I
Advanced Depot of Medical Stores

Thinking back over the life of the Advanced Depot of Medical Stores it can be truly said that we worked our way up from nothing. Our first store was a room at the Tamavua Hospital, Fiji, in 1941. Into this room were packed all our drugs, dressings, splints and instruments, a dispensary and packing department, while piles of unopened cases reached to the very ceiling. No such thing as a passageway existed, and it was a skilled person who could move from one wall to the other without initiating a cascade of cases. Officer in charge and chief guide to this maze was 'Butch' Martin—just a lowly sergeant in those days and one who would never wear his stripes anyway.

When, after Japan's entry into the war, the force expanded, it became necessary for Sergeant Martin to have some assistance, and, after many conferences and discussions regarding war establishments, it was decided to increase the staff by one man. Private Johnny Delowe was that man, and he was given the somewhat responsible job of 'bottle washer in chief.' Later, to help us cope with a further increase in work, we were given on loan from the 7th Field Ambulance an agile dispenser, Sergeant Don Steptoe, who soon became an adept at dodging falling cases. Although we were inevitably surrounded by these cases they did not always contain the drugs or dressings that were needed so badly. The acute shortage of supplies in those days led to many scenes with the nurses attached to the hospital. It became one of our recog-page break

Refuse disposal was a problem on Nissan where the hard coral floor of the jungle made burying impracticable. Chutes extending over cliffs were built so that refuse could be dumped clear into the sea to be carried away by the tide. The above photograph shows a refuse truck dumping its cargo. Japanese fugitives who hid in the jungle for months some-limes existed on food found at the refuse dump

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Control of possible mosquito breeding grounds was an important part of the work of the malaria control unit in the Solomons. Here a stagnant pool on Nissan Island is being sprayed with oil to kill larvæ
Signs like the one below ai divisional headquarters, Vella Lavella, could be seen everywhere in malarious areas. They were part of a prolonged campaign to discourage any relaxation of the important measures which reduced malaria

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Boating, in many different kinds of craft, was a popular pastime in the Solomons. Here, against a jungle background, is the malaria control unit's outrigger, appropriately named.
Stretcher bearing at any time is heavy work but, in the jungle, beat and tangled undergrowth and swamps make the task even more strenuous. This drawing shows stretcher bearers on Mono negotiating a rise while armed guards keep watch for snipers hiding in trees

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Tents, bures and wooden buildings made up the wards a id departments of Base Cam]) Rcception Hospital, Tene valley New Caledonia. The niaouli tree was extraordinarily use In to the New Zealanders in New Caledonia since from its wood amd bark some hundreds of mess huts; ktlchens worksops stores and hospital wards were built. The buildings shown below were at Base Camp Rception Hospital and were typical of many New Zealand camps in New Caledonia

page 89nised tribulations to have to face one of those masterful women hysterically and sometimes tearfully demanding that we should supply an item we usually did not have anyway. It was in Fiji that we learned the gentle art of handling medical officers and sisters.

Though in numbers such an insignificant unit, we prided ourselves that in Fiji we performed a significant and worth-while service. As a medical store we were responsible for obtaining from New Zealand and issuing to units sufficient medical equipment and supplies for two hospitals, two light field ambulances, a small convalescent depot, an infectious disease hospital, and the regimental aid posts of two brigade groups. Quite an undertaking for one sergeant, one private, and one dispenser on loan. In July, 1942, the division was recalled to New Zealand. On the very day we left we took delivery of a shipment of supplies which we had been anxiously awaiting for several months. We didn't bother to unpack!

For almost six months we enjoyed New Zealand and proximity to our homes until word came that it was time we were up and doing again. The staff was increased to eight, and Sergeant Martin, now a fully-Hedged if slightly self-conscious second-lieutenant, was again in charge. We worked in Wellington getting together the thousands of items necessary to keep a division in the field supplied, until one afternoon we received orders to report immediately to camp in readiness to proceed overseas. We embarked on Christmas Eve, 1942, leaving our carefully packed stores behind in the care of Sergeant J. O. C. Meredith.

We were not altogether happy on arrival in New Caledonia, for we found ourselves with a division to keep supplied and not a solitary aspirin between the lot of us. After spending a day or so at a transit camp at Dumbea we were taken to Bourail to what was erroneously called Racecourse Camp. We understood that, in the past, it had been a racecourse, but it was certainly no camp. There two truck loads of supplies miraculously appeared from the US Army and we were in business again. We had no sooner started working the next day when a message came that we were in the wrong camp. Back all those cases went on to the trucks and off we set for the 4th General Hospital camp at Boguen River. This time we waited a while before unloading, just in case we were in the wrong camp again, but it seemed definite, and we set up shop.

Life in the main in those days consisted of being eaten by mosquitoes by day and by night. These pests dominated our existence to such an extent that the sight of men leaping wildly about, slapping at various parts of their anatomies, ceased to be even interesting. Shaving was a trial (it always is, of course), which we tried to make easier by squatting in the nearby river up to our necks and leaving just our faces exposed. Unfortunately this practice had to be discontinued when it was painfully discovered that the local fish also liked a nip here and there.

We were not at this location more than four weeks when it was decided that we were again at the wrong camp. Profanity is an art which flourishes in the army because the soldier meets so many occasions which allow of intensive practice. We had a team which gave of its best on this occasion. Before we could think of setting up our new camp (at the racecourse again) we had to clear a site in the midst of a niaouli forest. It was then that we discovered the sterling worth of Driver N. K. C. Scott, who, using a six-by-four truck in lieu of a bulldozer, charged through those trees like a bull run amok. It was at this point that fate chose to send over one of her better varieties of storms. Rivers of rain poured down the hillside and a seething gale did not make the task of pitching tents any easier. The picture of Lieutenant Martin endeavouring to give orders above the noise of the storm, but finally having to give up in disgust and compromising with wild gesticulations, will always be remembered as one of our better moments.

Several months of comparative quiet provided us with an opportunity to make our area more presentable and, when we were given a warehouse to call our very own, our maternal pride knew no bounds. It was with rumours of forthcoming action in the air that we met our new boss. Captain E. T. (Tangi) Saunders arrived just as the paper war got really going, and instructions, orders, reports, schedules, circulars, and returns were in constant demand in duplicate, triplicate, and quadruplicate. It was a relief to be able to get down to the serious job of outfitting the units. Work went on regardless of whether it was day or night until the division started moving up. We were given three hours' notice to send a man with the first echelon, and Corporal Jack (Mac) Maclennan was despatched forthwith to Noumea, where he was told to wait and was promptly forgotten.

It was not until he was posted absent without leave and just before the boat left that he was discovered still awaiting instructions as to where to go. Corporal Delowe and Driver Phil Corliss made up the next section to be on their way. It was hoped that they would reach Guadalcanal with all unit equipment before the later sections arrived, but this was a vain hope. When they reached Noumea they found that there was no room on the ship for them, and, as a ship was considered fairly necessary to take them to their destination, they just waited and waited. It was not until Captain Saunders and Private Alan Spencer reached Noumea some four weeks later that they were able to embark.

While our New Caledonian section carried on under Staff-Sergeant Meredith, ably assisted by men borrowed from surrounding units, our Guadalcanal section was finding life somewhat primitive. Our stores had arrived before we did, and Corporal Maclennan, who had also arrived, had found some of them. By 'acquiring' some tentage he had them under cover. When the main body arrived (all four of us) a search was made for the rest of the stores, which were found scattered over at least five miles of beaches. The by now familiar job of building, unpacking and sorting started with regular off periods for air-raid alarms —most of them false. We re-discovered the wellknown joys of being in the islands, of working in temperatures well over 100 degrees, of being bathed in a perpetual state of streaming perspiration, of drinking warm, tasteless water, of existing on a diet comprised mainly of 'M and V,' with a slab of 'spam' as a special treat. Oh, happy days!

We were not properly organised in Guadalcanal before instructions were received to open another section on Vella Lavella. Reviewing our strength of one officer, two corporals, one private and a driver, it was a little difficult to see who could be spared, and it was with some reluctance that we had to let Corporal Maclennan go. With our depleted staff, and with the help of our friends the field ambulances, who kept us supplied with working parties, we started sorting the mountains of cases. Soon the little pink pills found themselves placed neatly on shelves, while the Epsom salts claimed a handy place near the door. With due solemnity we christened this, our latest offspring, Pharmacia Pacifique on the day we received our first beer ration, but the occasion was somewhat marred by the appropriation of our beer by some person or persons unknown. Besides these dealings with page 92the human members of the species we were also troubled by the legitimate type of rat, whose rate of propagation taxed our ingenuity in keeping him under control. Hidden talent was discovered in Alan Spencer, who produced an endless variety of rat traps, which, in theory if not in fact, eliminated our entire rat population.

In addition to our local worries there were supply problems which caused us many headaches. Why it was that ships always chose to sail on Sundays, Christmas Days and the like we never found out. The fact remained, however, that, if we were not dragged out of bed at three o'clock in the morning to unload trucks, we had to work far into the night for the pleasure of loading them at approximately the same hour. Urgent calls always seemed to come when we were busily engaged doing something besides work. It was during a party one evening that we were asked to rush penicillin to Mono Island that same night. With the assistance of an American aircraft, which navigated a storm that one of our members is never likely to forget, we got it there. Another time it was late at night when we received a call to produce somehow quantities of a drug which, under normal conditions, would have been sufficient to last a couple of years. We spent the rest of that night careering around every hospital on the island borrowing all we could and cabling every other island within a thousand miles for more.

Meanwhile, our Necal section was having a little trouble with a large hurricane which, with no regard for property or propriety, blew down every tent in the camp. Shirts, trousers and undergarments adorned the bushes all round the area, and Corporal Ted Creed, in particular, still bemoans the loss of one pair of freshly washed and hardly worn socks. Our warehouse was taken over as a temporary hostel to house our refugee neighbours from Base Camp Reception Hospital and the Base Hygiene Section. The store at New Caledonia, besides being our base, was responsible for supplying all New Zealand hospitals and camps on the island and carried out all technical repair work for the force. It was in constant touch with New Zealand to obtain from there any technical equipment not available from American sources. We had only two of our permanent members on this staff, Staff-Sergeant Meredith and Corporal Creed. Theirs was a thankless task, with few of the excitements of the forward area to make the job worthwhile. They did their work conscientiously page 93and thoroughly, despite their repeated requests to be allowed to go nearer to action.

Our Vella Lavella section was also having sock trouble. Their quarters were being invaded nightly by an army of land crabs which, with inexplicable crabby wisdom, showed a preference for making away with socks. The lads on this island were living through nightly air raids and day upon day of monotonous rain. Corporal Wally Luxton was alone during one air raid, and as a Jap plane passed overhead he heard a thud on the tent fly. He will always remember that falling coconut! Corporal Maclennan who ran this section, was the only representative of our permanent staff on Vella, except when Captain Saunders visited the island on occasional tours of duty. He took over the store from the US Army and with it the responsibility for supplying all American troops on the island. When our sergeant-dispenser at New Caledonia was transferred to another unit we were able to promote 'Mac' to a sergeant, and it was as a sergeant that he had, with considerable diplomacy, to handle officers of the US Army as well as our own. At the peak period of supply his section serviced approximately 20,000 New Zealand and American troops. His was a man-sized job, which he handled efficiently and always with a grin.

When the 14th Brigade moved to Nissan Island we withdrew our Vella section to Guadalcanal, where we were now quite comfortable. Roads had replaced mud tracks, showers had been fitted, proper mess halls built, and a nearby unit had even built itself a waterless fountain. We. had built ourselves a mosquito-proof tent, complete with electric light and two-way switch acquired and fitted by the ever-inventive Alan Spencer. Driver Corliss found time to put in several garden beds, while Captain Saunders painted a most impressive sign, which, with the addition of a locally produced Jap skull and cross bones, hung over the entrance to the store. The Guadalcanal section was the main pivot in our system of supply, and it was there that we had our forward headquarters. Almost all supplies were drawn from American medical depots, under lend-lease agreement, although such items as field equipment and Red Cross hospital supplies came direct from New Zealand. National Patriotic Fund Board hospital comforts were also handled, and these eventually became one of our largest sidelines. During the period of greatest activity we were supplying our troops and casualty clearing stations page 94on Guadalcanal, our section at Vella Lavella, New Zealand and American troops on Mono and Stirling Islands, RNZAF units as far north as Bougainville, and the New Zealand Navy in the islands. It was estimated that we were responsible for approximately 40,000 troops, of whom a large proportion were American. When Captain Saunders had to make his trips to other islands we were placed in the somewhat embarrassing position of having a corporal in charge, with a very able private soldier as chief and only storeman. It is to the lasting credit of the men in charge of our sections at various times, each bearing responsibility far beyond his rank, and to the men working with them with no hope of promotion while they were attached to the store, that each and every one stuck to his job and performed it to the best of his ability.

During April, May and June of 1944 the division was withdrawn to Necal and our work in the forward areas was finished. Captain Saunders earned a mention in despatches, and the rest of us felt we had earned a rest—which we didn't get. We still had to face our biggest job, that of packing our Necal store for return to New Zealand. By this time we were heartily sick of packing up stores, but we set to work with a will. Our last load of cases was awaiting shipment when a convoy drew up outside the warehouse and we were gently told that a consignment of stores had arrived for us from New Zealand. We didn't bother to unpack!

Writing at Mangere, New Zealand, this short account of our activities, with the store in its final stages of closing, we want to add that we have been unable within our allotted space to give deserved credit to many of our staff. Some came and stayed only a short while, others were with us all the way, but all contributed to the work and success of the depot during its three years of operation. We would like, through this medium, to extend to all our members, wherever they may be, our thanks and best wishes for the future.