PACIFIC DIVISION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25426, 6 January 1944, Page 2

PACIFIC DIVISION

UNINTERESTING WAR FRONT IRKSOME UNCERTAINTY (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent) SOLOMONS, Dec. 31. To-day, 12 months after the main body of the Third (New Zealand) Division set foot in the South Pacific war theatre, history is repeating itself. To-day, as then, the division is organising, taking in new officers, new privates, gunners, and sappers, checking its mechanised equipment, calibrating its guns and bringing up ammunition and supplies. To-day, as then, training is in full swing' in reinforcement' camps' and exercises are daily being “fought” in tropic jungles and hills. . . There is this difference: The division on the eve of 1944 has practical battle .experience behind it and is richer from its contacts with the enemy. Its reorganisation to-day is rebuilding, rather than’initial moulding, to replace battle and sickness casualties suffered on Vella Lavella, Mono Island, and elsewhere where the sickly jungle has taken its toll. To-days fighting exercises are realistic and part and parcel of the eternal vigilance that is demanded of every man in the forward Solomons positions. 1 Nearly all the reorganisation of personnel is the result of lessons learned in the two campaigns already fought. Young Man’s Force First and foremost this will be a younger man’s force from now on. Jungle warfare has put a strain on some of the older men that lowers their ability, if not their will, to withstand the continued heat and wet and nervous tension. You will ■ find few men in the forward battalions and. regiments to-day over the age of Unless in exceptional circumstances, they have been withdrawn, some to return to civil life in New Zealand, others to release younger and fitter men from base jobs. Taking the battalion commanders as an, example, the average age to-day is a. shade 40 a drop of about five years from. the mark when the first battles were, fought in September, October, and November^er Qf older men, together with a batch of sick ana womided, lertfor New Zealand the other day. They had come down from the north by sea, air, and land, transferring to different, types of transport as many as five times and taking perhaps up to a fortnight to cover the 1500 miles from the advanced fines to base. , Though any troops stationed in the tropics must fight a continual war of hygiene against disease, the health of the New Zealanders generally is satisfactory. Naturally malaria has claimed a few victims, • but, though this malady’s potential threat demands, the greatest precautions, its depredations are less widespread to-day than the minor complaints of , prickly heat, tropical sores, and dysentery. The. careful soldier treats the most minute scratch with antiseptic, maintains a high pitch of personal and camp cleanliness, and fights flies with unabated intensity. After bathing or showering he applies liberal powder to his skin to guard against the itching, rash-like spots that are classified aS prickly heat. . ... Model Living Quarters ; Until recently minor sickness in the' forward positions was aggravated by a shortage of a well-balanced diet, but as the rations and cooking facilities have improved their beneficial results on the health of troops are most noticeable/ Camp conditions to-day are a revelation. In the period of relative peace and quiet following action fhe New Zealanders concentrated on making the living quarters a model of cleanliness and tidiness. Any visitor to camp sites over the Christmas and New Year week might have been ex-' cused had he expressed envy, at the picturesque surroundings of the tents, the clean, well-formed paths of coral sand, and the general air of spruceness. Yet, if he watched keenly, he could detect even beneath the mark of Yuletidp. levity the marked reaction wrought by dull and uninteresting inactivity.:. War is mainly a matter of watching, waiting, and preparing. Perhaps only 10 per cent, of a soldier’s life is spent in actual combat. The rest is routine training and camp duties. There is little leave to look forward to in the islands of the Solomons. The closest worth-while attractions are New Zealand and Australia, and neither at this stage of proceedings is within the bounds of practical approach. So, again, as a year ago, the division waits, as the G.O.C. put it in his Christmas message to the people of New Zealand, “ in a difficult and most uninteresting theatre of , war.” It knows little of what the future holds. It reads in the news from New Zealand of suggestions that it should be withdrawn from the Pacific, either to serve in other theatres or to relieve the shortage of man-power in primary produc- . tion., The question its men are asking to-day, everywhere and all the time, is: “What are they going to do with us? ” The air of uncertainty is souldestroying. The men want a decision one way or the other. Whatever it may be they will accept it gladly. What is it to be? "