HEROIC HANDFULS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 390, 13 December 1946, Page 16

HEROIC HANDFULS

|PACIFIC COMMANDOS: NEW ZEALAND- | ERS AND FIJIANS IN ACTION. By Colin R. Larsen. A. H. & A. W. Reed. | HE commando, charged with | special missions and given great liberty of choice in action, has better luck than the men who make up the big batThere is a satisfaction in employing to the full natural capacity for specialised and skilled tasks which can distract men from danger and certainly compensate for hardship. The Pacific Commandos had always to use their heads, had to take the initiative as individuals, and had constantly to seek out and then outwit their enemy. This is a fine short record of a small, hand-picked unit, chosen for quality and trained to fight under the arduous conditions of jungle warfare in the tropics. _ Perhaps the most interesting feature of the work of the First Commando Fiji Guerrillas was the collaboration of such diverse races and nationalities. Regularly serving in the force were New Zealanders, Englishmen, Fijians, Tongans, and Solomon Islanders, and Americans were often attached to it. To a superficial eye the Fijians are 50 years behind the Maori in Europeanisation. (I do not discuss here whether this process is continuous, inevitable, or desirable). Their intellectual capacity, in terms of the white man’s world, is amply proved by _the distinguished attainments of such -a man as Colonel Sir Lala Sukuna or, in a different field, by the success of the system of training selected Fijians as native medical practitioners. The work of the guerrillas gave full scope to the special abilities of the Fijian for incon--spicuous jungle movement and catlike clairvoyance at night. Under New Zealand leadership the Fijians had qualities | of their own to contribute to the success of the unit. It is to be hoped that this war-time partnership will have its counterpart in peace. The Commando companies were formed in Fiji early in 1942 with the primary object of harassing any bodies of Japanese troops who might land in the group. A strenuous programme of training introduced the New Zealanders to the Fiji bush, rivers, and mountains, and the Fijians to the organisation and discipline which, though kept to a minimum, were necessary to the existence of a military force. The rigorous training during these months of waiting bore remarkable fruit afterwards in the Solomons. The first to go into action, the Special Party under Captain D. E. Williams, went to Guadalcanal late in 1942, carrying out aggressive patrols and reconnaissance work which no other troops were fitted to perform. The main body of the First Commando Fiji Guerrillas followed them to the Solomons, and joined in the combing of the Guadalcanal hinterland and other islands for retreating Japanese. The 35-day assault on the Munda airfield in New Georgia, which the Japanese stubbornly contested, gave the commandos their most severe battle experience. It was also their time of greatest usefulness. The commando scouting

groups were the eyes and ears of the United States ground troops in jungle fighting im which their special training gave them the initiative. Later in 1943 a selected party did good work for the American landing forces on Vella Lavella. It is impossible as well as invidious to praise individuals in a unit where all showed such marked gallantry. Sergeant Larsen himself pays a special tribute te the commanding officer, Major C. W. H. Tripp, whose "example and leadership" were "undoubtedly the greatest single contributing factor to the evolution of the commando." Incidentally, this evolution was gravely handicapped by a perpetual lack of equipment: this does not make’ comfortable reading to-day. The commandos did not work without loss. Their operating area was almost always deep inside enemy-held territory, and their usual job of reconnoitring enemy positions kept them constantly in danger. It was, however, tropical disease which, added to losses in action, led in. May 1944 to the disbandment .of the First Commando Fiji Guerrillas. Colin Larsen’s ‘account of the commandos’ work js clear, modest, objective and intimate. He is content to leave the events themselves to stir and capture the imagination. Fortunate in a subject which could be kept within a definite compass, he gives at all times the special atmosphere of his unit, in the field and at its bases, working, resting, fighting and having fun. The book is adequately illustrated, and is in many respects an ade fo? unit historians.