Fiji at war's outbreak
All the military aged chaps joined the … we had three battalions. Early in the piece the young men applied to join the air force and went to Rhodesia and learnt to fly there. My brother was one of them, but he didn't pass the fitness test.
The third battalion had a terrific record in the Solomons. They were 90 per cent Fijian natives. They did four landings in the Solomons. My brother was in that battalion or one of my brothers.
The Fiji Royal Naval Reserve
I joined the Fiji Naval Reserve which was later the Fiji Royal Naval Reserve. RNR…We didn't have the training out here. When I came back to Australia after the war, I re-entered wanting to serve full time.
They are only taking two-year recruits then and we did our training at Flinders in the middle of winter and it was excellent training, but we didn't have that originally in Fiji in 1942.
Signalman
Well, mainly I became a signalman and served on small boats most of the time. I was stationed at a place called Momi which is western Fiji which was the main entrance to the big refuelling depot for the Americans.
That was just their port. We were there two weeks at a time with 24 hours break for refuelling and fresh water. We had no fresh water to bathe in. there was seven of us living in a 50-foot ex, what do you call it? – glamour boat from New Zealand.
Tarawa
Later on I was drafted to the Viti which was the only big ship we had. It was 1050 tons. First World War 4-inch guns aft that blew off all the doors if they were shut when she was fired. Plenty of depth charges.
Three Oerlikons, two 2-pounders and two Bren guns. That's heavily armed. We used to do escort work up to the Solomons through Vanuatu which was the New Hebrides in those days.
When the Americans decided to go into the equator area up at … and Tarawa. We used to do a lot of supply work as well. We were in Tarawa two days after the landing was completed which was a disaster. It was a hell of a mess. I did three trips up there.
Food
The scran was horrible. The cooks were shockers but aside from that it was a good crew. It was a mixed crew. Being Royal Navy we were allowed rum but not on our ship because we had native crew.
The New Zealand sweepers all got our tot…On the Viti our staple diet was rice then sausages and tinned tomatoes…The food was varied. Sometimes it was good. It depended on the cooks.
Bomber raids
The original B-17s flew from Nandi to Guadalcanal to bomb. Another interesting part was coming back from … or Tarawa up the Gilberts, the old Liberators were coming back and there were some with big holes in the side of them. Unbelievable. They'd be flying back home to their bases.
At Tarawa we used to be bombed at night, but we were on the south side. We were away from Betio the main island. The moon was so bright you could read a paper on the quarterdeck.
The Jap planes were coming over bombing the main island. Betio was only a mile and a quarter long and three quarter of a mile wide. That's how small it was, and they lost all those men for nothing. They had the biggest fleet in the Pacific. They could have blown it away.
