MORALE IN THE JUNGLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 236, 31 December 1943, Page 6

MORALE IN THE JUNGLE

Interview With A Pacific Correspondent CCORDING to Lieut. D. W. Bain, official war correspondent with the Pacific Division, the change from garrison duty to offensive action made new men of our Pacific expeditionary force. Before the order came to them to move forward they felt’ a little lost. They knew that some force had to occupy New Caledonia, and that their presence there not only kept the enemy out, but released a corresponding number of men for the forward areas. But they were unhappy. They felt neglected and misjudged. And then suddenly the word went round that they were operational troops, and the change, Lieut. Bain said, was sensational. Lieut. Bain returned to Wellington last week on a brief tour of duty, and in an interview with The Listener gave some glimpses of a correspondent’s life in the forward area where the Division now operates. Many of the things he told us cannot yet be printed, and when men fight in small parties in impenetrable jungle some things happen that will never be told because they will never be known. But some of the things that impressed Lieut. Bain most deeply were the blackness, the eeriness, the nerve strain of jungle life after sunset. "Twelve hours in a fox-hole without food or drink or a smoke, without conversation, and perhaps without certain knowledge whether the enemy is in front of you or behind, will try the strongest nerves." And there can be more than human enemies to keep you on edge. One of his experiences was to spend a night in a dug-out a few yards from the mouth of a river. As there were only two of them in this shelter they took turns at watching and trying to sleep. They had got through about half the night in this way when he was sure he heard the sloshslosh of men walking down the river’s edge and round them. Not a word was said, and it was not safe to flash a torch or crawl out to investigate. They were clearly being headed off and surrounded. And they were-as it proved: by crocodiles! ~ ; a % * * ELL, that was one experience for which the Japanese were only indirectly responsible. Another was the constant war with malarious mosquitoes. Once the Division moved away from New Caledonia it entered the malaria zone, and the price of safety there is not merely eternal vigilance by day but almost superhuman alertness by night. It is usually impossible during actual fighting to carry mosquito nets, or use them if they can be carried, so the only chance of defeating mosquitoes-in other words, of escaping malaria-is to keep all exposed parts of the skin protected by a repellent lotion. In spite of all these precautions, malaria claims victims, though not yet enough to disorganise operations. Fortunately, it attacks our enemies as freely as it does our own forces. Lieut. Bain is convinced that the Japanese suffer more than we do from sickness, (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) and as much, too, from the humid heat which robs everybody of half his energy. % Es % IEUT. BAIN was enthusiastic about his colleagues, the Australian and American correspondents. They are not merely co-operative, he told us, but friendly and helpful in the most amazing ways; and the nearer you get to the enemy the more marked this characteristic is. "In the fighting zones you are not rivals: you are colleagues. Your own job comes first, but you don’t cut another man’s throat to beat him with a storyespecially if he is such a good chap as all these fellows are." "If you have come to your job through the army, as I have, you have one attitude, but if you are a civilian newspaper man, you have another attitude. It is something like this. In the first case you find yourself wondering if a story is true, if it will help the army to publish it, and if it will pass the censor. In the second case your chief concern is whether it is a good story and how you can make the most of it and get it away with the least possible delay. So the best stories-by which I mean the most sensational and dramatic -tend to go to individual newspapers. The best verified may be sent by official correspondents who feel that they are servants of the State, and know that accuracy in their case is more important than speed." ok * * XCELLENT work, Lieut. Bain told us, is being done by the New Zealand Broadcasting Unit operating in the Pacific. Though conditions are difficult, the Unit has found its way into strange places and succeeded in keeping contact with the fighting sections of the expeditionary force. The news service from the New Zealand end was also appreciated, though it was difficult in such unreal surroundings really to feel close to New Zealand. One trouble is that the news continuity is often broken by active service conditions. But the chief difficulty is that nothing read or heard in such a strange world seems to have reality. "Rumours, of course, have been a part _of camp life since the beginning of military history. But when force headquarters are on one island, divisional headquarters on another, and brigade headquarters perhaps somewhere else, when you live in and out of jungle retreats, and travel by water or by air, it is almost impossible to make and keep the contacts that reduce rumours to nonsense and leave you with a secure hold of the basic facts."