JUNGLE ORDEAL

Evening Star, Issue 25172, 11 May 1944, Page 3

JUNGLE ORDEAL

FIJIAN SOLDIER ON BOUGAINVILLE SERIOUSLY WOUNDED AND AT MERCY OF JAPANESE I (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.) BOUGAINVILLE, May 6. j Thought by his fellow-soldiers io have : been killed in action with the Japanese, ' Esivorosi Kete, of the Fijian military forces, • '.ay for two days and three nights seriously wounded in the Bougainville jungle. Now, a month later, he is fast recovering in a ■ New Zealand hospital in the Solomons. In | the last days of March Kete was on patrol and was hit by a Japanese bullet, which ' entered behind his ear and lore through I his head, coming out by the side of his nose. j Kete lay unconscious where he fell, and his ; patrol, which was lighting a moving battle i at the time, assumed him dead. It was I impossible to recover his body. Hours later j after dark. Kete was aroused by a blast | of Allied shells falling in his area. He recovered sufficiently to roll laboriously into a •hallow foxhole, where he lay throughout the night and all the following day. _T\vo Japanese patrolling removed his hoots i 'and emergency chocolate ration. Kete ' could not move, nor could the Pijians get near where he had fallen. Through the second night and into the second day lie was subject t'o further artillery shelling, and was again found, by passing Japanese, who bayonetted him in "each breast and in the arm. In the last stages of weakness, but still conscious, Kete was found by two Fijians on the third day and brought to an American hospital. The attention of three specialists, of whose uniiring efforts nn Kete and many oilier Fijians, officers of • the Fijian forces speak :'n unstinted praise, resulted in such a splendid recovery

that within three weeks.Kete was walking to his meals at the hospital and attending picture shows at night. He was then evacuated to the New Zealand hospital.