Stories of Service | Military memories of Ryman residents

Stories of Service

Military memories of Ryman residents

Thank you.

To commemorate Anzac Day we thought it was appropriate to share the amazing stories of some of our Ryman residents who have served their country.

We thank them for their service, the contribution they made to the freedom we enjoy today and for sharing with us their personal experiences.

We hope you enjoy their stories.

This booklet is not intended as a historical document, but simply to share memories and experiences of some of our Ryman Village residents.

Heather Haylock, 102

Anthony Wilding Retirement Village

Heather Haylock, says her World War II nurse aid service years were simply about her trying to help her country and the injured or suffering soldiers in need.

She was initially with the New Zealand Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), helping or aiding hospital nurses, and that work folded into the New Zealand Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

“I joined the army to help with the war,” she says of her work at Addington, Burnham and firstly in Nelson.

Heather Blair was born in Carterton, but at a young age her family moved to Nelson. Her schooling was cut short at Standard 6, and as the eldest she had to attend to her mother Agnes’ health needs.

When her mum improved, Heather went on to work for a time with Hannahs shoes. From the outbreak of WWII, she was very keen to help out.

Voluntary aids were trained from 1940 onwards with their help very useful to nurses, matrons and sisters of New Zealand hospitals. By February 1944 there were 268 voluntary aids on service overseas while there were 50 on duty at military camp hospitals and 119 on duty at air force station hospitals in New Zealand.

She served from August 31, 1942 through to April 18, 1946

Heather remembers hospitals could be hard work. For example, she would each day wash down the faded brown linoleum floors of the wards. “I think the patterns had worn off and we had to polish them every day.”

But the key part of her work was helping those in need. An early VAD memory is of feeding an ex-prisoner of war who was in a bad way and transferred into Burnham Military Camp. “He’d been deprived of food, so I just had to spoon it in,” Heather says.

To make things easier for the injured she would turn down the bedspreads for the men.

Her work in Nelson included the job of sewing a button back on a soldier’s shirt. That soldier just happened to be her future husband Roy. Son John says he thinks his dad had spotted his mum before the button sewing incident.

The couple got engaged but agreed not to marry at that point because of an uncertain future. Roy, who served for more than four years including in Egypt and at the battle of Monte Cassino, Italy was discharged in 1946

Heather and Roy married in May 1946 and moved back to Canterbury and the farm at Onuku, near Akaroa. Heather kept in touch with her friends from the army days but is now the only one remaining.

Heather was heavily involved in her Banks Peninsula community and only gave up driving, aged 94.

She lived on Banks Peninsula, for more than 70 years, eventually moving to Anthony Wilding village in 2017

David Humphrey, 86

Charles Upham Retirement Village

In 1965 David flew into Singapore at a time of real conflict to be part of a Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) response to attacks on the island from Indonesia.

Indonesia’s left-leaning President Sukarno launched “Konfrontasi” in 1963. This undeclared war included military incursions into areas including Singapore and East Malaysia.

Sukarno, like many Indonesians, believed the creation of a Malaysian federation was unwarranted. New countries like Singapore were emerging as a period of British colonialism in the Far East came to an end.

David, who had already served in the Naval Volunteer Reserve as part of his compulsory military training, was commissioned and flew into the conflict zone for a period of nine months, during 1965-66.

“I saw an opportunity to go to sea in the Far East because they were short of officers. I was a radio operator, and I was commissioned, and I was a sub lieutenant.”

David points out the confrontation was real. Singapore experienced a series of bombing incidents in which people were killed as a result of devices planted by Indonesian saboteurs.

In August 1965, the Malaysian Parliament voted to expel Singapore from Malaysia, leaving Singapore as a newly independent country.

“We were there (because of) the Indonesians. They were causing disruption throughout Singapore and Southeast Asia,” David says.

“We joined forces with K D Malaya (naval base) ... we weren’t there on holiday.”

Part of his navigation officer role was on board a mine sweeper HMNZS Hickleton, that started operations in the Far East in April 1965. This and other minesweepers, including some from the Royal Navy, patrolled at night on set patterns. These operations were the RNZN's last large-scale operation with the Royal Navy.

David says the ships would tend to leave port at 4pm and be back into Singapore by 8am, as part of an effort to stop Indonesians getting into British territory.

The Indonesians tended to be on motorised-sampans, and gunfire was often exchanged.

The Hickleton, together with her sister ship HMS Santon, carried out hundreds of patrols, with dozens of incidents involving intruding Indonesians, and with some taken as prisoners.

“We challenged them and opened fire on them if they didn’t respond.”

Even then Singapore was a big city, he says, and offered rest and recreation for periods of time. “We used to hop in the car and drive down to Singapore... many nights.”

David, who had been given a leave of absence from his workplace, flew home and was soon back with Victoria Insurance Co. in Dunedin as an insurance assessor.

His naval reserve work continued for many years.

Rodney Dawson, 78

Charles Upham Retirement Village

Born in 1946 Smokey (Rodney) Dawson had an early start in military service, joining the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a Boy Entrant in 1963.

He was attracted to the air force partly given his interest as a youngster in engineering, but there were a couple of false starts before he hit his straps in the ‘aerial’ armed service.

Smokey’s family farm was near the now holidaymaker’s paradise of Snells Beach. He was schooled in Warkworth, but home also provided an education. “Dad gave me an engine when I was about 10 that I used to strip and put back together again,” he remembers.

His Mum had ruled out his interest in the navy. Then one day when he’d come home from school she’d cut an advert for the air force out of the paper. “So, we filled that in and sent it away... I had to go for an interview in the Warkworth library after milking, and I passed that, so I joined.”

Within the Boy Entrant intake he soon earned the nickname Smokey (perhaps a reflection of Aussie country star Smokey Dawson). He left entrants school and went to complete a basic training course at Hobsonville Airbase, Auckland, and from there his work as a trainee and eventual instructor took him into air force workshop spaces throughout New Zealand and other military bases around the world.

He moved through to Woodbourne Air Force Base, Blenheim to do the aircraft mechanics trade course, and during the early part of his career saw him tinkering or doing real engineering work with aircraft such as North American T-6 Harvards and De Havilland DH100 Vampires. The RNZAF operated Harvards from 1941 (including within the theatre of war), and Vampires were used in 1955 by the RNZAF in Malaya as part of its first combat strike since World War II.

International travel beckoned from 1973, and three years later he journeyed to England in 1976 having been chosen as part of a RNZAF group to undergo three months of training at RAF base Brize Norton on Andover maintenance.

The course was intense and he returned to Auckland as an instructor on maintenance of Hawker Siddeley Andovers, one of the air force passenger transport workhorses from 1976 through to the mid-90s.

He also travelled on to North America, and widened his career achievements with 22 years working for Air New Zealand.

Smokey’s first contact with the Air Force Museum of New Zealand, where he now volunteers, began when he was still in the air force in the mid-1980s. “At Whenuapai I was the lead on rebuilding the (World War II) USAF Catalina Flying Boat for the Wigram-based museum. I enjoyed it.”

Graham Fisher, 77

Deborah Cheetham Retirement Village

When Graham Fisher was deployed to Vietnam in 1967 his mother had a terrible sense of history repeating itself.

Graham vividly recalls his mother’s reaction when the family learnt his uncle would serve in WWII.

“She said ‘I bet you, when Graham’s old enough there will be another war’,” he said.

Graham enlisted in the Australian Army in 1964 when he was 18, with the rank of Private (Craftsman). After basic military training at Kapooka, NSW, he was posted to the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Training Centre in Victoria to train as a Fitter and Turner to inspect and repair everything from small arms to tanks.

He was deployed to Vietnam in June 1967.

“Prior to being posted I had to pass a three-month training course at the Jungle Warfare Centre in Canungra, Queensland,” he said.

“We were jumping out of moving trucks, firing blanks into the hills, shooting rifles, swimming with our packs on; all of the stuff you could come into contact with in war.”

Graham was posted to Vũng Tàu, a relativity calm part of the country, but his role involved travel to more dangerous areas.

“I went to the demilitarized zone located on the South and North Vietnam border, and to Saigon.

“I fixed weapons on army ships in the Mekong Delta and you would have to hide when you were on the deck and

hope no one came out of the bush. It was pretty daunting.”

But, overall, Vietnam was a rich learning experience which shaped his military career.

“It felt like more of an adventure when I got home. But I loved the experience, I’d do it again tomorrow if I was able to.”

Back home, Graham served as a section supervisor in Bandiana and Puckapunyal. There, he led military and civilian personnel inspecting and repairing everything from tanks to medical equipment.

In 1975 Graham was posted to Papua New Guinea where he instructed local soldiers on the repair of vehicles, gauges, and medical and dental instruments.

When he returned to Australia in 1976 he had postings at Bandiana, Broadmeadows and lastly at the Melbourne Mechanical Engineering Agency where he travelled to army units across Australia investigating small arm defects and evaluating weapons prior to entry into service.

Upon discharge in 1984 Graham was a Warrant Officer Class 1.

His time in the military continues to shape his life.

“It doesn’t matter where I go in Australia, I always seem to bump into someone I was in the army with.

“And those army mates, you class them more as family because of what you’ve been through together.”

James Scott, 86

Edmund Hillary Retirement Village

Gisborne-born James (Jim) Scott had his sights set on following in the medical footsteps of his father and grandfather by becoming a dentist before any idea of joining the military occurred to him.

Born on 1st October 1937, Jim went to Gisborne High School before heading to Dunedin and the Otago University Dental School.

But as the reality of being confined to a practice in a small room began to dawn on him, he followed a friend’s advice and applied to join the Navy and see a bit of the world.

Jim was commissioned as a Surgeon Lieutenant (D) in the Royal New Zealand Navy, and went on to enjoy a very rewarding 12 years. His commissions included HMNZS Tamaki, Royalist, Philomel, Otago and Waikato and took him to countries such as Singapore, Hawaii and Japan.

A significant highlight was being in Belfast in 1968 at the launch of the new frigate HMNZS Waikato, by Princess Alexandra.

By 1969, Jim was promoted to Surgeon Lieutenant Commander (D) and later was offered a two-year posting to Singapore – but only if he transferred to the Army first.

This was part of the Government’s decision to unify common services such as dental, medical, education and so on, and as dental was the smallest, they were unified first.

If Jim accepted, it would mean big changes, not least of them wearing a green uniform.

“I was very reluctant to make the change to Army because each service has its own culture and a different mindset.”

An ‘interesting’ period of Jim’s career was an operational tour of South Vietnam with a Mobile Dental Unit in 1972, soon after the Tet offensive.

“We treated all comers – NZ, US, Korean, Australian and local Vietnamese which probably included a few Viet Cong.

“I was embedded for several weeks with a US Special Forces (Green Beret) group, who were out actively patrolling the Cam Rahn Bay area.

“It bemused me that returning after risking life and limb on these operations, they would come to me, reporting that it was time for their routine fluoride application.”

During his last years in the Army, he had the honour to be appointed as an Honorary Aide de Camp to the Governor General, Sir Denis Blundell.

During this time, he assisted during a visit by Queen Elizabeth, selecting and introducing the various chosen people to meet her at a Government House garden party.

As a Major, it became apparent that if he wanted further promotion he’d be sitting behind a desk at Wellington Headquarters, so he decided to retire from the Defence Force after 17 years and go into private practice.

He is now a dedicated attendee of Anzac Day services in the village.

Joan Daniel, 105

Edmund Hillary Retirement Village

When she signed up for Red Cross training in 1941, legal secretary Joan Daniel thought the furthest she would be going would be Rotorua.

But just months later, the 22-year-old former Auckland Girls' Grammar student was setting sail for Suez on the hospital ship Maunganui as part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment.

Joan was initially based in Cairo working at 1 NZ General Hospital at Helwan, near Maadi Camp.

The bulk of her work was dealing with sick patients with complaints ranging from the standard to the more serious, such as dysentery.

Joan worked hard on her shifts and enjoyed exploring the many exciting new sights with new friends during her downtime.

“The invitations were pouring in from everywhere!” she says.

When the Battle of Alamein got under way, with the Germans pushing down towards Alexandria, Joan was sent to the coast of what was then Palestine where 40 of them lived in a big shed right on the beach.

“We were a happy hospital, they were a lovely crowd,” she says.

When the flow was reversed and the Allies started pushing the Germans back again Joan was sent back to the canal zone, living five to a tent with a Nissen hut used as a mess.

Duties included taking temperatures, doing washes, making the beds – even with a very ill patient still in them – and preparing the sisters’ afternoon tea.

One joyous occasion was during leave when Muriel, her best friend from Auckland who had trained and travelled with her, got married with Joan as bridesmaid.

There was tragedy too however. Three fellow nurses were killed when a vehicle swiped the side of the truck they were travelling in. Joan was the wreath bearer at the funeral.

On New Year’s Eve 1943, Joan was on her way to Caserta, Italy where she soon saw first-hand the true cost of war, with injured soldiers from the Battle of Cassino arriving daily.

“That was really hard work, the wounded came in all the time.

“The Māori Battalion were very good patients and were good fun even if they were really sick and wounded, always with a smile, but with some it was quite sad and used to upset me sometimes.”

The men who’d been shell shocked were particularly upsetting to see.

When Joan had reached her three years’ service, she applied to head back to New Zealand.

She returned to her job to await the return of her fiancé Maurice, who had been a POW in Greece for most of the war. They married in 1945

Maurice wasted no time in buying a one-man law practice in Onehunga which still thrives today.

Ron Longley, 83

Edmund Hillary Retirement Village

Born on 11 March 1941 in Christchurch, Ron Longley joined the Royal New Zealand Navy as an Artificer Apprentice straight after leaving Papanui High School.

Nearly three decades later, he retired as Fleet Engineer Officer, responsible for all marine, weapons and electronic operational engineering matters for the whole fleet which included 12 ships. But there were plenty of peaks and troughs along the way.

His first New Zealand ship posting was to HMNZS Royalist.

“They put me on there and forgot about me! I was posted on ship as a leading hand, promoted through Petty Officer (PO), then Chief PO before I passed my exams for Warrant Officer – no one else got close to doing that in one posting.”

As a Dido class cruiser, the ship was originally designed for a crew of 450. But following modifications the crew was swelled to 550.

“It was cramped!” says Ron, who nonetheless looks back on those years with fondness.

As a ‘boiler room tiff’, Ron experienced a couple of near misses, both involving extreme throat-searing heat in the boiler rooms and passing out!

The Royalist took Ron to Pearl Harbour twice, a North America tour, three Far East tours plus patrols in Borneo during the Indonesian Confrontation in 1963, ‘64 and ‘65.

He was posted to Singapore for six months in 1967 as a member of the base support party for the Borneo minesweepers.

Ron was then the Squadron Engineer for NZ coastal patrol craft and was then posted to HMNZS Blackpool for a year.

In 1968 Ron was commissioned to officer rank with a stint in the UK at the Royal Navy Engineering College in Plymouth and more training courses in Portsmouth.

Ron also spent two years seconded to the Republic of Singapore Navy, responsible to their Head of Engineering for advice on all technical matters, and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander.

Ron’s engineering skills were clearly in demand and saw him posted to HMNZS Waikato for four years, which included a 21-month extended refit and modernisation, which he says was’ the longest and most comprehensive refit undertaken by our Dockyard’.

Later, Ron was promoted to Commander and sent to the UK for nearly 18 months.

For this role, he was the senior NZ representative responsible for the commercial refit of HMNZS Southland in Southampton, which was the first commercial warship refit in the UK. Ron was awarded an OBE for this achievement.

On his return to New Zealand, he was appointed the Fleet Engineer Officer role, responsible for all operational engineering matters concerning the Fleet, which included 12 ships and then retired in September 1985.

He is proud of his navy career and everything that the ‘senior service’ represents and says he wouldn’t change a single thing about it.

Edmund Hillary Retirement Village Ross

Johnson, 86

Ross Johnson’s five years in the New Zealand Air Force (NZAF) were action-packed, with Ross posted to an NZ fighter squadron based in Singapore at just 19-years-old.

As the middle child of five, Ross grew up on farms around Wellsford and Kaipara and was strongly encouraged to follow his dreams of joining the air force by farming neighbours and teachers from Wellsford School and Auckland Grammar School, many of whom had served in World War II just a few years before.

In 1955 aged 17.5, he spent a year at Taieri and Wigram, training to be an Air Force pilot, following which he moved to Ohakea to train as a fighter pilot.

“I was struck by an immediate sense of organisation and purpose. In pilot training, you passed well in academics and flying or took the train home!”

In Singapore, Ross worked with the British and Commonwealth Armies by bombing terrorist targets in the jungle of Malaya.

Flying in formation with other planes and being able to manoeuvre his aircraft upside down if necessary was certainly thrilling work but the sobering purpose of it was not lost to Ross and his fellow pilots.

“We were using real, live armaments and we treated it very seriously indeed.

“One of the things we probably all felt aware of was, just a few years before (in WWII), young guys of our age were going out and getting killed and captured.”

Ross treasures a 1958 photograph of him standing next to his plane meeting the New Zealand Prime Minister Walter Nash, who had come to Singapore to see the Kiwi troops.

After five years’ of service, Ross decided to make a switch, leaving the air force to fly for Air New Zealand and Singapore Airlines but maintaining his connection by being a reserve member for 20 years.

“I decided that the airlines looked very attractive, and were expanding rapidly, and getting modern equipment. I thought perhaps there would be more of a future there than in the military.

“Overall my service was very positive for my future technical and personal development.”

This chapter of his career lasted 35 years, with 25 of them spent as an instructor on large jets and working on projects to introduce new aircraft and simulators.

Ross feels strongly about marking not only Anzac Day but also Armistice Day and Battle of Britain Day.

“Not only to remind us of our fallen forbears but to show new generations that history may repeat unless we are careful.”

Tom Thomson, 88

Edmund Hillary Retirement Village

Albert Edward Thomson, nicknamed Tom, grew up fascinated with aircraft.

Born on 29 November 1935 in Christchurch, he dreamed of becoming a pilot in the RNZAF.

But he was met with a huge stumbling block when Air Force medics told 15-year-old Tom that his eyesight wasn’t up to standard.

“So, I signed up for the apprentice scheme for training as that looked like the nearest I would get to it.”

He spent three years at the RAF School of Technical Training in Halton, Buckinghamshire and when cadetship came along he was sent to Uxbridge in England where medics then told him there was nothing wrong with his eyes.

Tom went on to train as a pilot at the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell and graduated top of his intake with the Sword of Honour – an achievement his younger brother Russell went on to emulate.

In 1963, as an experienced transport aircraft captain, Tom was seconded to the US Navy squadron to operate C-130 Hercules equipped with skis to and within Antarctica. In March 1964, while expanding his professional experience as a flying instructor, his brother was killed while flying a Canberra bomber over the South China Sea.

After being posted back to 40 Squardron, training crews on the new aircraft destined for Vietnam, Singapore and Antarctic, Tom received a promotion to Squadron Leader.

In 1971, with wife Barbara and a young daughter now in tow, he was appointed

Commanding Officer 42 Squadron at Ohakea, a prestigious job as the unit incorporated the VIP flight, which carried members of the Government and official visitors including the King of Tonga and the Crown Prince of Japan.

Later, as Commanding Officer of 40 Squadron, he received a panicky call to evacuate Embassy people from Saigon.

"The late-night deployment to Singapore via a refuel at Alice Springs and two flights into Vietnam was the longest I have ever stayed awake and flown in my flying career!"

On leaving 40 Squadron, Tom was awarded the Air Force Cross for his leadership of the unit and was then posted as Military Attaché to Thailand, Burma and Laos.

Tom was promoted to Group Captain in 1980 and returned to NZ to Wellington with a number of special projects to oversee.

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1982 and took over as CO of RNZAF base Auckland, which included Whenuapai and Hobsonville.

Overseas postings continued, this time with a year in Canada at the National Defence College. On his return, Tom was promoted to Air Commodore and took up the post of Air Officer Commanding Support Group with responsibility for all ground and aircrew training.

Another honour followed in 1988, when Tom was appointed a CBE and returned to Wellington for a promotion to Air Vice-Marshal before retiring in the early ‘90s.

Bernie Lewis, 95

Ernest Rutherford Retirement Village

Even though Bernie Lewis was still at Nelson College and too young to join up, he took a great interest in the air force during World War II. With two brothers as pilots, he was fascinated with flying, having taken his first flight in 1934.

By the time he could apply to join the RNZAF he had his private pilot’s licence, but the only position offered to him was as a navigator. It was that or nothing, he was told.

“So, I took the next boat to England at my own expense and applied for the RAF where there was big demand for air crew.”

Bernie joined the RAF in 1950 and served as a jet fighter pilot on Vampires and Sabres before becoming an instructor.

He started training at Cranwell in January 1951. Later at RAF Feltwell, he moved on to the cumbersome Percival Prentices and Harvards – the Tiger Moths were gone by then. Bernie was awarded “Wing” and a trophy for best pilot in February 1952.

At RAF Merryfield in Somerset, he moved straight on to jet conversion on the Vampire 1

Posted to Germany, Bernie was allocated to a squadron at RAF Oldenburg, near Bremen, which had updated Vampire 5s, and they were re-equipped with the American F-86 Sabre.

“A wonderful machine and very reliable; it performed magnificently.”

“It was there I managed to exceed the speed of sound a number of times. I’d go up to 42,000 feet … go belting along and roll over on your back and dive down vertically at full power, and for a glorious four-six seconds you could exceed the speed of sound.”

From there, Bernie went to Central Flying School, learning to become a flying instructor and then to instructing at Cambridge University Air Squadron at Marshall Airfield.

He was there for two and half years before he was accepted to go to the Empire Test Pilots’ School in Farnborough on special duties.

“There were 12 different types of aircraft, and we were expected to be able to fly them all. At the end of the first term, I volunteered to test helicopters even though I’d never flown them before.”

A year later he was testing in the tropics, before heading to Canada for winter testing.

“Three years after that I was asked by Rolls Royce to join them as an engine test pilot.

I flew a Vulcan bomber with a Concorde engine bolted under it, so the Concorde engine was well tested before the first official flight!”

Bernie also flew with the German, Austrian, and Irani air forces when they required assistance with their Rolls Royce engines.

After a long and succesful career his last flight was in 2008.

Bill Morgan, 97

Ernest Rutherford Retirement Village

On leaving Nelson College, young Bill Morgan joined the public works as a surveyor. The staff there were mostly returned servicemen and they told some great stories. “My mother was not keen on me joining the army, but I didn’t want to be in public works.”

Bill joined the army in 1949, married his sweetheart, Ngaire in 1950 and over the years the army took him to lots of places, including Burnham, Linton, Dannevirke and Waiouru. Bill recalls shifting 14 times!

During the Malayan Emergency he was posted to B Company as quartermaster. Ngaire and the kids would go too. They were there for two years but Bill spent two or three weeks at a time with the Company at Tanjung Rambutan rubber plantation on the outskirts of Ipoh – a friendly tin mining town. Bill’s recollection of jungle warfare was of the enemy who were silent, quick and cunning.

“I enjoyed my time in Malaysia before moving back to the regimental depot at Burnham as quartermaster.”

During his stellar career, Bill held various appointments as an instructor in the Royal NZ Infantry Regiment and also that of the Regimental Sergeant Major of the 1st Battalion Royal NZ Infantry Regiment while stationed in Malaya.

In 1967 he was appointed to a quartermaster commission and was appointed as quartermaster to Burnham Camp.

After a brief period as Investigating QM for the Southern Army Region, Bill assumed the appointment of Commander of the

Nelson, Marlborough and West Coast Army area, the appointment he had until his retirement in 1979.

Bill recalls one posting to Dannevirke and wondered what on earth he had done wrong. But the army had plans for Bill and wanted him to spend some time with civilians building good public relations and community respect for the army.

Living now in his hometown of Nelson it’s easy to see he was the right person for the job with his hearty greetings and friendly quips to fellow residents as they pass by his seat in the café.

“But looking back, my last posting to Nelson was special and a great thrill as I was very proud to represent the army in my hometown.”

“Anzac Day is remembering,” he says. One loss that has never left him is of a young dog handler who was shot when his dog caught the scent of a band of terrorists, and it dragged him ahead of his patrol.

“My father went to WWI and WWII and received an MBE for his service.”

Following his second term in Malaya, Bill was also awarded the MBE for military service.

“Anzac Day to me is for remembrance. It’s the little things I remember.

War is hopeless. But what’s the answer? It seems so futile.”

Norman Scoles, 93

Essie Summers Retirement Village

Norm Scoles personally received a Distinguished Service Medal from Queen Elizabeth II for his heroic efforts to rescue a fallen comrade from a skirmish on the Korean mainland.

Queen Elizabeth presented him with the medal at a special ceremony at the Civic Theatre in Christchurch. The Queen and Prince Phillip were on a royal tour and arrived at the Civic for the ceremony on January 20, 1954.

Norm’s award related to his actions and bravery on the west coast of Korea in September 1951, when he was still aged 21 and one of those serving with the frigate HMNZS Rotoiti. He says the objective of the landing was to cause the enemy a bit of trouble. But that aim soon rebounded on them when his mate Robert Marchioni was shot.

Norman carried the body of Able Seaman Marchioni over a cliff top and along a beach, before being forced to find a hiding place for the body. Norman, a Leading Seaman, and the landing party came under heavy enemy machine-gun fire and were forced to move quickly during the incursion on Go-Rin-Chi-Ki Point.

Marchioni was shot and killed as part of the Korean War, and since then there have been negotiations to repatriate the body. Whether or not his body remains where it was hidden is not known.

One press clipping from the time reported: “Scoles according to a Press Association message from Tokyo, knelt beside a mortally wounded comrade and applied a field dressing during heavy fire.” Scoles adds that he threw back a standard-issue

grenade, followed by a spray of bullets before instructing the troops to return to the boats.

Norm carried Robert on his shoulders around a rocky point to where the boats were waiting but left the body when he was exhausted.

In the recommendation for decoration, it says the grenade silenced guns and facilitated the withdrawal of the assaulting party he was part of.

Norm was born in Cromwell and grew up with four brothers and a sister in Arrowtown saying the Depression years were very tough. Food was so scarce they basically had to eat what they could catch, including rabbits, or grow.

His father had helped him get to as far as Dunedin before getting him on a rail car/then ferry in order to sign up for the navy in Auckland.

He trained in 1946 on the HMNZS Tamaki, then travelled throughout the South Pacific including Fiji, Tonga and on to Darwin and further above Australia. His first ship was the cruiser HMNZS Bellona. He remembers games of rugby against the Fijians.

Norm’s grandson Simon Bird wrote an account of his grandfather’s life, noting that after leaving the navy he worked as a watersider, then for 30 years as a foreman stevedore.

James Easton, 107

Grace Joel Retirement Village

James ‘Curly’ Easton was born on the 12th of December 1916 in Kirkintilloch, just outside Glasgow, Scotland.

His family left Scotland for Winnipeg in Canada before settling in Australia’s Hunter Valley in New South Wales when James was 12.

When war broke out, he would take photos of the men wearing their new uniforms.

He then got called up to do his compulsory three months with the Militia – the then name of the Australian Army Reserve –and after that he put himself forward to fight overseas, becoming a Signalman in 8th Division Signals of the Australian Army at the age of 23.

He was soon sent on a boat to Singapore. The conditions on the island were basic with open drains running through the streets. James was posted onto front gate duty and after a relatively uneventful start to the war, he found himself being bombed by the Japanese.

The allies had no tanks and no planes so fighting off the Japanese became a challenge. They held them off for two to three months until they were captured and marched off to the troops’ base in Changi, where they were set some gruesome tasks.

In 1942 James joined 3,500 Aussies and 3,500 Brits designated as F party who were sent in cattle trucks to Ban Pong, Thailand, a journey which took four days.

The men learned that they had to build a railway going up to Kanchanaburi in Burma. They would march by night, set up camp and work 16-hour days, fuelled only by a cup of rice with three beans in it.

“The slightest thing you’d get bashed,” says James.

For the 3–400km length of railway he reckons there would have been 100,000 people on the route, all labouring by hand, sometimes standing waist deep in water.

“It was actually good to get back to Changi, after 14 or 15 months up on the railway it was like coming home!

And we put on a bit of weight, and we weren’t getting bashed.

“We went back the same way we came in, in the cattle trucks.”

By war’s end, James was down to 7.5 stone – his normal weight was 12 stone 4lb.

He says it was a long time before he could sleep in a bed again.

While James puts his survival of the war down to ‘a lot of luck’, his approach to life has always revolved around having a wicked sense of humour.

However, when it comes to paying tribute to his fallen comrades James takes his duties very seriously.

He has travelled to Singapore and Thailand six times to pay his respects at the POW cemeteries and only stopped his annual trips back to Sydney to march on Anzac Day at the age of 94.

Bruce Hill, 92

Hilda Ross Retirement Village

Bruce was born 30th December 1931 and raised in New Plymouth. He was conscripted at 18, and this was his introduction to a long and distinguished career in the New Zealand Army.

After his three months training, he decided to leave his job as a newspaper reporter and joined the army at 20.

During that time, he was involved in three campaigns:

The Malayan Emergency – a communist uprising which he describes as the “British Vietnam” 1948 to 1960.

After World War II, the British, who had quietly supported and trained the Chinese communists to fight the Japanese, refused to let them become leaders. The communists retrieved their weapons hidden in the jungle, formed a guerrilla army and shot some British rubber plantation managers, which created a rebellion.

Britain had a lot of losses but gradually forced the communists out of the towns. The British had a lot of power. They were not only the army, they were the government.

At times the New Zealanders would be in the jungle for two or three months. The Kiwis were expert in the jungle and were desperately quiet, often using sign language. This unnerved the communists.

Posted to Borneo in the 1960s – when the British were withdrawing from Borneo, Bruce fought against the Indonesians who didn’t like the idea that Borneo should be joined (with Singapore) to Malaya, to form the new state of Malaysia. Bruce was in New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) then.

He was a young married man when he went to Borneo and his wife was due to have a baby. He was in Borneo when the baby was born in New Zealand. He was nearly killed in Borneo, and he realised how hard that could have been for her.

Bruce and his family subsequently went to Singapore in the early 1970s for a two-year posting and this time his family was with him.

During this time, he was sent to Vietnam. He was 40 then, so he was in Australian Headquarters in Nui Dat, Phuc Toi Province east of Saigon.

“We were aware a lot of people did not want us there; but then a lot of people did. We were also aware there was good reason for us to be there. We were also conscious that our government didn’t really want us there but were forced to send us there!”

As a regular soldier you don’t get to choose your wars. When the soldiers got back, a lot of New Zealanders didn’t like them for having been there. “They should have been booing the government, not us!”

Bruce started as a private and went through every rank to finally become a major. He was awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) after 30 years’ service.

Catherine Brown, 107

Hilda Ross Retirement Village

The war years for Catherine Brown were a far cry from her remote upbringing in the Shetland Islands but nothing seemed to faze the young nurse, dubbed ‘The Mighty Atom’ by her colleagues due to her short stature and strong work ethic.

Born on 31st March 1917, Catherine started her nursing training at Lincoln County Hospital in Lincolnshire before moving to Manchester to train as a midwife, which is when war broke out.

She volunteered to join the QAs (Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service) and left by convoy from Glasgow.

“I can remember sailing down the Clyde and the terrible noise of hammering in the port as it was wartime and they were building as many ships as possible, because they were getting torpedoed.”

The nurses were diverted to a site not far from Cairo to set up tent hospitals in the desert.

Until a desalination facility could be established, they were rationed to just a pint of water a day for washing themselves, their stockings and veils.

Catherine was a hospital sister in the theatre hospital, nursing around 600 men. Injuries were typically shrapnel wounds, with many needing operations on their eyes or amputations.

The nurses were doing things that the doctors would normally do because there weren’t enough doctors, and Catherine completed an eye operation.

“It was a very tough time and we worked really hard. I have tried to blot out these memories.”

Catherine says doing the job required at the time was always the priority. “You just had to get on with it.”

There were some lighter moments, when Catherine would do the tourist thing with a group of friends or a boyfriend.

She tells of ‘dancing in the streets of Damascus’ and riding a camel near the pyramids, or visiting the famous Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo.

From Egypt, Catherine was sent to Malta where she enjoyed the relative luxury of living and working in buildings rather than tents.

She was in Malta when it was razed to the ground and people were forced to live in caves.

After four and a half years, she went back to England and worked in an army hospital in Oxford until the end of the war.

With her great experience and obvious intelligence, friends suggested she train as a doctor at the Royal Free Hospital in London, but she never did.

At a family wedding she met up again with fellow islander Peter Brown, marrying him in Edinburgh in 1947 and then working as a nurse in a factory.

Two daughters followed, first Susan then seven years later Julia and the family emigrated to Australia before moving to New Zealand.

Catherine eventually worked as matron in a girls’ hostel and retired to Nelson in 1981.

Peter Sparrow, 83

Hilda Ross Retirement Village

The course was set for Peter’s 11-year career in the Royal New Zealand Navy after his cousin went on the Coronation Cruise in 1953.

“I decided ‘that’s me, I’m out of here!’” says Peter, who being born in October 1938, was only 15 years and four months when he signed up.

The eldest of five growing up in the tiny settlement of Sanson in the Manawatu and schooling at Palmerston North High School, Peter relished the chance to explore the world.

His first major posting was to Malaysia and Singapore on HMZS Black Prince in 1955 during the Malaya Emergency, but greater tension was to follow.

After being sent to the UK on HMNZS Bellona to bring back the HMNZS Royalist from Plymouth, Peter left England on 8 July 1956 travelling to Malta to join up with the Mediterranean fleet.

“That’s when we got caught up with Operation Musketeer, known as the Suez crisis.”

Peter was in Naples, Italy when the captain received word they had to depart immediately, and the sirens were sounded to call the crew on shore back in.

“We were oblivious to what was happening because you had no access to the news back then.”

They soon realised they were in the middle of a serious situation however as the world’s superpowers tussled over rights of access to the important link between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean, and a very tense 10 days ensued.

“Even in the downtime we were on edge, and it would be action stations at 4am because when the light’s starting to get up it’s a good time for anyone to attack.”

The ship was finally released to return home in November 1956, travelling along the western side of Africa as the canal was still blocked, arriving back on 20 December, 14 months after they’d left.

His subsequent years included a return trip to Singapore in 1961 where he had a taste of jungle warfare on an exchange with 2 Battalion.

“We were training in the jungle then out in the bush, which was exhausting but luckily I did physical training every day and I’d run on the decks when we were alongside.”

Much of his remaining time in the navy involved being part of the admin team at the Tamaki training depot and the naval communications station HMNZS Irirangi at Waiouru until his term expired in October 1964.

Then, love came calling, and Peter left in order to marry Pamela.

“I always said I’d marry a farmer’s girl – and we’re still together!”

Peter gives back to the community as a life member of the Katikati RSA and is proud to play an active part in the Hilda Ross Anzac Day commemorations where he reflects on former colleagues.

George Roberts, 92

Jane Mander Retirement Village

George had a harder start in life than most, being a foundling baby in Christchurch, born in March 1932. His first few years were spent in an orphanage in Ferry Road before he was fostered out to the Roberts family.

He remembers moving up to Auckland in primer four and going to Albany Primary and Northcote Intermediate.

Like many children of that era, George left school at 14 and went to work at Stotts Butchers.

After the war, compulsory military training (CMT) was reintroduced and after turning 18, George was eligible for the first intake in 1950.

While the training was just a matter of weeks, the impact it had on his life was far-reaching.

He initially returned to the butchers but later did another six weeks training and joined the territorial army where he remained an active member for many years.

It was while he was with the 9th Coast Regiment of the Coast Artillery that he met his wife Hazel.

He later worked as a firefighter and was based out of various Auckland stations including Parnell, Auckland, Takapuna, and East Coast Bays.

When CMT was stopped in 1972 George was one of those keen to see it reintroduced because of the skills it gave him in life.

He believed there were great benefits including confidence and discipline that could be instilled in young men who may have had a similar rough start in life to him, with the ultimate hope that would reduce the rising numbers in youth crime.

George and Hazel married in 1954 later having two children, Gaylene and Gavin.

Hazel started driving school buses which eventually led to the couple buying into a bus business which later took them north to Whangarei.

At one point they had a fleet of 35 of Whangarei’s Blue Buses with George managing the business and Hazel still driving.

In 1996 George was awarded a Queen’s Service Medal for public services.

He wears that medal proudly alongside those he received for his CMT, his firefighting and his territorial army service and is always actively involved in village commemorations for Anzac Day.

Gordon Keelty, 79

Jane Winstone Retirement Village

While serving in Vietnam, Lieutenant Gordon James Keelty was sweltering in jungle patrols, and taking helicopter trips across enemy lines. He is still thankful he and his battalion unit survived.

Gordon rose to the rank of Lieutenant as part of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, having trained at Burnham, south of Christchurch. He served in Vietnam in 1969, having flown to Malaysia in 1967.

He motored down to an operations base at Nui Dat, to the east of Saigon, and also close to Long Tan, which had been the location of a famous battle in 1966 involving Australian troops.

He and other troops were there to make forays into Viet Cong territory setting up in camp in their hoochie tents. Firefights ensued.

“In Vietnam, for example, you’d be out on a patrol that would last 28 days. You didn’t shower in that time of course. You had to be particularly careful operating in the bush. You had to be careful of your hygiene...

“Then you had two sets of clothes which were just denim and light denim, so you’d wear one set during the day, and you’d be sweating in the heat of Malaysia, and you had another set in your pack.

“In the night you’d get into your dry clothes to sleep in and then get up in the morning and get back in the wet clothes.”

After he left the combat zone, two good friends he served with were killed by enemy fire.

Gordon says rendezvous times, for example for water drop offs, were dangerous. “Of course, helicopters coming in was a sure sign to the enemy of where you were... You'd get off out of that area as quick as you could.”

Anzac battalion members stationed in Nui Dat lived in tough conditions. New Zealand had two companies as part of the forces, he says. “They were large tents we lived in, sandbags round the outside... That was in the middle of an old rubber type plantation, that was quite different.”

He has images in his mind of his arrival into Vietnam. “We flew into Saigon from Singapore, and I was in a Bristol freighter, which was an old bucket of bolts.

“But they were an old aircraft, that was a bit of a source of amazement to the Americans, that they saw these planes and thought they can’t possibly be still flying because they were that old.”

It was overseas in September 1968, at Terendak Camp, he says he met his lovely wife Marjorie. She’d come from England to teach in the British army secondary school.

Gordon stayed in the forces until the early 1980s, retiring as a Major, and had various other periods of service including being stationed in Singapore from 1976 to 1978.

Jack Pringle, 98

Jean Sandel Retirement Village

Jack was born in the small Central Otago town of Naseby in 1925 and grew up in nearby Ranfurly.

Living in an inland part of the South Island and having never left Otago, Jack had hardly ever seen a ship before and certainly had never been in a boat of any sort! At 18 he volunteered for the navy.

His training began at Devonport Naval Base, then on to nearby Motuihe Island, Lyttelton, and Auckland.

While finishing training in Auckland the HMS Gambia arrived.

“It was only about 8500 tonnes, but it seemed enormous to me. I had joined the navy and I wanted to go to sea,” said Jack.

Fortunately for Jack, a telegraphist had taken ill, and Jack joined the ship which headed to join the British Pacific Fleet forming in Sydney. It was his first time on a ship. “I thought this was marvellous,” he recalls.

“Sailing into Sydney Harbour I couldn’t believe the sight.”

They headed to the Admiralty Islands where there was a huge American naval base on Manus Island and then joined the American fleet, south of Japan just before they attacked Okinawa.

The 82-day battle began on April 1st and continued until June 22nd, 1945. During that time, they never left the ship and supplies were delivered about every two weeks.

They were the fleet guides escorting their aircraft carriers. Their role was to suppress Japanese air activity. They were bombing the Japanese airfields that kamikaze pilots were using.

“Eventually the Americans took over Okinawa and we all moved up.

“On the 6th August we detached from the main fleet to bombard some airstrips on Formosa (Taiwan).

“That day they dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. We thought the war would be over, but it wasn’t.

“On the 15th August the Japanese surrendered. We were still just off the coast. I was on the bridge when I heard all this gunfire – but the war was over!

I went outside, and a kamikaze was coming straight at us from the stern, being chased by an American fighter who shot it."

The Japanese plane hit the water about 50 meters in front of us and blew up.

“I have often wondered if this one guy even knew the war was over, or was he determined to give his life to the Emperor?

“About a week later we sailed into Sagami Wan Bay near Tokyo Bay."

After the signing the Gambia was detached and sent to the inland sea south of Tokyo. There were Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camps there.

“We went to help to get POWs onto hospital ships and send telegrams back, giving the names of the blokes who were rescued.”

“We never learn, and you never forget it.”

Murray and Ann Evans, 82 & 78

Jean Sandel Retirement Village

Together Murray and Ann Evans spent a combined 28 years plus service with the Royal New Zealand Air Force and NZ Army.

Murray joined the RNZAF in January 1958, as a 16-year-old ‘Boy Entrant’, while wife Ann joined the Air Force in 1968. Eventually, their service brought them together while they were both at the RNZAF Station Te Rapa.

Murray says joining straight out of high school meant he really didn't know what hit him. After his 18 months of initial recruit training, he was posted for his first 12 months of service at Wigram, Christchurch.

Then he was transferred up to No 1 Stores Depot, Te Rapa in Hamilton, which held all the spare parts for the air force aircraft. “We were commonly known as grocers; our trade was equipment and supply,” he says.

Ann started her service in Wigram in Christchurch, having lived in Papakura in Auckland.

“A friend talked me into joining the air force, so I went in and joined and went down to Wigram in Christchurch for my recruit training, and then was transferred to ASDA (Aeronautical Supply Depot Auckland) in Hobsonville,” Ann says.

“They then transferred me down to Porirua in Wellington as the air force was operating a new computer mainframe system, which was bigger than our house. As a data processor, I operated the NCR33 accounting machine.”

In 1970, Murray was transferred to RNZAF Air Movements at Wellington Airport for four years. He was in charge of all military aircraft flying in and out of Wellington, which included RNZAF, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Air Force or visiting Air Forces from around the world, including all VIP flights for military, New Zealand dignitaries, and overseas royalty

“The first two weeks I was there, one of our Bristol Freighter aircraft landed on its regular freight run,” Murray remembers.

“The freighter missed the turn off to the hangar, and was cleared to ‘backtrack’. Unfortunately, his main landing gear found a soft spot where recently new runway lights had been installed. This resulted in the airport being closed for a short while as the aircraft was ‘cleared’.”

In the early 70s Ann was transferred to Woodbourne, Blenheim, to manage the Machine Room for the NCR33 Accounting Machines. By this time, she’d been promoted to Sergeant and was also in charge of the air-women's barracks as well as the machine room.

To visit Murray the base aircraft used to fly from Blenheim over to Wellington frequently. If there was a space Ann would hop on to visit Murray in Wellington for the weekend.

“We were married in ‘74 and had two children, both of which now live in Australia,”

“I left the Air Force in 1971 and came over to Wellington and worked there until Murray finished his term at Air Movements. We were married in ‘74 and had two children, both of whom now live in Australia,” Ann says.

Murray remembers that in 1972 while at Air Movements Wellington, the air force was asked to help with a shipment of pedigree bulls that had arrived from France which had to go into quarantine on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour. The 3 Squadron Iroquois helicopters lifted about 50 bulls off the ship that they were on and put them on the island. This was called ‘Operation Bull Ship’.

Murray says in the mid 70s he was transferred to No 1 MAM’S (Mobile Air Movements); an operational logistics role as loadmaster support for the aircraft operating within NZ and overseas. These included Bristol Freighters, C130 Hercules, Douglas DC3s and Hawker Siddeley Andover aircraft and travel beckoned.

“We went to Australia, Kathmandu, Burma (now Mynamar), the UK, most of the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, the Azores, Antarctica, Singapore, Bangladesh, India,” Murray says.

“Our team flew to assist (42 Squadron) whenever when they were away overseas on operational exercises. The main one being 75 Squadron Skyhawks to Singapore and Malaysia.

“The C130’s would fly with them to Singapore, and Malaysia with all the squadron support equipment, then about 6-8 weeks later we'd recover them back to NZ.”

Murray made two trips to Kathmandu in support of Sir Edmund Hillary and the school and hospital trust he set up there.

“There were also relief support flights following cyclone and earthquake events around the Pacific islands, which also included Cyclone Tracey in Darwin 1974,” he says.

“Our team played a big part with Operation Deep Freeze support for the United States Antarctic Research Program (USARP) and the New Zealand Antarctic Research Program (NZARP) in both Antarctica and Christchurch.”

Murray says he completed 22 years of RNZAF service finishing in 1979. “Six months later, I enlisted back into the NZ Army... and because I had just come off operational movements logistics support, they were interested in my experience,” he says.

I was transferred to Christchurch, which again saw me involved with Antarctic Support and various other roles.”

Following a 25-year service career, Murray took on a second career of 27 years in the oil and gas industry. He finally retired in 2010.

Photo courtesy of Murray and Ann Evans

Ted Grace, 86

Jean Sandel Retirement Village

Ted Grace joined the army as a cadet in 1955. His chosen Corps was Armour. In 1957 he volunteered for a tour with 1 New Zealand regiment, an infantry battalion established to join 28 Commonwealth Brigade in operations against the Malaya Communist Party.

In Malaya Ted was posted to an infantry platoon, the main task of which was jungle patrolling.

“Patrols were difficult. The enemy at that time were at home in the jungle and we had to be very disciplined in our operations,” says Ted.

Patrols lasted from about 10 days to several weeks. Long patrols were resupplied by airdrop.

During a deep jungle patrol of six weeks Ted’s platoon came across a tiny village of Orang Asli, the indigenous people of the area. These folk have a history going back thousands of years. At times the platoon was able to provide security for them when they went hunting – with blowpipes and poisoned darts!

After 13 months in Malaya Ted returned to New Zealand, re-joined his Corps and was posted to various units around the country. He met and married Avon in 1965 and their son was born in 1969.

In late 1970 Ted was posted to 1 New Zealand Army Training Team in Vietnam. He and eleven other senior non-commissioned officers formed the training element of the Team.

In Vietnam the team underwent orientation training with the US Army. This covered US and enemy weapons, organisations and tactics and a “crash course” in the Vietnamese language.

After this the 12 New Zealanders were, in pairs, attached to 4-man US Army units who lived in Vietnamese hamlets and trained and operated with local troops.

“This attachment was particularly stressful. One simply did not know who the enemy was until the shooting started. Adding to the stress was witnessing the dreadful effect enemy attacks had on women and children,” says Ted.

Soon after arriving in Vietnam Ted had received a telegram to say Avon was expecting a “blessed event” which was Post Office telegram code for “I am pregnant.”

Their daughter was born while Ted was on tour, which was tough for Avon particularly as Ted was able to make only two phone calls in the entire 13 months he was away in Vietnam. No cell phones, PC’s or Zoom. Snail mail only!

When Ted returned to New Zealand, anti-war sentiment was prevalent in the country, and Vietnam men and women veterans were not welcomed home as previous war veterans had been. “That left a bitter, long-lasting effect on those who made the sacrifice.”

And Ted says, “There are no doubt many stories of valour amongst those wives, husbands and children left behind who also made the sacrifice, and survived.”

Peter Brightwell, 99

Jean Sandel Retirement Village

Peter grew up in a remote part of New Zealand called Cape Turnagain, Herbertville on the East Coast of the North Island.

He was born on the 4th April 1925 and celebrated his 21st birthday on his way to Japan in 1946.

“I signed up just before the end of the war. I was excited after the army training,” he said, “and I was old enough to join up for the occupation force in Japan.”

He sailed to Japan on the troopship, SS Empire Pride and was there as part of J-Force for about 18 months. “I was a Jeep driver for our commanding officer, so I got to drive all over different parts of Japan.”

There he witnessed the remains of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombing and recalled it as, “just flat”.

Part of their job was peacekeeping but also to check for hidden stashes of munitions. Many Japanese people did not want to surrender and there was always the chance someone might retaliate.

It was such a different culture for someone who had never left New Zealand, but Peter picked up some of the language and can still count to 10 in Japanese!

“We made good friendships.”

On return to New Zealand, Peter attended a carpentry course offered by the army and completed an apprenticeship to become a builder. “I chose Masterton,” he said. He is a firm believer in the benefits and discipline of military training for young men and women today.

A keen musician, Peter bought a tenor saxophone for £25 while he was in Japan and he still plays it to this day. He belongs to a band called ‘Top Hat’ and he sometimes entertains the village residents.

Peter commemorates Anzac Day. He had two older brothers who went to World War II and he said it brings back a lot of memories.

Howard Robinson, 85

John Flynn Retirement Village

Anzac Day has always been an easy day for Howard (Clem) Robinson to remember, not least because it is his birthday. Clem was born on 25th April 1938.

Clem’s father, also named Clem Robinson, fought in the trenches of France during the First World War, and while the Robinson family avoided fighting in the Second World War, Clem was called for national service when he was 18.

“I passed the medical, so there was no getting out of it,” Clem said.

“I can’t say that military life appealed to me all that much as an 18-year-old, it was not really my cup of tea, but I must admit, it prepared me for a lot of things later in life.”

Clem completed his national service training at Campbell Barracks in Swanbourne, in Perth, Western Australia, during the summer break between his undergraduate and postgraduate Biochemistry studies at the University of Western Australia.

“After that basic training I joined the Western Australia University Regiment of the Citizen’s Military Forces,” Clem said.

“I was in it for the next three years, which was good fun, we went on annual camps and I’ve got lots of happy memories of those.

“We were fortunate that we did several weeks of basic training at Kingston Barracks on Rottnest Island [those Barracks are now a holiday resort].

We spent a good few weeks there training jungle warfare in what were not jungle conditions.”

But there were also challenging aspects of the training, including using equipment already well-used in two world wars.

“In one exercise we had to run and stab our bayonets into a big bag full of straw and I thought ‘can I really imagine doing this to another human being?’

“That was not a happy moment.

“I thought this was pretty horrifying.”

In 1960 Clem was awarded a Hackett scholarship from the University of Western Australia which enabled him to undertake further study at the University of Oxford.

“I went off to England and that cut my military training short by a couple of months,” he said.

“But I was very lucky and privileged to also meet my wife Ida there (Oxford).

“Being there was certainly a world changing experience for me.”

His time in the national service and Citizen’s Military Forces was formative.

“Whether it be military, or some other form of national service, I think the training is probably beneficial for many young people, Clem said.

“It was certainly good for me.

“I look back on it now with some fondness.”

Robert Creek, 78

John Flynn Retirement Village

It’s been 57 years since since John Flynn resident Robert Creek, then 22-years-old, served in Vietnam as a member of 3 Troop 1 Field Squadron, Royal Australian Engineers (RAE).

When Robert flew to Vietnam on November 10, 1967, he had only been married to his wife, Kay, for weeks.

While flying over East Timor, he signed off a letter to Kay; ‘Miss you a lot’.

He would see Kay sooner than anticipated, but he would be a changed man.

Robert spent 3 ½ months in Vietnam, but it was the events of a few hours between February 17th-18th, 1968, that irreparably changed him.

The ‘Tet Offensive’ had been mounted, and 3 Troop was on overnight standing patrol of Fire Support Base Andersen on the north-easterly outskirts of Saigon.

“I had never been so heavily loaded with arms in my life,” Robert says

“I carried a hand grenade in each top breast pocket, seven magazines of twenty rounds of SLR bullets were clipped to my web belt, a continuous metal belt of machine gun rounds hung over my shoulder down to my thigh, a Claymore mine complete with detonators, wire leads, and a rifle made up my armament.”

But when fierce grenade and mortar attack was launched at 3 Troop’s position, Robert and his mates were unable to defend themselves.

“We weren’t able to fire a shot in reply, the circumstances didn’t permit it,” he said.

When dawn broke, four of the 10 men in the patrol had been killed.

“To this day the sight of my four deceased friends, just lying there, squashed one on top of the other in a dishevelled heap on two stretchers is as clear as it was then, and often brings tears to my eyes,” Robert says.

Robert was treated for shrapnel wounds to his left arm and right leg in Vietnam, before returning to Melbourne on March 14, 1978.

His physical wounds slowly healed, and he and Kay raised two daughters.

But in 2000, Robert had a nervous breakdown at work.

He was subsequently diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and has seen the same psychiatrist for the past 24 years.

While PTSD will always live with Robert, the unwavering support of his family has eased the severity.

In 2011, Robert fulfilled a promise made in 1968.

“I visited the graves of my deceased mates and said a silent prayer for them,” he says.

On Vietnam Veterans Day, 2013, Robert laid a wreath at The Long Tan Cross in Vietnam.

“A huge weight of anxiety and depression has been lifted from my shoulders since this day,” he says.

Jenny Hodges, 73

Keith Park Retirement Village

Jenny Hodges’ air force career – and her life - came close to ending just six weeks in.

Returning home to Whakatane after graduating from the short recruitment course in Woodbourne meant sailing aboard the doomed Wahine ferry, which sank in Wellington Harbour on 10 April 1968.

Jenny and her friend Carol were on an upper deck and were separated from the other air force girls.

“It was about seven hours from the Wahine hitting the Barrett Reef until the abandon ship call, so there was a lot of milling around muster stations.

“We ended up in rubber rafts and went over to Eastbourne.

“We walked along the shore, and some policemen and army guys met us and we were taken to the RSA at Eastbourne.”

It took her by surprise when three local Māori wardens turned up asking for her.

“My mum was a Māori warden in Edgecumbe and she got hold of the Māori wardens in Wellington. All of a sudden these three ladies arrived and said ‘are you alright? Good, we’ll tell your mum!’”

Jenny says despite only having six weeks’ of training, it proved to be ‘really helpful’ when assisting the ferry stewards in getting people over the side.

“There were a lot of older people on the boat who needed help and our training really stood us in good stead. We learnt to work together and help out when needed.”

Jenny puts her survival down to ‘luck and intuition’ and says she never suffered any after-effects.

“Arriving back at Woodbourne the reaction was ‘good to see you!’. I met up with six of the girls at the 50th reunion which was a great weekend.”

It was Jenny’s love of planes that made her join up but it was romantic love that led to her leaving when her new husband Kerry was posted to Singapore.

“I got called up to my boss. The posting had come through and it had changed from a single man to a married man and for me to go with him I would have to come out of the air force. Back then there had never been any serving airwomen on overseas postings.

“I said that’s not a problem. My son Nathan was born over there a year later so it was the start of something new anyway,” she says.

The new skills she learned as a radio tech assistant, the huge amount of sports she played and the strong friendships were the highlights of Jenny’s service, with a group of four couples still regularly catching up.

Now, Jenny is enjoying the air force connections at Keith Park Village in Hobsonville where she moved last year to be near her grandchildren.

John Santos, 78

Keith Park Retirement Village

Tongan-born and raised until the age of 12, John Santos was the only one of his 12 siblings to join the military, following instead his father Manoel Santos’s example by joining a NZ force.

But after seeing a pamphlet brought by a career advisor to St Paul’s Catholic School in Ponsonby which said ‘Join the Navy and see the world’ John opted to pursue his lifelong affinity with the sea rather than join the NZ Army like Manoel.

John was amongst the last intake on Motuihe Island for training in May 1963. The first shock on arrival was seeing his Elvis Presley-style haircut ‘shaved off to half an inch all round!’

He was told later that he was the first Tongan to be recruited in the NZ Navy, but he never felt there was anything special about that.

“There was a Samoan and Niuean matelot who joined before me. I was just another sailor trying to fit in,” he says.

In fact he was included with the Māori sailors, even wearing piupiu and performing in Māori concert parties.

His first draft was onto HMNZS Royalist, taking the Governor General Bernard Ferguson on an island cruise which included returning to his homeland of Tonga after seven years.

Despite a leave ban, an appeal for leave was granted when his bosses realized he was Tongan. An emotional 12 hours ashore followed, reuniting with cousins, aunties and uncles and even his beloved horse Tough Guy.

John certainly saw the world, with a highlight being sent by Hercules to England to pick up HMNZS Blackpool and bring it back via the Suez Canal.

Despite considerable experience of rough seas, nothing could prepare him for the recovery mission of MV Maranui whilst serving on HMNZS Lachlan.

The cargo ship’s load of wheat had shifted during a severe storm in June 1968 causing it to sink with nine of the 15 crewmen lost.

“We went back to Auckland to get fuel and supplies and when we returned to look for more bodies a couple of the new young sailors who had joined us never came back.”

John is incredibly proud of his eight years serving in the Navy and is an active member of the Navy Club.

“I loved the camaraderie, and the friends I made are still some of my closest friends today.

“I learnt new skills and ways of coping with the many challenges that I faced – which often meant sorting it out yourself!”

This followed into John’s subsequent career in freight first with NAC Freight and then Air New Zealand where he worked as a Loader and also as a Freight Liaison Officer on the DC8 freighter transporting livestock.

Anzac Day is a big day in John’s calendar and this year he will travel to Tonga with his wife Kate to commemorate it with his youngest brother.

John Schollum, 77

Keith Park Retirement Village

Gisborne-born John Schollum and his two brothers were strongly encouraged by their father to enter the military after completing their schooling at Tolaga Bay and Mercury Bay district high schools.

John’s fascination with planes prompted him to pick the New Zealand Air Force and the ‘young, shy 16-year-old’ was soon assigned to a group of 20 fellow teenagers in a dormitory, or flight, at Boy School at Woodbourne who quickly became friends for life.

John faced another obstacle that his new friends decided to help him overcome – a stutter.

“This has been a lifelong challenge and to be a radio operator it was even more of a challenge.

“My chances of continuing in this role were looking very slim as I stuttered and stammered through the training classes, so the boys in my flight decided to thump me on the arm every time I stuttered.

“Some weeks I could hardly lift my arms as they were black and blue, however I gradually started to stutter less and less, and my confidence increased.”

After eight years as a telegraphist/ communications operator, John was successfully remustered to be an airborne communicator (AEop), spending several years on the Orion before moving to the Bristol Freighter.

“The Bristol was an old, slow lumbering aircraft still operating with a WW2 flight configuration of Pilot, Navigator and Signaller – while some referred to it as 50,000 rivets flying in a loose formation, I loved it!

“We went to all sorts of out of the way places throughout the Pacific and South East Asia. To fly to Singapore was a five-day experience.”

Five days after marrying his wife Wendy, John was posted to Singapore for ‘a two-year honeymoon’ and what became the highlight of his flying career.

Coming three months after the Vietnam War ended, his operations instead included Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea.

A later role back in New Zealand was Ops Officer at Whenuapai Base Operations which involved liaising between squadrons, bases, air traffic control and the Met offices to arrange flights through local and international air spaces.

This proved invaluable experience in his next career move as Logistics Controller working in the joint air operations/crew control unit with Air New Zealand.

“The skills I learnt in the air force as well as gaining the confidence to get on and do stuff enabled me to go on and work at Air New Zealand and later in an area school in Northland assisting senior students to seek employment.”

John always attends Anzac Day services and in 2015 was extremely proud to march alongside his two brothers, one of whom was a Captain in the NZ Army and the other a Colonel in the Australian Army, leading the NZ contingent in the Brisbane Anzac parade.

Don Bennington, 76

Keith Park Retirement Village

While many associate the military with war and fighting, for Don Bennington, a 25-year career in the Royal New Zealand Air Force was an overwhelmingly life-affirming experience.

“I felt that we New Zealanders were not the aggressors and in fact most of my time in the service our time was spent preserving life, in search and rescue missions, assisting with hurricane relief in the Islands, and, during my time on the HMNZS Canterbury, to be available to rescue citizens off the beach in Fiji during Colonel Rabuka’s coup.”

Settling on the air force in 1965 as the ideal way to learn a trade Don started out at Wigram followed by Hobsonville for basic engineering training with an eye on becoming an aircraft technician. He worked on Vampire Jets, DC3s, Harvards, Devons, Briston Freighters, Orions, Iroquois and Wasps all around the South Pacific and Asia.

While a lot of his work involved search and rescue and emergency relief missions, his most hair-raising experience was in New Zealand, with a mayday landing after the Iroquois helicopter he was in suddenly stalled while flying over the Auckland Harbour Bridge!

“As we were coming down, we thought it would be best to land at Hobsonville, and we made it to the end of the airfield. As we hit the ground the ambulance and fire engine were on the scene, it was pretty dramatic!”

One highlight during his 2 and a 1/2 year posting in Singapore was being part of the crew flying over the South China Sea and being asked to search for the very latest Russian submarine passing underneath.

“Standing there in the flight deck and seeing the submarine passing under the nose just 200 feet below was a tremendous feeling, realising that had this not been peace time, this was what we were all about, searching and destroying submarines.”

He finished his air force days with two years serving on HMNZS Canterbury from 1985-87 and then as Warrant Officer at #1 Technical Training School before retiring in 1989.

Since retirement he has been an active member in the Warrant Officer and Senior Non-Commissioned Officers’ Mess, Hobsonville Old Boys’ Committee and a member of the 3 Squadron and 5 Squadron Associations.

Don is proud to have attended Anzac Day services every year since retiring from the RNZAF.

“For me it is very important. I remember my great uncles, Alex Bennington who was killed in Gallipoli and his brother Spencer Bennington who flew Sopwith Camels in Europe but luckily returned after the war, and also my father and his brother who served in the Islands in WWII and who both returned.

“It is also a time to remember my fellow airmen and women who have since passed.”

Frank Roach, 84

Kiri Te Kanawa Retirement Village

Frank was born in 1939 in Waipawa, Central Hawke's Bay and grew up in small town Ōtāne where his father had the general store, before moving to Napier when he was 12 years old.

It had always been Frank’s dream to be a pilot, but his father wasn’t keen, so Frank followed his wishes and joined the bank for 18 months.

But the dream didn’t fade and finally Frank got to join the RNZAF aged 18, training at Wigram for his pilot wings, then Ohakea for the engine conversion course and finally at Whenuapai on Bristol Freighters, graduating in 1959.

“I was involved in the Indonesia-Malaysian Confrontation outbreak on Borneo.” This was the same year New Zealand became involved in the Vietnam war.

“The Indonesians were inserting people in behind the borders and they, [the British] were worried they were trying to take over Borneo.”

This was what Frank had been trained for and he was happy to go overseas.

It was 1965 and he got engaged on a Friday.

“On the Monday the boss said to me, ‘I have a posting to Singapore in two weeks.’ I told him I had just got engaged and he asked me if I could get married in a fortnight! I got married and then left for Singapore for two years.

“I was based in Kuching. I would do two weeks there, then four weeks back in Singapore.

“It was peaceful doing sorties first thing in the morning flying Bristol Freighters with supplies to support the army on the ground. The Bristol Freighter can carry five tons. We used to be finished by 11am. It wasn’t a hardship.”

One aircraft was hit by machine gun fire after it accidentally crossed the border, but no crew were wounded.

“The confrontation was diplomatically resolved, and Indonesia backed down.”

Frank also flew to Korat in Thailand and was involved in the Vietnam war flying in supplies. “We were not posted there. We were there to support the Americans.

“In 1967 I returned to Wigram as an instructor for four years, then went to Ohakea Air Base flying DC3s on the VIP squadron.”

He travelled to many places including Nepal and Antarctica and in 1979 helped in the recovery after the Erebus disaster.

After 22 years Frank left the air force and joined Air NZ as a simulator instructor for 19 years, but the desire to fly was still strong.

Germany offered that opportunity and Frank trained on the Dornier 228

He spent 12 months in Papua New Guinea training pilots, then returned to Germany for three years doing simulator training on the newer Dornier 328

Frank’s extensive flying career has left him with many memories.

His eyes light up as he says, “I always wanted to fly. It was my boyhood dream that came true.”

Pamela Lewis, 99

Kiri Te Kanawa Retirement Village

Pam Lewis was born and bred in Gisborne and is very proud of it.

“I loved growing up in Gisborne.”

Pam chose not to continue with her secondary education as she was keen to earn money so she could buy her own clothes.

She started working at the Gisborne Herald. She stayed there for five years, until the war started and then she moved to Wellington for war work.

“We volunteered because we knew we were going to be called up anyway.”

Pam went to work for the Canadian owned Ford Munitions Factory in Lower Hutt, where there was a severe shortage of female labour to help fuel the war effort.

It was one of many workplaces now employing women in jobs traditionally held by men, to free them up to serve in the armed forces.

Buses collected them to take them to work from the purpose-built women’s hostel. “They were very good to us there. It was a huge factory and we worked much longer hours than I was used to.”

“One of my jobs was to put the fuses on to 25-pound shells,” explains Pam.

“Our work was regularly checked and if we did 10,000 and one was wrong, we had to do them all over again.

“We just got stuck into it, we were moved around testing different components. It was very noisy. I worked on a great big machine feeding bits of steel into it.

“If you worked in the powder room packing explosives into grenades you got paid a lot more money, but they had to shower and change their clothes after their shifts and their skin went yellow.

“I loved it and met new friends. It seemed such a lot of money we were earning. But I had been really frightened of the Japanese threat living on the East Coast.

“VJ Day was absolutely marvellous –everyone was on the streets.

“When the war ended, they begged us to stay on in Wellington as they were so short of office workers. We had our choice of jobs! I was enjoying it down there and I had relatives I could board with. I chose to work for Government Life, (now Tower Insurance).

“Later I transferred to Auckland but I knew I would always come back to Gisborne.”

The Ford factory assembled and filled nearly six million hand grenades and 1.2 million mortar bombs.

Women were encouraged to do their bit for the war effort and Pam agrees. “Women really came into their own after the war.”

Carl Rofe, 84

Linda Jones Retirement Village

The early death of his father in 1955 prompted Carl’s mother to enrol him in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a Boy Entrant.

“I was underage at just 15 and the youngest of that 115-entrant draft, but she probably thought I needed the supervision,” says Carl, who was born in Gisborne and schooled in Rotorua and then at Wellington College.

After several years of training at Woodbourne, Carl served with Ohakea’s 75 Squadron as a light-alloy specialist.

“Aircraft are mostly built from Duralumin alloy which is quite difficult to work into the complex curves needed for all sorts of parts, so it’s a specialist trade.”

In the early 1960s Carl was detached with 75 Squadron in Singapore, which was operating out of Tengah Airport during the Malaya Emergency.

He spent the time there servicing Canberra bombers supporting English RAF Venom aircraft bombing terrorist targets in Malaya.

Fortunately, his focus remained on the work in hand, and he never felt in danger or scared.

“Only the aircrew saw the dangerous stuff,” he says.

In fact, the biggest physical harm Carl came to was back in New Zealand when his car was hit head on by a drunk driver, leaving him in traction for two months at Palmerston North Hospital.

That also signalled the end of his work on aircraft, so he retrained and finished out his nine-year service enlistment within the Ohakea Photographic Section.

“You name it, we did it!" he said.

“My most satisfying task was photographing a Canberra bomber from nose-on, then doing a very large print on metre-width roll paper that was six metres long.

“It was used as part of the hangar display for an Ohakea open day and at the time was believed to be the largest photo print ever done in New Zealand!”

Carl remains extremely proud of his air force career: “That’s what helped me grow from a boy to a man and also become a skilled engineer.”

After discharge he worked for Airland, a company that operated several DC3 and Lodestar heavy topdressing aircraft and he recalls some ‘very interesting’ low level flying in large aircraft amongst the hills on post-servicing test flights!

He retired from Airland aged 47 and furthered his sports interest by establishing an archery manufacturing business as well as taking up competitive shooting.

Since moving into the village with his wife of more than 50 years, Lyn, Carl has played an active part in Anzac Day commemorations.

“I am happy that more and more young people are recognising the efforts of this country’s past service people.

“Sadly, there will always be wars and the world will always need ‘policemen’.

“On the day my reflections are often towards the majority of my 115-draft who are no longer with us."

Jim Newman, 90

Linda Jones Retirement Village

A desire to see the world led 16-year-old Jim Newman to join the navy as a Seaman Boy in 1949.

Hamilton-born Jim grew up on a farm near Morrinsville and had gone to school at Mangateparu Primary and Morrinsville College but at 15 decided there was more to life than school.

His first ship was HMNZS Black Prince on which he did the Coronation Cruise to mark the Queen’s coronation in 1953, going to the UK, through the Suez Canal, and around the Pacific, his dream of seeing the world quickly being realised.

“I went through a number of different countries, some of them I’d never heard of.

“It transformed my life from a benign existence to one that made me think about the wider world around us,” he says.

He was then posted to South Korea for a year on the frigate HMNZS Hawea but it was during his second trip on HMNZS Kaniere in 1956 that he had a very close call.

Now an Able Seaman with the role of Radar Operator, he was one of a group who asked the ship’s captain if they could make their way to Seoul on land.

Says Jim: “Fighting had stopped at that stage so there wasn’t much chance of getting shot at.”

Or so they thought.

“We went up to the top of Hill 355 in a Jeep and as soon as we got up the top the North Koreans started to mortar us.

Luckily there was a foxhole under a big tree and as I hopped in there a mortar fragment whizzed past my ear. A little Korean kid was inside and waved me in. He was braver than I was, I think!”

Jim picked up the fragment and has kept it to this day, a stark reminder of the cold reality of war.

“I don’t like war, I think it’s ridiculous and should be avoided at nearly all costs. If you can’t avoid it, you’ve got to think very seriously about what the outcome’s going to be.”

He says his eight years in the navy shaped the direction his life would take, not just his love of travel – he has visited 64 different countries – but also the ‘discipline and knowledge I had learnt while serving which was to hold me in great stead later in life’.

He was also president of the New Zealand Korean Veterans' Association from 2009-2013 and his work lobbying for war veterans was recognised with the award of a Queen’s Service Medal in 2013.

He has been back to South Korea many times since his near miss with the mortar, marking special occasions with New Zealand dignitaries such as then Prime Minister Helen Clark.

“I love the people and I love the place,” he says.

Ross McLay, 87

Linda Jones Retirement Village

It was an ad in the paper looking for volunteers to go to Malaya that prompted Ross McLay to join the army at the age of 22.

As the second to youngest of 12 children originally from Taumarunui in the King Country, Ross had been working at the Post Office in Wellington having left school aged 15.

He had done his Compulsory Military Training in 1959 and then returned to the Post Office.

“It appealed to me I suppose,” he says. “I was a young fellow, and the jungle warfare was a challenge.”

Ross was part of the 2NZ Regiment, the last battalion to leave New Zealand on the ship TSS Captain Cook before it was decommissioned.

During basic training Ross had been given the job of barman in the officers’ mess and was rather dismayed when this role continued, on landing in Malaya.

“When you join the army, you don’t tell them what you’re going to do, they tell you. You don’t get a choice!”

Seven months later, Ross was given a new role in transport platoon. It wasn’t in the rifle company as he’d hoped for, but it was certainly a position of great responsibility.

Ross was appointed driver for the battalion’s commanding officer, Lt Col Aitken.

“It was very interesting. It was a position of trust because you were privy to a lot of confidential information.”

Despite their difference in rank, the two men got on very well.

“He was a real good man to drive. He was like a father in a lot of ways. We’d have some very good conversations about what was going on,” says Ross.

Ross says they arrived in the late stages, but they still had to train up and go out on jungle patrols.

“We trained with live ammunition and hand grenades. You’ve still got to learn how to use them. Once bullets start flying you don’t say ‘when do I shoot?’ you just fire!”

Jungle patrols could be gruelling, especially in the muggy, humid heat.

“We went in with extra stuff they needed and were met on the river by longboats. Then we’d walk through the jungle to the campsites.”

Ross left the army in 1962 after completing his three years and went on to marry Gretta with whom he raised four children.

He attended army reunions every two years and even caught up with the Colonel years later at his home in Australia where he shared some of his history with them.

Ross is philosophical on the topic of war but unequivocal when it comes to marking Anzac Day properly.

“It’s important to remember those people who have done a service for their country be it conscription or otherwise.”

Russell Reid, 80

Logan Campbell Retirement Village

Dunedin-born Russell Reid joined the New Zealand Territorial Army in 1962 as part of his National Service and later volunteered to serve in South Vietnam in 1970.

“The discipline, and learning about bugle calls to get up, to eat and to go to bed, shaped my life for the better. And I learned how to take orders.”

The pre-Vietnam training involved a stint in Rockhampton, Queensland for 3-4 weeks with Australian soldiers.

“It was very hot, and the bush there simulated Vietnam to give us as close an idea to the jungle conditions in Vietnam as possible.”

As a 27-year-old newly-trained doctor fresh out of Otago Medical School and now a Captain in the Territorial Army, Russell was based at the Bong Sun hospital in the Binh Dinh province where he took turns with the other army medics covering Medicine, Surgery and Anaesthetics.

He recalls being assigned to a surgeon with an alcohol problem, who was ‘very difficult to work with’ and who didn’t appreciate Russell’s initiative to train up a Vietnamese nurse in anaesthetics, and let them both know in no uncertain terms.

“We both walked out,” he says.

While both his TA training and his medical qualifications were good preparation, working in the hospital there gave Russell a true insight into the full horror of ‘the medicine of war’, leaving him with lasting memories.

Russell saw victims of blast injuries and Napalm burns alongside malnourished or diseased children riddled with malaria or tuberculosis, all of whom desperately needed urgent medical attention.

“We admitted anyone who needed hospital treatment whether or not they were Viet Cong, the enemy, or Vietnamese civilians caught up in the war.”

In some ways, even more affecting due to the impossible situation, were the letters Russell received from his Vietnamese friends at the hospital after he left.

“I had a couple of very sad letters from colleagues asking me to help them get to the US or the UK but I couldn’t help them. They were sent to prison or re-education camps.”

After Vietnam, and influenced by a stint he had previously done on Ward 10 at Auckland Hospital, Russell decided to specialise in psychiatry and headed to London for three years of training at the Maudsley Hospital, later working as an exchange resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland, USA.

“Surgery was too much for me, and psychiatry seemed the most interesting. You could spend time with your patients questioning them and getting their history.”

The money-oriented approach in the USA left him somewhat disillusioned however, and he headed back to the UK where he worked as a consultant psychiatrist for the NHS until 2010.

“The NHS is a great organisation. You treated people honestly, because there were no fees.”

Noeline Ritson, 106

Malvina Major Retirement Village

Noeline was born in Auckland on Boxing Day, 1917 and finished her school days in Papatoetoe.

Noeline had been a member of St John Ambulance service since she was 12, first-aiding at local events, so, on hearing the army were looking for women to recruit to work in the Middle East, she decided she would like to go.

She was 23 when she showed the application forms to her parents. “My mother started to cry, and my father was grumpy, so I thought, this is no good – I’ll tear it up and not go.

“Six weeks later, the New Zealand Air Force wanted recruits, and I thought, I’ll do my bit. Being in New Zealand – that was ok.”

Noeline was placed at Whenuapai to work as a medic. “The matron said, ‘I don’t think you’ll stand up to it my girl.’ I said, ‘I think I will’.” And Noeline proved her wrong. She stayed in the air force until the end of the war in 1945

At Whenuapai they worked in the small hospital located in a nearby house. For living arrangements, they were billeted in local homes. There were a lot of accidents from the Tiger Moth training, and that meant some serious injuries to treat, as well as diseases and sickness like influenza.

She worked at Whenuapai for about 18 months before she was transferred to Seagrove Station, just out of Papakura.

It was a small station on an old farm. The accommodation was in the lower part, and the hospital up the top of the hill.

“We had to walk about a mile to the hospital. On early morning duty starting at 6 00am we got a lift up the hill from the transport men. When matron heard about this she was not happy. She said, ‘You’ll not waste petrol. You will walk!’.” So, walk they did.

She was also sent to Hobsonville, No.1 hospital. There they were treating “the boys coming home with skin complaints.”

Noeline says, “It was like an ordinary job, but we had shift work till 10 00pm. You were restricted, and you couldn’t leave the station without a pass and had to be in by 10.00pm.

“You had a life on the station. I wanted to go to Suva, Fiji and gave my application to the matron. My mother had been in hospital and I had earlier applied for leave to look after her. The matron would not allow me to go – ‘you won’t get leave from Suva to care for your mother,’ she told me.”

After the war Noeline married. Trying to arrange a marriage with her in Auckland, and a fiancé studying in Dunedin was difficult. Noeline remembers the day he sent a telegram to say he had managed to get enough navy suiting fabric to make a wedding suit.

“Navy was a bit out of fashion – dark grey was the thing in those days,” she said.

“I sent back a telegram saying, ‘Hold suiting; letter following.’ He looked at it and thought – God! She’s going to jilt me!” she laughed.

They finally got married with the groom wearing the colour of the day – a dark grey suit.

George

Madeley, 85

Miriam Corban Retirement Village

With nearly 36 years of service in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, George ‘Shorty’ Madeley has earned his long service medal several times over and thanks to his sons Mike, Bruce and Alan, who also joined the Force, the family have racked up 136 years RNZAF service between them!

The air force wasn’t Shorty’s original plan however, which was more about wheels than wings.

After leaving Whakatane High School, Shorty started a motor mechanic apprenticeship, but it was interrupted when he turned 18 with the requirement to carry out Compulsory Military Training (CMT).

“I wanted to travel, and I managed to get onto the last CMT draft to enter the RNZAF at RNZAF Hobsonville,” says Shorty, who signed an eight-year contract as a result.

The mechanical training stood him in good stead as Shorty became a mechanical transport driver and operator.

He would drive all manner of vehicles and was involved in the maintenance of them all plus training others to do the same.

“I did all my courses, pulling equipment, aircraft, fuelling, lifting with cranes, driving tractors and bulldozers, I qualified with them all.”

He certainly got his wish to travel too, with two stints in Singapore totalling three years, a few months in Fiji and at RNZAF bases around New Zealand including Hobsonville, Te Rapa, Woodbourne, Shelly Bay in Wellington and Whenuapai.

The first time in Singapore was at Tengah with 75 Squadron from 1961-62. They went on an exercise to the Philippines for three weeks, where driving on the other side of the roads was a disconcerting experience.

“The communists were still fighting in Malaya which was a bit scary at times.

“But you just did it, it was part of the job.”

The prospect of war never fazed him though.

“I had uncles who had served. So, I had good advice.”

Shorty married Christine, who he met in high school, at the RNZAF Hobsonville Chapel on base in 1963.

Looking back on his career he says:

“It was varied and a lot of fun too.”

He became actively involved in racing stock cars around the country, playing rugby and raising four boys, including an adopted son.

It was a proud moment seeing three of his sons follow in his footsteps to join the RNZAF.

“It was their decision to join, and I was very proud and supported them,” he says.

In 1980, having reached Warrant Officer, he switched divisions to become a New Zealand Cadet Force Advisor, looking after cadets aged 13-21 from the army, navy, and Air Training Corps.

“You’re training them to what military life is like, learning bush craft, even learning how to iron and cook their own meals! And being there to offer advice of course.

“It was really rewarding.”

Owen Cunliffe, 85

Miriam Corban Retirement Village

Spending more than 37 years working in the RNZAF was more than a career for Auckland-born Owen Cunliffe.

It also led him to his wife-to-be, many lifelong friendships, an MBE and plenty of interesting and sometimes downright frightening challenges along the way!

With a love of all things aeroplane sparked from an early age, Owen joined the force as soon as he left Putaruru District High School.

He completed two years of military and basic trade training at Woodbourne with a set of guys he is still friends with 65 years later!

“We got to know each other pretty well and formed a bond which has lasted until now.”

In 1964 he was picked to go to the States to train on C130s at Travis Air Force Base for six months.

“It was at the Battle of Britain Ball in San Francisco that I met my wife, Bridget who had just emigrated there from Ireland!” he laughs.

The following year Bridget joined Owen in New Zealand and the pair were married two months later.

Owen worked up the ranks to Warrant Officer and in 1979 was posted to Singapore for two years operating Iroquois helicopters.

Thanks to his technical skills on the T56 engine, Owen had developed a programme for monitoring engine condition which required him to present at conferences overseas twice a year. Later he regularly toured the States giving presentations.

He was awarded an MBE in 1984 for his welfare and liaison work with 3 Squadron who were on detachment in Sinai as a peacekeeping force plus his maintenance planning work.

Owen says he loved the variety his work offered him: “You’re always tackling different sorts of things, from working on engines, to man management, to writing signals out to the boss, and then those skills broaden and you’re making decisions on things you never thought you would when you first started out.

“And of course, the comradeship has been wonderful.”

His final role before leaving the force in 1993 was as Flight Commander at the Technical Control and Planning Centre (TCPC).

He and Bridget, who was made an affiliate member at the Base Auckland W/O’s & Sergeants’ Mess where they meet military friends every Friday, look forward to Anzac Day at Miriam Corban.

“It’s good seeing the young people come in wearing their father’s medals,” he says.

Errol Burtenshaw, 77

Murray Halberg Retirement Village

Being assigned to a royal flight carrying Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales on the B727 from Melbourne to Auckland was a real highlight of Errol Burtenshaw’s 21-year NZ Air Force career.

It was an achievement that he could never have imagined as a young boy from Bluff wowed by US Navy Deepfreeze C47 aircraft performing jet assisted take-offs to the South Pole.

After finishing at Southland Technical College in Invercargill, he signed up aged 16 as a Boy Entrant in 1963, where he says it took a while to adjust.

“Apparently I wrote to Mum saying how homesick I was. I believe that her letter giving permission, plus the BES Warrant Officer’s approval, for me to purchase a drum kit solved this.”

Errol had played the drums since school and transferred his skills to the BES Cadet School Drum Corps, easing his homesickness.

Meanwhile, his engineering skills were also developing and as his career progressed, more responsibility came along, including a posting to Singapore in 1971.

He recalls a sortie on a Bristol Freighter in 1972 to Qui Nhon carrying supplies to the NZ civilian surgical team hospital, who treated civilian, war and accident casualties.

“When we arrived, helicopter gunships were active on a nearby hillside. The Captain requested a quick turn-round with engines still running.”

Another eventful flight was carrying Prime Minister Robert Muldoon from Singapore to New Delhi.

“We had just experienced an overflow of fuel onto the tarmac as the diplomatic car arrived. The PM simply walked through the big puddle of fuel and boarded the aircraft, which then reeked of fuel!”

The drama didn’t end there with a bird strike on #1 engine just as they landed in Darwin.

“There was no material damage, and the PM was not to be disturbed. However, on return my flight commander passed me a ‘please explain’ letter from the PM’s office. Fortunately, he was happy with our response.”

Errol retired as Flight Sergeant after 21 years: “I’m proud of my air force career. It enabled me to become a skilled engineer and supervisor.”

A 32-year career with Air New Zealand was the natural progression, with Errol ultimately becoming Manager Operations Integrity & Safety, responsible for the implementation of newly introduced CAANZ Safety Management Systems standards.

He retired a second time in 2023.

Errol now takes an active part in Anzac Day commemorations at Murray Halberg where he reflects on his father’s work on the railway network in Egypt during WWII plus his fellow Boy Entrants who have passed away.

Ken Dowling, 78

Ryman Northwood Retirement Village

Serving as part of 161 Field Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery took Ken Dowling to plenty of Vietnam hotspots and there was more than a constant element of danger with some fellow soldiers making the ultimate sacrifice.

Ken was born on December 15, 1945 in Waimate, and following his education took early steps into a career based around social work.

“While working for the Māori Welfare Division in Rotorua my manager was John Rangihau, a great Tūhoe leader, and a mentor was Henry Northcroft”, Ken says. Both served with distinction in the famed B Company of the 28th New Zealand (Māori) Battalion.

On a posting to Auckland Social Welfare, it was the turbulence in Asia that drew him in a different direction.

“Vietnam was in the news, and that sounded a bit more exciting than what I was doing,” he remembers of the choice to join up.

Based at Papakura with 161 Battery from September 1967, he took on basic then specialist training at Waiouru.

In December 1968 he was posted to Vietnam, flying via Hercules and stopping in Papua New Guinea and Singapore before landing in Vung Tau Air Base in South Vietnam.

He was stationed with the 1st Australian Task Force at Nui Dat base. The 5,000 personnel included New Zealand’s 161 Battery and the Royal Australian Regiment’s Charlie Company. The combined force took on both Viet Cong irregulars and North Vietnam regular forces within Phuoc Tuy Province.

Ken says there was no such thing as a front line. Rather, based on intelligence, troops were sent to specific areas to fight the fight and hunker down when there was ‘incoming’ from the enemy.

The 161 Battery employed 105mm American M2A2 Howitzers. “We went out on operations. If artillery was going out to a temporary FSB (fire support base), we would either go by truck or be transported by helicopter depending on the situation. The enemy was all around,” Ken says.

It was during a piece of action he and Charlie Company were involved in, that saw the direct fire from the enemy located only 30-50 metres away. Those shots came from a series of Viet Cong bunkers in the Long Khanh hills. “There was one Aussie infantryman (Private Ray Kermode) killed and eight others wounded... The US evacuation helicopter that came while fighting was ongoing, was hovering to lift the guys out just metres away from us and the enemy. The bravery of that chopper crew has never been forgotten by C Company.”

On a separate occasion he lost a good Australian friend while he and another were sleeping in a two person dugout at a fire support base. The enemy mortar hit the narrow gap between the dugout perimeter sandbags and the sandbag covered corrugated-iron roof.

Following his discharge he took on a trainee computer programmer role in Dunedin. Being an early advocate, and having passed an aptitude test, he took up that job offer and soon enough met his wife Anitra in the southern city.

Desmond Mitchell, 101

Possum Bourne Retirement Village

Desmond Mitchell’s first experience on joining the New Zealand Army as an 18-year-old was as an orderly clerk in the company office.

“They assumed I’d wanted to do that because I worked in the Audit Office, but I requested a posting as a soldier instead,” he recalls.

He had been steered into this career direction by his mother who was determined for her only child to have job security by securing a good government job.

Desmond was born in Mt Eden on 20 March 1923 and grew up in Pukekohe. He went to Pukekohe High School before landing his role in the Audit Office in Hamilton, making both his mother and his bricklayer father very proud.

With the war breaking out in Europe, however, Desmond followed in the footsteps of his father, who had served in WWI.

The young private had his request to become a soldier within the Waikato Battalion granted, and when Japan entered the war, he was transferred to Claudelands Racecourse before proceeding to Papakura Military Camp, after a four-day march.

After two years in the army, and with the loss of two friends during training exercises and with his father’s WWI stories of bayonet charges now resonating, Des saw that the RNZAF was recruiting air crew and he volunteered.

“I thought if I were to meet my demise, at least in the air force it would be quicker that way!” he laughs.

He was transferred to Blenheim Training Centre and was assigned the dual roles of Bomb Aimer/Navigator Trainee.

Desmond’s parents waved him off from Auckland where he sailed to San Francisco, Vancouver, then Bellevue for a bomb aimer course and then on to do a navigator course on Prince Edward Island.

He was finally shipped to London where the proximity to war made things feel suddenly very real.

“We were travelling from Liverpool to Brighton and there was an air raid in London with the Germans dropping flying V2 bombs.

“They stopped the train and while we couldn’t see anything we could hear the explosions.

“It was very frightening but that was the nearest I got to it, fortunately.”

After his final transfer to Pembray in South Wales the European war was declared over and a relieved Desmond began his trip home.

His connection with the war was far from over though. After retiring from his job aged 63, the RSA asked him to become secretary/treasurer, a role he did for the next 28 years!

Now Patron of Pukekohe RSA and the RSA Pipe Band, Desmond takes his Anzac Day commitments very seriously.

“I go to the RSA in the morning and then attend the village ceremony in the afternoon where I have done the Ode in the past.”

Ron Howard, 92

Possum Bourne Retirement Village

Being part of the first ever intake of Compulsory Military Training (CMT) in May 1950 shaped the course of his whole life, says Ron Howard.

Born in Plimmerton on Waitangi Day 1932, Ron then moved to Whanganui where he went to Aramoho Primary School and Whanganui Technical College after which he embarked on a five year engineering apprenticeship.

It was during that time that 18-year-old Ron set off for six weeks of basic training at Linton Military Camp then another six weeks at Palmerston North before being allocated to the Royal Armoured Corp in Waiouru for regimental training.

“I was excited at the prospect, and I enjoyed every day and moment, as did the majority of the recruits,” he says.

“The routine of advanced training on mechanics was very informative and we learnt quickly the value of military discipline.

“This, coupled with good sporting opportunities, good food and the value of camaraderie was paramount.”

While they were initially looked down upon by the regular force soldiers as mere ‘toy soldiers’, Ron said they eventually proved them wrong.

“At one stage we were advised that we would be on permanent stand by for covering duties that our combat soldiers carried out overseas.”

At the very least it was a notable transition into adulthood for most of the men, he says.

The group was required to return for annual camps for the next three years and Ron says they enjoyed the privilege of being trained by WWII veterans who in turn enjoyed the routine of training youth but without the constraints of warfare.

“Our commanding officer was Major Wilson Handley, of Maxwell and a brilliant officer in all aspects, so there was absolute contentment.”

Ron was promoted annually and was appointed Transport Officer for all vehicles and tanks.

Ron went on to attend Marine Engineering College in Wellington in 1955 before joining the NZ Shipping Company Vessel as 12th Engineer on RMS Rangitiki. He also served four years in the British Merchant Navy before leaving to become a naval architect.

On returning to New Zealand with wife Isobel he was appointed as site manager on the Manapouri Power Construction in 1962 before later establishing his own engineering company in Otahuhu and Pukekohe.

While Ron says he is fundamentally opposed to war, he believes more strong and capable politicians are needed to keep war at bay.

As a long-serving member of the Franklin RSA, including three years as welfare officer, Ron fully supports the commemoration of Anzac and Armistice Day services, and spends the days reflecting on the sacrifices made by members of his family.

Princess Alexandra Retirement Village Sylvia Frame, 90

Achildhood desire to ‘look after people’ led Sylvia Frame on a path to an incredible nursing career in which she achieved high ranks in the Navy, Army and Air Force.

Before becoming a commissioned officer in the RNZ Nursing Corps in 1961, which meant she could be seconded to the other services wearing the appropriate rank, Sylvia had racked up useful experience volunteering with the Flying Doctors in Australia, and working on the national polio immunisation programme in the UK.

In the RNZAF, she was soon appointed Flight Sister at Whenuapai with No 40 Transport Squadron.

Liaising with other armed forces, she saw service transporting troops, families, equipment and supplies in and out of war zones in South East Asia, and medical and casualty evacuation.

“In the 1960s they were not the tourist paradises of today, but were riddled with disease, poverty and filth, and we were being flown in draughty, noisy uncomfortable military aircraft,” she says.

Sylvia was particularly struck by the sight of conscripted soldiers at Hickman Base in Honolulu en route to Vietnam.

“They were all just kids, silent, so scared, just sitting and staring into space. I was able to walk among them, sit, listen and talk with them, trying to give them some hope and courage.”

Following a posting in Fiji, where she was involved in emergency mercy missions,

retrieving and caring for sick and injured people, Sylvia was selected by the NZ Army to complete a Post Grad Nursing Diploma, then considered the highest NZ qualification in nursing.

Having never attained her school certificate, it was a proud moment for her to finish the course with flying colours.

Now ranked as Captain, her job, as Charge Tutor at Burnham Army Military Camp’s Medical Depot, was instructing basic medical subjects to servicemen plus Medical Corps personnel, including SEATO forces.

Next came a posting to HMNZS Philomel as Sister in Charge at the RNZ Navy Hospital in the Navy rank of Lieutenant, after which she was then promoted to Squadron Leader in the position of Matron RNZAF Nursing Services at the Ministry of Defence HQ in Wellington.

“This was the highest rank and one of only two positions a woman could attain in the Air Force at that time.”

Her experience, training and preparedness came to the fore during the Wahine disaster, with Sylvia setting up a military style triage for survivors at Wellington Railway Station:

“It was a harrowing day, night and next day for all.”

In 1970, Sylvia returned to the Hawke’s Bay to care for her elderly parents, finally retiring from the Active Reserve list of Officers at 50, in her Army rank of Major.

Fittingly, she spent the next 20 years as Matron of the Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers Memorial Hospital.

Jean Reid, 102

Shona McFarlane Retirement Village

Talented and creative Jean Reid, born 102 years ago in Nelson has an outstanding memory and easily recalls the beginning of WWII. “I was 18 years old and working for my father in the family nursery and florist shop. We grew most of the flowers ourselves in those days.

“I wasn’t happy about it – my brother and Jack [the young man who worked in the nursery and later became her husband] along with several cousins were of an age to be sent overseas. My father had been badly wounded at Gallipoli in WWI

“We were told by the authorities we had to stop growing flowers and only grow vegetables as they were needed to feed the country.” The nursery became an essential service.

Jean’s father was allowed to keep on only one man to work in the nursery, and he had to make the difficult choice between his son, and Jack. However, his son made the decision simple as he declared he was not staying there – “I’m going to war,” he said.

Jean’s life changed as she joined the WAAC and continued to work hard in the nursery. “I’d had my driver’s licence since I was 15 so I had to drive the truck and do the vegetable deliveries. Jack didn’t have a licence.” The truck broke down often and each time Jean had to start the engine again with the crank handle!

She was sent to garages to learn how to fix cars although she doesn’t recall having to fix any!

In 1944 Jean and Jack married in Nelson. “My husband was a warden going around the streets at night checking for any stray lights during the blackout. You had to be very careful. I was alone a lot at night during that worrying time. The Japanese were a real threat and came close to New Zealand.

“We made cakes and biscuits to send to our boys overseas. Fruit cakes, Anzac biscuits and chocolate chippies were popular. We would pack them in tins then use old sugar bags to sew around the tin for posting.”

They were tough times to be sending extra food away. “The rationing was terrible! We had coupons for sugar, butter, flour and the petrol rationing meant we couldn’t travel very far.

“When the end of the war arrived, we were so delighted. We all went down to the Post Office at midnight and danced and sang and waited for the clock to chime midnight – it was wonderful! It had been such a long time. It was a big relief.”

Steve Costelow, 77

Weary Dunlop Retirement Village

Steve Costelow was born in Melbourne on September 25th, 1946.

That date is significant because 21 years later it would be drawn from a ballot determining which young Australian men would be called up for two years’ compulsory military service during the Vietnam War.

“I found out living at home with mum and dad and I can remember mum sitting on the end of my bed crying.”

The magnitude of what was about to happen hadn’t yet dawned on Steve.

“It probably upset me to see mum crying, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. It probably took me a while for it to sink in.”

Steve was assigned to ordnance – “that was just luck of the draw, you couldn’t ask where you wanted to go” – which, after 12 months’ training in Australia, saw him deployed to the Second Advanced Ordnance Depot (2AOD) in Vung Tau, near Saigon. Steve would serve for a year before returning home.

“Once a month a ship would come in that we would unload. We had huge warehouses, and it was our daily job to issue something as small as a screw or as big as a tank. Arms, ammunition, whatever.

“It was always full on, and when the ship was in and unloading, we’d work all night.”

While Vung Tau was a relatively peaceful part of the country, the grim realities of the war were ever-present.

In some respects, though, the hardest thing for Steve and many Australian soldiers who served in Vietnam was returning home.

Public sentiment towards the controversial conflict had soured, and the returning servicemen bore the brunt of it.

“When I finally came home, you wouldn’t want to be wearing your uniform. People were spitting on you. They didn’t agree with the Vietnam War, but it’s not our fault – we got told to go.

“We didn’t have a choice – we were over there for our country, doing what we could.”

And the full extent of what those young men had gone through wasn’t yet apparent.

Several of Steve’s friends who served in Vietnam suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, some of whom ultimately took their own lives. Others were diagnosed with cancer attributed to their exposure to the defoliant chemical Agent Orange.

Vietnam soldiers weren’t officially welcomed back to Australia until 1987. Steve travelled to Canberra for the ceremony, and “that probably closed a lot of issues that most of us had.”

More than 50 years after that fateful letter arrived in the mail, Steve can see his service with the kind of clarity only time affords.

“I’m proud that I’ve represented the country. I like wearing my medals when I get the opportunity to wear them, and people’s attitudes these days have changed.

They now say, ‘well done’.”

Clive Sinclair, 77

William Sanders Retirement Village

Clive Sinclair’s 28 years in the NZ Army, many of them as a United Nations peacekeeper, saw him working with people from many different backgrounds, religions and nationalities.

It assured him that the training he received rated well compared with other armies in terms of peacekeeping and was certainly rewarding.

But just as rewarding, he says, was the seven years he spent living in Waiouru, working as both Chief of Staff and Commander and enjoying the strong sense of connection to the community there.

Clive was born in England on the 3rd of December 1946 and sailed to New Zealand with his family as an eight-year-old. Following his mother’s suggestion he joined the army and by June 1969 he had graduated as a second lieutenant in the RNZ Army Service Corps.

After postings in Palmerston North and Hobsonville, overseas service followed. In 1977 he was posted to the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organisation (UNTSO) in Palestine, also serving in Syria, Lebanon and the Sinai with his family in tow.

The work involved overseeing the peace treaty signed by Israel and its Arab neighbours and ensuring there were no violations such as over flights and land incursions, often with an observer from a different nation to ensure impartiality.

When Israel started a conflict with Lebanon, Clive was sent there for a month to evaluate the logistic capability of the UN battalions assigned to southern Lebanon along the Litani River.

Being unarmed, military observers were vulnerable to capture, vehicle theft, and death.

Clive says being unarmed could usually be your ‘greatest weapon’ as a peacekeeper.

“Because you aren’t a threat.”

Some parts of the world are so dangerous it didn’t make any difference if you were armed or not, and Clive took measures to lessen the risk. Or at least, feel like he had.

“Whenever I do these things I take a fatalistic approach. If you go anywhere with the idea of tiptoeing around I don’t think you can operate very well. If I’m going to be blown up, well then it’s my time.”

From 1984 to 1987, Clive was posted to Singapore with his family to take command of the NZ Transport Squadron within the NZ Force Southeast Asia.

This unit employed local civilians of Chinese, Malay and Indian origin as well as New Zealand soldiers, and deployments into the Malaysian jungle were a necessity to maintain soldier skills.

Clive retired from a 28-year army career after serving a two-year period as Commander Army Training Group Waiouru and finishing in Wellington in Army General Staff as head of Army Personnel Branch.

“The army and services generally do wonders for individuals; they give you self-esteem, self-confidence and I think you can become a great contributor to society,” he says.

David Canning, 93

William Sanders Retirement Village

At the pinnacle of his two-year National Service in the Royal Navy, David Canning was given standing watch at sea on his own – a position of great responsibility.

This was on board HMS Striker, ‘a fighting unit of 3500 tons’, in the Mediterranean with David responsible for decisions that had to be made.

This achievement was all the more impressive considering David failed his navigation tests on the first sitting.

“I was a man of languages, I’m not a very good mathematician. But the navy then did a very un-naval thing and gave us a second chance.”

Despite the second chance, he felt somewhat out of his depth when he was appointed to Navigating Officer.

Usually, National Service was completed in the army, but David had gone to great lengths to serve his in the navy.

His father was an Army man, indeed it was during his father’s posting to Alexandria in Egypt that David was born on 17th December 1930.

His younger brother Hugh also joined the Army, but significantly his twin brother Bill joined the navy straight after school and that’s where David’s loyalties therefore lay.

David became head boy and won a place at Oxford University to study Modern Languages, completing his degree before doing his National Service. He volunteered for the Navy Reserves during the long summer breaks to ensure his spot in the

Navy and he was accepted and soon found himself at the Royal Naval Barracks in Portsmouth in September 1952 for basic training.

His superiors obviously spotted David’s potential, despite him failing his seamanship test, he was appointed to HMS Reggio, part of the Amphibious Warfare Squadron in Malta.

David’s biggest challenge was his appointment to Navigating Officer aboard HMS Striker which required absolute precision and certainty with the use of the sextant. This was needed to successfully plot the ship onto the target and calculate the critical moment that the stern anchor needed to be dropped, often on a moonless night while on a blacked-out ship.

It was his success with this, albeit feeling like a ‘special kind of nightmare’ that led to David’s watch responsibilities and later, an invitation to stay on in the navy.

However, he turned it down, leaving success with the Navy to his brother Bill. Instead, he turned to education and used the amazing mentoring he’d experienced topass on to his charges as housemaster at King’s College when he later moved to New Zealand.

He continued to volunteer for the Navy Reserves for a few years in his new country and to this day takes an active role in Anzac commemorations, most recently in the village.

Ron Turner, 79

William Sanders Retirement Village

Ron Turner thought his life was already on track to become an engineer.

Born on 17th April 1945 in Auckland, Ron got a job with Alex Harvey Ltd after his schooling and had been doing that for a few years when, as Ron describes it, ‘National Service caught up with me!’

As part of the 17th intake, ahead of him lay 14 weeks of full-time service followed by part time for the next three years.

In Ron’s case, after the aptitude tests they selected him for officer training and near the end of the 14 weeks he was invited to join the regular force for a short service commission.

This was one year of training, one year in Vietnam and one year in New Zealand before going back into 'civvy street'.

On 3rd January 1967 Ron was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the Royal Regiment of NZ Artillery and was mixing with men who’d trained at Duntroon and Portsea in Australia and Sandhurst in England.

“I felt almost out of my depth with a variety of things,” he admits.

A year later and he was off to 161 Battery in Vietnam, which he described as periods of boredom and periods of intense activity and danger, ‘like every conflict’.

“Professionally it was satisfying, because you’re trained to be an artillery officer and you’re in Vietnam and you’re doing the job you’re trained for.”

Back home in New Zealand, he was invited to stay on in the regular army and he decided to do just that.

As Adjutant for 3 Field Regiment, a territorial regiment at Burnham Military Camp, he met people that he still sees to this day.

Next, back up to Waiouru, he was appointed as the officer commanding the Officer Training Unit, this time for the regular force and enjoyed another great posting, this one ground-breaking.

“I ran the first male/female course. Prior to that it had been totally separate.

“What it signified was the realisation that if you’re an officer, you’re an officer. And if you’re an NCO, you’re an NCO.”

The rest of Ron’s 20-year army career revolved around training others in some form or other, finishing up as Commandant of the NZ Cadet Corps.

As a veteran, Ron became president of the Wellington RSA with his leadership coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of the Gallipoli landings in 2015.

Along with then Governor General of NZ, Jerry Mateparae and the Australian Governor General Peter Cosgrove, Ron led the parade at dawn service held at the National War Memorial with an estimated 40,000 people in attendance.

William Sanders Retirement Village Quin

Rodda, 87

It was the wise words of his father that encouraged Christchurch-born Quin Rodda to apply for officer training in the army.

He had started out as a regular force cadet aged 17 and had become a Lance Corporal, but he was put off by the style of leadership his brother, also an army officer, demonstrated.

“My dad said ‘surely there’s other officers that you admire, so model yourself on them instead.’”

So Quin applied, and Brigadier Leonard Thornton, the officer leading the selection board, clearly saw the same potential, despite the rest of the board’s view to the opposite.

Quin was determined to prove himself to both the Brigadier and his father.

On 8 May 1969 Quin was posted to Vietnam. As a captain, Quin was appointed second in command of Victor 4 Company, one of two NZ Infantry Companies to become part of the 6th Royal Australian Regiment operating as an Anzac Rifle Battalion under the formal title 6 RAR/NZ (Anzac) Battalion.

At this point, Army HQ had opened up the recruitment to anyone in the other corps who wanted active service and Quin says the result was V4 Company being a somewhat ‘rag tag bunch’.

Their new reality was brought into sharp focus on landing in Nui Dat. Quin’s role was to keep everything ticking along up and down the ranks.

“I had to work with the Company Commander Major Larry Lynch, so if something happened to him, I would be aware of what was happening and take over. Luckily that didn’t happen."

There were also times when he would need to act as a father figure to the men especially in the aftermath of seeing a mate injured or killed.

“I had to identify our first casualty, who had only come in as a replacement about a week before.

“That was the first time I realised that was part of my duties as 2IC. It also shook the lads.”

Of the 37 New Zealanders killed in Vietnam, seven of them were from V4 and several others suffered life-changing injuries.

More shocking perhaps was the reaction from the New Zealand population on arriving home exactly a year later. There were no senior army officials or politicians to greet them, just sergeants handing out their pay and travel vouchers and telling them to change out of their uniforms.

That treatment really stung, says Quin, who credits his friend and fellow V4 Coy member Geoff Dixon for his hard work lobbying the government for an official welcome home and apology – something that was finally delivered by Prime Minister Helen Clark in 2008.

“A lot of them just needed to hear those words,” he says.

“I think like any soldier who’s been involved in war, you don’t want it. But I personally still feel that our contribution helped form south Vietnam as it is now,” he says.

Betty Rawlings, 92

Yvette Williams Retirement Village

Betty was born in the small town of Harvey, Western Australia, on 5th December 1931. Three years later her parents brought the family back to her father’s homeland, New Zealand. They settled in Invercargill where Betty attended Southland Girls’ High School.

Betty joined the New Zealand Women’s Auxiliary Airforce (WAAF) in 1949 after seeing an advertisement in the newspaper for recruits. She joined at the youngest age possible, which was 17 ½ . “I was 17 ½ and three weeks,” she said. “It sounded great, but it took my parents quite a while to agree to let me join.” The contract was for two years.

At the completion of the two year contract Betty, now 19, was stationed at Woodbourne and her parents wanted their only daughter closer to home. They agreed to her extending the contract if she could be posted to Taieri, near Dunedin. She had qualifications in shorthand typing and went right through the ranks from aircraftwoman recruit, to aircraftwoman auxiliary 1st class, then leading aircraftwoman. She was promoted to corporal, then at 20 years of age, sergeant, and was later commissioned to became a flight officer.

Betty recalls, as a WAAF officer, one had to wear a hat and gloves, even in civilian dress. “It was very proper.”

Betty had several postings throughout the country, but after she was commissioned, she became the personal assistant to the chief of air staff and lived at the work officers’ mess, at Worser Bay in Wellington.

A highlight of her career was being chosen to represent the Taieri Station at Whenuapai when Queen Elizabeth II personally presented her Colours to the RNZAF during the 1953–1954 Royal tour of New Zealand. The presentation was made during a ceremonial parade on 28th December 1953.

After 13 years service, Betty resigned in February 1961. She was married and expecting her first daughter. “Not many girls stayed that length of time,” she said.

Betty met her husband at a tea-dance with the Victoria League. Betty has continued with that connection and is a former president of the Otago Branch of the Victoria League.

Glossary

AOS Armed Offenders Squad

APHE Armour Piercing High Explosive

ATC Air Training Corps

ATS Auxiliary Territorial Service

CBD Central Business District

CMF Citizen’s Military Forces

CMT Compulsory Military Training

CO Commanding Officer

DFC Distinguished Flying Cross

HMNZS His/Her Majesty’s New Zealand Ship

HMS His/Her Majesty’s Ship

HMT His/Her Majesty’s Transport/Troop Ship

HQ Headquarters

J-Force NZ contingent of the British Commonwealth Force that occupied Japan after the Second World War.

K-Force NZ contingent of the United Nations Force that served in the Korean War.

KWSM Korean War Service Medal

LACW Leading Aircraft Woman

MBE Member of the Order of the British Empire

NANS New Zealand Army Nursing Service

NZ New Zealand

NZEF New Zealand Expeditionary Force

NZKVA New Zealand Korean Veterans Association

NZOSM New Zealand Operational Service Medal

NZSAS New Zealand Special Air Service

POW Prisoner of War

QSM Queen’s Service Medal

R&R Rest and recreation

RAAF Royal Australian Air Force

RAF Royal Air Force

RAMC Royal Army Medical Corps

RAN Royal Australian Navy

RCAF Royal Canadian Air Force

RFA Royal Freight Auxiliary

RM Royal Marines

RMS Royal Mail Ship

RN Royal Navy

RNVR Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

RNZAF Royal New Zealand Air Force

RNZIR Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment

RNZN Royal New Zealand Navy

RSA Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association

SS Steam Ship

TA Territorial Army

TSS Twin-screw steamship

UK United Kingdom

UN United Nations

UNRRA United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

US United States

USAF United States Air Force

USS United States Ship

VAD Voluntary Aid Detachment

VE Victory in Europe

VJ Victory over Japan

W/O Warrant Officer

WAAC Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps

WAAF Women’s Auxiliary Air Force

WREN A member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service

WRNS Women’s Royal Naval Service

WWI World War One

WWII World War Two

Stories of Service is a book filled with memories from our Ryman village residents who served their country during wartime and peace. If you are a resident, or you have a relative who is a resident who would like to be included in the next edition, please contact your village manager.

Photo courtesy of John Schollum

“It’s important to remember those people who have done a service for their country be it conscription or otherwise.”

—Ross McLay