Chapter Five
Ordnance Mechanical Units In
New Caledonia

On Christmas Day 1943 the divisional ordnance workshop officers and sergeants served Christmas dinner to the men of the unit who were already encamped at Moindah. After dinner the unit rudely shattered the dietetic theories of world famous swimming instructors when, at the divisional signals swimming sports, workshops men—despite their large dinner—gained all three places in the visitors' race, and second place in an inter-unit relay race. A further large party of workshops men were at sea, with other ordnance units, on the West Point on Christmas Day, proceeding from Wellington to Auckland en route to New Caledonia. The ship's galley-crew, with the help of New Zealanders, performed the amazing feat of providing an excellent Christmas dinner for nearly 7,000 New Zealand troops on board in addition to the American crew, who added a further Christmas gesture by presenting the troops with 20 cigarettes each.

Almost before the men were settled at their New Caledonia camp army vehicles—which were the sole means of transporting men and equipment long distances from disembarkation points to the division's camps all over the island—began to arrive at the workshops for attention. The rough roads and the constant day and night running of vehicles, as they moved the whole division and its equipment into its positions, brought a steady stream of maintenance work into the workshops during months when inspection pits, concrete floors, and the workshops themselves were still under construction. The buildings were made of bark and niaouli cut straight from the live trees, and all hands were busy for some time on roads into the area and camp im-page break

Taking ammunition ashore at Nissan Island. Salt water played havoc with vehicles which had to he repaired by skilled Ordnance mechanics

Approximately three thousand vehicles which were returned from the Pacific were overhauled by the Mobile Ordnance Workshops at Mangere, near Auckland. This view shows part of the vehicle park

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Lieutenant-Colonel M. S. Myers, DADOS, who commanded Ordnance from early Fiji clays until the division reached Nissan Island, in the Solomons

Lieutenant-Colonel S. A. Knight, who succeeded Colonel Myers as DADOS in April 1944, and returned to New Zealand with the division later in the same year

page 193provements. Later, the men made the necessary fittings for hot showers which were built on the river's banks, and solved the question of the removal of grease and paint, as well as reducing the incidence of tinea and septic complaints which were always prevalent in the Pacific. Water was laid on in the camp through pipes salvaged from old canopy frames, and the swimming pool at the river was floodlit from the unit's power plant. Here, in the warmth of New Caledonia's summer evenings, scores of the camp's 200-odd men, without a care or a pair of bathing togs between them, could be found relaxing after the day's heat and grime, striving to forget their long exile in a strange, half-civilised land.

At Moindah, immediately upstream from the divisional ordnance workshops, men of the nearby signals unit shared their swimming pool with Myrtle the turtle (80 pounds, stripped), a present to Sergeant Hayward from Silvestre Leconte, of Voh. While Sergeant Hayward was temporarily attached to divisional ordnance workshops the cook produced soup so excellent that it prompted inquiries from the officer commanding the workshops, who was told it was turtle soup. There was loud laughter at such subtle humour. During this officer's visit next day to the neighbouring camp, men of the signals corps appeared to be in deep mourning. They explained; that the turtle had been swept over a dam on the previous day, and was last seen breast-stroking its way towards the ordnance workshops. 'Had anyone seen anything of the turtle?' the workshops officer was asked. Relations between the two camps grew slightly strained when it was learnt that not only had divisional ordnance workshops men eaten the signal unit's mascot, but Sergeant Hayward, knowing nothing of its disappearance, had been loudly enthusiastic in his praise of the soup made from his own turtle.

Ordnance units often kept mascots of their own, one of the most widely known being 'Jenny the fawn'—an orphan as the result of a deer-hunting expedition. Brought to camp by Private Gordon Brady, the fawn was reared with difficulty on powdered milk, with guava leaves as an antidote for dysentery. After the mascot's 'promotion' to the rank of substantive corporal, it was to be seen at football matches, with ordnance colours and regulation corporal's stripes on its khaki cover. Later, when the fawn's appetite extended from tea-leaves to the unit's laundry page 194and threatened the mail, Jenny was presented to a Javanese family who possessed few clothes and probably never received any mail.

It was an odd experience to travel 25 miles from Bourail to Moindah through country so little inhabited that less than half a dozen white mud-walled farm houses could be seen during the entire journey, and then, suddenly, to come upon 200 men of the divisional ordnance workshops working in a hive of industry with all the evidences of industrial equipment amidst a wilderness of scrawny gaiac trees, and yet here, amongst a mass of lathes and machinery—much of it mobile, that is, mounted on large workshop and machinery vehicles—worked the unit's fitters, welders, body-builders, paint-shop men, panel-beaters, electricians, artificers, instrument and armament mechanics, and scores of other skilled tradesmen. It was here, too, that technicians grappled with some surprising mechanical problems. Arising from the workshop's and ancillary units' responsibility for the repair and maintenance of vehicles, guns, small arms and other equipment were many new difficulties peculiar to service in the Pacific. Grease and oil were found to be no longer a thorough protection against moisture, since they liquified with the heat and evaporated alarmingly. The woodwork of rifles, although oiled, dried out almost at once and warped, causing the fore-ends to bind on the barrels. The oil used in predictor motors gave similar trouble in the tropics, and after experimenting a substitute was found. Piling-swivels had to be removed from rifles because they rattled and caught in undergrowth and were therefore unsuitable for the close fighting of jungle warfare. Deep pitting of rifle barrels, for which troops were at first punished, was so common that special investigations were made and the trouble was traced to the nests which mason-bees built in the barrel in less than an hour, so that the damage was done almost overnight by the formic acid from the saliva of the bee, mixed in making its nest. Over 200 rifles were condemned from this cause in New Caledonia. Instrument mechanics throughout the corps spent thousands of hours in trying to combat corrosion, fungus and condensation which reached the innermost parts of delicate equipment. Instruments and fine mechanisms had to be constantly taken apart and dried out, and were never allowed to remain with the lids of their cases closed. A pair of binoculars page 195left for any length of time in its case developed a hair-like fungus which ate like an acid into the lenses and rendered them useless. The rough roads damaged the rear axle housings and chassis of heavy vehicles, and special equipment was devised to cope with the large number requiring straightening, while brake-linings needed renewing after every 5,000 miles of running, because of the rough country and steep mountain passes. In the whole of the work outlined above, light aid detachments, recovery sections, and the various workshop sections shared with divisional ordnance workshops the great task of maintaining the division's vehicles and equipment in a completely serviceable and efficient condition. The smaller units mentioned above gave constant service to units of the division in many unusual forms. The 20th Light Aid Detachment was to be seen on manoeuvres winching guns into position, and the 37th fitted the lighting system at a large road-house recreation centre for the troops. The 42nd was once asked to make tin horses mounted on wooden blocks for a miniature race meeting, and made a template for the purpose from a photograph of Kindergarten. As a variation from the jockeys that they painted on the horses, the men of the 37th decided to paint Lady Godiva on one of the mounts. Later, when the race meetings took place, the punters, observing the lady's tresses modestly hiding her beautiful form on one side, were wont to wander hopefully round to the other side—only to find that equally concealed by her golden hair, to the great delight of the boys of the LAD. One of the later undertakings of the 64th Light Aid Detachment, the No. 1 and 2 recovery sections, and similar units, was the camouflaging of all the web equipment of the division. Colours resembling the jungle, with splotches of yellow on green to imitate sunlight breaking through, were applied with spray-gun and brush with excellent results, and probably saved many a life during the months that followed while the division was in action in the Solomons. The men of the 65th Light Aid Detachment were attached to the 37th Field Park, New Zealand engineers, and later to the 15th Brigade, and still later were at Tene Valley. This detachment carried on gamely despite the inconveniences of many moves, involving the continual setting up of new camps. The detachment with divisional signals—the 67th—not only serviced the signals vehicles used by couriers and also that unit's heavier transport, page 196but recovered a total of 133 stranded vehicles from long distances north and south of Moindah. The detachment was also employed helping the divisional workshops in the immense task of maintaining some 2,000 trucks, cars and motor-cycles at the large vehicle pool at Moindah.

The 28th Heavy Anti-aircraft workshops serviced the equipment of their regiment, which was responsible for the defence of Oua Tom Aerodrome from early in November 1942 until 24 May 1943. Captain Costelloe was in command of the workshops, with Second-Lieutenant J. P. Johnson, who was appointed as second-in-command on 1 January. These officers were assisted by Warrant-Officers M. J. Brown and A. D. Turner. From May 1943 until the unit was disbanded, just prior to the division's move to the Solomons, the workshops were stationed with the regiment at the large aerodrome at Tontouta, from which many active operations and reconnaissance missions were at that time being carried out in support of the American campaign in the South Pacific. The unit had to keep a close watch on the important equipment of the regiment, including 3.7 anti-aircraft guns, and combated many technical problems, including the rapid rotting of recuperator glands, and dust difficulties from the airstrips. When the 28th Heavy Anti-aircraft workshops were disbanded its members became a valuable addition to the divisional ordnance workshops, and later shared the same foxholes with men from that unit in the Solomons.

The 29th Light Anti-aircraft workshops were camped at Plaine des Gaiacs, after staging at Dumbéa where, at a United States naval refugee camp, the unit was fed and supplied with bed-cots, tents and moquito nets by survivors of the USS Hornet. In the following description Corporal R. F. Stace not only presents a picture of the unit's camp at Plaine des Gaiacs, but recalls much that was typical of the New Caledonian scene: 'There was a large airport across the road, to which the regiment gave defence, and a collection of some half-dozen mud-hovels—off limits because of leprosy within—but no sign of a village or other habitation for miles. Red dust was kept continually stirred up by the aircraft and by the huge volume of military traffic that the road carried—dust that got into one's eyes, one's ears, one's food; dust that choked carburettors and fuel systems, wore out bearings, and played the dickens with page 197gun parts and predictors; red dust that was a nightmare to all "tiffies" and mechanics. How we cursed that dust … until the rains came. Then, with everywhere a sea of mud, even the dust would have been preferable.' When Lieutenant Sandelin, the unit's first commanding officer, became ordnance mechanical engineer at 14th Brigade, Lieutenant H. Hayman assumed command. The unit worked day and night as the convoys began to move south transporting the division for its next ocean crossing, in August 1943. Although numerically below establishment, the workshops had also completed the important work of checking and putting in order the regiment's guns, predictors, instruments. tractors and trucks, ready for action in the Solomons. On 22 August the unit sailed from Nouméa for the same adventure.

The 33rd Heavy Coast workshops was under the command of Second-Lieutenant Gable, who was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in September 1943, and was later awarded the MBE. This workshop maintained the 6.2 inch guns and the 155 millimetre guns of the regiment at Vallee du Tir, Nouméa, and later at Vallee des Colons. Vehicle maintenance included British deisel gun tractors. The mounting of heavy coastal guns was difficult work requiring much skill and extreme accuracy in levelling, and the ability of the unit's officer and of Staff-Sergeant G. Brooke and his team proved to be outstanding in the accuracy of subsequent shooting tests. Hampered by the lack of a machine shop, the unit was fortunate—particularly when heavy machine work for guns was required—in being able to work in cooperation with United States Navy repair shops moored in Nouméa Harbour, as well as United States Army workshops in the town, and with Pan-American airways workshops on Ile Nou.

The New Zealand ordnance workshops detachment, Nouméa, was formed under Second-Lieutenant Black on 26 July 1943, from men of the disbanded 33rd Heavy Coast workshops. The unit's new role included considerable work on all convoy vehicles operating south of Bourail. The detachment had a well-equipped store of spare parts and a machine shop, and was able to undertake complete engine overhauls. In the unit's small lathe were sometimes to be seen 10-inch winch-drum bearings which would just swing in the lathe, while a shortage of suitable materials led to the clever improvisation of manufacturing king-pins out of high-speed steel from axle-shafts. Typical of many phases of the page 198Third Division's service in the Pacific, with its strenuous manoeuvres and constant moves up through the islands, is the following reference to the heavy wear and tear on men and on their vehicles and those who maintained them. This entry appears in the diary of the workshop detachment at Nouméa, under an August date, when the division was being convoyed to port prior to embarking for Guadalcanal: 'The unit is experiencing heavy work recovering vehicles, due to transport from the north; unusual number of vehicles capsized; most drivers of these show signs of considerable fatigue.'

The divisional ordnance workshop (detachment base) commanded by Lieutenant Simmonds was set up in January 1944 at Téné Valley, near Bourail, where the unit often had to combat floods which were frequent in this area after every heavy downfall of rain. Here, about 20 men repaired and often overhauled from 60 to 100 vehicles a week. Motor cycles of the Provost Corps, base unit vehicles, and transport of all types, brought in after accidents in the dangerous Moindu Pass, were all maintained and repaired at the unit's workshop. The detachment and its cook carried on an elaborate trading system with the French, exchanging canned rations unpopular with the men, and also unit funds, for eggs and fresh vegetables. Ready for emergencies, the unit also reared several pigs and a number of fowls.

The 15 ordnance mechanical units in New Caledonia, some of which remained there 20 months, devised ingenious means of overcoming the country's lack of facilities for leave and recreation. As a very necessary relief from the restricted life of these men in uncivilised surroundings, many of these units made their own playing fields in spare time. The divisional ordnance workshops, for example, entered eleven teams in the Moindah sports competitions, in a wide variety of games ranging from rugby to basketball, and reached the semi-final match in rugby for the Barrowclough Cup. They were fortunate in having as a coach and player Colin Kingstone—an Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury representative. Lieutenants Danby and Fraser, with Corporal R. Walton as secretary, were active members of the sports committee. At the divisional sports meeting the following men of ordnance mechanical units gained third placings in the finals for the division; 220 yards, A. D. Nankivell (65 LAB, later DOW base detachment); 440 yards, K. A. Potts (DOW). page 199A social committee, with Warrant-Officer Moffett as chairman, organised further recreation in the form of concerts, discussion groups and language classes. At one of the concerts Major Simmiss contributed two humorous items that will long be remembered, 'Alastair McAlastair' and' 'Oo's for 'arpin.' The unit also produced an excellent news publication, The Wrectifier —published, with luck, about fortnightly by F. Jolly and R. Walton and others. Its humour is illustrative of the camp life of some 200 men, and included a series of 'Famous last words,' of which the following are samples: 'No thanks, I can light my own. These quads steer themselves.' 'Don't go yet—I'll play you a tune on my saxophone.' 'What's for breakfast, Doughey?' The paper reported that 'References made in the past to Lucy, the officers' hen, are hereby amended to read, Lucifer the rooster, in view of certain vocal and anatomical characteristics the bird has been discovered to possess. The second addition to the unit's poultry will be known tentatively as Annabella, pending possible developments as outlined above.' 'All that row? That's Captain Patton listening in to the daily broadcast of static. He speaks it like a native.'

On several occasions ordnance parties crossed the island to visit Thio or Houlaiou on the east coast, where in marked contrast to the wilderness of the coast on which the division sojourned, were well kept missions and native villages, with both French and native gardens festooned with purple bougainvilia and other native and tropical flowers, and where oranges, pineapples, bananas and coffee were grown. From the east coast, too, it was easier to reach the chrome and nickel mines. It was during a visit to the Pagomene mine by men of the 67th Light Aid Detachment that the Javanese miners, living high up on the mountain near the mine, were seen playing ban shai—a Javanese gambling game in which the players squatted round a low table with a line marked along its centre. The money was passed from side to side until, with no funds left, the loser, it appeared, handed his wife over to the winner for an agreed period of a week or more, according to the amount of the debt.

Thio was a rusty-coloured town on the east coast, boasting a miniature railway, and situated at the foot of high red-hued mountains where there was considerable mining activity. Thatched white buildings at the mission threw into vivid relief page 200the wealth of colour in the gardens, and completed a scene which was an invitation to an artist. To a leave party of ordnance mechanics who visited the town the French hotels proved even more inviting, and after an interesting hour or two, during which they enjoyed the local brandy and creme de menthe, developments followed rapidly. Staff-Sergeant A. Wilson takes up the story here of the next few hours' hilarity: "By this time we were feeling a little restless, and so we crossed the bridge, and discovered a train with about four carriages—there may have been more or less, they were a little out of focus—loaded with Javanese waiting to go to the mine. Railways have always had a fascination for me, so I suggested a "spin." We climbed aboard the footplate and did not like the way the Javanese fireman and the driver looked at us, and so there was nothing else to do but empty them out (anyway there wasn't room for four). It seemed about time to get going, so I turned a few knobs and things, and she took off. The speed was terrific—about seven miles an hour, by our reckoning, which we decided could be increased without overdoing the limit for the 2 feet 6 inch guage. We started piling on the coal, until the safety valve blew off, and steam was escaping from all sorts of places. There was only one thing to do—we tied the safety-valve down with an old piece of wire from the tool-box. Incidentally it increased our speed to about 10 miles an hour. Our passengers, not being used to this excessive speed, were afraid to jump off. As we gathered speed I looked round for some means of support, and found a cord hanging from the roof. Clutching this, we swayed along, and every time I lurched the whistle blew an eerie note like a ghost train. We travelled a distance of from five to ten miles, according to the varied evidence of our passengers. By good luck we managed to apply the brakes at the crossing. By this time the "fog" was lifting, and we were content to assist the crew of a deisel locomotive taking nickel ore back to Thio, in return for a safe passage back to the town, where we spent the few remaining hours of our leave, still troubled, somewhat, by gremlins.'