Levin Man Home Again After Harassing Life In Far East

Chronicle (Levin), 19 August 1949, Page 4

Levin Man Home Again After Harassing Life In Far East

After 14 years in the Far East, NeW/Zealander Jock • Cormack, of Hokio Beach Road, cop^e hopie^He hopes it is for good as a long period in a'JapahfeiSe pilsbmijanfp, fever, sickness and active participation in China's war against Japan have left him physically a shadow of his former self. He told a "Chromcle" reporter yesterday that he weighed 125 lbs. when he arrived back in Levin a short time ago. Now he is 175 lbs. and is beginning to take a new lease of life.

His profession and hobby is, radio transmission and when a reporter called he was busy with his own set which he has assembled in his room, he being a memberof the New Zealand Amateur Radio Transmitting Association. Mr. Cormack was born in Palmerston North and his people came to' Levin in 1939. At that time. however, he was^till abroad. He was wireless operator on the Makura when it sailed to Shanghai to be broken up. Round North China Coast. Wireless operator on many of the shins of the MoUer Steamship Company all round the Pacific and North China coast, he sodn knew the area well and at one time had charge of 87 wireless operators. It was a regular League of Nations, he said, there being many nationalities represented. *Ihe policy was, however, to change over to British operators - as they became available. He recalled six New. Zea^nders who were with him at one stage. In May, 1939, Mr. Cormack was fcransferred to shore operations as wireless superintendent for the company a.nd established three shore stations, the building of which he personally super-i vised. From these stations some 42 of the company's ships were kept in contact, each of the ships having short and long wave wireless transmitters. The shore stations, he said, were operated mainly by White Russians. When war broke out he would have left Shanghai as he was called up for the New Zealand Forces, but he had been ordered to remain where he was. In Shanghai when it was s over-run, Mr, Cormack was cap-

tured by the Japanese and held as a/"po1itical and criminal" prisoner. He was taken for questioning while in prison and, in his own words, spent "six months in a hospital afterwards learning to walk again." The Japanese had had suspicions about some of his activities and these were actually well founded, he said, for he had spent a lot of time making wireless sets for-guerrillas and reporting on the movements of Japanese patrols. TeFing of how he had made use of his technical knowledge to advantage, Mr. Cormack said he" had once been taken out of the prison to repair one of the Japs' biggest radio stations. "I had the pleasure of smashing it," he commented with obvious relish. In December, 1945, Jack Cormack returned to his homeland and after much needed recuperation he returned to the Far East in 1946, going to his old job in Shanghai. A bad ' attack" bf fever and general ill health forced his re'turn to New Zealand once again — this time, he hopes, for .good. ^Although he grew to imderstand the Chinese people, making many friends and — a difficult task for a foreigner — learning, many of their customs, Mr, Cormack feels that it would be to his advantage to seek work elsewhere. He has . a multitude of trades to fall back on, havipg turned .his hand to a great variety of oceupations foesides radio. If he can find a job to his liking here, after he has regained his health, he ihtends to stay in the Dominion, but the work he likes best is that which must take him abroad and in all probability back. to the Far East,. the one place he wants to avoid.