III
The Bakery in the New Hebrides

It has already been recorded that when the 1st Field Bakery cleared Wellington Heads on 5 November, 1942, its immediate future was a mystery. The bakers disembarked in high spirits on 12 November at Nouméa, New Caledonia—a small band of New Zealanders in a multitude of friendly and curious Americans. The unit was instructed to assist US bakers at the Velodrome, but there had been no time to settle down when word came that New Caledonia was not the final destination, and on 13 November, the bakery em-page 37barked again, that time on the Dutch ship Boschfontein, for the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Group. The large troopship USS President Coolidge had recently been sunk there in a minefield, and it was said that a US bakery which had been on its way out from the United States had lost all its equipment in the disaster. The 1st Field Bakery suffered an initial handicap, as part only of the unit equipment had come ashore in Nouméa, and the balance could not be collected before sailing again. At that time the part of the South Pacific through which the ship then travelled was by no means secure, and a strict look out was kept constantly. A call was made at Port Vila, on the island of Efate, New Hebrides, and then there was a long wait in the Segond Channel at Espiritu Santo, so that all told the unit spent 15 days on the Boschfontein, though the distance covered in her was only 500 miles.

Camp was set up in the Surrunda Bay area on the island of Espiritu Santo. The island's present name is part of an elaborate Spanish one given by Quiros as long ago as 1606. The bakery's camp site was a grassed one in a palm grove, but the pleasant setting was spoilt by the proximity of a horse corral, a ration dump and native living quarters. The bay was fouled with the garbage which was dumped into it and later washed up on the foreshore, and the fly nuisance was very bad. There was a fresh water pool about a mile and a half from the camp where it was possible to swim, but despite plenty of heavy rain there was no water on the island suit' able for drinking or baking, and reliance had to be placed on distilled water. Four days after landing the first small batch of bread was baked. There were no burners at that stage, and the oven had to be fired with wood cut from the bush and splashed with diesel oil. The wood was too green to make satisfactory fuel, and the gathering took up a lot of time. Parties of native labour were supposed to supply the firewood, but the natives rarely appeared, and nothing much could be done about that matter. The climate was very depressing—the lowest temperature recorded during the stay was 81 degrees Fahrenheit one cool night—and during the day the ovens made the bakehouse almost unbearably hot, so that several men collapsed at work.

RNZAF units on Santos provided the isolated New Zealanders with medical calls and other services which were helpful. The bakery was supplying the large number of Americans stationed on the page 38island, and in nearly all respects it was dependent on US forces. All the difficulties of a small unit widely separated from its parent organisation were experienced—supplies were hard to get, lack of transport was a handicap most of the time and canteen stores, patriotic goods and other articles forwarded to the unit frequently went astray. However, as a result of the fact that bread was supplied to personnel of the adjacent US ration dump, the unit was probably fed better than at any other time during its period overseas.

The bakery stayed in the New Hebrides nearly five months, and during that time it had both white and coloured American service-men seconded to it for duty. Unit members were slowly depleted after men began to be evacuated because of sickness—dysentery was widespread, and tropical sores, jaundice and malaria all took their toll. At times there were insufficient hands to keep up production to the desired figure of 5,000 lb of bread each day. Nevertheless, a great team spirit was developed during that period when the bakery was on its own, and again considerable technical knowledge was gained by the men. All bread was hand-made, and each man went right through the processes from the making of dough to baking of bread. The officer commanding considered that when the unit returned to the division every member was at least as far advanced in the art of bread making as the average three years' apprentice in New Zealand. Among the units of the ASC, and indeed of the whole force, the 1st Field Bakery was always conspicuous for its esprit de corps.

The large island of Espiritu Santo, which still has in its interior primitive people who have hardly ever seen a white man, was the site of an immense air and naval advanced base which had been set up at short notice as a springboard for the Solomon Islands offensive —it remained the nearest concentration point to the fighting then still at its height on Guadalcanal. Warships of all types were seen, some of which had limped back in damaged condition. Casualties and survivors from the Coral Sea battles were landed there, and there was great activity in connection with the large aerodrome at Pallikulo Bay, about two miles from the camp. While the bakery was on the island there were five bombing raids and one submarine shelling in the vicinity. The raids occurred on moonlit nights, and the bakers acquired the habit of using the good fox-holes which they had built. The 1st Field Bakery was thus able to claim that it was the first part of the division to experience enemy action as a unit, page 39and those incidents from 'the Santos campaign' remained final and unanswerable whenever bakery members became involved thereafter in the friendly abuse of an inter-unit argument.

Baking continued almost until the date of embarkation, 19 March, 1943, when the unit hurriedly packed aboard the Talamanca and left Espiritu Santo on its way to rejoin the main body of the division.