Chapter Seven
The Green Islands

The Green Islands lie about four degrees south of the equator, and were the most northerly occupied by the division. They consist of a raised coral atoll, about eight miles long and four miles wide, 40 miles north of Buka (the most northerly of the Solomon Islands) and the same distance east of New Ireland. Geographically they form part of the Bismarck Archipelago, but they are closely connected with the Solomon Islands, as ethnically the people are related to those of Buka, and in days of peace, the group was administered from Kieta, Bougainville. Nissan, by far the largest island in the atoll, varies in width from 400 yards up to 3,000 yards. Almost all its outer coast is cliff up to 100 feet in height, which looks down on to surf breaking on a fringing coral reef. Saucer-like, the land slopes gradually to the quiet lagoon inside, and is heavily wooded. The lagoon is almost completely enclosed by land—three boat passages from the open sea exist on the western side, but only one can be navigated by ships of any size. There were two coconut plantations on the island and a native population of about 1,500 lived in many scattered villages. Before war broke out in the Pacific the group was an isolated place, with a priest and a planter normally the only white residents.

The group was discovered by Schouten and le Maire in 1616, and eventually formed part of the German empire. Its nomenclature is confusing, as charts record it officially as the Sir Charles Hardy page 110Islands, it is known locally by the native name for the largest island, Nissan, and the name Green Islands was seldom heard until popularised in the Pacific war. After the war of 19-18 the islands were taken over by Australia as part of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. They were first used by the Japanese in 1942, when Bougainville was occupied, but were not particularly valuable to them until late in 1943, when allied sea and air supremacy had driven their shipping off the surrounding seas, and then they were used as a day time hiding place by barges running the blockade to supply Bougainville from New Britain and New Ireland.

The taking of the Green Islands was expected to be the toughest proposition yet tackled by New Zealand forces in the Pacific. The group was 140 miles further north into Japanese occupied territory than the previous highest landing at Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville, and was about the same distance from the powerful enemy base at Rabaul; hostile aerodromes on New Ireland were much closer. A strong reconnaissance party from the 30th Battalion, with some divisional headquarters personnel and US technical experts, dashed up from Vella Lavella in US destroyers on 3I January, 1944, and was dropped ashore in the hours of darkness. For 24 hours members of the party examined the atoll thoroughly and engaged in skirmishes with the Japanese garrison. They were bombed and strafed, and several lives were lost; at night they withdrew with information on which the plan of attack was based.

During the next fortnight all troops which were to take part were made familiar with the scheme of the proposed operation. On Vella Lavella and Guadalcanal ASC officers gave their men talks illustrated with maps drawn on blackboards, and it was explained that the enemy's line of communication to his force in the Northern Solomon Islands would be cut, sealing the fate of 22,000 Japanese. Each man was shown the point where he would land, and his duties were explained to him. The ASC's task in the operation was to supply the invading forces, and at the same time to build up a 35 days' reserve of ration and petrol within 30 days after the landing. For the initial assault 16th MT Company officers were appointed assistant shore party commanders at four out of the five beaches at which landings were planned. Those officers were to get ashore from small landing barges in the first waves with the infantry, and were then to control unloading operations. The first big craft ashore would page 111be the LCIs, which would land large bodies of troops, including most of the ASC men, and the last to arrive would be the cargo laden LSTs, with some ASC personnel among those travelling aboard to assist with the unloading.

A party of the 10th MT Company men were among those who embarked on LSTs at Guadalcanal on 10 February and headed up to Vella Lavella; Headquarters Divisional ASC followed on LCIs. Great quantities of equipment and the main body of troops, includ' ing more 10th MT Company men and the bulk of the 16th MT Company, were taken on in fine weather at Juno River, Vella Lavella. Then the ships retracted from the beaches and waited off shore for darkness, while tired men stripped off and plunged over the side into the deep green water.

The convoy was the biggest used by the New Zealanders in the South Pacific. There were 34 landing craft alone (eight APDs, 13 LSIs, seven LSTs and six LCTs), carrying 5,806 personnel and 4,344 tons of supplies and equipment. They moved north in three independent sections on 14 February to meet in the dawn of next day at a rendezvous off the Green Islands. The convoy of LSTs was an impressive sight, as a glistening silver barrage balloon was moored high above each ship. Air cover was provided, and the ships were not molested. All that day large numbers of allied aircraft were plastering Japanese airfields around Rabaul and elsewhere in the Bismarcks area with the heaviest raids they had yet experienced. The convoys of ships passed so close to the high hills of Mono Island that planes could be seen taking off from Stirling airfield, and later, as evening fell, those who crowded the decks watched the distant outline of Bougainville Island.

In the early hours of next morning enemy planes shadowed the LSTs and dropped flares and bombs fruitlessly at 0330 hours. Troops ate a meal in the dark, then as the light grew they made out all the ships of the assembled convoys, and a few miles ahead, rising from the smooth sea, a long grey line of land, featureless except for the gap through which the lagoon was to be entered. (Since the cliffs of the outer coast were impossible for landings, the assault was to be made on the inner shores, except for one landing on the outer coast of Pokonian Plantation, alongside the main entrance to the lagoon.)

A compact group of RNZAF planes flew round the atoll, then page 112suddenly a great column of spray rose in front of one of the destroyers, and enemy bombers were made out at a great height, circling and diving against a mass of cloud. Intense anti-aircraft fire began to rise from all ships. The din was terrific, and during the excitement all troops were ordered below, though most avoided going. In the confused activity of the next few minutes a Japanese plane flew low along the line of LSTs, but narrowly missed the ship at which it aimed its bomb. Three planes were downed in sight (two by anti-aircraft fire and one by a fighter) and three others nearby; only a few got near to the convoys, and those did no damage. When the last of the attackers had made off, the sky was pock marked with hundreds of smudges of black smoke which slowly dissipated as the ships approached the entrance.

Minesweepers and gunboats had then entered South Channel, by Pokonian Plantation, and were closely followed by troops in assault boats from the APDs. The plantation was bombarded, and rising smoke was seen by the ships outside. Infantry landed at two points on the small sandy beach, then moved into the plantation, where some of the palms were then splintered topless trunks. Other barges sped across the lagoon and landed their men at three points by Tangalan Plantation, where there was no beach. Each wave landed strictly according to time table. LCIs dropped their gang-planks and troops streamed off, and then LSTs nosed into their places and unloading begain.

By the middle of the morning the men' were all ashore, and infantry had formed perimeters south of Pokonian Plantation, and on both sides of Tangalan Plantation. All day allied planes flew overhead and US destroyers patrolled off shore. On the eastern side of the lagoon the rocky coral banks, or nigger heads, which formed the shore and projected out over the water were blasted away, and bulldozers pushed coral and soil out into the lagoon until steep landing places were formed. Much difficulty was met at the beach south of Pokonian Plantation, as the sea was too shallow for the LST to come right in, and vehicles became bogged in soft ground as they tried to lumber ashore.

During the morning Headquarters Divisional ASC and the 16th MT Company set up their respective headquarters in the overgrown plantation, while at all landing points ASC and other available personnel proceeded with the unloading in a roar of noise. Everyone page 113worked with a will, as air attacks were likely. There was no drinking water on the island (the natives used the milk of green coconuts) so that water supply was of extreme importance. At several points along the shore US engineers immediately set up condensers, each of which distilled fresh water from the sea at the rate of 2.50 gallons an hour. In the meantime stocks were pumped ashore from the LSTs and issued to units at the rate of one gallon a man each day for all purposes. Every unit had brought up with it in cans an initial water allowance of two gallons a man, and the ASC had also brought up a special reserve of 2,000 gallons for the force, and guarded it closely.

During the day artillery in Pokonian Plantation opened up and ranged on important points round the lagoon. At the landing beaches Seabees and New Zealand engineers pushed down palms and trees with bulldozers and in the first day carved out seven miles of rough road for the use of the laden trucks. A few native men appeared and wandered silently through the strange activity. Some wore caps with coloured bands which indicated a position of authority under the mandate administration—a broad red band for a kukurai or chief of a village, narrow red bands for inferior officials or tultuls, and a white hand with a red cross on front for a medical tultul. The 16th MT Company's YMCA secretary was quickly on the job at Pokonian Plantation, where he built a wood fire and boiled up a brew of tea in a US anti-aircraft ammunition box which had been emptied during the early morning raid. The heat of the day was intense, and New Zealanders and Yanks took a few minutes off from unloading to line up in a constant queue for mugs of scalding, refreshing tea. By late afternoon all ships were unloaded and the ASC supplies (426 tons of petrol in drums, 267 tons of rations and a large tonnage of ammunition) were stacked and guarded on the edge of the beaches.

Fox-holes of some kind were dug by dark, and some were covered with pup tents. Digging had been hot work as often coral was met not far below the surface. In Pokonian Plantation the soil was moist and loose, but there water was reached very quickly and seeped into fox-holes as the tide rose. Some men spent all night in their fox-holes, mainly because there was desultory firing at the strange scuffling noises in the jungle, which were usually caused by native pigs blundering about in the undergrowth. (At least one page 114unit supplemented its field rations with pork chops the next day.) US radar units were already in operation, but did not sound their first three warning honks until after midnight. Japanese planes in small numbers then chugged over the island more or less continuously until dawn, occasionally dropping bombs, but anti-aircraft guns did not open up. One stick of bombs fell in the edge of the sea 25 yards from 16th MT Company men guarding a ration dump at Pokonian Plantation, but there was no real damage done on either side of the lagoon, except to the night's sleep.

On the succeeding days the main task of the ASC was to clear the beaches of rations, petrol and ammunition so that unloading of ships in the second echelon due on the fifth day would not be hindered. At the same time issues had to be made as required. On the second day field rations for two further days were issued to all units, and on that occasion some of them were J rations—a type suited for men in a more settled position, packed in cartons of 16 rations, with some attractive components such as peanuts, breakfast cereal and more appetising biscuits. Heavy blasting continued at the beaches, and whenever niggerheads were blown skywards in huge columns of water and coral everyone kept a good lookout for falling rock. The 10th MT Company's heavy trucks were able to thrust through rough going and over soft ground which would have held up lighter vehicles, and were in frequent demand by units which required haulage of equipment. They also transported 30th Battalion men through the jungle south of Pokonian Plantation up to their front line positions.

There was air activity again on the second night, when some bombs were dropped, but on that occasion anti-aircraft guns went into action. Those were the last sustained enemy air raids on the Green Islands during the stay of the New Zealand troops, although there were several alerts during the succeeding five months.

On the third day the 16th MT Company began to issue the first break of five days' B (ordinary) rations and cigarettes to all New Zealand and American units. The break was a nightmare to the brigade and divisional ASC officers whose duty it was to compile the strength states for the issue, as there was a multitude of small units scattered in the occupied areas, and it was especially difficult to track down small US technical units which were often clubbing in with other groups. The ASC set up their own opera-page break

Treasury Island natives playing their 'pan' pipes on one of the many gala occasions on which they entertained the troops. Two ASC craft Tradewinds and The Scone on the Nissan lagoon. The men built several such craft

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LSTs flying barrage balloons arrive at the Tangalan Plantation, Nissan. The pup tents in the foreground housed the troops after they landed. Below: A landing beach inside the Nissan lagoon after low coral cliffs had been blasted away and the spoil pushed into the water

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An LST and some small craft beached at the Pokon-ian Plantation, Nissan, on the day of the landing-. In the foreground is a flag indicating the way to an RAP. An LST further along the coast can be seen. Below: Discharging supplies into motor vehicles which had come off the craft earlier in the day

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The ASC in working dress. Above: The 10th MT company's bulk ration store at Halis. Below: A transport platoon's lines and the YMCA tent, sheltered by the few remaining trees

page 115ary cook-houses, and after several days on cold field rations the stew which was then served up never tasted better. A good many American strangers turned up for 'chow' from the jumble of units round about, and when they mingled with the ASC men, who were in their working dress, the mess queue looked a cut-throat crew.

To maintain a 24-hour schedule of air-strip construction the Seabees at Tangalan Plantation worked all night with floodlights. A rough road was quickly carved out along several miles of the eastern shore of the lagoon. When on the fourth day the 16th MT Company was ordered to clear all dumps from the beaches near the plantation to make way for the projected air-strip, it set up a temporary camp in a small gully at the back of a landing beach known as Beach 30, and the transfer began after some clearing had been done in an old native garden area.

For two days the CRASC and a small party made reconnaissance over the eastern part of Nissan, advancing forward of the perimeters, rather to the annoyance of the infantry. A bulk ration dump site was selected at Salipal and clearing commenced there on 20 February, the day of the arrival of the second echelon. The 16th MT Company again took charge of supplies unloaded at the various beaches and cleared them to temporary dumps after five days' heavy work for all available men and trucks. To facilitate issues which were being made, where possible rations were sorted at the beaches before transfer to Beach 30.

The ships which had come up with the second echelon took back to Guadalcanal most of the natives of Nissan Island—about 900 in all—as their continued presence on a small island crowded with troops would have created many problems. Provosts went to the villages and shepherded to the beaches natives of all ages, from old people down to babies in arms. The fit natives were burdened with precious belongings and food for the journey. They all appeared bewildered, and many were in need of medical attention. At that stage the island was finally cleared of Japanese after a considerable engagement at Tanaheran on the south coast, in which Valentine tanks took part. At comparatively light cost the infantry had wiped out all the enemy which they had encountered at different points in the group, and it was known that only a few stragglers remained at large. As a Nissan native wrote in expressive phonetic pidgin, 'Dis taim Japani bagarap finis'.

Eleven days after landing on Nissan, ASC units were rationing 13,000 troops, New Zealand and American

The way was then clear for ASC units to take up their positions, and Headquarters Divisional ASC moved down to the vicinity of the mission. The 16th MT Company personnel at Pokonian Plantation shifted over the lagoon to Beach 30, where all the men of the company on the island were then concentrated. The company was destined to bivouac on that unsuitable site for over a fortnight longer. Heavy rain turned the soil in the gully into thick mud, and massive Seabee equipment such as 'muling scrapers' (carryalls) failed to find a solid base of coral. Jobs such as man-handling 53-gallon drums of petrol became very dirty and unpleasant. Though they had chains on the wheels, even the heaviest of trucks were bogged, and it was only by constant attention to the track by bulldozers and carry-alls that vehicles were able to keep going when working the supply dump. The men at Beach 30 had little rest and lived in make-shift quarters under tarpaulins in the bush; kit-bags and bed-cots did not of course come up until a later echelon.

Rations were constantly coming up from the beaches and at the same time issues were made to a vastly greater number of troops than a brigade—there were already 13,000 troops to be fed by the company on the eleventh day. One of the biggest problems for the handful of supply details men operating the ration dump was in keeping a balanced stock of the numerous ration lines on hand so that complete rations could always be used. Deliveries of supplies to the mission and Pokonian Plantation areas were made by LCM barges from Beach 30, and units concerned were warned in advance to collect their supplies at a beach rendezvous.

In the 'orderly chaos' of the early days there was a tendency for enterprising people to help themselves to additional rations if they could get away with it. A supply details NCO on one occasion thought that he noticed movement in the bush on the other side of the ration dump. He dashed by a short cut through the jungle and came out on a native track in time to intercept a long file of Americans. They were moving along like a train of native porters, each bearing on his shoulder a case of 'battery acid'—their facetious name for grapefruit juice. Another big job whenever an echelon came in was the filling of empty diesel drums with oil decanted from tanks in the ships. Those engaged in that unpopular task were often scalded about the arms or legs by oil. The small number of men from each company who handled petrol, oils and lubricants had an page 118arduous task. Temporary dumps of drums were formed near the landing beaches in the early days, then later consolidated on permanent sites. The Ioth MT Company established a large dump at the northern end of Tangalan Plantation, which provided all requirements in the northern half of the atoll—eventually it held aviation petrol and lubricants exclusively. The company formed another barge dump in the jungle at Halis, where the Seabees assisted by forming a circuit with large bays for the stacking of drums.

One detachment of the Ioth MT Company moved to Salipal at the north-east corner of Nissan, where clearing of the bulk ration dump site was completed, and palm logs cut up for dunnage. A working party of native men who had remained behind in the charge of an Australian officer was quartered in a compound at Salipal, and was rationed by the ASC on a special diet of rice, meat and biscuits. Pipes, tobacco, slashers, singlets and calico (for lap-laps) had been brought up for the natives, and in their eyes these were a mine of wealth. The natives flourished on good food, and after they had become fit under medical attention they were willing workers, and a considerable heip to the Ioth MT Company. They soon picked up simple jobs like sorting tins by label, and were proud of their association with the white man belong J\[ew Zealand—if asked who they were they would scratch the letters 'ASC in the sand.

Headquarters of the Ioth MT Company was set up at Halis, about two miles south of Beach 30, on 22 February. Three days later a detachment of the 1st Field Bakery arrived in the third echelon and also went down to that area. At the time the area round Halis was thickly wooded and was reached by bush tracks which had been roughly widened to become liquid roads, concealing below the mud uneven coral rock and occasional tree stumps. The ioth MT Company men were mainly engaged on driving duties, and it took over an hour for the trucks to creep and rock over the two miles of road from Halis to Beach 30. (While that abnormal amount of low gear work was necessary, mileages ran as low as one to one and a half miles a gallon.) Trucks had to leave Halis camp before 0600 hours and work lasted as long as there was daylight, with meals eaten on the job, while back at Halis driver-mechanics endeavoured to do some vehicle maintenance at night. Indeed, at that stage, for all ASC units on the island, the only limiting factors on the amount of work done were transport and personnel, for both page 119were worked to the maximum degree possible.

The bakery's first night at Haiis was spent under the shelter of one huge tarpaulin, but sleep was impossible, as the usual jungle noises were augmented by the mournful howling of dogs which had been left behind by the natives. In a week of atrocious weather aldershot ovens were set up, production began, and a camp was gradually built around the bakehouse.

The situation for the ASC first began to ease a little on I March, when preparations at Salipal ration dump were sufficiently advanced for the new supplies which arrived in the ships of the fourth echelon to be taken in there direct by the 10th MT Company. (Within a few days the Salipal detachment captured a Japanese straggler after a chase which ended when he was cornered in the stacks of rations.) A huge cargo began to be lightered into the lagoon on 9 March, from the first liberty ship to arrive at the Green Islands, and Salipal dump alone took in enough rations to feed the whole of the forces on the island for nearly a month.

The i6th MT Company left its bivouac area at Beach 30 with relief, and moved down to the area already occupied by the other ASC units at Halis. Seabee road construction projects had been enroaching gradually on the Beach 30 area, and some dumps had been covered by bull dozers. Much of the time in the Last vexing days had been occupied with shifting dumps of petrol and rations from one spot to another. At Halis the 16th MT Company built cook-houses and erected mess tents, which also catered for the bakery, in order to economise labour. The three units in the locality commenced the construction of settled camps and cleared out the undergrowth from around the big trees, which were left standing for shade. Explosives had to be used to blow holes and remove obstacles, as the coral under the thin layer of earth was hard as concrete. Rotten coral for paths and floors was collected from Seabee pits at night, when vehicles had come in from their day's jobs, and it served to control the mud and give a somewhat more cheerful appearance.

Shortly after the consolidation at Halis the last of the ASC men arrived up from Vella Lavella by air. On the way they stayed overnight at Torokina on Bougainville, at the height of the 'battle for the perimeter', and spent a lively night under intermittent Japanese artillery bombardment.

For their initiative and devotion to duty during the difficult page 120early operations on the Green Islands, when ASC detachments were widely scattered, six members of the corps received awards. In all cases they had also performed sterling work on Vella Lavella, and the awards were regarded as honours to their units, in which many others had also put up a great performance. Corporal J. B. Williams, of the 10th MT Company, who had been engaged on petrol details work, was awarded the British Empire Medal. The following were awarded mentions in despatches: Major J. F. B. Wilson, then ASC officer attached to the 14th Brigade; Lieutenant F. H. Preston, officer commanding the 1st Field Bakery; Warrant Officer Second-class G. E. Hughes, company sergeant-major of the 16th MT Company; Corporal A. Duff, of the 10th MT Company; and Driver A. D. McIver, of the 10th MT Company.

Gradually New Zealand engineers and American Seabees replaced the winding mud trails with smooth coral roads which swept through the jungle in gradual curves inviting speed. The 10th and 16th MT Companies worked together to a great extent. The 10th MT Company had the more suitable trucks, and the 16th MT Company had more men, so that when the big vehicles were working to a heavy schedule 16th MT Company drivers took shifts in the 10th MT Company trucks. Sometimes a 24-hour programme was carried on for days with the result that it was difficult to keep up with the maintenance of vehicles, on which wear and tear was severe. In an attempt to provide workshop space away from the mud, tarpaulin shelters were set up, but conditions were always primitive.

Before troops had been on the island a month the first YP boat anchored in the lagoon and 60 tons of fresh meat were lightered ashore during a night of feverish work which lasted round until 0430 hours. Until it could be distributed the meat was crammed into eight mobile refrigerators operated by various units round the island. Fresh supplies did not present such an acute problem after the end of March, when the Seabees finished the construction of a block of fine 'walk-in' reefers (refrigerators) at Halis. There were five reefer boxes, each with a capacity of 1,800 cubic feet, and they were complete with their own generating plant.

Just before it left Vella Lavella the 16th MT Company had assumed a heavy responsibility when it took custody of three barrels of Jamaica rum, conspicuously marked 'vinegar' for security reasons. These were safely landed at three points on the first day, but had page 121an eventful history later as they moved through a series of tempos ary dumps. An issue was never called for during the fighting, and eventually the three barrels were safely installed in the company headquarters at Halis. In April an issue to field ambulances and medical officers was authorised, and in great secrecy the fiery liquor was decanted from the barrels with a rubber tube by a picked team of abstainers.

From the time of the landing the 16th MT Company had attached to it a section of half-a-dosen Ordnance Corps personnel who took care of ammunition. Not nearly as much ammunition was expended as on Vella Lavella, but about 1,000 tons had been brought up. Portions of that large quantity were dumped at all five landing beaches on the first day. As soon as the group was secured, working parties consolidated the dumps into one large one at Beach 30, and fortU' nately it was possible to leave it there when the company moved down to Halis. Some of the stacks had to be moved about when a huge coral pit crept nearer, and a lot of sorting work was done. The Salipal natives gave a hand on one occasion, but they showed their distaste for the heavy boxes in no uncertain fashion, as they had been trained to work with the lighter cases of rations. The ordnance men were part of a miscellaneous detail of the 16th MT Company which took the name of APSO — ammunition, petrol, salvage, ordnance. The salvaged stores, of which the company took charge on behalf of the Ordnance Corps, were principally cases of expended ammunition, of which large shipments were consigned back to the Field Maintenance Centre, Guadalcanal. The other ordnance duties consisted of uplifting all packages which arrived by sea or air addressed to New Zealand units, and seeing to their delivery.

The ASC men had close and pleasant associations with Seabee personnel on Nissan, and many individual friendships were formed. A regiment of three battalions of Seabees—each over 1,100 strong— landed in the early days with over 12,000 tons of equipment and built fighter and bomber strips at Tangalan Plantation. The first plane touched down on the fighter strip exactly three weeks after the landing; when completed that strip alone had an area of 1,000,000 square feet of smooth coral. The native called the airstrip place belong sit down belong balus—bolus is the Blanche Bay word for the wood pigeon which the natives are accustomed to see swooping down to the ngali nut trees, and the name was also applied to aircraft page 122when they began to appear over the islands. Soon after the strip was opened the familiar roar of plenty balus belong white man taking off or circling the island was heard as frequently as it had been on Vella Lavella.

The 'hurry up' methods of the Seabees were never better demonstrated than on one occasion when a stretch of urgently needed road was built in the 16th MT Company camp. The men and their equipment arrived down at Halis in torrential rain late one Satur' day night, and after they had set up floodlights they began work as the ASC men were preparing to settle down for the night. It was still raining on Sunday morning when the camp began to stir with life, but no Seabees then remained. However, they had left behind a stretch of coral roadway where there had been a morass of mud the night before.

One of the Seabee battalions had spent a period of leave in New Zealand, and caused a lot of amusement with camp signs such as 'Queen Street' and 'Onehunga Borough Council—Waikaraka Dump'. Each battalion had its open air 'movie theater', and the New Zealanders who came along each evening, standing packed in the trays of trucks, were always made welcome. The infectious strains of 'Lay that pistol down, babe!' were among those that blared out from the screen nightly as seated hundreds waited with a hum of conversation for darkness to close in. Sometimes the films were 'stinkeroos', and sometimes members of the audience huddled forward in their groundsheets when tropical rainstorms flooded down, but it was the only entertainment the island offered, and there was a full house every night.

The water ration had soon been increased to two gallons a man daily, and eventually it reached three gallons. The ration was for all purposes—washing, cooking, drinking—and a large part of a unit's allowance was absorbed at cook-houses. The bakery received a special issue, but even so had to make do with 300 gallons a day. The heavy rain showers which found leaks in the rotting tents and helped to cut up the roads into soupy mud were put to some use, as most tent flies were used to catch rain water for washing and ablutions, and some had elaborate gutter systems of bamboo halves which led the downpour coursing into 53-gallon oil drums. One night a fall of five and a half inches of rain was recorded officially.

The usual island pests were present on Nissan—for example, page 123scorpions and centipedes had a habit of hiding in discarded clothing over night. The dampness of camp areas under trees in such a climate made clothes and other belongings very musty, and their characteristic odour, christened 'the Nissan stink', persisted long after the island had been left behind. The Green Islands provided afflictions of their own, however. One was the 'caterpillar invasion'. A small furry caterpillar which dropped from trees looked perfectly harmless, but merely by crawling briefly on a victim it would bring out over a wide stretch of skin a maddening itch which would develop into a rash if rubbed. Some men were more sensitive to it than others; a few who felt a tickle and absently crushed a caterpillar on to their skin suf' fered the tortures of the damned. More than once when a driver stripped off and soaped himself all over at his home-made ablution stand under a tree behind his tent, a frantic howl a. few minutes later indicated that a caterpillar had sometime previously been crawling over his soap. Another affliction was hookworm, which widely infected some infantry units camped in areas formerly used extensively by natives. Most troops on the island had blood smears taken, and a few ASC men who obtained scores of more than five per cent in the 'eosino-philia count' received drastic treatment with capsules which cleared away their troubles but also prostrated them temporarily.

As Halis was to be a complete island supply area, New Zealand engineers cleared a large area on the shore of the lagoon there and built a pier of coconut logs. A logging party from the 16th MT Company spent several days at the end of March cutting palms in the mission area and building in the Ioth MT Company camp large shelters of log and tarpaulin to serve as bulk ration stores. When those were complete, and the natives had cut bark for dunnage, no further supplies were taken in at Salipal, where the dump was eventually worked right out. In the first two months on the Green Islands ASC personnel had handled several thousand tons of rations, from the time the boxes left the ships' hold right through the various stages until issues were made to individual units. Although the ASC organisation with the division was designed to service 20,000 men, at that time it was actually servicing over 40,000 New Zealand and American troops at New Caledonia, Guadalcanal, the Treasury Islands and the Green Islands. The service included such additional duties as the handling of aviation petrol for three airfields, and fuel for PT boat bases, Seabee battalions and navy boat pools.

The Ioth MT Company continued to run the bulk supply depot when it was transferred to Halls, though on I April the US Service Command (approximately the US army equivalent of the ASC and the Ordnance Corps) took over control of the island supply system. A huge barbed wire compound was built near the pier, and in it rations, canteen goods, clothing and every variety of supplies were stacked pending distribution to stores. The location of the beer rations was always a matter of special interest. At night the compound was flood-lit, and at all times armed US sentries were on duty at the entrance. Many anecdotes circulated about the US colonel in charge of the area, and he became a legendary figure to the ASC men, for whom the slogan 'We can take it! We've taken it before!' came to assume a fresh significance.

US forces landed at Emirau, north of New Ireland, on 23 March, 1944, and finally closed the door on the escape of the Japanese who remained in the South Pacific area. By May Emirau was an air base, and activity on the Nissan Island strips was much reduced. At the same time the New Zealand troops on the group began to move back to New Caledonia. The first draft to leave was one of men for essential industry in New Zealand, which departed on 24 April. Volunteers had been in a state of excitement for nearly a month, waiting for their numbers to be turned up, and applicants for farming work had been followed round the camps by persistent sheep calls. The day before the first draft left a gale which swept the atoll for hours brought down many trees, and one which had been leaning dangerously was felled neatly across his own tent by a 16th MT Company officer and some of his picked men. It was a painful experience for men to say goodbye down at the beach to those with whom they had worked in the ASC from early days. The draft had a rough trip out to the transport in the open sea, during which some kit bags were lost overboard and sea sickness took a heavy toll.

In order to carry out their duties on the Green Islands, the ASC companies then had to employ relief drivers who were attached from units outside the corps. Bad weather, skin troubles and the feeling that the days of the force were numbered combined to bring on a slackening of morale. All units were getting 'browned off'. The bakery, for instance, found its equipment falling to pieces with wear, and work became particularly trying in steamy weather. The bakers page 125obtained some relief by beginning work at 0400 hours daily and ceasing at 1200 hours. Occasionally things looked up when a stray pig was killed and roasted in an oven, or a good haul of fish was gathered in with grenades.

Small parties from ASC units returned to New Caledonia at the beginning of May to plan camp sites, and US negro troops arrived at the Green Islands in large numbers, introducing 'jive' talk to the New Zealanders. When the group passed under US command, dumps and borrowed US trucks were handed back to the Americans by the ASC companies. The main body of New Zealand troops left the Green Islands on the Rotanin on 15 June, but a substantial rear party, in which all ASC units on the island were represented, lingered with little to do until it left' on the Celeno on 6 July, 1944. The rear party, like the others, made the voyage to New Caledonia direct, and comprised the last of the division to leave the forward area. As the ship skirted west of Vella Lavella and Guadalcanal on the way down, its escort was one tiny corvette. On the way up II months before the ships had been ringed by destroyers. The change was an indication of the progress which had been made in the war during the period which the Third Division had spent in the SoIomons 'Bismarcks area—progress which it had helped in substantial measure to bring about.

'You find my teeth and I'll tell you where your jungle juice is!'

The 16th MT company quartermaster's staff tries out the first jungle suit