SOUL-DESTROYING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 4, 6 January 1944, Page 3

SOUL-DESTROYING

AIR OF UNCERTAINTY IN PACIFIC DIVISION’S WITHDRAWAL SUGGESTED (Official War Correspondent—N.Z.E.F.) Recd. 7.30 p.m. Solomons, Dec. 31. zTo-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. Today, 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 the 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 contests with the enemy. Its reorganisation to-day is re-building, rather than the initial moulding, to replace battle and sickness casualties sustained on Vella Lavella, Mono Island and elsewhere where the sickly jungle has taken its toll. To-day’s fighting exercises are a realistic part and parcel of the eternal vigilance that is demanded of every man in the forward Solomon positions. Nearly all this reorganisation of personnel is the result of lessons learned in the two campaigns already fought. First and foremost, this will be a younger men’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 forward battalions and regiments to-day over the age of 40. Unless in exceptional circumstances, they have been withdrawn, some to return to civil life in New Zealand and others to release younger ancl fitter men from base jobs. Taking battalion commanders as an example, the average age to-day is a shade under 40, a drop of about five years from the mark when the first battles were fought in September, October and November. A number of older men, together with a batch of sick and wounded, left for 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 their advanced lines to base. War Against Disease. Though many of the troops stationed in the tropics must fight a continual war of hygiene against disease, the health of New Zealanders generally is satisfactory. Naturally, malaria has claimed few victims but though this malady’s potential threat demands the greatest precautions, its depredations are less widespread to-day than minor complaints of prickly heat, tropical sores and dysentery. A careful soldier treats the most minute scratch with antiseptic and maintains a high pitch of personal and camp cleanliness and fights flies with unabated intensity. After bathing or showering, he applies a liberal powder to the skin to guard against itching or rashlike spots that are classified as prickly heat. Until recently minor sickness in forward positions was aggravated by the shortage of a well-balanced diet, but as rations and cooking facilities have improved, their beneficial results on the health of troops is most noticeable. Model of Cleanliness. Camp conditions to-day are a revelation. In a period of relative peace jp- quiet following action, the New fealanders have concentrated on making their living quarters a model of cleanliness and tidiness. Any visitor to the camp sites over the Christmas and New Year week might have been excused had he expressed envy at th& picturesque surrounding 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 Yuletide levity a marked reaction wrought bv dull and uninteresting inactivity. War is mainly a matter oi watching, waiting and preparing. Perhaps only 10 per cent, of a soldier’s life is spent in actual combat. The rest is spent in routine training and camp duties. There is little leave to look forward to in islands of the Solomons. The closest worthwhile attractions are New Zealand and Australia, but neither, at this stage of proceedings, is within the bounds of practical approach. So again, as a year ago, the division waits, as its 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 manpower in primary production, and the question that its men are asking torday everywhere, and at all times, is: “What are they going to do with us?” This air of uncertainty is soulThe men want a decision one way or the other, and whatever it may be they will accept it gladly. What is it to be?