Damned Marines…

Still picking up kiwi girls in Wellington after 60 years!

United States embassy marines have ambushed Paraparaumu author Joan Ellis on the way to a marines reunion in Washington DC and presented her with a string of pearls.

The gift, presented at the embassy in Wellington yesterday, was a tribute to her efforts in writing A String of Pearls - a book detailing the memories of US Marines in New Zealand during World War II.

Ellis, Joan.
A string of pearls : stories from US marines & New Zealand women remembering WWII / Joan Ellis. - Wellington, N.Z. : First Edition, c2006. - 282 p. : ports. ; 21 cm.
ISBN 9781877391903 (pbk.) : $35.95; 1877391905
1. World War, 1939-1945–Personal narratives, New Zealand. 2. World War, 1939-1945–New Zealand–Personal narratives, American. 3. World War, 1939-1945–Women–New Zealand. 4. Man-woman relationships–New Zealand–History–20th century. 5. Marines–New Zealand–History–20th century.
940.548193

If you can find anyone who is actually SELLING it or will even admit it exists you’re doing better than I am.

UPDATE: For those of you visiting from the Marine linkage here’s a little bonus for the aniversary of the Guadalcanal landings earlier this month from something wrote back in 2005.

Sands of Paekakariki

On the 4th March 1942 the New Zealand government - having been left hanging in the breeze by Churchill - formally requested US assistance in the defence of New Zealand from the Japanese.

On the 10th March 1942 the orders were cut for a Marine Divison to be moved to New Zealand (Paekakariki).

The US did not attach any provisos to this substantial deployment. This move was of no strategic value to the US.

When the Japanese fleet moved to invade Port Morsbey the US Navy enaged in a battle (Coral Sea) they had every expectation of losing. As it was they were badly hurt but succeded in turning back the Japanese fleet.

This battle also did little to help the US strategic position but it did turn back the Japanese expasion at sea and provide protection to New Zealand and Australia.

During the period that US forces were based in New Zealand the Marines were established at a number of camps just north of Paekakariki around McKays crossing. Other forces were located in Papakura in Auckland with a tent hospital set up in Cornwall Park and another hospital at Silverstream in the Hutt Valley. 

After only six weeks training at Paekakariki (including the infamous march to Foxton and back in one day) the Marines landed in Guadalcannal and engaged in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war facing and defeating a determined and confident enemy.

Valuable training time was lost when the Marines were required to load their own ships as the New Zealand waterfront workers (a protected “essential industry”) decided to strike for “danger money” when loading munitions. They felt that being on four times the rate of pay of a front line Kiwi infantrymen wasn’t enough. Their leadership was largely made up English union activists all of of them being exempt from the wholesale conscription taking place.

For many American Marines, sailors and soldiers New Zealand was the last friendly country. Many came here and never got home again.

Although friendly was sometimes not the word. The Ruapehu Draft with the first men from the 2NZEF to come home discovered that life had very much moved on without them and after years of fighting in Creece, Crete and North Africa they felt unapriciated and alienated. The Americans became a focus of their disatsifaction and a number of “incidents” occured peaking with well known but offically hidden “Battle of Manners Street” when New Zealand soldiers ambushed US servicemen as they were leaving the pubs at closing time (6 pm, known as the 6 o’clock swill).

The Ruapehu Draft later mutinied demanding that they not be sent back to serve again until other able bodied men had served at least once. Many of the men were discharged without benefits and lost their medals.

However by and large the efforts of many to foster good relations including a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt were succesful… possibly too succesful with several hundred women returing to the US after war as wives and numerous children born to American fathers.

A plaque on the Wellington forshore from the first Marine Divison comemorates their stay here and the battles they fought in the Pacific in defence of the region and the freedom of others. It incudes the words “If you need a friend you have one”.

The sentiment was not entirely recipricated by the New Zealand Labour Party government who in thanks chose to “nationalise” all the Marines heavy equipment meaning that the NZ government wanted to tax the Maines to remove anything larger than a jeep from the country to the tune of its total value as defined by the NZ government. Ledgend has it that the Marines faced with option A. Leave all the cool toys for the ungrateful kiwis option B. give them lots of money to take their own gear home decided on an option C. They buried the whole damned lot and its all still out there somewhere under the dunes. 

As a final ironic footnote the US forces while in New Zealand offered to undertake a range of engineering works including such things as a tunnel through to Wainuiomata and a four lane highway to improve access to the Manawatu from Wellington via a place known as earthquake gully.

More information on US forces in New Zealand during the war can be found here. Warning, this is a sanitized presentation of events. 

700

In the early hours of this day in 1915 the Wellington battalion under Col William George Malone took Chunuk Bair, the highest point reached by the allied forces during the Gallipoli campaign. The previous day Malone had refused to advance up Rhododendron Ridge after the Aucklanders had just taken over three hundred casualties in 20 minutes attempting to make the attack under concentrated machinegun fire.

He made his attack under cover of darkness without casualties.

Under Malones leadership they held the crest under constant enfilade machinegun fire and repeated assaults which they threw back with bombs, bullets and the bayonet. Withdrawing from the crest didn’t occur to them. In the late afternoon when the fighting died down Malone stood up to survey the area and was killed by a shell from a Royal Navy destroyer. The claim that it was “either a navy destroyer or New Zealand artillery” became popular later and this has more recently morphed into “missdirected New Zealand artillery”. I’m not a fan of revisionism and my source is one of the few Wellingtons who survived Chunuk. “I saw the destroyer swing about then fire.”

That evening they were relieved by mixed troops mainly from the New Zealand Brigade under Col Meldrum. This force withstood more determined Turkish attacks all the follwing day and were finally relieved by two British battalions. The Turks threw them off 20 minutes later, routing the British who did not halt their flight untill New Zealand machineguns encourged them to stop moving down the hill.

Few if any of the Wellington wounded left on Chunuk Bair seem to have survived the Turk reocupation. During the entire campaign just over 20 New Zealanders were taken prisoner by the Turks, all had been incapacitated by their wounds. It is resonable to expect that of 700 men a high proportion of wounded would have been alive when the hill was retaken.

Of the 700 who took and held the feature reports are conflicted as to how many survived. Multiple sources number 79 has having not been wounded but none of these list any wounded. Other sources detail 79 as having come down the hill with only 11 unwounded. Another source puts the numbers as 760 men of whom 711 became casualties.

Either way the unit was destroyed.

The plan of used for this attack was in fact one sugested by Malone months before. He was horrified to see it put into action after strong Turkish forces had been moved into the area.

The landings at Suvla in support of the New Zealand attack were repeat of the first ANZAC landings. A bloody shambles. Officers without direct orders would not advance their troops but many walked forward to survey the area unmolested only to have to fight for these same places weeks later against dug in enemy.

The Australian attacks on Lone Pine and The Nek designed to draw off Turk forces were carried out with the usual Australian reluctance for a brawl with one commander excaliming his soldiers did not make diversionary attacks. They too suffered massive casualties and won 7 Victoria Crosses.

Of the New Zealand attack Cpl Cyril Royston Gyton Bassett (sig) was awarded the VC for his efforts in running a telephone line to Malones position and repeatedly traveling up and down the exposed Rododendron Ridge to repair the line.

Without his efforts Malone would have missed out on being told that the British were drinking tea and the congratulations for his “Australian” troops taking Chunuk Bair.

Bassett later served during WWII reaching the rank of Colonel. He is buried in Auckland with his wife.

Malone was officially held responsible for the failure of the August campaign with it being claimed he had placed his trench in an untenable position on the reverse slope of Chunuk Bair. This is not confusion or missunderstanding. It is a lie. The trenchs are still there. Waist deep on the top of the crest for all to see. It is also further claimed in many official histories that two Ghurka officers were the first to see the Dardanelles. Which seems unlikely since there were no Ghurkas in the Wellington battalion.

Many requests have been made for Malone to recieve a decoration for his leadership. The most recent reside with Helen Clark and has done so for a number of years. No decision is expected at this time.

Chunuk Bair - 8th August is Corps Day for the Wellington Regiment, now 7th Wellington (City of Wellingtons Own) and Hawkes Bay Batalion Group. All other RNZIR batalions observe ANZAC Day (25th April) as Corps Day. 7 Battalion retains the dress distinctions of the NZ Rifle Brigade with an 8 pointed black star behind the beret badge and individual patches for each company worn on the shoulder of service dress. Bravo Coy (Welligntons rifle company) has a black square.

South Africa 1900-02
Gallipoli 1915
Landing at ANZAC
Sari Bair
France and Flanders 1916-18
Somme 1916-18
Messines 1917
Ypres 1917
Bapaume 1918
Hindenburg Line
Sambre (Le Quesnoy)
Greece 1941
Crete
Tobruk 1941
Minqar Qaim
El Alamein
Tebaga Gap
The Sangro
Cassino I
The Senio
Solomons 1942-44

 

Note for US readers: “Regiment” & “Battalion” are interchangeable. It refers to a unit of battailion size (1,000 when they left home) but retains a regimental identity.

How cool is this!

This is the Dragon, an arbalest with a 400lb bow hand made by Mathew in Masterton. For scale the wheels are 1 meter across. The Dragon fires an ultra modern line of 25mm APFS munition and is not to be taken lightly by people who don’t want to get pinned to trees in pairs.

 

The Dragon will be joining Chucky, Tiny and a few other friends for a bit of a fling on the weekend of the 19th - 20th of May.

Sponsor/s wanted! - Friday Night Free For All

Do you have an urge to throw wads of cash at someone else’s pet project for the priceless return of getting your name on an event program, and some unsubtle product placement when the TV cameras are running?

Well, then throw your money this direction.

I am currently completing the organisation for a re-enactment event for siege engines to be held in May. Exhibitors and competitors have been sorted, along with the event logistics and program.

What we need at this stage is advertising, and a wad of cash to build this:

A fairly hefty trebuchet, which stands just under 2 meters tall, and has a 3 meter throwing arm, with a release height of just over 6 meters.

This would be why we’re using a rifle range. Interested wealthy people can email me here.

And yes, I’m too lazy to do two posts, so this is the Friday Night Free For All as well.

Phew…

…says Imshin. I agree:

The horror of the facts on the ground is one thing, and Jimmy Carter’s response to them is quite another. The former president is hard to read without taking into account the southern US context. A partial explanation for his see-and-hear-no-evil view of the world can be found in southern guilt over the maltreatment of blacks. Carter’s chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, heard his first briefing on the Middle East in 1977 and offered, “I get it: the Palestinians are the niggers.”

Read the whole thing.

Today in History 1968

On Christmas Eve 1968 the crew of Apollo 8, after recieving the instruction “Say something appropriate” from mission control, transmitted the following message while in orbit about the moon…:

William A. Anders:
We are now approaching lunar sunrise. And, for all the people back on earth, the crew of Apollo 8 have a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

James A. Lovell, Jr:
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman:
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close, with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth.

They were of course sued by Christian hater and serial suer Madilyn Murray O’hara, who habitually attacked anything daring to display faith in public. Personally, if the atheists want to decide what messages people can and can’t send from space, then they can damn well put their own manned space program together. I for one would be more than pleased to see a few of them strap a bomb thirty three stories high to their collective asses, and light the blue touch paper.

History tends to lean towards it looking like people of faith have been the ones to get us there.

The Supreme Court tossed the law suit and Time had this to say…:

Commadore Frank Bainimaramara

He has chosen to take power from the lawfully elected government. He has now given himself the title of “President”.

This man has betrayed the trust placed in him as the commander of the armed forces of his nation, and the citizens of that nation that he is sworn to protect.

He is a traitor to them, and there is only one possible sentence for a solider who does this.

Blair cements his place in history.

Few people are lucky enough to know what history will make of them. Unless - like Churchill - he writes it himself, history will not be kind to Tony Blair.

RAF Habbaniyah

The British presence at RAF Habbaniyah ended in 1959. Or more to the point the living presence ended then.

The Commonwealth War Cemetery of Habbaniyah, Iraq, is the final resting place of 289 Commonwealth Servicemen and civilians, including women and children. 257 of them are from WWII.

During the intervening years, unlike most other War Cemeteries, Habbaniyah was both neglected and deliberately vandalised. A group of Ghurkas and US servicemen under former Sgt Maj Terry Pearson QO Highlanders, have been restoring Habbaniyah Cemetery.

Dave of Cabarfeidh has posted this on you tube detailing their efforts.

Thank you, gentlemen.

 

And now time for some balance.