WEIRD FLEET

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 252, 23 October 1943, Page 6

WEIRD FLEET

AT VELLA LAVELLA RAGTAG TRANSPORT SERVICE (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service) PACIFIC BASE, Oct. 17. One heavy dugout canoe, one light canoe, two outriggers and two collapsible Japanese assault boats are plying a useful trade for the New Zealand troops on the north-west coat of Veil a Lavella. This weird assortment of mixed native and military craft, operated now by a transport platoon which calls itself "The Umomo General Freight and Passenger (No Deadheads) Transport Corporation (Unlicensed)," was found in the waters round Umomo Island after neavy shelling had pushed the enemy off. It is now on full-time duty, fetching and carrying food and munitions between the .companies of a forward battalion. These is no cash fare for the convevance of goods or passengers, but anyone wanting to ride from one bav to the next works his passage at'the end of a punting pole or a broken down paddle. The fastest of the fleet is the 30ft outrigger "Cutty Sark," if the loosely fitting wood knot does not slip out of the natural bung hole in the bottom—which it usually does. This outrigger can carry eight passengers and several hundred pounds of cargo. The "Queen Mary," the big dugout boat, propelled by four oars, takes a load of three-quarters of a ton —but it moves terribly slowly. Native members of the British Solomons Islands Protectorate Defence Force (8.5.1.P.D.F.), acting as guides to the New Zealand soldiers on Vella Lavella. have grown accustomed to the Allied Army rations, and with our forces in the jungle relish the same meat, biscuit and drink as the whites. Normal diet for the Solomon Islander consists of sweet potatoes, yams, tapioca, taro, cooking bananas, sugar cane and coconut. Doubtless he will go back to this diet after the war, when he returns to the clean, cultivated areas round his coastal villages, but in the meantime he is thriving on the change and is only too pleased to get it. The native is also a very willing recipient of cigarettes, of which troops in the forward area get a liberal free issue.