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Documents Relating to New Zealand's Participation in the Second World War 1939–45: Volume III

Preface

page v

Preface

This volume, the third and final of the ‘Documents’ series is, like its predecessors, complementary to the campaign and political volumes of the war history programme. It is based on documents held in the Prime Minister's Department and the Service departments, to which access, for the purpose of producing this collection, has always been entirely unrestricted. Their bulk is formidable, and publication in full quite impracticable; indeed, many of them are only of minor importance.

In order, therefore, to present a reasonable picture of the problems which confronted the Government of New Zealand in particular, and also those of her Allies, in the prosecution of the war in the Pacific with which this volume is primarily concerned, a selection of documents had to be made. Every care has been taken to include all executive and enough informative documents to provide an adequate coverage of each subject; but the number published comprises only a small proportion of the whole, especially in the sections dealing with relations with Japan and Thailand before the outbreak of war in the Pacific.

As with previous volumes, the documents are presented chronologically within various subject headings. The telegrams reproduced contain the errors and mutilations in transmission which exist in the originals. No effort was made at the time, except with gross errors, at any elucidation, and none has been attempted since. Most of the documents therefore appear in the form on which the Government acted: the chief exceptions are General Freyberg's telegrams, which have been corrected with the file copies of the originals, and the telegrams published by Mr Churchill in his volumes on the Second World War.

The requirements as to the paraphrasing of messages, which applied to Volumes I and II, have now, because of effluxion of time, been waived. Where, however, multiple addresses were used, as is common practice between Commonwealth countries, only the New Zealand address is reproduced. Annotation, again for reasons of space, has been restricted.

The research for the three volumes in this series has been the work of Mr L. S. Hart and Mr C. R. McColl, formerly of the staff of the War History Branch, and of Mr W. A. Glue, who also prepared the documents for publication. Mrs M. M. Fogarty compiled the index.

M. C. Fairbrother

,

Editor-in-Chief,
New Zealand War Histories

page vi