CONDITIONS IN PACIFIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25561, 14 June 1944, Page 4

CONDITIONS IN PACIFIC

“ WATERSIDER’S PARADISE ”

BROADCAST BY OFFICER “This is a paradise for those northern watersiders who do not like stepping across a foot-wide gap up to a gangway, because here most of the time there are no gangways,” said Lieutenant Jock Graham, of Auckland. a member of the Third New Zealand Division, in a broadcast from the South-west Pacific on life in Treasury Island. Lieutenant Graham, who was referring to the unloading of 44-gallon drums of petrol which had to be rolled on to trucks, drew a somewhat humorous contrast between working conditions on Treasury Island and those in New Zealand.

“If you are lucky,” he said, “there might be a rope ladder or a cargo net, and sometimes you just wade out to the ship. There is no ‘heat’ money, dirt money, or overtime, but the pay is right—7s 6d a day. The meals—hash, bully beef, spam, sausage, dehydrated potatoes. There is absolutely no need for an extra butter ration.” ' Lieutenant Graham said that letters from home were the feature of the week, bringing as they did contact with a life that seemed infinitely remote.