thrill even for the dozer driver when it comes to action, a fact well illustrated in the accounts of the Mono and Nissan landings.

To the technical staffs belongs the credit for keeping us mobile under these primitive conditions and with the usual shortages of vital replacements. Odd and unusual jobs often came their way and in order to meet every contingency collections of spare parts were regularly made from the American dumps. Tt was from their use of such salvage that the 37th Field Park's 'Jungle Construction Company' gained its fame. Even before a complete workshop lorry had arrived from New Zealand this maintenance section had, from bits and pieces, made a very reasonable makeshift workshop. Pulleys of wood and machines built up from welded scraps were evidence of their ingenuity. Then, during the move of the 14th Brigade and divisional troops from New page 39Caledonia north, six-by-four trucks of this unit were kept on the road continuously for nearly two weeks of heavy convoy duty and not one truck broke down. As drivers brought in trucks, by day or by night, they were taken over, serviced, minor repairs made, and reloaded. Drivers snatched a little sleep while this was done and then were off again. To quote one further example of their improvisation: The Field Park was working" night and day overhauling D-4s for the 23rd's Treasury landing. A large gasket was required in the hydraulic circuit and nothing suitable was to be found. Finally, however, an old fire extinguisher was straightened, cut, annealed and fitted with the result that the dozer did its job in the landings until knocked out by mortar fire Then there was the case of the captured Jap barge which had' to be overhauled and the engines got going. The compressed air cylinders upon which it depended had been tampered with but once the technical staff got on the job it was not long before she went, more or less like a bird, to pick up three half drowned and very docile Japs out of the waters off Kolombangara.

To run a compressor up to the forward area for digging in the coral, or to run the risk of being picked off from the air while in an unidentified barge, these were some of transport and 'tech's' worries. Biggest worry of all, however, was transport home. For that we must be eternally grateful to President boats, Liberty boats, Victory boats and Dutch boats; and in some cases to those nice young Liberator fellows who liberated us from the more unwelcome aspects of transport through jungle paradises and over tropic seas, in order to bring us home by air.