AMERICANS ARRIVE
NEW CALEDONIA’S DEFENCE
WELCOME BY FRENCH.
MEN TREATED AS GUESTS.
(Allied Forces Headquarters.) NEW CALEDONIA, July 5
The French territory of New Caledonia has come into prominence again with the arrival of United States troops to safeguard this island on the Pacific lifeline. The old-fashioned ways of the inhabitants, whom the machine age had hardly touched, are undergoing an unprecedented modernising, which includes important transport, sanitation and other developments which will be of permanent benefit to the colony. American energy and democratic influence spell nothing but good for the islanders. The extremes of Paris and Melanesia are linked in New Caledonia. The French girls manage to look chic on next to nothing a week, and now the natives are hastily abandoning the loin-cloth in favour of cast-off clothing.
The Americans have found the fierceness of the rain, the sun and the mosquitoes most striking. The mountains arc like Scottish crags, where deer are hunted, nickel is mined and coffee plantations grow. The strange assortment of humanity with whom the American Army is making friendly contacts includes fuzzy-haired blacks with rouged cheeks, who dance the former cannibal rite of pilou-pilou, dainty Javanese in coloured sarongs, and black-teethed Indo-Chinese coolies.
The European residents and the natives of Noumea and the bush villages vied in shouting “Vive I’Amerique” and in giving a magnificent welcome to the splendidly-equipped troops. Whether in town billets, in the homes of colonists or in tribal villages, the United States soldiers are treated as honoured guests. They spend their leisure hours helping granddad draw water, assisting “maderne” with her strange cooking arrangements, holding the baby for Jacqueline, or explaining to Henri in halting French the wonders of America. The New Caledonians have large families.
Unsophisticated pleasure is shown at gifts of such -hitherto unknown sweets as candy and chewing gum. Open air audiences keenly appreciate Army band concerts, which are acquainting them with the St. Louis Blues and American national airs.
Meanwhile, the whole countryside is conscious of stern preparations designed to clinch the strategic success represented by the arrival of the American Army. It should be remembered that the same day that Pearl Harbour was attacked New Caledonia arrested Japanese residents and automatically recognised a state of war. General de Gaulle’s assurance that French Pacific possessions would be defended was unable to prevent months of anxiety oyer the prospect of a Japanese invasion, which helps to explain the warmth of the welcome given the American troops, whose arrival coincided with the announcement of the first casualties among New Caledonian members of the Fighting French forces in the Libyan Desert.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 August 1942, Page 3
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433AMERICANS ARRIVE Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 August 1942, Page 3
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