FIJIANS IN THE SOLOMONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 15 April 1944, Page 6

FIJIANS IN THE SOLOMONS

ADAPTABILITY IN JUNGLE MEN FORM “STEAM ROLLER” Suva, March 29. Settling down with enthusiasm to the military conditions prevailing in the Solomons, the Fijidn troops in service there are .earning warm praise from American officers for the standard of their work, particularly on jungle patrol, for which they are particularly adapted. Their ingenuity is at times somewhat amusing to Americans always accustomed to being well equipped with plant and machinery. Fijian troops serving in the northern Solomons recently demonstrated this ingenuity when they were required to provide themselves with an airstrip to facilitate communication with the base. They cleared the undergrowth and levelled the runway in record time in spite of the scarcity of plant. To make up for the absence of a steam roller all the troops would assemble in a compact mob. Pressing as closely as possible to each other, they moved slowly up and down the strip, stamping heavily into the earth. Anyone who has seen a typical Fijian foot, its size and toughness, can imagine the road-roller effect of this compact stamping. The airstrip was ready in less than three days, and at 5 p.m. on the third day the first plane, a small single-engined aircraft, landed amid the loud cheers of the contractors. Some amusement is also caused through the attempts of the Fijians to adapt themselmes to American foods and methods. One European officer on patrol distributed among his men a number of “heat tablets,” saying that they would be used for warming rations and that he would explain their functions in more detail later. In due course he demonstrated the technique of placing the tablet in a small hole in the ground and igniting it under a can of rations. As the demonstration proceeded, one Fijian began to look worried. Finally he confessed that he had had an early lunch, and after it had dutifully swallowed two heat tablets on the assumption that the'warming process was carried out during the ’v»riod of digestion. Any investigator seeking information as to the effect of heating tablets on the human system may obtain it from a native soldier in the Fijian Infantry Regiment.