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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

IV — Final Preparations

IV
Final Preparations

From the beginning of February, 1944, the tempo of activity and excitement increased with each successive day. A gentleman with a spray gun, a machine and many tins of paint stationed himself outside B company's recreation hut. In due course we submitted our web gear, belts and ground sheets to him to be camouflaged—a job which was begun in great haste but prolonged itself over three days.

Conjecture mounted high. A and B companies got wind of the news that some of them would be forming parts of combat teams. B company was to supply two sections, under Captains J. L. Adams and L. W. Suckling, to be attached to battalion combat teams, and A company was to provide a third section, under Captain A. G. Harper. All three would go in on the first wave of troops on reaching the island objective. Headquarters company and remaining personnel of the ASC and the two companies were to land with the second wave to establish the main dressing station. We were all practically certain that the Green Island Group was to be our objective, and, though there were some lingering traces of doubt, we reached the stage of seeking out all available information about the island. Bush telegraph reported that there were few Japs in occupation on Green, but its location placed it smack behind the Japanese lines, some 55 miles from their airfield on Buka and about 150 air miles to the north-east of Rabaul. It was impossible to deny being a little excited with the prospect.

While waiting for our D-day we were assailed by lecturers and tested once more on an already thorough knowledge of the medical panniers we would be using. Though we each had our specific jobs we were required to become familiar with all types page 143of work which we might have to undertake. The members of company sections practised the carrying of their distributed equipment. Sixteen men in the section and the loads were tough—two men to three panniers and three large water cans, one man to the fly of a tent and poles, one man to the rest of the tent and poles, one man to three stretchers and three Thomas splints plus bandages, one man to four stretchers. In addition to these 100-pound loads we were carrying all our web gear loaded to maximum crush capacity, a shovel, a pick or axe each, a rifle or tommy-gun, and 100 rounds of ammunition.

In the midst of our preparations 'Shorty' Nicoll left for the casualty clearing station. Amid many individual farewells our talkative, jingoistic laundryman left the unit. There was no doubt that his eccentricities were often a source of amusement. Probably most of us will remember 'Shorty' best as the happy originator in anger of many phrases current in the unit at various times. At Trentham we were 'a slap-happy, Bible-banging outfit'; on the James B. Francis we were exhorted to keep our 'skulls down'; after three months of Guadalcanal we were a 'darktown outfit'; and at all times we were collectively and individually greeted with remarks which, though inevitably adopted into the jargon peculiar to our field ambulance, lose something of their colour when repeated in cold print, and, for that reason, they are excluded from this narrative.

However, the business of packing and crating equipment continued. We were issued with two days' K ration and one day's chocolate ration; also half a pup tent each, a 'heatab' outfit and stand, an issue of atebrin tablets, of which 10 were for use when we reached our objective—an indication that we would spend but three days aboard ship.

Almost a year after the forming of the 24th NZ Field Ambulance we were headed for action. The first echelon of the unit left in four types of ships and on four different dates. On 6 February, 1944, after many delays, two jeeps with their drivers left by LCT. Five days later the bulk of the equipment and the headquarters of the field ambulance left by LST, to be followed next day by another draft in LCIs. The sections under Captains Harper, Suckling and Adams travelled with their respective combat teams on APDs. Those of us travelling on LCIs assembled at the ASC lines for transportation to Kukum Beach, where the ships were waiting. We lay in the sun at the beach page 144for some time while numerous officers with sheaves of papers in their hands anxiously rushed up and down the ramps of the LCIs avoiding the resentful glances of the troops boiling in the hot Guadalcanal sun.

What did we look like as we left Guadalcanal? Take, a look at Bill Beissel as he finally struggles up the gang-plank of the LCI. He is dressed in a summer two-piece jungle suit which is coloured a motley green, grey and black; on his head is a floppy jungle hat that neither comes nor goes; on his face, the impassive, inscrutable expression that means Bill Beissel. But these are only his underclothes. Around him, on top of him, under and about him are his web gear, valise, small pack, water bottle, bayonet, jungle knife and matches; and slung about his throat his mosquito net is wrapped uncomfortably in a gas cape. Over all this, in some insecure and incredible manner, he supports a shovel and a 'dixie,' which jangles along behind nonchalantly, boots and gaiters almost falling off his pack, a rifle in one hand, an axe in the other.

By four o'clock in the afternoon the convoy had assembled half a mile out. The 12 LCIs took up their position with the salvage boat from Lunga, which was to minesweep the entrance to Nissan's lagoon. Our screen of five destroyers and one cruiser impatiently waited for the ships to muster. We sailed up the coast of Guadalcanal, taking a last lingering look at the jungle covered ridges, the forbidding coast line of that famous.island. At nightfall we were just north of Cape Esperance with Savo behind us. The clear, starry night was leading us to Nissan. All next day we sailed under a cloud-flecked sky across a smooth Pacific, until, late in the afternoon, we pulled in at Vella Lavella, where more New Zealanders boarded the LCIs. Many of these troops sported beards and moustaches, cultivated since the early days of the Vella campaign. They looked rough and tough, these Kiwis, with their whiskery, sun-browned yet atebrin-yellowed faces, their dirty, sweaty jungle suits, their floppy hats, their sharp features. Even the worst of desert warfare never seems to make troops look as thoroughly uncivilised and unkempt as does the jungle. We pulled away from Vella during the night, and the next morning could see the Treasuries clearly to starboard. Then Bougainville slipped over the horizon. Most of us hunted for shade on the crowded decks. We read, slept and talked. We stayed up on deck talking till well after dark.