A memorable war

By LYN HUMPHREYS lyn.humphreys@tnl.co.nz - Taranaki Daily News | Friday, 25 April 2008

Taranaki Returned Servicemen, from left, Graeme Lowe, Peter Beckham, Jack Elliott and Ra Penn cannot see today's Kiwis laying down their lives in defence of the United Kingdom.

The squalor of war shot to hell their ideas about war and adventure. Like so many others, four World War II Taranaki veterans joined the queues for what they hoped was the experience of a lifetime. They weren't disappointed, but it wasn't what they expected. Along with the blood, guts, starvation and thrills came the realisation that a life under German or Japanese rule wasn't worth living.


Four veterans who gathered around the table at the New Plymouth RSA this week were adamant that, given the same circumstances, they would once more join up to fight for king and country.

But they are at odds as to whether New Zealanders today would do the same. They certainly agree that contemporary Kiwis will never feel the same loyalty to Britain that they did nearly 70 years ago.

Don Mander, who's 85, admits that at 20, when he joined the fleet air arm, he was ignorant of the politics that led to the war.

"We didn't even know that Hitler existed," Don admits. "We went for the adventure and to fly."

But it was all too real for 83-year-old Englishman Peter Beckham, who was living with the daily threat of Hitler and his menacing war machine across the channel. The moment Peter turned 18 in 1943, he became part of the massive sign-up of all available Brits, to the consternation of his father.

"My father's battalion was massacred on the Somme in World War I by the bad advice of generals. I'm bloody lucky to be here at all!"

And there was the horror when, as a youngster, he saw World War I veterans marching to London to plead for work and money.

"What a pathetic situation. They send them to war, they risk their lives and then they can't even feed them properly."

Ra Penn, who gives his age as "eighty-bloody-five", says he had a major falling out with his father when he also signed up as a flyboy as soon as his age allowed.

His father, who fought in World War I under General Douglas Haig, had no faith in the incompetent military leadership who had failed to protect their men.

"The old man got shot running up the beach at Gallipoli. He thought war was futile and stupid."

Jack Elliott, a soldier in New Zealand's 25th infantry battalion, experienced first hand as a prisoner of war behind German lines what the options would have been if the Allies lost the war.

"I don't regret it," the 88-year-old says. "It was well worthwhile when you consider what our life would have been either under the Germans or the Japanese."

In joining up, Jack had continued the family tradition. "I had six uncles who fought in World War I. Two didn't make it and four were invalided home wounded."

Jack was captured in North Africa after a series of desert firefights. "We had two wins and a loss that day." He would spend the remaining three-and-a-half years behind the wires.

The experience opened his naive young eyes to the realities of war. "People think that all the people who died were gassed, but they weren't. Many were starved, died of illness, or worked to death. We saw the suppression of the ordinary German people for ourselves. They were too afraid to say or do anything."

The men's hero remains a Stratford man, Lieutenant Colonel William Malone, in command of the Wellington Infantry regiment at Gallipoli during World War I, who died alongside his men on Chunuk Bair in 1915, probably from friendly fire.

Unlike other military leaders, he had tried to conserve the lives of his men and had been the only commander who achieved his objective, they say.

They are frustrated that, despite many entreaties to officialdom, the country has never given Malone the accolade they feel he deserves. "He should have been given the VC posthumously," Peter says.

Ra says the young today would never go to war as they had done.

"A lot wouldn't put a uniform on. It is just the way they are. They don't want to fight for king and country."

Don disagrees. "I think they would go again."

The group has taken heart in the recent outpouring of the younger generations on Anzac Days as they rediscover their grandparents' past.

This year's poppy-sale collection might have been down in numbers with plenty questioning whether the poppies were stolen in the North Shore theft but those who did give were more charitable than in the past.

Ra says he handed out fewer poppies and his collection box was lighter, but that was only because it was filled with notes. Most generous were the young mothers, he says.

They were also delighted to see young kids putting all their pocket money in.

The group is convinced that the dropping of atomic bombs on Japanese cities, which ended the war in the Pacific, was a necessary evil to save the lives of many millions more.

Don says the realisation of what nuclear wars could mean to the world has been an effective preventive from that time on. "There's not been a really big war since then."

The veterans say they are disgusted by the depletion of today's Kiwi armed forces, especially the Labour Government's decision to ditch the Air Force fighter jets.

"We learnt the hard way in World War II that nothing is gained without air cover. And now what do they do? Buy helicopters," says RNZN Malaysian vet Graeme Lowe. "We spend less GDP on defence of any of the Western nations less than one per cent.

"We haven't got a strike force now," Ra says. "The Skyhawks were equal to any fighter in the world. We had the best in the Southern Hemisphere. At least give them equipment. Now they couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag."