PACIFIC NOTEBOOK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 74, 21 May 1943, Page 3

PACIFIC NOTEBOOK

By Robin Miller

SUVA, FIJI Tlic sight of a grown man chasing gaudy butterflies through the jungles of Guadalcanal •with a home made net is not so much a sign of "coconuttiness" —a mythical condition supposed to be induced bj r too long" a spell in the tropics—as an example of what New Zealand airmen find to d.o in their spare time here. Some, of the ground stall already have a butterfly collection, Avitli scores of different specimens, that would probably make a museum of natural history turn green with envy. The hobby got. an impetus, as a matter of fact, when somebody read, a news item which said a set of Solomon Islands, butterflies had fetched hundreds of pounds on the London mounted-bug market. Most of us here feel that on;y a fanatic devotion to his ideals, could drive 1 a man to visit this unblessed .spot oj' his own free Avill. Yet it is true that the butterflies of Guadalcanal are like nothing we have, ever seen before. Some of them are as big as small birds, and nature, in the extravagant way she has with her in the tropics, has given them riotous colourings. The place is a collector's paradise, and. the beautiful creatures are easy to catch with a piece of mosquito netting threaded on to a hoop of wire, and easy to preserve if you know a medical man who will swap something with you a little formaldehyde. I really ought to know better than to write in this strain about the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Some, time ago I wrote a story from another of their Pacific bases describing how the officers and men there had developed a craze for gardening, and had. set out vegetable plots around their tents. By the time they saw r the article in print, both their plants and their enthusiasm had Avithennl, and now they called what I had. written "a lot of baloney." The same thing Avill probably happen over the butterflies. Whether they are cliasimg butterflies or chasing Japanese, our air force men and particularly the flying crews, are curiously obsessed by fear of being caught "shooting a line." It is neither ordinary modesty nor the obsolete idea that they are fighting a private Avar of their own: it is simply the Iter's, fear of what his fellows may think if they sec him quoted about his exploits in a neAVspaper. It. makes life miserable for a war correspondent. Every time I revisit a squadron after having Avritten something about it, I feel I ought to throw my cap in first. Anonymity and cold, hard facts are the keynotes of a '"good"" account of R.N.Z.A.F. activities in the Pacific. Personally, Is have alAvays found Avar a far more colourful, interesting and intimate affair, chiefly because human beings have to fight it."And for all their exasperating anti-line-shooting complexes, these airmen are human beings, too.

To this mild complaint of mine, anyway, they would have an almost perfect answer: "We have a job of work to do, and we are doing it." Nobody can dispute that, statement, and in fact the air command, of the United States Navy, under which the New Zealand squadrons serve, goes far be3 r ond it in paying lavish t" : hntc to the New Zealanders' skill, reliability and thoroughness on hazardous patrol and recon-

naissancc operations over waters dominated by the enemy.

Sincc the .suggestion would be cold comfort to the Japanese, it can hardly, be a breach of security to predict that by the time the war in the Pacific gets into high gear the Dominion's growing air force will bo making its presence increasingly felt. It looks, as if air power must be the mainstay of the United Nations' armed -strength here, no matter whether the strategy of the .moment i.s to hold the enemy where lie is or to embark on an offensive.