Chapter Three
The Move To New Caledonia

From the moment when the returning troops from Fiji hurried to the ship's rails to get their first glimpse of New Zealand until the end of their two weeks' leave there was a feeling of buoyancy—almost of unreality—about the brief, precious days that passed. Perhaps this was partly because it was spring. The fresh morning bite in the air, the bracing sunlit days, and the spring rains came in waves like a cool draught, bringing sudden relief after the long months of clammy, devitalising heat in Fiji. Men exclaimed as they looked through railway carriage windows at cool green fields and neat hedges, and at valleys full of fruit trees thickly flaked with blossom. It also, seemed slightly unreal to be home again with one's people, to see white sheets, to feel smooth china; and all the time there was the careful counting of the days of leave that remained—until at last there were none.

Back once more in camp men felt a certain distant uneasiness of mind, that had been half consciously suppressed during leave at home. It was about two months since Japanese midget submarines had shelled Sydney and Newcastle, in almost the same latitude as North Auckland, and. despite allied air-sea successes at Midway and in the Coral Sea, the enemy was landing reinforcements at Guadalcanal. As late as the first week in October Japanese determination to hold this menacing spearhead in the southern Solomons was exacting a heavy toll from our allies, and the outcome wavered. Judging from the reports then coming through of fanatical enemy air attacks, grim battles in dark jungles, and clashes with Japanese invasion fleets, there was page 174a long road ahead in the struggle to turn the enemy back. These facts were known to the men, who also realised that more troops were needed in the Pacific, and in an atmosphere of restlessness and expectancy they hoped for an early move—then it would be over sooner.

The division's ordnance staff who were among the last to leave Fiji were some of the first units to be busily occupied again, immediately after the division returned from leave. An inventory of all ordnance stocks held by units of the division was quickly prepared, and in Wellington Lieutenant Reid and a portion of the staff checked shipments for the division. Second-Lieutenant Lonergan and another ordnance staff were busy handling motor transport equipment. At Trentham, under the direction of Lieutenant McCarthy, a third section, working from new war equipment tables, drafted hundreds of indents for the main ordnance depot, and whole train-loads of stocks were soon moving north to re-equip the division in its camps south of Auckland. Ordnance maintenance men were busy with vehicles at Papakura, and later at Trentham many attended special workshop courses on instruments and armaments. Of a group of 137 divisional ordnance workshops men at Trentham, 85 were being treated at one time for tinea—an aftermath of tropical service. At Ngaruawahia, an ordnance base accounting staff worked until late each night completing the records of base ordnance depot stocks. By October, the 34th and 36th Battalions had been fitted out ready for their move that month to Tonga and Norfolk respectively.

Prior to the departure of the division for New Caledonia, Major Simmiss became senior ordnance mechanical engineer (motor transport), and Major Evers joined the corps as senior ordnance mechanical engineer (armaments). Captain Signal was appointed officer commanding the divisional ordnance workshops, with Lieutenant Lawson as second-in-command. Within the new workshops establishment an armament section was formed, with Second-Lieutenant S. J. Conlon in command.

Ordnance men are classed as combat troops, and receive infantry training—and wisely so, since more than half of the corps accompanies the battle troops in forward areas. For workshops men, the toughening-up process began in October with training in stalking and field craft. Then followed two cryptic entries in their unit records: 'Nov. 16: 7 mile route march, 'and' Dec. 1: page 17514 mile route march' As there are no other entries for either of these days it either took them the whole day to do the march or to march and recover. Later, in New Caledonia, these men received their copies of an Army Headquarters publication. Soldiering in the Tropics, in which the following appeared: 'You must be physically fit and acquire endurance to move and fight successfully in the jungle. You should be able to march 20 miles a day for two consecutive hot days, carrying a jungle pack and rifle, without having sore feet, shoulders, legs or backs; run one mile on a hot tropical day in your field clothes and shoes in less than seven and one-half minutes, without feeling sick or exhausted afterwards; cut brush with a machete while marching, for one full day, and swim 50 yards, wearing field clothes and shoes.' That this optimistic little booklet was not in the possession of the unit's training instructor at Trentham, a few months earlier, was cause for deep satisfaction; no more ignominious end could be imagined than to be classified 'Incapacitated on the field of training.'

In all, approximately 20,000 New Zealanders arrived on the island of New Caledonia, where the normal white population before the war was only 17,000. An advanced party, including representatives of ordnance units, landed on 2 November 1942; more ordnance men arrived a little later, and the main body of the corps reached Nouméa in the West Point on 31 December, as part of a flight of 6,477 all ranks—the largest number of New Zealand troops ever to be accommodated in one ship for a passage overseas.

On Amédée Islands stands a glistening white lighthouse, sent out in sections from Paris in 1862. Its pinnacle towers above the yellow sand-spit of the tiny islet, dwarfing the few green palms. When on 2 November 1942 the United States Navy ship Crescent City passed close to the lighthouse, the New Zealanders on board knew they were approaching Nouméa. After the troopship had joined the maze of shipping anchored in the harbour, the first party of ordnance men to reach New Caledonia stepped ashore in a country with a cosmopolitan population and an astonishing history—a story of violence, cannibalism, convict life, native revolts and massacres. From the shores of Nouméa the men awaiting transport to Camp Stevens could see, across the harbour, Ile Nou—an island once infamous for its convict page 176prisons. Between 1864 and 1894, 40,000 convicts were sent to New Caledonia. After the Franco-Prussian War, one of them, Henri Rochefort, a Communard deportee, was sent out, like many-others, in an iron cage to Ducos Peninsula, Nouméa. In Pacific Treasure Island W. G. Burchett states: 'Rochefort writes that every Wednesday, about 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning, the Communards heard a terrible yelling and screaming drifting across the water from Ile Nou. The warders were applying the regulation bastinados to the convicts. These unfortunates were stripped to the loins and tied down to the bench while the "corrector," a gigantic mulatto, belaboured them with a whip of bullock sinews. The "corrector's" energy depended on the size of the coin which the victim was able to slip into his hand before the punishment commenced."

After lunch in camp a few hours were spent on leave in Nouméa, which, with its harbour, was plainly a vast base for army and naval operations in the Pacific. As all imaginable types of military vehicles moved in endless columns through streets thronged with allied servicemen, the old-world city seemed almost to recoil behind its dusty shutters and sun-bleached buildings, as if in fear of being submerged beneath the flood of modern war traffic that surged about the Place des Cocotiers. There was much to be seen, and everyone would have preferred to stay for a while in Nouméa, now that they were there; in the army, which is always on the move, one never knows whether there will be another opportunity. However, although there was not time to see much on this first visit, men of the corps spent a week's leave in the city several months later, observing the colourful life of its mixed civilian population of 14,000.

With work to be done, some of the ordnance advanced party left next day for Néméara, north of Bourail. For most of the distance of 113 miles the road was rough and pot-holed, and this was but the first of many such trips ordnance men were to make, with incredibly sore 'seats,' in convoys enveloped in clouds of dust. Several men of the party that went north were quartered for a few days in the Bourail town hall. The first ordnance depot was opened by a section working with Lieutenant Reid and Second-Lieutenant McCarthy, in St. Louis Road, Nouméa, where ordnance shipments were received. As further sections of the corps arrived, during the period November to February, page break

A light warning radar station of the Ordnance Radar Maintenance Section on Nissan Island. The entrance to the sheltered lagoon can he seen in the distance

Fresh water from an LST lieing pumped ashore into an S tank on the day of the landing on Nissan Island

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Two pictures of the workshop and camp of the 64th Light Aid Detachment on Stirling Island. Ammunition and supplies were destroyed at Falamai by Japanese mortars

page 177a second depot was established for receiving shipments at Népoui Valley, 120 miles north-west of the capital. Lieutenant Reid and about half of the men who had been working with him in Nouméa formed the party that moved on 29 November to Népoui.

During the long journey north the men were perched on top of the unit's tentage and equipment piled high in about twelve trucks. At first the convoy threaded its way through the hills surrounding the city. On the sides of steep green valleys below the road were banana plantations and market gardens, terraced on the slopes like the terraced hillside cultivation of parts of Malay and the Philippines. Because of the wartime demand for minerals, most of the available labour was busy at the mines in the interior of the island, but here and there were a few Javanese and Tonkinese labourers—some of them women—wielding their hoes, in the struggle against the prolific sub-tropical growth that surrounded the cultivation and threatened to smother everything. The copper-brown colour of their skin seemed to accentuate the blue of the men's dungarees and the tan-and-yellow sarongs of the women. On the right, and parallel with the Route Coloniale, as the road led northwards, the mountains, known as La Chaine Centrate, appeared. The men could now see, plainly, indications of the island's vast mineral deposits as, for mile after mile, red gashes on the blue peaks showed evidence of prospecting.

The immense mineral wealth of New Caledonia has never been completely assessed, but the island is said toi contain most of the known minerals of value, including nickel, chrome, manganese, cobalt and copper. Between January 1940 and February 1941 62,160 tons of nickel ore were shipped to Japan's heavy industries (probably war plants) by a Japanese controlled export company in New Caledonia. Until well into 1941 fast modern Japanese motor-vessels operated on a regular schedule carrying large cargoes of minerals from the island to Japan, and 400,000 tons of iron ore were shipped from Japanese concessions during 1939-40. The shipments continued in 1941. During the months preceding the outbreak of war in the Pacific masters of Japanese vessels grew persistent in their demands to be permitted to continue transporting nickel and iron to Japanese ports. When restrictions were imposed in 1941 the loss of this important source of supply must have been a blow to Japan.

The convoy reached Népoui at dusk, with the exception of one truck which had taken a wrong turning somewhere on the road and toured the interior before arriving very conveniently after the rest of the party had pitched camp. It was Thanksgiving Day—an occasion new to New Zealanders—and when one or two turkeys which had been given to the unit by some Americans appeared at the late evening meal, 'Aussie' Beal, noted for his dry sense of humour, could not resist giving yet another twist to an old joke by observing that 'Never before have so many attacked so few with such vigour.'

A further flight of base ordnance depot men under Lieutenant H. N. McCarthy, and also three ordnance workshop sections attached to the 28th Heavy Anti-aircraft Regiment, the 29th Light Anti-aircraft Regiment and the 33rd Heavy Coast Regiment, left Wellington in the Maui on 5 November 1942, and called at Auckland for water and an escort destroyer. The latter had not arrived from Nouméa, and the delay from the 7th to the 8th may have been fortunate, as a ship sailing just ahead of the Maui was torpedoed not far from Nouméa. The Maui was carrying the parent artillery units of the three workshop sections, together with a large cargo of heavy calibre shell ammunition, which prompted the ship's captain, Captain Murray, to remark as the ship left port, 'Have you fellows all got your life-preservers ? That's good, but God knows what use they'll be; if anything hits us, it's parachutes we'll be needing!' The American skipper was transporting New Zealand troops for the first time, and became very popular with them, doing all he could to make up for cramped quarters which drove many of the men to seek the fresh air of the deck, even during the night. As an added precaution against submarines the troops were kept above decks from 5 o'clock in the morning, and there were additional postings as lookouts. Boxing contests were arranged on board, and Vic Caltaux gained a knock-out over a tall, fair-haired American, after which the ship's captain delighted everyone with a humorous speech from the ring. At the end of the voyage the popular American skipper presented one of the ship's pianos to the 151st New Zealand Coastal Battery.

An advanced party of 74 members of the divisional ordnance workshops, under the command of Lieutenant Lawson, travelled by the President Monroe, which arrived in Nouméa Harbour on page 1798 December. As the ship, packed with troops, made its midsummer trip in the direction of the tropics, it became relatively easy to imagine what a 'hell-ship' would be like. 'Standees'— that is, tiers of four or five canvas bunks stretched one above the other on tubular frames between decks—filled every available space to capacity, leaving little room for air. During this voyage, Private H. T. E. Cooke, of the ordnance party, wrote an amusing account of life on board, which will recall many Pacific crossings to men of the corps: 'A series of struggles constitutes life aboard a troopship, from the first battle up the gangway with heavy equipment, and with rifle catching in the chains and ropes, to the endless struggle through narrow passageways crammed full of people going the other way. Though there's nowhere to go, to get there seems to be their object in life. The next struggle is to get to the allotted bunk. Other people's gear is trodden on, and even any part of their anatomy which protrudes into the narrow right-of-way. When once settled down—sea-kit under your head, haversack and equipment and bayonet by your side, valise under your; knees, tin hat under your feet, respirator on your other side, and rifle along on your tummy—you find yourself sweating terribly, and you decide that you want a wash. Half sitting up on your bunk—there's no room to sit up properly —you look through your gear for soap and towel, and finally locate the stuff at the bottom of your sea-kit. You drag it out and put everything else back. By that time everyone is rattling their gear—it's too late— it's time to queue up again for mess!'

The party went ashore in lighters, and was camped at Dumbéa, which was at that time a quagmire with a mosquito population of metropolitan proportions. On 15 December Lieutenant Lawson and Warrant-Officer I. D. Fraser left with eight men to establish camp for the unit at Moindah, and several days later a convoy of five trucks transported the rest of the party to the new camp site beside the Moindah River, 125 miles north-west of Nouméa.

The movement to New Caledonia of the 20th, 37th, 64th, 65th and 67th Light Aid Detachments, and of the remaining flights of other ordnance units, was completed by February 1943. A new ordnance unit which later became part of the corps in New Caledonia was the 42nd Light Aid Detachment which arrived in July. 1943, and was attached to the 38th Field Regiment.

As large fleets are very seldom seen in New Zealand waters the sight of scores of vessels assembled in Nouméa Harbour caused much comment amongst successive flights of New Zealanders arriving at the port. On Armistice Day several ordnance units were on board the USS Maui, and as the troopship entered Nouméa Harbour a large portion of the United States Navy's Pacific fleet and the British aircraft carrier Victorious passed very closely, inside the reef, in line-ahead formation, steaming out to take part in the battle of Savo Island, off Guadalcanal. When the Brastagi, with members of the 67th Light Aid Detachment on board, called at Nouméa en route to Népoui, men of this unit counted 84 ships in Nouméa Harbour, which had berthing-facilities for only four or five vessels. The new port at Népoui, where their ship eventually berthed, was created to relieve some of the pressure of shipping at Nouméa, and was used extensively for landing thousands of tons of ordnance supplies for the division during the next 18 months.