大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Link into Learning on behalf of Bryan Moore and has been added to the site with his permission. He understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions鈥�.

A Quiet War.

1. New Zealand, many thousands of miles distant from the European and North African theatres of war ,seemed safely out of the way of it all. I was born and brought up in New Zealand, living on a dairy farm. During the first couple of years of the war the farm was being run by my mother and older brother but the time arrived when he was called-up. At the time I was not quite 18 and was working in a veterinary lab at an animal research station with intentions of training to be a vet. Needless to say I had to abandon that venture and help run the farm. I was kept there throughout the war by the decisions of various Review Boards.

Historical and lingual ties being what they are, quite a high proportion of the country鈥檚 fittest had volunteered early on for service overseas in the Army, Navy and Air forces. Many pilots in the RNZAF, including a cousin of mine, fought in the Battle of Britain. The NZ navy took part in the sinking of the Graf Spee and quite quickly the army, relative to its size among the Allied forces, became heavily committed in Greece, Crete and North Africa.

By comparison with other Allied countries it was feasible that New Zealand newspapers could print casualty lists, and they did so consistently.
The ill-planned excursion into Greece, where superiorly equipped German forces drove the Allies out, first into Crete and then to Egypt came as a shock to NZ families. But later, in 1942, as the casualties in the Alamein campaign poured in and were printed, New Zealanders came to realize that the effects of war were closer to home than they would wish. Practically everyone had relations or friends who had 鈥渂ought it鈥�.

Meanwhile, the Japanese, having swept through South-east Asia, were spreading into the South Pacific. Darwin in northern Australia was bombed and there was great consternation when it was discovered that a midget submarine had penetrated Sydney harbour. Not long after, a Japanese warship was photographed off the coast of New Zealand and the photograph appeared in several newspapers before it was realised that the picture was of a model in a large tank of water. New Zealanders love a joke and,to a degree, appreciated this one but felt it was a leg-pull too far.

2. It may seem strange to English folk that New Zealand had a Home Guard. All able-bodied men were obliged to participate.
In our rural area, whilst one or two regular army officers would be in attendance for special instruction, the Home Guard were drilled by tough-minded old soldiers from the Great War. They were usually farmers and loved the opportunity to abuse us in very colourful language. From the surreptitious grins on their faces we often felt they might be surprised if we actually obeyed them! We were not uniformed but occasionally were issued with old Lee Enfield rifles in order to convey some impression of a fighting force. We learnt to stick bayonets into straw bags and to throw grenades 鈥� on one occasion real ones. But I think the Maori hakas and war dances we practised were more likely to upset an invader than our military training.

From time-to-time we were obliged to take part in field exercises with regular army units based in the area. Not surprisingly they were rather contemptuous of us and on one occasion our unit was made to look foolish by being tricked into a situation where,if it had been a real skirmish, we might have been wiped out. The old soldiers among us were rather put out by this turn of events and took a lead in plotting revenge.

The regular army had a mounted section 鈥� horses not tanks 鈥� and, knowing the land and the bush, we had a pretty fair idea where they were camped: but we checked it.
We reckoned that the camp would be poorly guarded, if at all. It proved easy to creep up after dark while the occupants were drinking, laughing and yarning around the campfires and get into the horselines and outer tents. We got away with plenty of saddles and rifles.
We waited a few days to let the 鈥榮ad鈥� story of missing gear to filter through to our Home guard officers before returning the stuff to the local drill hall with the obvious comment that we had found it scattered in the bush and what a poor show this was for a country at war. Eventually the military took the joke in good part but treated us with somewhat more respect from then on.

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