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CHAPTER 10
War Comes to the Pacific

Malaya was expected to hold. Its defences had been publicised, its jungle reported impenetrable to troops. But in 1942 as January followed December it was clear that the British were retreating, the expected stand was not made, aircraft did not arrive to drive the Zeros from the skies, and day by day the miles lessened between the fighting and the last bastion, Singapore.

The Japanese octopus was also striking into Burma and southward, seizing islands almost in clusters. Every few days unfamiliar place-names studded the news, then disappeared, as they were raided, invaded, and fell into the oblivion of occupation. In the news of 12 January, Japanese forces had landed at Tarakan on the north-east of Borneo and in the northern Celebes, and they were claiming Kuala Lumpur. Rabaul was seized on 23 January, soon becoming a base for strikes at settlements in New Guinea and the Solomons. On Saturday 31 January 1942 their spearhead was reported 18 miles from Singapore's causeway, and by Monday the British had withdrawn to Singapore Island. British forces had also left Moulmein in Burma, while the Japanese had landed at Ambon (Amboina), and raided Salamaua, Wau and Bulolo in New Guinea, and Kupang (Koepang) in Timor. By 4 February, Surabaja in Java was being bombed, so was Port Moresby, capital of Papua; the Salween river on the border of Burma had been crossed.

Regard for the Japanese as fighters was drastically revised. Various voices warned that they must not be judged by their long-drawn-out battle in China, and that their military resources, particularly in the air, had been underestimated. The end of Allied reverses had not come, warned John Curtin,¹ Australia's Prime Minister, on 31 January: Japan was fanatical, very efficient and armed with mountains of supplies and equipment. With this reappraisal came awareness that once again, as in Norway, in France, in Greece and in Crete, the Allies were failing through their own inefficiency, notably in the air; now the failure was on a long finger of Asia that pointed towards Australia and New Zealand. Malaya focused alarm more

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than did the Philippines or Borneo or the Celebes, more even than Sumatra and Java. Singapore had been an article of faith and with it fell much other faith. It appeared that official optimism in 1941 about the defences of Malaya, justifiable only as an attempt to discourage attack, had not deceived Japan, while the British had believed their own bluff. As early as 23 December the Evening Post, a paper not usually over-critical of established values, declared that ‘telling the public only what the public wish to hear is a common democratic fault for which the public themselves are partly to blame. Wishful thinking has become a sedative; and politicians, even soldiers too, have been tempted to feed the public on this “dope” and to risk … a rude awakening … the soothing pre-war assurances about the defences of Malaya and Pearl Harbour are now totally disbelieved … the pendulum may now be swinging from unwarranted optimism too far towards pessimism. But the indignation of the public … is understandable.’

Two weeks later the Press set forth the immediate errors that were plaiting the maypole of disaster. ‘No one who sifts the official and unofficial reports of the fighting in Malaya can escape the conclusion that the advance preparations were badly made, that land, sea and air strategy was imperfectly co-ordinated, that the military and civil authorities were at loggerheads and that preliminary intelligence work was faulty.’² Muffled news further exasperated the Press, which on 17 January complained that for almost a week the daily communiqués from Singapore had told little or nothing. ‘Dr Goebbels at his worst has seldom been more puerile and dishonest than British officialdom in its versions of what is happening in Malaya’. The public knew well enough that things had gone badly wrong; its anxiety was only increased when official news services and commentaries tried to cushion the impact of the truth by wrapping it round with euphemisms, excuses and evasions; these shook faith in official news and damaged public morale. The Dunedin Evening Star on 24 January gave a few samples of not-so-old propaganda: ‘An attack on Singapore from the mainland would now prove as costly as direct assault from the sea’; ‘Great camps have been built for British and Indian troops now fully trained for jungle warfare’; ‘Bombers and fighter aircraft of the Empire are now using aerodromes and sites covered a few months ago by dense vegetation’.

The inactivity of the American fleet was bewildering. Very properly, the United States navy did not reveal the extent of damage at Pearl Harbour, did not say that of the eight big ships in ‘battleship

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row’ Japanese bombers had sunk six and damaged the other two.³ On 17 December a report from Colonel Knox,⁴ Secretary of the Navy, said that the battleship Arizona and five other warships had been lost; three of the five were destroyers and one was the training ship Utah. Other vessels, including the battleship Oklahoma, were damaged; some were already repaired, others would be in dock for several months; about 2900 men had been killed and 890 injured, but harbour facilities and oil-tanks were not damaged. He also said that the entire United States Pacific fleet, consisting of a battleship, aircraft-carriers, light and heavy cruisers, destroyers and submarines was ranging the ocean in search of the Japanese fleet.⁵ Alert readers might have wondered why there was only one battleship in the chase, but more wondered why, since the fleet was not seriously damaged, it did not appear in the South China Sea, or at Singapore, now bereft of Prince of Wales and Repulse.⁶ Reports that Washington and London were resolved to defend Singapore, hailed hopefully,⁷ were succeeded by railings at inaction. Above the title ‘Make it snappy, Sam’, cartoonist Minhinnick showed his Lincoln-like Uncle Sam, blueprint for victory under his arm, racing towards production-shops against Death, with his sickle and hour-glass.⁸ Next week Uncle Sam had a huge gun, ‘USA war power’, its barrel sharply depressed towards ‘Pacific coast local action’, while in the distance a rising sun, with a cloud of ships and aircraft, showed ‘Jap progress in Malaya’; the caption was ‘Raise your sights, Sam’.⁹

In mid-January Knox warned against expecting a naval showdown in the near future: ‘I do not mean to imply that the Pacific Fleet is idle. You will hear from it again and again when and where careful strategic considerations dictate.’ The British and American navies had to maintain their fighting strength in all seas, and he emphasised that the chief enemy was Germany; as soon as Germany was destroyed, the whole Axis fabric would collapse.¹⁰ The New Zealand Herald contrasted his caution with pre-Pearl Harbour assur-

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ances and noted New York press references to Darwin as an American base. But Darwin's value depended on the retention of New Guinea, the Solomons, New Hebrides, Fiji and Java. While it was suicidal to send ships into narrow seas without air cover, the United States should be able to send considerable fighter aircraft to the Far East, a theatre quite as important as the Middle East. To win the war with reasonable quickness, America must hold the Dutch East Indies. ‘The great essential is speed. Darwin will not be secured if the United States concentrates most of its energies “mopping up” submarines in the Eastern Pacific.’¹¹

Repeatedly, the Herald and other papers¹² protested against the British and American view that Germany was the enemy of importance. Malaya was not a side show, to be dealt with at the Allies' leisure after Hitler's overthrow; Australia and New Zealand were entitled to more than comforting words, they should have practical evidence that the Pacific would be protected while there was yet time.¹³ Churchill's confidence in the eventual outcome was cold comfort: ‘the people of the Dutch East Indies do not ask for eventual redemption from the invader—they ask passionately to be saved from him now.’¹⁴

In Britain there was a surge of indignation at yet another defeat due to air inferiority and inadequate preparations. Churchill, Minister of Defence, first Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the Commons as well as Prime Minister, was inevitably a target: he had chosen the men who had made mistakes, if he had not made them himself. Australia, now alarmingly exposed, and with many troops lost in Malaya, complained angrily of trust betrayed and war mismanaged.

On 28 January (New Zealand time), admitting that things had gone badly and would go worse, Churchill, opening a three-day debate on the war, demanded a vote of confidence: ‘It looks as if we are in for a very bad time, but provided we all stand together and use our utmost strength it looks also, more than it ever did before, as if we are going to win.’ He explained that, facing Germany and Italy, Britain had never had enough arms to provide effectively for the Far East. Apart from Britain's own large needs, all that Russia had asked for had been sent, and though there were more than 60 000 men at Singapore, the Nile Valley had priority in aircraft, artillery and tanks. These supplies had helped the Russians to turn

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retreat into attack, and whereas in November Rommel¹⁵ had been threatening Tobruk prior to advancing on Egypt, the British offensive had regained Cyrenaica, though they had yet to hold it, and Rommel's army was not destroyed.¹⁶ Churchill took on himself ‘the fullest personal responsibility’ for the disposition of arms and for diplomatic policy. ‘Why should I be called upon to pick out scapegoats and throw the blame on generals, airmen and sailors—to drive away loyal, trusted colleagues, and submit to the clamour of certain sections of the British and Australian press?’ As for Japan, it had been British policy at almost all costs to avoid disagreement unless certain that America would come in; hence they had stooped to closing the Burma Road in 1940. ‘It seemed utterly irrational to suppose that the Japanese, having thrown away the opportunity of attacking us in the autumn of 1940, when we were much weaker and all alone, should at this period plunge into a desperate struggle against the combined forces of the Empire and the United States.’ Japan now had naval superiority in the Pacific and would inflict many heavy and painful losses on all nations with possessions in the Far East, but ‘we should not allow ourselves to be rattled by this or that place being captured, because once the ultimate power of the United Nations has been brought to bear the opposite process will come into play and move forward remorselessly….’¹⁷

Although Churchill had shouldered responsibility for Malayan errors, especially for the disposal of arms and for diplomacy, both Auckland papers directed bitter reproaches across the Pacific. The New Zealand Herald, its irritation at American slowness increasing, attacked the United States in an editorial that probably topped New Zealand press censure of Allied policies. Why, asked the Herald, if the eastern defences had always been inadequate, were the peoples concerned repeatedly assured that all was well, and troops from India, Australia and New Zealand sent to Britain and the Middle East? Why had the Allies adopted a policy towards Japan that made war inevitable, thus exposing half the human race to the savage attack of a well-armed adversary? ‘The consequences are now falling, not on London or Washington, but on their wards and friends in the

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populous lands of the Orient.’ Churchill himself had been wary, seeking to avoid disagreement with Japan. ‘Mr Churchill does not say so, but the conclusion cannot be escaped that the primary responsibility for provoking war with Japan rests upon President Roosevelt.’ No doubt American assurances of support had induced both Dutch and British to join in the sanctions that had given Japan three choices: to surrender, to suffer economic strangulation, or to fight. ‘Mr Churchill makes it plain that the Allies banked on Japan flinching. Instead she called their bluff and found them unprepared. They had no right to accept such a palpable risk without adequate cover.’ The heaviest responsibility fell on America, which had taken the diplomatic initiative and had the means to back it, but Churchill should have satisfied himself that Pacific Commonwealth countries were not being helplessly exposed, and he now revealed that their defence was fourth in his strategic priorities. In these, Britain and the Atlantic were properly first, and the Soviet second, which staunch and tenacious China might well question, while the defence of the Nile Valley was rated more important than that of Singapore, Tobruk and Benghazi and the desert of Cyrenaica preferred to Hong Kong or the riches of Malaya. Without the Libyan offensive, Malaya might have been saved; a fair and proper distribution of Allied forces was still wanting.¹⁸

The Auckland Star on the evening of 29 January struck a glancing blow in the same direction. It was ‘utterly irrational’ to suppose that Japan would submit indefinitely to economic sanctions. It was hard to believe that this aspect was not considered; probably Britain was depending on the United States and Japan struck before there was firm and precise agreement. No one had dared to suggest that the British government and its leader were so wrong that both should be replaced, and as every critic held that it would be a national disaster if Churchill's leadership were lost, it was certain that he would be given an overwhelming vote of confidence in the Commons. Despite present misgivings and a growing feeling that Churchill took too much on himself, ‘there can be no doubt that if a vote of the British peoples everywhere could be taken, it, too, would be overwhelming. They would be miserably ungrateful people if it were not.’ Churchill had said that though Japan would inflict

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more losses, in the end with hard fighting and unity the Allies would win. Everyone believed this, cold comfort though it was, and none should waste time railing at fate. All should do everything possible, with existing means, to defend New Zealand, while the government must demand more and better weapons.¹⁹

The Churchill mana did not fail in Britain, where he won his vote of confidence 464:1; nor did it fail in New Zealand, where his irreplaceable leadership was valued everywhere.²⁰ Outside Auckland, papers were less critical, accepting that Britain's difficulties were enormous and its priorities understandable; there was approval of the Commons' full ventilation of war matters, in contrast to New Zealand's secret sessions; there was hope that the news from Makassar Strait might be the start of better things. Some, however, firmly stated that Churchill was overburdened and should admit others to share the load. Thus the Press, while fully endorsing his priorities given the shortage of munitions, questioned the causes of that shortage; production had vastly increased, but there was evidence that reforms in policy and method could have raised it much higher. Churchill's explanations did not cover the muddles and blunders in this field, or the official statements, complacent and foolish, on Malaya, which had misled everybody but the Japanese. ‘It is saying far too much to say that he nowhere, in the Cabinet or on his staffs, needs wiser and stronger heads to match his own.’²¹

Newspaper lamentations over foredoomed Singapore had much in common. Several recalled the Maginot Line and the fall of France.²² Japan's massive gains, in territory and war materials, all in ten weeks, were held up to view, plus the immediate threat to the oil wells of Sumatra, with hope and doubt that American aid would come in time. Quick victory was seen as Japan's only chance, therefore the Allies had to hang on everywhere till their real strength came to bear. New Zealand must at once intensify its own defences, though not all papers were quite as definite as the Dominion on 14 February: ‘It is not now a question of whether we will be attacked, but when.’

Singapore finally yielded on 15 February 1942. Churchill, announcing this in a worldwide broadcast, said that this was another occasion to show that British people could meet reverses with renewed strength, drawing from the heart of misfortune the vital impulses of victory. Darker trouble had been passed before, in the awful

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summer of 1940 when Britain stood alone, and in 1941 when it seemed that Russia and its resources would fall. He assured Australia and New Zealand that Britain would strain every nerve for their safety. The good must be viewed with the bad, side by side; America was in the war and Russia was not destroyed, but was already driving back the foul invader. Disunity was the only crime that could destroy the Allies. Whoever was guilty of it would be better with a millstone hung on his neck and cast into the sea. He spoke strongly of Russia, which in dire straits had kept its unity, kept its leaders, and struck back.

In Australia, which had lost thousands of men in Singapore, there was sharp complaint against those who had mismanaged so greatly. In England some Labour critics spoke of Churchill's ‘stupifying magic’. ‘Fine words don't win battles. Whenever we suffer a reverse we are treated to a superb example of mastery of the English language. The nation is being drugged with high-sounding phrases.’²³

Fraser, approving Churchill's speech as ‘true, realistic and unflinching’, had his own eloquence. It would be idle and wrong to suggest that danger was not nearer; there was ample cause for well-grounded concern, but no room for foolish or frantic panic.

We will neither wince nor tremble, we will not fall into undignified complaining or weeping or grizzling or growling, or indulge in stupid; uninformed, unhelpful carping criticism about those who have had the higher direction of our joint war effort and who, with the forces and means at their disposal, could not possibly overcome the huge handicap of time and material which confronted them. New Zealand will face courageously whatever situation will develop. It will do so with calm assurance and dignity as well as with courage. Our danger, which I do not minimise, will decrease in ratio to the effort we all make to build up resistance to any possible attack and contribute to the programme of victory now being planned in the Pacific.²⁴

There were other troubles to digest in this mid-February. The battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the cruiser Prinz Eugen broke out of Brest, where they had been the target of many expensive and supposedly damaging raids, and sped north, harried but successful, to Norwegian waters, thereby arousing gloomy comparison with the Repulse and Prince of Wales. Already the Japanese had attacked

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Sumatra, capturing the great oil centre Palembang on the 16th; the Burma retreat was quickening; Darwin was bombed on the 19th. Gains in Cyrenaica had been short-lived: Rommel since 21 January had struck back, and was now uneasily held at Gazala 50 miles west of Tobruk. The only good news was about the ‘sweeping advances’ of the Russians towards the old Polish frontier.

In post-Singapore comment in New Zealand papers several themes interwove: the great need in the Pacific was for aircraft; New Zealand must quicken its own defences and insist that the government demand aircraft, guns, etc; there should not be easy acceptance of soothing assurances from authority. Some papers, such as the Evening Post and Evening Star, accepted without further outcry the repetition in Malaya of exaggerated self-confidence instead of forethought, and echoed Churchill's demand for unity, pointing to Russia where Hitler had found no quislings and had been beaten back. Others were more critical, reiterating the need for better work in high places. The New Zealand Herald said that drift, muddle and complacency must end; to regard questioning of the highly placed as almost sacrilege was often an excuse for failing to face facts; intelligent criticism was the very breath of democracy.²⁵ The Press held that Churchill's demand for unquestioning faith asked more than most people would readily or reasonably give. ‘Faith in his leadership is unshaken. But that leadership is in the main moral; there is not the same faith in the leadership of those who organise and direct the Commonwealth's war effort…. The British peoples can accept disaster with fortitude; they cannot accept bad leadership with fortitude, and there is no reason why they should learn to.’²⁶ The Standard, which on 8 January had said that the Pacific war was merely part of a greater struggle and Japan merely Hitler's puppet, on 26 February had an article from London saying that on every street corner puzzled men were beginning to consider that Britain, far from winning the war, was fast approaching the danger of losing it through political ineptitude in high places. Churchill's government was cluttered with discredited politicians, privilege, red tape, muddle and inefficiency.

Changes in the British War Cabinet met the edge of such criticism and gave room for hope that things might now go better. During late February and March articles from overseas on the recent disaster continued to appear, telling of selfish citizens, lack of Service coordination, the paralysing effects of routine and the tropical way of life, of blundering and red tape and unreality, of English soldiers three days off the ship struggling in full battledress, in contrast to

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Australians in shorts, boots and tin hats and to the Japanese, who travelled light and fast, co-ordinated all effort, improvised, infiltrated, and used guerrilla methods. Roughly, this could boil down to criticism of pompous, impractical British officialdom. On 7 March an article in the Auckland Star concluded: ‘The root of all these troubles lies “at Home”. An English officer simply cannot view any crisis but from the windows of Whitehall. An Australian, New Zealand, or Dutch commander, given a free hand early, would have saved Singapore.’²⁷

Was there any general reaction or activity after Singapore? There was no immediate mobilisation flurry, because three weeks earlier 27000 men, married but without children, had been called in a Territorial ballot and were already being taken into camps which had been growing rapidly since December 1941; but in the first weeks of March 1942, within a month of Singapore's fall, it was announced that 17 500 men, aged 18–28, married and with children, would be called up on 25 March at very short notice for Territorial service. There was no clamour to reclaim the troops from the Middle East;²⁸ J. A. Lee, who had always held that there were too many men overseas, urged that one of the New Zealand Division's four brigades should be brought back²⁹ but there was no supporting outcry. Newspapers were directed by the censor early in April not to emphasise that Australian forces were returning to their own country.³⁰ Naturally, it was not known that Roosevelt had agreed early in March to send a division to New Zealand while 2NZEF remained in the Middle East.³¹ Construction of defence works—camps, aerodromes, coastal fortifications—was strongly accelerated; on 6 March a Defence Construction Council was set up, with James Fletcher,³² a building contractor who had proved his ability in this field, as Commissioner of Defence Construction, to organise and push forward all defence works, deciding the priority of projects, with wide powers to control supplies of materials, plant and labour and to ensure co-operation from everyone. A week later, a 54-hour week

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for defence construction was established, with provisions for transferring needed men from other districts, and for flat rates of pay.³³

But for most people not called to camps or construction jobs, life was not broadly changed: commercial, social and public affairs went on as usual. Schools held their swimming and athletic sports, still publishing lists of winners; cricket and bowling and yachting interclub championships were won; stock sales were held; Scout Week took place throughout the country; ladies held garden parties for kindergartens; members of Parliament opened school fund-raising fêtes; the Prime Minister opened new rooms for the Hard of Hearing League;³⁴ Wellington's sixth school swimming pool was opened.³⁵

Cinemas were showing much comedy and little war. For instance, Auckland was seeing Las Vegas Nights, ‘the happiest musical medley that ever sparkled from the screen’; Gloria Swanson in Father Takes a Wife, with supports including the latest pictures from the Singapore front; Spencer Tracey, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Margaret Lockwood in Quiet Wedding (‘all Auckland is talking about this delightful comedy’); Wallace Beery in Barnacle Bill; Laurel and Hardy in Great Guns; Abbott and Costello in Hold that Ghost, plus a March of Time newsreel, Norway in Revolt; My Life is Yours, with Lew Ayres as Dr Kildare, had a special first half showing Australia Prepares (‘a good chance for comparison with ours’), U-boats in the Atlantic, Moscow and Odessa, and the AIF facing Japs in Malaya. In the large Civic theatre was Dive Bomber, in colour with Errol Flynn, ‘the Allies’ answer to the devastation of Pearl Harbour … hell-diving heroes of the air and the girls whose hearts fly with them.'³⁶

Business enterprise was carrying on. At Wellington in the Wainuiomata Valley private enterprise was developing a new housing scheme: 16 houses had already been built and there was talk of space on the flat for 5000 homes.³⁷ There were also advertisements such as: ‘Can you spare an hour? Time is precious these days what with war work and additional domestic cares. But one owes it to oneself, as well as one's family and friends to keep up personal appearances …’ with an hour a week at James Smith's beauty salon for cleansing, rejuvenating facials and lustre-restoring hair treatment.³⁸ And again, ‘Morale is a woman's business. The way you

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look affects so many people … a woman's beauty stands for courage, serenity, a gallant heart. But you've less time to spend on beauty care, so learn to make the most of it. Come to Milne and Choyce ….’³⁹

Another advertisement, for National Savings, asked: ‘Would you rather pull your weight in the country's war effort or pull a rickshaw?’ It showed a farmer-type New Zealander jogging in the shafts before a gross, bemedalled Japanese officer, while two soldiers, with rifles and bayonets, grinned in the background.⁴⁰ This drew protest from the Dunedin Manufacturers' Association as more likely to lower morale than to strengthen it, ‘as it presented a picture no New Zealander would visualise or tolerate’.⁴¹

Probably the most widespread feeling was that, though things were bad, they were bound to get better because the Allies had both might and right on their side; not the might of surprise and swift blows, but the massive strength of America, once it got into its war stride, plus the redoubtable Russians and the tough Chinese. ‘We must hang on and do the best we can till the tide turns’ might sum it up.⁴² The Wanganui Herald on 4 March remarked, ‘The war mood of a large portion of the public of New Zealand may be said to range between lively apprehension of imminent catastrophe and near apathy, according to the tone of the latest news. Observers have not noted a general line of thought on the war, except that it will probably be won by the Allies “somehow and sometime”.’

In talk and in newspapers people debated whether Japan would invade New Zealand. Some said that Australia and all the islands north of it would have to be taken first, others saw New Zealand as an early target, a base for cutting United States–Australia communications. Some said that New Zealand was too remote and, lacking oil, minerals and rice, of no use to the Japanese; others held that even mutton would not deter them.⁴³ The long pause at Rabaul, the thrust through Burma, showed that Japan was not coming our way, argued some;⁴⁴ others said that this was merely wishful thinking.⁴⁵

Diagnosing the errors of Malaya—accepted as lack of forceful leadership, staff work and knowledge of the country, lack of vigorous training for actual combat and of skilful, resolute use of the men

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and material available—produced anxiety to avoid similar errors in New Zealand. There were proposals that Territorial training should be overhauled, that officers should hold rank on their present merit, not on seniority, and preferably should be less than 45 years old; that repelling of invasion should be strenuously rehearsed.⁴⁶ There were many references to Major-General Bennett,⁴⁷ who had emerged from Malaya with a fighting reputation and who urged new ways of war, believing that every Australian was a natural guerrilla. There were wishes that New Zealand's military leaders would be as outspoken. ‘We have plenty of drab radio talks from politicians but when it comes to defence matters we want to hear direct from the men whose job it is’, wrote one newspaper correspondent; another: ‘We all want to hear from our military leaders. Sunday night radio soporifics are not good enough for martial times.’⁴⁸ Truth, comparing talks by Bennett and Fraser, repeated that people would rather hear from the heads of the fighting services than from politicians.⁴⁹

There was complaint that the public did not know what was going on, Parliament's secret sessions and the time spent on trifles drew comment.⁵⁰ A cartoon by Minhinnick showed Fraser outside a door labelled ‘Parliament. Secret session as usual’, saying ‘Tell you what I'll do—I'll let you look through the keyhole for a few minutes, but I'll have to keep the key in!’⁵¹ At the same time the spreading of rumours, many derived from enemy broadcasts, was reproved by mayors, editors and others.⁵² On 3 March, W. E. Barnard, reproving rumour-mongers as ‘dangerously silly people’, said that disturbing hearsay reports flew about because the authorities did not sufficiently take the community into their confidence. Secret sessions were necessary but afterwards more information should be given. In England there were secret sessions but also Churchill openly reviewed the whole field of the war, members could criticise and their criticisms were reported in the press. He thought that New Zealand radio should discredit Tokyo's misrepresentations and use a wide range of speakers in whom the public had confidence: Coates, the only ex-soldier in the War Cabinet, seldom spoke on the air,

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and J. A. Lee also had military experience.⁵³ The Wanganui Herald, on 4 March, endorsing this, said that the country sometimes seemed ‘a huge whispering gallery’. The Press said that Parliament had almost ceased to inform the public, while the official Publicity Department was better called non-existent than incompetent.⁵⁴ Minhinnick's cartoon ‘Moths flourish in the dark’ showed a dismal-faced Home Guardsman Fraser taking tattered trousers, ‘Public Confidence’, from a box labelled ‘Secret Sessions Complex’ amid a cloud of moths called ‘Rumour’, ‘Enemy Radio’ and ‘Axis Lies’.⁵⁵ Dr D. G. McMillan MP complained that this cartoon was subversive and that for purely personal and political reasons certain newspapers were trying to undermine the government.⁵⁶

Government publicity, fearful of informing the enemy, relied much on broadcasts and statements by ministers from material more soothing than informative, prepared by departments. These repeatedly assured that the government was coping with the situation and doing everything possible. They were in generalised terms without many concrete examples, and often had a party-politics flavour: Webb, Minister of Labour, spoke of taking off his hat to various industrial workers who were toiling like Trojans, even while strikes in meat works and stoppages in coal mines were disconcerting the public. No New Zealand ministers worked on their speeches as Churchill worked on his. They relied on their natural style, which did not match the war situation, and the public waited in vain for words that would fill them with strong confidence and purpose. Months earlier the Press had deplored that ministers did badly what an announcer could be left to do well, seizing all occasions instead of choosing essential ones, ‘and they alone, it seems, do not know how commonplace and wearisome they have made them.’⁵⁷

There was a flare-up of political discontent. Sidney Holland again pressed for coalition, backed in this by allies such as the Farmers' Union executive, which also called for the complete abolition of racing in wartime.⁵⁸ There were murmurs against the 40-hour week, although regulations at Christmas time had made overtime much cheaper. The NZRSA, which perceived that Fraser had the strongest and coolest head in the field, was making its representations not through public meetings but directly to government for a broadbased war administration. These representations, secretly submitted

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to RSA branches on 23 March, were the starting-point of negotiations that produced a re-organised and enlarged war administration on 24 June 1942.⁵⁹

There was again the odd call for leadership, linked often with demands for weapons. What, asked the Dominion on 16 February, would each and every one do to help should there be an attack? Some were guarding vital points or watching the coast, some preparations were being made; but the great mass of the public seemed only vaguely conscious of its danger and of individual responsibility. New Zealand needed someone with the passion of Mr Sumners⁶⁰ calling on the United States Congress to rouse the nation to its danger: ‘“My God, are we going to let the hope of the ages perish from this earth because of our own unworthiness, and because, like France, we insist upon business as usual?”’⁶¹ An article in the Dominion remarked on the lack of urgency: ‘Time seemingly is thought to be on our side—tons of it. We still find time to argue about hours and wages, time to walk out of a coalmine because somebody might get wet, time for weekend sport much as usual, time for a not-too-quick one after a not-too-heavy day's work.’ Everywhere was a deadening sense of frustration. ‘We want to be fired with a flaming zeal to be up and doing. We want to be taken more fully into the Government's confidence on how each of us individually can help in a positive way to confront these Japanese.’ Emphasis was on passive defence, on EPS, which was coming to mean Everyone Play Safe and was eroding the fighting spirit.

The talk everywhere goes like this: ‘Have you dug a trench’?— ‘Do you keep your bath full?’—‘Have you laid in a week's provisions?’ … Is that all a country with the traditions of Gallipoli, the Somme, Crete, Libya has to talk about at an hour such as this? … We want, Mr. Prime Minister, to be roused with words and acts that are positive…. The real but dormant spirit of New Zealand is a fighting spirit. We want to give these insolent Japanese a run for their yen that they'll have cause to remember. That spirit can be stimulated by giving us something active to do and by proclaiming the doctrine of the offensive. Too many people are wagging their heads in resignation.⁶²

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Awareness that Home Guard uniforms, boots, rifles and other equipment were still inadequate sharpened anxiety. What use were men without weapons? Some urged that the government must demand aircraft, tanks and guns from Britain and America; some urged that New Zealanders should contrive their own tools of destruction. Thus a man complained that for nearly two years he had been trying to interest the Army in anti-tank landmines that could be made by thousands in any foundry; ‘official dry rot is not confined to Malaya …. It seems the army slogan is “Civilians, keep out.”’⁶³ A prominent member of the Chamber of Commerce, M. G. C. McCaul,⁶⁴ complained in several newspapers about preoccupation with slit trenches and protection for civilians; people must insist on an efficient, adequate Army, complete with tanks and aircraft, or share the blame for wilful blindness and complacency.⁶⁵ The Auckland Chamber of Commerce urged the government to strengthen the Home Guard and see that local manufacture of arms and equipment increased.⁶⁶

This feeling crystallised in the ‘Awake New Zealand’ movement. At Hamilton late in February the Home Guard commander, Major T. H. Melrose,⁶⁷ launched a campaign to arouse civilians to more active and belligerent defence. He spoke of Cromwell, the obscure farmer who raised an ‘iron army’, of stubborn Boer commandos, of Yugoslav resisters and Russian guerrillas. He urged a Home Guard vastly increased, with red tape thrown away and ingenuity rampant. Its men must have weapons, from sharpened slashers to flame-throwers, bombs, trench mortars and any destructive devices that could be contrived with the materials and machine-tools locally available.⁶⁸ A Hamilton businessman, P. O. Bonham,⁶⁹ promised to give £200 and would raise £1,000 within a month; by 16 March donations totalled £2,250.⁷⁰ The readiness of some people to respond to such a movement was suggested by a letter in the Dominion from a woman who wanted weapons and assurance that New Zealand would never surrender, recalling Churchill's Dunkirk promise to fight on the

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beaches and the hills. ‘There are hundreds of women living alone, carrying on farm work, business, etc., who have gladly dug their own slit trench; some are first class shots, but their only weapon of defence against paratroops is the wood axe…. Give the women weapons, they can fight. The Japanese will never have the chance to take the women and children alive.’⁷¹

On 11 March came the British government's revelations of Japanese atrocities at Hong Kong: of British soldiers bound and bayoneted, of women both European and Asian raped and murdered, of prisoners crowded into insanitary, dysentry-ridden camps. These horrors, reinforced by others from the capture of Nanking in 1937, had a good deal of prominence. The Auckland Star in an inflammatory special article urged every man and woman to get some weapon, practise with it, and die fighting: ‘to die of a hot, sharp twisting bayonet plunge through the belly, when trussed like a fatted rooster, would not be as good a death as being shot in half by a tommygun…. Put the wind up our women so that they will die fighting like cats rather than painfully and lingeringly of an Eastern disease ….’ There should be Molotov cocktails to fling at the invaders and one for the final explosion that would leave no wife or screaming child to suffer. ‘Stop thinking you are too fat, too old, too comfortable, too superior! Join the Home Guard! Push your husband out the front door and send him running to join it….’ All who could should get a rifle and learn to use it. Maybe the Americans would be here to prevent disaster, maybe they would not. ‘Remember the barbarities of Hong Kong and get ready to fight and to die fighting.’⁷²

The Standard printed ‘a stark exposure of the barbarous atrocities which have been the stock-in-trade of the Japanese army’, stressing that the bayoneting and raping at Hong Kong could be repeated in New Zealand. ‘Fight, work and save as never before. We are in the battle zone and the victory must be ours … or else.’⁷³

All this fanned the ‘Awake New Zealand’ movement which, blessed by the RSA and the Chamber of Commerce but without political bias, had spread through the Waikato and sprung up in distant places. It sought to kindle a spiritual fighting force within people and to make both public and government aware of the urgent need for total war, with every fit man trained to fight, all factories and workshops fully engaged on arms and equipment, and people

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roused to individual action without waiting for compulsion by the government.⁷⁴

Reports from some small towns gave grass-root detail. At Te Aroha a meeting of 600 people recorded emphatic protest at the long failure of the authorities to arm and equip the Home Guard, and subscribed £491, calling on people to act for themselves, to support Major Melrose's movement, and to improvise weapons. Hand grenades from Hamilton were shown and 5000 of them were to be the first step, a local firm setting up half its workshop for this purpose.⁷⁵ At Te Kuiti, on similar lines, a crowd of 500 subscribed nearly £400.⁷⁶ A Rotorua meeting on 22 March donated more than £1,000 and was told of the keenness at Hamilton: a group of Te Pahu farmers had offered to come to town three days a week to make munitions; other farmers, some with trade skills acquired before going on the land, had offered to work on munitions at night and between milkings; it had been suggested that as butter was now less important some factories should close and calves be left to run with the cows till the next season, freeing farmers and dairy factory workers for training or war work.⁷⁷ By 20 March Levin had raised £800 and its signalling equipment, and hand-grenade throwers and trench mortars, locally made from scrap, were approved at Foxton.⁷⁸

What was probably a fairly typical course of activity occurred at Hastings. On 9 March a ‘rally for unity’ meeting called for the honouring of Fraser's promise of universal service, with all fit men trained in arms and all women's organisations directed to war activities. A week later the Hastings Chamber of Commerce urged a national government, publicity to combat subversion and defeatist rumours, and support for ‘Awake New Zealand’.⁷⁹ A Hawke's Bay Weapons Council was organised and it speedily made contact with both the Army and the Home Guard, examined the possibilities of a local engineering workshop, and sent to Hamilton for drawings and samples of weapons.⁸⁰ There was an immediate start on making camouflage nets and suits, staple-drawers from old rasps and Molotov cocktail belts from sugar bags. A member of the War Weapons Council, Mrs J. R. Stevenson, told a meeting of women that the Japanese wanted to frighten people from their homes. They should ‘stay put’ and fight if necessary—‘a broken beer bottle would make

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an excellent weapon.’⁸¹ In fact, weapon-making remained simple. Truth, six months later, commenting on Hawke's Bay zeal, told of knuckle-dusters and daggers made from old car springs, of 100 staple-drawers, 50 camouflage suits and thousands of camouflage nets for helmets and trenches, many made by Maoris from green flax.⁸²

At Auckland on 7 March, Brian Kingston, prominent in the National Service movement⁸³ that had been suppressed in June 1940, called a meeting at which speakers from Hamilton urged all-in effort. Kingston himself said that while the government had done well in many ways, such expressions of public feeling might encourage it to require stronger effort towards improving defences. There were resolutions demanding the immediate mobilisaton of a citizen army and of industrial resources to equip it, speeded by a moratorium on rents, interest, etc.⁸⁴ A few days later at a larger Auckland meeting with locally-made weapons displayed on the platform, Mayor Allum⁸⁵ called for shoulder-to-shoulder effort, with all feelings of politics, class or creed set aside, saying that the Prime Minister joined him in approval of the people's desire to take part in the defence of their city. Trade unions advocated production councils, Auckland engineers had already set up a special committee to bring all facts forward and there was stirring talk of citizens' defence in all aspects. The Mayor, again stressing government approval, thereafter set up a committee to consider local defence matters and to improve war production, inviting communications from all citizens or manufacturers with constructive proposals.⁸⁶

An example of weapon-making may be given. One R. Mackrell of the EPS demolition squad at Onehunga, a handy man with tools, was asked to make a mortar of the type widely used by the Home Guard in Britain. By the end of February he and his helpers were making about 12 mortars a week out of the 2½-inch piping used in refrigeration plants. The mortar had a spade grip by which it could be dug into the ground, and as it weighed only about 161b it could be carried by one man, with a second man carrying its bombs, which were being made by the same group.⁸⁷ Major Melrose decided that these could be made at Hamilton and by mid-April the Mayor of Hamilton had presented its Home Guard with eight

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trench mortars, plus ammunition and an auxiliary trailer from the research members of ‘Awake New Zealand’.⁸⁸

There was less activity at Wellington, seat of government. However, a Lower Hutt meeting of about 150 persons, ‘where the loudest voices got the best hearing’, criticised many things—the public's ignorance of the running of the war and of the need for complete mobilisation, the faults of ministers, race-day trains and vegetable supplies—and resolved to support the government in a total war effort mobilising every fit man and woman.⁸⁹ In the South Island there were a few scattered outbreaks: Oamaru's Borough Council, speaking of the need for national awakening, for quadrupled munitions and longer hours, called a public meeting.⁹⁰ Gore on 24 March launched its ‘Awake New Zealand’ campaign by subscribing £1,000 at one meeting.⁹¹

The ‘Awake New Zealand’ movement was eyed askance by many. Inevitably, its drive for do-it-yourself defence implied criticism of government action or inaction. The sensitive Standard complained of irresponsible politically-motivated criticism of the government's defence preparations by Holland and others who did not know what was being done: ‘Mass meetings and resolutions are not going to help defend this country.’⁹² The Labour member for Invercargill, W. Denham,⁹³ wanted the Prime Minister to explain that the criticism, far from being valuable and constructive, was querulous, fretful and might play into the hands of the enemy.⁹⁴ Truth suggested that the campaign's munitions proposals encroached on areas that could be run only by the government.⁹⁵ R. H. Nimmo, no Labour party man, and a pillar of the Chamber of Commerce which in some areas endorsed the ‘Awake’ campaign, wanted caution before criticism of the war effort. After visiting military camps he believed that the government had done a very good job and Service chiefs were experts, with information that the public would not have.⁹⁶ Wisely, Fraser accepted assurances from Hamilton that the movement's belligerence was not directed at the government and he went there himself to strengthen the alignment. On 30 March, after seven

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hours with delegates from the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Rotorua and the King Country, Fraser declared that he had enjoyed every minute of his day, and that it was a splendid movement, an inspiring example of democracy.⁹⁷ The Standard meanwhile trimmed its course, explaining on 26 March that while well informed public opinion was of tremendous value in a war, it was most difficult for the government to decide where publicity should end and censorship begin. The ‘Awake’ agitation showed the result of saying too little; the government could have given more publicity to what had been done but it had preferred to work and not talk. ‘The lesson to be learned from the recent campaign is that governments cannot afford to hide their lights under a bushel.’⁹⁸

In mid-April the movement spread to Taranaki, beginning with Inglewood's County Council.⁹⁹ By the end of May Bonham, chairman at Hamilton, had toured Taranaki, finding keen interest and a great deal being done for the Home Guard, ‘in fact, more had been done there than in the Waikato, and several Taranaki schemes would be submitted to the Hamilton Battalion for adoption.’¹⁰⁰ Early in May, ‘Awake’ began at Whangarei, where £550 was subscribed within a fortnight.¹⁰¹ At about the same time, advertisements from Hamilton proclaimed that New Zealand was unmistakeably faced with invasion, that thousands had banded themselves together ‘to Awaken this country to a sense of its danger, to the need for the sacrifice by all, and to see that offensive weapons are manufactured to the limit by the full utilisation of all untapped resources’, and that growth had been such that it was lately decided to launch a nation-wide campaign asking all organisations and persons actively to support the movement, so that all New Zealanders, with God's powerful help, would stand four-square against the real and terrible danger.¹⁰²

By this time the Prime Minister was becoming a little dubious. His Waikato friends, he said, had started out with excellent ideas and he had hoped that their efforts would be confined to the Waikato where good work was being done in a particular way; he had the highest respect for those behind the movement, of which he would express no opinion, though he thought it was well intentioned; time could not be wasted squabbling and the best way to win the war was to get whole-heartedly behind the war effort.¹⁰³

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Also, by this time the Director of Publicity (J. T. Paul), close behind whom stood the Prime Minister, and Army were giving more information. Articles in the Auckland Star from 2 to 16 May told of the arming of the North, and on 17 May Puttick told the nation clearly, if not with the flair of MacArthur or Bennett, that New Zealand's defence had come a long way in a hurry, that there had been need to keep quiet about it at first, but now the Army could afford to be less hush-hush about its achievements.

The ‘Awake’ stir was not profound. Although some people who envisaged invasion set strenuous words reverberating and fired some others with their vision, only small free-lance ardours of preparation ensued. The sums collected provided many Home Guardsmen with useful gear such as groundsheets and haversacks, but could do little for weapons. There were limits to the explosives that could be manufactured by amateurs with safety to the users, the Army was cautious about accepting them, and regular weapons were gradually coming. The real depth of the movement may be measured by the fact that in April 1942 regulations compulsorily transferred more than 25 000 men from EPS to the Home Guard where needed, although in some areas the Guard was already at full strength.

Even in these worst months the news was not all bad, discreetly managed to make the best of it. Frequently a Russian thrust countered the impact of Japanese advance. Thus on 7 January the New Zealand Herald's single column ‘Push South still Continuing, Malayan Fighting, New Landings made’ was quite eclipsed by its large-lettered ‘Rapidity of Advance, Within Reach of Kharkov, Progress in Crimea’. On 13 January, with ‘Balaclava Captured’, the Japanese occupation of Kuala Lumpur looked less ominous; on 16 February when the fall of Singapore had central place on every cable page, the Evening Post also drew attention to ‘Sweeping Advances, Russians nearing old Polish Border’. Again, on 11 March, ‘Awful Atrocities at Hongkong’ and ‘Australia's Danger is Graver Daily’ (with the third Japanese landing in New Guinea) were balanced by the headings, ‘Havoc in Ruhr, Intense RAF Raid’ and ‘Kharkov Surrounded on Three Sides, More Russian Gains’.¹⁰⁴

In war, besides giving information, the task of news media is to maintain morale and hopefulness along with enough alarm and urgency to induce lively effort. Bad news which was obviously fully known to the enemy, like the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse, was promptly admitted; where such news was obscure, or

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might give information to the enemy, its release was often officially delayed,¹⁰⁵ as in the Java Sea battle, and would sometimes then appear beside some more cheering reports. The balanced presentation of good and bad, as instanced above, could preserve morale while presenting sad facts, and by logical extension of this process good news could be inflated by various means such as multiple reports, optimism, and the plain difficulty of aircrew and seamen in knowing how much damage was achieved. In some cases, inflation could almost amount to invention. A notable example was the Battle of Makassar Strait, which provided much-needed relief in the bad last week of January 1942.

On 21 January about 16 Japanese transports were escorted from Tarakan (on the north-east coast of Borneo, taken on 11 January) south towards the oil port, Balikpapan. Dutch aircraft sank one in the afternoon of the 23rd, and another the next day. Shortly before dawn on the 24th four American destroyers, sent to make a night attack, found the convoy anchored off Balikpapan, both silhouetted and veiled by the burning oil field. The first torpedo fired by the Americans confused the Japanese commander who took his destroyers out into the strait to search for submarines, leaving the transports unguarded. The Americans sank four transports and a patrol boat that night; three days later the aircraft tender Sanuki Maru, the most valuable ship hit off Balikpapan, was severely damaged by bombers.¹⁰⁶

Strategically, the Japanese claim that their advance was not halted for even a day was correct, but it was a gallant and skilful effort, the first United States naval surface strike in the Pacific, and it was very warmly received by a nation hungry for news of action and victory.¹⁰⁷ America was not alone in this hunger. In New Zealand, overseas communiqués and foreign correspondents' reports raised a lofty edifice of destruction, buttressed by appreciative editorials.

On 28 January the New Zealand Herald proclaimed ‘Greatest Sea Victory of the War, Over 50 Ships Sent to the Bottom’, some being ocean liners each probably carrying 3000 men. The Auckland Star editorial said that the over-confident Japanese, in sending their convoy into the Strait, had made perhaps the biggest blunder of the war. The Press was heartened by the f