Victory Loan advertisement, The Listener, 15 Sept 1944, p.4
An article I have written about how radio listeners back home in Aotearoa New Zealand responded to the work of the mobile Broadcasting Units, has just been published by the New Zealand Journal of Public History.
It discusses the overwhelming audience reaction to hearing the voices of New Zealanders serving on the other side of the world, and how this response shaped the work of the unit broadcasters during the war.
I was also very interested in Māori radio listeners’ responses, and the powerful need to hear the voices of their men.
The broadcasters of the NZBU mobile units had to juggle different demands and priorities while carrying out their work, in often difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions.
In World War II, a new British military unit was formed for raiding and reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines in the desert regions of North Africa. It was made up of men who were independent, self-reliant, physically and mentally tough. They had to be able to survive in the desert, without support, enduring extreme conditions with few resources.
Men and vehicles of the Long Range Desert Group on patrol, 1941. [Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref. DA-01085-F]
Viewers of the 2022 BBC drama series “Rogue Heroes” (seen below), might be thinking of the Special Air Service or S.A.S. The television series charts the regiment’s formation in North Africa, and covers several of their actual raids on German and Italian installations and airfields (all set to an AC/DC rock and roll soundtrack.) But the subject of this blog is another military unit that pre-dated the “Rogue Heroes” by 18 months. It was the Long Range Desert Group (above), which formed in June 1940. With a close connection to the New Zealand Division, the Group worked alongside the ‘rogues’ on occasion and has been called ‘the brains behind the S.A.S. brawn.’1
The L.R.D.G. appear in the television series, in the real-life character of navigator Mike Sadler, who helps the S.A.S. find their way over the vast, unmapped Libyan desert, as his unit did in real life. Sadler was from Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and while the L.R.D.G. drew members from various Empire forces, initially the majority of its men were New Zealanders. As such, they were a natural target for the New Zealand Broadcasting Unit’s radio microphones and the surviving sound archives held by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision contain a collection of fascinating wartime recordings of the voices of these hardy and resourceful men. (The links to listen to all the recordings mentioned here can be found at the end of this blog. ) Military author Gavin Mortimer drew on this rare audio archive several years ago for research when writing his books ‘The Men who Made the S.A.S.’ (Constable, 2016) and ‘The Long Range Desert Group in World War II ‘ (Osprey, 2017)
We are also fortunate in New Zealand to have a collection of photographs of the unit on desert patrol. Personal cameras were forbidden in the Division as a security risk, but some of the L.R.D.G. men carried unauthorised cameras with them, and amazingly, one even had a film camera. The majority of images used here are from the collection held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, many taken by men themselves.
The L.R.D.G. was the brainchild of Royal Signals officer Major Ralph Bagnold, a Briton who had spent a decade between 1925 and 1935 exploring the geology of the Libyan Desert, including the vast interior region known as the Great Sand Sea. He pioneered many techniques for navigating the impassable wastes, such as a ‘sun compass’ that was unaffected by iron ore deposits in the soil or metal motor vehicles, and learned to reduce tyre pressure to help drivers negotiate loose sand dunes.
Major Ralph Bagnold, desert explorer and founder of the Long Range Desert Group [Image via Eland Publishing]
When war broke out these became useful skills for gathering tactical intelligence in the North African theatre of war, and Bagnold suggested to British military chiefs that he establish a mobile scouting force for desert operations. Bagnold felt New Zealand farmers would have the necessary mental and physical resilience to cope with the remote, desert conditions, as well as familiarity with repairing motor vehicles and driving in rough terrain. He approached the First Echelon of the New Zealand Division for volunteers and was overwhelmed with the response – it has been said half the Division in Egypt at the time offered to join him.2 Later, men from British, Indian and Rhodesian regiments also joined the L.R.D.G., but it remained a small unit, never numbering more than 350 men.
The L.R.D.G. captured public imagination in New Zealand once news of its exploits began to reach home. After raiding and patrolling through Libya in the second half of 1940, their successes were made public by the military with a report by official war correspondent Robin Miller, published throughout New Zealand in February 1941. Somewhat breathless headlines (such as these from the Northern Advocate newspaper) announced: “N.Z. Troops rove Sahara. Become heroic modern outlaws in Long Range Desert Group.” Miller (who also recorded several radio reports with the Broadcasting Unit) likened the L.R.D.G. to ‘desert pirates… swooping and darting in swift trucks throughout the length and breadth of Libya like modern outlaws.’ 3
Northern Advocate, 15 February 1941, p3. [via Papers Past]
The swash-buckling image was reinforced when photographs were published of the men swathed against the desert sun and sand in traditional Arab head dress. Many also grew beards when out on patrol, which was unconventional at the time, except amongst men of the Royal Navy.
Men of the Long Range Desert Group on parade for General Auchinleck, Cairo October 1941. [Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref. DA-02076-F]
The New Zealand Broadcasting Unit made its first recordings with the L.R.D.G. in February 1941. As this was the same time as the first newspaper articles were published, it was probably part of a coordinated publicity campaign by the newly-formed Public Relations Service of the 2N.Z.E.F. (The broadcasters came under this office’s purview, together with press war correspondents, official photographers and the government film unit cinematographers.) In the first recordings, commentator Doug Laurenson introduces the L.R.D.G. and describes the harsh terrain in which they operate, including areas ‘as lifeless as the moon where it rains only once or twice every 25 years.’ Unusually, he then hands the microphone over to one of the men, ‘Tony’ (Lawrence Hamilton) Browne of Wellington (military service number 4444) who carries out the series of short interviews with his comrades, speaking to a further 10 L.R.D.G. men.
Lawrence Hamilton ‘Tony’ Browne.MC, DCM, m.i.d. Long Range Desert Group R1 Patrol [Image via Online Cenotaph, Auckland War Memorial Museum]
Tommy McNeill of Hawkes Bay (1253) and Cyril Eyre of Te Awamutu (1305) talk about techniques for driving in soft sand and explain how the New Zealand patrols’ vehicles are given Māori names. Roy Kitney (3863) a cook with the unit, talks about rations and how they cook when out on long range patrols, while Eric Smith of Hamilton (1065) recalls receiving rations from the Free French troops and confusion amongst the New Zealanders over how to prepare coffee beans. Second Lieutenant Dick Croucher (8803) is interviewed about navigating in the unmapped desert using sun compasses and star observations at night. Sergeant Ian McInnes of Whangārei (1052) recalls a nine-day patrol in the Libyan desert in which they attacked and destroyed an enemy fort. (This was at Murzuk and McInnes was later awarded the Military Medal for his bravery during this action.)
Len Hawkins of Christchurch (7377) a fitter and gunner with the Long Range Desert Group talks about how vehicles are maintained in the desert, with few supplies or spares available. Next to speak is Peter Garland of Auckland (1366) who tells New Zealand radio listeners about the incredible heat the men endure in the Libyan desert. Edgar ‘Sandy” Sanders (598) of Christchurch outlines his work as a member of the gun crew and finally Frank Jopling (1314) describes meat provided by local tribesmen who killed goats and bullocks for them, when they were travelling with the French forces in the Tibesti Mountains. These were the Senussi, a Libyan clan who had long fought against Italian occupation of their lands and allied themselves during World War II with the L.R.D.G. and Free French.
Members of the Long Range Desert Group, in Libya, with members of the Free French and Senussi in January 1941. From left to right: Captain F B Edmundson, “Midnight”, Sheik Abd el Galil Seif el Nasser, Free French troops, and (on far right) Lance Corporal L Roderick. [Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. DA-00869-F]
From late 1940, the L.R.D.G. and the Free French forces from Chad, south of Libya, carried out raids against Italian garrisons in the Fezzan region. The broadcasting unit recorded a second group of L.R.D.G. men, who describe this campaign and the toll it had taken on their unit. Captain Leonard Ballantyne of Pongaroa, Hawkes Bay (1398) explains how the New Zealand men were selected for the L.R.D.G., and then describes the recent loss in action of two men, Corporal Rex Beech (1093) who engaged Italian machine guns (at Kufra) and saved many lives, and Sergeant Cyril Hewson (1030) who led his troop into action at Murzuk and was killed in action there. He also mentions the decorations recently awarded to Lieutenant James Sutherland (1013) who gained the Military Cross and Trooper Leslie Willcox (1290) of Hawera who was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry.
Next, one of the L.R.D.G.’s medical officers is interviewed. Captain Francis Edmundson of Napier (993, seen in the photos here with the Senussi and Free French) describes the health issues the men face in the desert, and Sergeant Jack Shepherd of Hamilton (1328) talks about radio and signals, and how code is used to communicate between patrols.
Captain F. Edmundson (right) medical officer with the LRDG and Senussi Chief Sheik Abd el Galil Seif el Nasser. Taken during the Fezzan Raid, January 1941 by Trooper F Jopling.[Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. DA-00871-F]
Something of a “scoop” for the New Zealand broadcasters came two days later, in the form of an interview with the L.R.D.G. founder, Major Ralph Bagnold. Due to wartime censorship, his name and rank could not be mentioned at the time of the recording, but Bagnold opens the 20 minute recording by noting how pleased he is to speak via radio to the families and friends of the men he commands. He credits their upbringing in New Zealand for the self-reliance which has allowed them to quickly adjust to the difficult life in the open desert. Bagnold then gives a report on their activities over the past few months in the Fezzan, harassing Italian forces, capturing forts, blowing up aircraft and fuel dumps.
Aerodrome at Murzuk set on fire by part of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) T patrol under Lt L B Ballantyne. Three planes were burned. Taken during the Fezzan Raid in January 1941 by Trooper F Jopling. [Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. DA-00889-F]
In letters to family and to their employer back in Wellington, the New Zealand broadcasters expressed their delight with making these extensive recordings of the L.R.D.G.’s exploits. Young assistant engineer Norman ‘Johnny’ Johnston wrote to his parents on 19 February 1941, “Last Friday one of the most amazing stories of the war in the Middle East was released, that of the Long Range Desert Group….their adventures have been far more exciting than fiction and no praise could be too great for these men of ours.” 4
Group of New Zealand and French troops during Fezzan Raid. Photograph taken in January 1941 by Trooper F Jopling. [Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. DA-00877-F]
The National Broadcasting Service and the Long Range Desert Group men themselves were also pleased with the radio listener response in New Zealand to the recordings, when they were broadcast. In April, Johnston writes again: “Recording more stories from two L.R.D.G. men – glad you enjoyed the previous ones. The men were very pleased and nearly all have had letters from their people about it. One was Moore who walked 210 miles across the desert” 5. This was Trooper Ronald Joseph Moore of Taihape (1248), who was injured in the action at Kufra and believed to be a prisoner of war.
Trooper Ronald Moore, DCM, on parade for General Auchinleck, Cairo, 1941. [Alexander Turnbull Library
However, he had avoided capture, and incredibly, walked some 200 miles through the desert with minimal supplies of food or water, until he met up with a Free French patrol some 10 days later. (He was later awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. )The broadcasting unit recorded Moore telling his own amazing story, and finally, made an extensive series of recordings with Trooper Frank Jopling of Okoroire in Waikato (1314) who reads from the diary he kept during patrol missions between September 1940 and January 1941, including the raids in the Fezzan region.
A group of New Zealanders in the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) in July 1942. It includes several men heard in the NZBU recordings [in bold] Top, L to R: Sgm Tommy Siven, Tpr R E Hay, Tpr ‘Ned’ Kelly, Tpr Parker, Tpr ‘Paddy’ McKay, Tpr Tippett. Middle row: Tpr Shepherd, L/Cpl A Nutt (Canty), Cpl R Lewis (HB), Capt N Wilder (HB), Cpl M Craw (PN), Pte Ritchie (Pukekohe), Tpr F W Jopling (Okoroire). Botton row: Gnr E Sanders (Chch), Tpr Dobson, Tpr Milburn, Pte J L Davis, Tpr P Mitford (HB). [Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. DA-02561-F]
It appears a good relationship developed between the broadcasters and the men of the L.R.D.G. Later in April 1941, when the broadcasting unit tried unsuccessfully to get permission to accompany the New Zealand Division to Greece, Johnny Johnston wrote home; “ We were trying to get away to Greece last week but G.O.C [General Officer Commanding] has flatly refused…We are very fed up. L.R.D.G. chaps are very kind – we have grown very fond of them and they drop in to see us whenever they come in from patrol”6.
General Wavell, the Allied Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, made special mention of the L.R.D.G. in his official dispatch covering Feb–Jul 1941: “Operating in small independent columns, the group has penetrated into nearly every part of desert Libya, an area comparable in size with that of India. Not only have patrols brought back much information, but they have attacked enemy forts, captured personnel, transport and grounded aircraft as far as 800 miles inside hostile territory… Their journeys across vast regions of unexplored desert have entailed the crossing of physical obstacles and the endurance of extreme summer temperatures, both of which would a year ago have been deemed impossible. Their exploits have been achieved only by careful organisation, and a very high standard of enterprise, discipline, mechanical maintenance and desert navigation. The personnel of these patrols was originally drawn almost entirely from the New Zealand forces; later officers and men of British units and from Southern Rhodesia joined the Group.”7
Long Range Desert Group patrol members sitting around a campfire on the Libyan Sand Sea near Siwa., 1941. Taken by Trooper F Jopling. [Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. DA-00888-F]
The New Zealand Division’s Public Relations Service war diary notes that in November 1941, all further news of the L.R.D.G. activities was blocked by military censors. This was the start of the Crusader Offensive, when the Allies began pushing the German and Italian forces back across Libya, in an attempt to liberate Tobruk. It was at this time that the Group began supporting the newly formed Special Air Service, under Captain David Stirling, as depicted in the “Rogue Heroes” TV series. No further recordings of them survive in the New Zealand sound archives, although the P.R.S. diary noted in May 1943 that broadcasting unit member Noel Palmer was setting out in the recording van to record ‘messages home’ by the L.R.D.G. (This was one of the New Zealand Broadcasting Unit’s key roles – supplying recorded greetings for the weekly radio programme “With the Boys Overseas”. ) Sadly, many of the discs of ‘messages home’ appear to have been lost due to wartime shortages. Recording discs were in short supply so many were reused after being broadcast and the original messages on them recorded over. The L.R.D.G. messages from May 1943 may well have been among them.
Trucks of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) patrol halted in the desert on the edge of the Egyptian Sand Sea, Libya. Photograph taken in January 1941 by Trooper F Jopling.[Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. DA-0881-F]
Military historian Gavin Mortimer, who has written extensively about both the L.R.D.G. and the S.A.S. believes the former was of greater value in the Allied North African campaign: “They were the brains of the operation in the desert while the SAS were the brawn. It was their role to navigate them to their targets… They would drop deep behind enemy lines and their surveillance was crucial as they reported back to General Montgomery the strength of the Germans and where to attack them. They were the eyes and ears of the offensive. What they did was painstaking – they would spend days hidden just yards from the main coastal road which the Germans would use. They would take notes of how many vehicles passed, how many soldiers there were and even the mood of the soldiers – if they were singing or depressed – and this information would be radioed back.”8
Recordings and film footage of the Long Range Desert Group
The recordings written about here have been digitised by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision and can be listened to online on their website via these links. [Note the length of the original recordings mean they sometimes had to be recorded over multiple discs, which is why each is split into many ‘parts’. These divisions have been maintained in the archival record, although when the interviews were broadcast on air, they would have been edited back together to form one item.]
Walter Russell Adams of the LRDG [Courtesy Online Cenotaph, Auckland War Memorial Museum]
Incredibly he had a film camera with him on desert patrol and captured not only day to day life in the group, but also the meeting at Kayugi in the Tibesti Mountains, with the Free French unit from Chad. They arrive on camels, lead by the striking figure of their commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Claude d’Ornano, who is swathed in full Arab desert robes. He was tragically killed in action at Murzuk, only a few days after this film was shot.
A full account of the Fezzan raids and more photographs of the L.R.D.G. in action can be found in the Official War History volume, Long Range Desert Group in Libya, 1940–41 by R.L. Kay which is available online.
References:
1. Military historian Gavin Mortimer quoted in ‘The little-known story of a crack Kiwi World War II unit, the Long Range Desert Group’, The Daily Mail, 14 April 2017. Reprinted in The New Zealand Herald.
2. Doyle, Peter and Bennett, Matthew R., Fields of Battle: Terrain in Military History. New York: Springer Publications, 2002, p.316
8. Gavin Mortimer quoted in ‘The little-known story of a crack Kiwi World War II unit, the Long Range Desert Group’, The Daily Mail, 14 April 2017. Reprinted in the New Zealand Herald
British officers on the terrace at Shepheard’s Hotel during WWII
[Photograph by George Rodger]
In both World Wars of the twentieth century, New Zealand forces found themselves fighting in the Middle East. When on leave in Cairo, a fortunate few with sophisticated tastes and cash to spend, might have found themselves enjoying a drink at the famed ‘Long Bar’ or on the terraces of Shepheard’s Hotel, one of the world’s most famous hotels for over 100 years. The 1917 Shepheard’s luggage label above, held in the collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library, is testament to the place the hotel held in New Zealand memories, as a moment of respite from war.
Since opening in 1841, Shepheard’s hosted any visitors of note passing through the Egyptian capital. In World War II, it was an alternate HQ for the Allied 8th Army, and when the tide of the North African campaign was in Germany’s favour, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was rumoured to have picked out a room and proclaimed that he would “soon be drinking champagne at Shepheard’s.” Attempting to foil Rommel’s plans, was the New Zealand Division, part of the 8th Army. With the 2NZEF was the New Zealand Broadcasting Unit, who in March 1941 found themselves in this legendary establishment to make sound recordings.
British, Scottish, Australian, Free French, American pilots and soldiers and civilian patrons relaxing on terrace at Shepheard’s Hotel while on leave from WWII. (Photo by Bob Landry, Life magazine, 04 Dec 1942)
From King Farouk of Egypt to the Greek government-in-exile, film stars, archaeologists, Nile explorers and Winston Churchill, Shepheard’s hosted a fascinating array of guests. In 1942, American magazine Life, described its colourful clientele: “The well-to-do British officers in Egypt, the ambassadors with letters plenipotentiary, the Americans with fat purses, the glamor girls of the Middle East, the Russian commissars, the famous war correspondents and the civilian tank experts, all stay at just one hotel in Cairo: Shepheard’s. When the war in the desert went really badly, a favorite criticism back home was that it was being fought from the terrace at Shepheard’s.“1
Shepheard’s Hotel and terraces in the early decades of the 20th century. [Photograph: Bibliotheque Nationale de France]
New Zealand Prime Minister Peter Fraser would be a guest himself in May 1941, where he was photographed meeting Egyptian Army officials and New Zealand nurses at Shepheard’s.
The 1996 Oscar-winning film The English Patient, based on Michael Ondaatje’s novel of the same name, was set amidst the glamour and intrigue of wartime Shepheard’s. The film’s lead characters, Count Almasy and Katherine Clifton (played by Ralph Fiennes and Kirstin Scott-Thomas) begin their doomed love affair at the hotel (although the scene was actually shot at a hotel in Venice, because the original Shepheard’s was destroyed in 1952.)
Ralph Fiennes and Kirstin Scott-Thomas at “Shepheard’s Hotel” in The English Patient. [image via Sceen-It .com ]
In March 1941, the New Zealand broadcasters would have found Shepheard’s legendary barman Joe Scialom behind the Long Bar, (one of the 20th century’s most famous mixologists2 ) together with staff dressed in long white robes with red tarboosh hats (fez). Scialom was famed for inventing a cocktail for Allied officers nursing hangovers; the “Suffering Bastard,” , whose name was sometimes sanitised to the “Suffering Bar Steward.” According to legend (unverifiable), the gin, bourbon, lime juice, mint and ginger beer concoction was such a hit that in 1942 he was asked to send several gallons of the mix out to the Western Desert to fortify men ahead of the Battle of El Alamein. (You can read more about Joe – and his recipe here )
Barman Joe Scialom with the cocktail he made famous at Shepheard’s “Long Bar” during the war.
But in March 1941, Alamein was still over a year away. A week before this recording session, men of the New Zealand Division had begun departing Egypt for the start of the ill-fated Greece campaign, but military authorities refused to give permission for Noel Palmer, Doug Laurenson and Norman Johnston of the NZBU to join them.
The broadcasting unit’s officer-in-charge, Noel Palmer campaigned for them to be allowed to go to Greece and report on the New Zealanders in action. His frustration at being left behind at Cairo’s Maadi Camp is revealed in letters to former colleagues at National Broadcasting Service Engineering back in Wellington: “We are sitting on our tails at Base. We confidently anticipate ‘OBE’s’ at the end of the war: “Only Been in Egypt,” he wrote.4 Palmer eventually went as far as getting his request to go to Greece in front of 2NZEF commander General Bernard Freyberg, but the answer was still “No”. As it turned out, this was fortunate. The Greek campaign was a disaster and had the NZBU gone with the 2NZEF any recording equipment they took with them would have had to be abandoned in the Allies’ hurried retreat from Greece and Crete. This would likely have spelled the end of the Broadcasting Unit’s work in North Africa.
Postcard of Shepheard’s Hotel interior [via Historichotels.com.eg]
So it was that the unit found themselves not in Greece, but cooling their heels at Shepheard’s Hotel to record a live performance by a dance band as part of the Middle East Forces Programme. This was a radio show for all Allied forces in the region, broadcast daily during the war by Egyptian State Broadcasting and usually presented by the urbane British actor Peter Haddon.
When Haddon was unavailable, the New Zealanders occasionally stepped in to host. The New Zealand, British, Australian and South African broadcasters in Egypt had formed the grandly titled “Empire Broadcasting Co-ordinating Committee” in late 1940 to pool resources and try and present a united front when dealing with censors and other military authorities. British-run Egyptian State Broadcasting was a particular source of help to them and shared facilities with the New Zealanders and vice versa. (ESB was impressed with the custom-built New Zealand recording van brought over from Wellington, and highlighted it in a three-page article about the New Zealanders in its magazine Cairo Calling.)5
New Zealand broadcasters Noel Palmer (rear), Doug Laurenson and Norman Johnston in the doorway of ‘Esmerelda’ , the New Zealand Broadcasting Unit recording van. A photograph published in Cairo Calling, the magazine of Egyptian State Broadcasting, November, 1940.
The Middle East Forces Programme was “one radio show to which all New Zealanders tune in, if they are within five miles of a radio set,” Doug Laurenson reported, in his introduction to a short talk by Peter Haddon for broadcast back in New Zealand in February 1941. An ebullient Haddon tells Kiwi radio listeners that he has enjoyed building the programme for their men in the Middle East, even though he had few resources except a ‘bucket-load of enthusiasm and a basin-full of goodwill’. They broadcast for an hour every day: 15 minutes dedicated to Indian troops and the rest to British forces (which included the New Zealanders.) The show was mostly musical entertainment – often performances by the troops themselves. Haddon pays warm tribute to the New Zealand Broadcasting Unit in his talk, saying the success of the programme was largely due to their support, as he initially had no radio experience: “They took one look at me and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry”, he jokes. 6
In order to give home-front radio listeners a taste of what their husbands, sons and sweethearts were listening to in Egypt, the NZBU recorded a Middle East Forces session that they presented – and it includes the relay from Shepheard’s Hotel. A portion of the programme survives on discs in the RNZ Sound Archives at Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. The discs were sent back to Wellington from Cairo and would have aired at home in the weekly radio programme “With the Boys Overseas”, which played on Sunday mornings throughout the war.
Listening to them transports you to Shepheard’s palm-lined ball-room: “Hello Middle East”, begins announcer Doug Laurenson, “We are on relay from Shepheard’s Hotel, Cairo.” 7 He describes the hotel and reassures New Zealand listeners that those who fondly remember Shepheard’s from their time in Egypt in World War I, will find it has changed little since then. In what may be an oblique reference to the New Zealand troops now tuning in from Greece, he also acknowledges “those listening in from another country, not in the Middle East.” Military censorship would have prevented him making any direct reference to the fact that, as he spoke, several thousand New Zealanders were in the process of joining the British and Australian forces assembled in Greece.
Doug then introduces the dance band for the broadcast, The Continental Savoy Orchestra, under band leader Maio Reiniger. The band is to play some popular dance numbers, with new arrangements ‘just arrived from America.’ The first is Louis Armstrong’s 1936 composition“Swing that Music”, followed by “Mary Lou,” a 1920s hit.
Sadly those two numbers are all that survive in the archives of that broadcast from Shepheard’s, but if you fancy time-travel to wartime Cairo, shake up one of Joe Scialom’s “Suffering Bar Steward” cocktails, tune in to the Continental Savoy Orchestra via the online recordings on Ngā Taonga’s website, and browse the 1936 Story of a Historic Hostelry below.
3. Noel Palmer to J.R. Smith, 14 April 1941. Accounts Correspondence received from the Broadcasting unit with 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force Box 37c Record no. 2/4/43, Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
4. “New Zealand Broadcast”, Cairo Calling, November 30, 1940. 2NZEF – Public Relations Service – Broadcasting Unit – General Box 52/ Record No. DA 8/9/10/1 Part 2, Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
5. Peter Haddon in U-series. Here, There and Everywhere, Parts 12 and 13, ID1183-4 Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, Wellington
6. U-series. Portion of Forces Programme Parts 1-3, ID11914, 11916, 11917 Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, Wellington
Victory Loan advertisement, The Listener, 15 Sept 1944, p.4 An article I have written about how radio listeners back home in Aotearoa New Zealand responded to the work of the mobile Broadcasting Units, has just been published by the New Zealand Journal of Public History. It discusses the overwhelming audience reaction to hearing the voices…
In World War II, a new British military unit was formed for raiding and reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines in the desert regions of North Africa. It was made up of men who were independent, self-reliant, physically and mentally tough. They had to be able to survive in the desert, without support, enduring extreme conditions…
The online presentation I gave in May as part of Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s Public History series, is now available for viewing – or listening, if you prefer. The podcast version is on Spotify and Apple (Thanks to MCH for recording and uploading) It focuses on the home-front radio listener response to…
Some of the earliest recordings made by the Broadcasting Unit provide insight into life on board a 2NZEF troop ship, as it headed towards the war in late 1940.
Wartime broadcasters called this story of a New Zealand gunner who was wounded and then shipwrecked “the most outstanding personal experience we have yet recorded.”
Neptune Calling exhibition, Torpedo Bay Navy Museum Some of the most poignant recordings made by the Mobile Broadcasting Unit are now able to be heard in a new exhibit at the Torpedo Bay Navy Museum in Auckland, which opened this week. They contain the voices of 50 New Zealand sailors, recorded on board the Royal…
As members of the first New Zealand Broadcasting Service mobile unit sailed towards the war in late August 1940, they began making recordings on-board their ship, the converted Canadian passenger liner, Empress of Japan. In these we hear a high seas farewell, a warm welcome to Perth and the voice of a Canadian war hero.
The online presentation I gave in May as part of Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s Public History series, is now available for viewing – or listening, if you prefer. The podcast version is on Spotify and Apple (Thanks to MCH for recording and uploading)
It focuses on the home-front radio listener response to the recordings of ‘messages home’ from the men of the New Zealand Division – and how that response influenced the on-going work of the Mobile Broadcasting Units.
The sound quality is a bit lag-gy in places (the joys of Zoom) but the 80- year old recordings sound pretty good!
Here are the links I mentioned in the presentation:
British officers on the terrace at Shepheard’s Hotel during WWII [Photograph by George Rodger] In both World Wars of the twentieth century, New Zealand forces found themselves fighting in the Middle East. When on leave in Cairo, a fortunate few with sophisticated tastes and cash to spend, might have found themselves enjoying a drink at…
For the radio listeners back in New Zealand, the Mobile Unit’s most important role, the one for which it became best-known and remembered, was recording thousands of simple 15-20-second “messages home” from New Zealanders overseas.
The Mobile Units were initiated in February 1940 when the Director of the National Broadcasting Service, Professor James Shelley wrote to the government suggesting it might be a good idea to send broadcasters with the New Zealand Division to boost morale
Some of the first recordings sent back to New Zealand for radio broadcasts in late 1940 give some insight into life on board the troop ship on which the Broadcasting Unit was travelling, as part of the Third Echelon of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
The ship was the “Empress of Japan”, a luxury Trans-Pacific passenger liner belonging to the Canadian-Pacific company, but requisitioned for war work in late 1939. She only 10 years old, with what was described as “an extremely impressive interior – lofty public rooms decorated and furnished with extensive use of natural wood. The main lounge, two decks high, had a large oval domed ceiling and a musicians’ gallery. A Palm Court and ballroom extended across the whole 83 feet width of the ship at the forward end of the promenade deck.” 1
Although many of her luxury fittings would have been stripped out for war service, some still remained and New Zealand officers enjoyed the privilege of being able to swim in the ship’s rather magnificent tiled, indoor swimming pool. (A canvas pool was set up on deck for the enlisted men.)
The Broadcasting Unit staff had honorary military ranks and the privileges of officers, even though they were still employed by the National Broadcasting Service. (They would later come under the control of the 2NZEF Public Relations Office, but that was not fully set up until May 1941.)2 As officers, they enjoyed better quarters on board, with cabin service provided one of the Canadian-Pacific line’s Chinese stewards.
In September 1940, soon after sailing from Wellington, “Johnny” Johnston, the Broadcasting Unit’s 23 year old assistant engineer wrote to his parents about his very civilised introduction to military life: “We are being wonderfully looked after on this ship…At 7am Ah Chow our cabin steward comes in with a cup of tea and asks if he can run our bath. Breakfast is at 8.30 starting off with prunes or figs, then poached mullet, half a dozen sorts of omelet and rolls and coffee… All the servants are Chinese and the soul of perfection. When you walk into mess, one is always ready to pull your chair out and pour your iced water. ”
Sunday, September 8, 1940. “We are now in the tropics and it seems to get hotter every day. Yesterday they opened the swimming baths. There is one aft for the men and we [the officers] use the ship’s permanent one which is extremely good. It is all tiled and about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. You can just imagine what a boon it is being able to have a swim after sweating like a pig in the [recording] truck.” 3
The Broadcasting Unit’s recording truck was travelling with them, with microphones cables running from the hold up onto the deck, to enable recordings. After making their initial discs from the Wellington wharf-side as the Echelon prepared to embark , the Unit’s staff continued testing their new equipment by making recordings of the crew and fellow passengers. Few of the New Zealand men had a lot to say at this point – their war experience being only a few weeks old. The Broadcasting Unit had better luck with the seasoned crew of the “Empress of Japan” finding some radio ‘talent’ in the form of the ship’s First Officer L.M. Goddard who recalls his colourful sailing career which began at the age of 13, in the late 19th century. The ship’s Scots boatswain, Bosun Wilson also seems a natural at the microphone. In a ‘radio talk’ he details his life story, which included serving in Canada’s Royal North-West Mounted Police in the Yukon Territory. At the start of World War I he was working as a gold miner and walked 360 miles through the Yukon to join up, serving with a Western Scottish Regiment.
A few days after making this recording, the broadcasters again handed Bosun Wilson the microphone, allowing him to commentate as the New Zealand men took part in one of the maritime world’s oldest ceremonies, “Crossing the Line”. This is a centuries-old old naval tradition that marks the first time a person sails across the Equator. Bosun Wilson and Doug Laurenson of the Broadcasting Unit recorded a commentary on deck describing the good-natured hi-jinks, which involve the ship’s crew dressing -up and taking the roles of various members of “King Neptune’s Court”. Neptune’s “Bears” cover the “land-lubber” initiates (who are Crossing the Line for the first time) with flour-paste lather, pretend to shave them, and end by dunking them in the swimming pool. An old hand at the ceremony, Bosun Wilson wryly evaluates the performances of the New Zealanders taking part.
Broadcasting engineer “Johnny” Johnston wrote home to his parents about making the recordings, and wondered if the Unit was making history, being perhaps the first to record the ancient ceremony? “Everything was done with great formality, all the characters were in costume…and the commentary by the Bosun was quite good. The entire ship’s crew were delighted when we played the records back to them, so much that we had to leave a copy of the discs with them.”4 The Officer Commanding the troops on board, Colonel Clayden Shuttleworth (24 Auckland Battalion), was able to provide a certificate showing he had already Crossed the Line, so he is spared and Captain Jack Redpath of Christchurch becomes the first officer ‘victim’ instead.
Crossing the Line on the troop transport Empress of Australia, August 1941. The initiate being ducked by the ‘bears’ after being shaved by King Neptune’s barber. Imperial War Museum A5176 via http://hmsgambia.org/
Two nurses and several men of the 14th and 15th New Zealand Forestry Company also receive a dunking, but as the ship was travelling through the steamy tropics, it was probably a welcome dip – and a diversion from boredom which was an issue for many men on board.
The staff of the Broadcasting Unit may have enjoyed the novelty of being treated as officers with tea delivered to their cabin, but the official war history of one of the Army units on board, 24 Auckland Battalion, describes a less-pleasant voyage for enlisted men, who slept in hammocks in cramped conditions: “The [ship] carried a total of 2635 men. Accommodation provided for no more than 2250 and the ship was considerably overcrowded... As for training, the chronic shortage of equipment was still in evidence, but now among the other things lacking was space for movement… military activity assumed two forms, one consisting of lectures and the other of physical training and route marches round and round the promenade deck. As for amusement, concerts were arranged, films were shown…but sports and deck games were limited by the cramped conditions.”5
Additionally, the men on board suffered through several outbreaks of disease, including measles, which struck Noel Palmer, the Broadcasting Unit’s officer-in-charge.
The Unit tried to alleviate some the boredom, playing recorded music through the ship’s loud-speaker system for the men: martial tunes to accompany the daily route marches around the deck, but as Johnny Johnston wrote, “The universal favourites with the men are George Formby and Gracie Fields. I’m sure they would be quite content if we played no others at all. “6 The Unit also recorded two ship’s concerts organised by the men. This concert, featured two numbers by tenor Tony Rex. Already an established performer in Auckland, within a month of arriving in Egypt in October 1940, he would become a founding member of the famous Kiwi Concert Party, which entertained the New Zealand Division throughout the rest of the war. 7
Rex sings two popular numbers, “If I were King” and “On the Road to Mandalay”, which would have been familiar to the men. More novel, is another number, written on board and performed by Dr Jock Caughey of Auckland.
Portrait of Dr. John Egerton Caughey, taken by Clifton Firth, 7 June 1939. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 34-C28A [via Online Cenotaph]
Major Caughey would eventually become Commanding Officer of No. 3 New Zealand General Hospital during the war. He was Mentioned in Dispatches and after the war, became New Zealand’s leading neurologist and Dean of Otago Medical School. 8
In September 1940 however, he was on board an over-crowded troop ship, singing a doggerel soldier’s song with lyrics penned by the on-board army medical staff. The title is not given, but the refrain, which the audience also sings, repeats,“A soldier leads mostly a dog’s life.” It is a humorous litany of complaints about the voyage and life on the troop ship, including the hot weather, the outbreak of measles, the dunkings by “King Neptune” and even the painful vaccinations inflicted on the men by Caughey’s own unit. There is good-natured ribbing of the nurses and fellow officers, but Colonel Shuttleworth, the ship’s C.O., again escapes, this time thanks to his surname:
“One Shuttleworth here, is the Colonel. Of course he should be in this song. But I can’t find a rhyme for his name dear, I guess that it’s just too, too long!”
In August 1940 the Listener magazine profiled the specifications of the Mobile Unit truck which had recently been tested at Trentham Army Camp and then driven through the streets of Wellington where it “caused considerable interest..
Battlefield at Sidi Rezegh, November/December 1941 Artist: Peter McIntyre (R122497098 Archives New Zealand)
Among the recordings made by the National Broadcasting Service mobile recording unit in North Africa during World War II is a series of discs in which a soldier tells the story of a New Zealand Divisional Cavalry gun operator, who was wounded in a tank battle in Libya in 1941.
The story is that of a soldier who goes by the nickname “Sparks” and the speaker who tells it is Corporal Robert Loughnan. Loughnan was a former Canterbury high country shepherd, now a gunner with the ‘Div. Cav.’ and the story he tells is, in fact, autobiographical. The gunner, who he named “Sparks” in his story, was in fact Loughnan himself, and the story is of what he endured during and after the battle of Sidi Rezegh in Libya in late November 1941.
The story which “Bobbie” Loughnan recorded in Egypt has been digitised and can be listened to in two parts on Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision’s online catalogue. Part 1 covers the battle and how he was wounded when his tank was hit by German fire. Part 2 tells how, around a week later, he survived the sinking of the ship “S.S. Chakdina”, which was torpedoed and sank while carrying wounded men from Tobruk to Alexandria. Together, they form a powerful first-person account of two important moments in the history of the New Zealand Division during the North African campaign of World War II.
Photograph of Div. Cav. members from Bobbie Loughnan’s own collection (He is second from the right) Published in the Official War History of the Divisional Cavalry, 1963, by R.J. M. Loughnan.(via the New Zealand Electronic Text collection)
The story was written by Bobbie Loughnan as his entry in a short story competition run by the 2NZEF Archives in 1942, asking members to send in a written ‘eye witness account’. Loughnan called his tale “A Simple Country Lad”, reclaiming the dismissive phrase Adolf Hitler had used when he referred to New Zealand’s forces as “poor, deluded, country lads.” (The phrase was also co-opted by the National Film Unit in this 1941 film-reel about New Zealand men training for war.)
Bobbie had a talent for writing and he tells a gripping tale of the intensity of a tank battle, in which he was wounded badly in both hands and transferred to an overcrowded hospital in Tobruk. A few days later he was taken on board the converted cargo vessel “Chakdina”, which was carrying 400 Allied men to other hospitals in Egypt, plus 120 crew and 100 German and Italian prisoners of war. However, it was torpedoed by an enemy plane at around 9pm on 5th December 1941, and sank rapidly with the loss of 400 lives, including 80 New Zealand wounded. Thanks to the efforts of a fellow Div. Cav. member Morven Stewart, Bobbie survived the sinking and he describes floating in the Mediterranean for several hours before being rescued under fire by the Royal Navy destroyer “HMS Farndale.” Unable to use his wounded hands, he clung with his teeth and toes to a cargo net on the side of the ship, until he was able to be pulled aboard.
“The most outstanding ‘Personal Experience’ we have yet recorded”
For me, it stands out as one of the few accounts of the war recorded by the mobile broadcasting unit, in which a man speaks openly of his emotions and mental state during combat and at times of great stress. During a period when many New Zealanders (particularly men), publicly maintained a ‘stiff upper lip’ about the hardships of war, Bobbie’s story seems almost modern in his description of enduring what we would now call a panic attack and post-traumatic stress.
Bobbie Loughnan in his ‘hospital blues’, Egypt, 1942. [Courtesy Robert Loughnan]
It certainly stood out to broadcaster Noel Palmer, who recorded it on discs at Maadi Camp in September 1942. Palmer wrote to the Director of the National Broadcasting Service, James Shelley, in a letter that accompanied the discs back to New Zealand, saying: “It is, I think, quite the most outstanding “Personal Experience” we have yet recorded.” [1]
Army archivist Captain E. Halstead agreed, writing to his counterparts in Wellington that the story was “excellent” and recommending it should be published in booklet form as an official Army publication. [2] (It is unclear if this ever actually happened – so far I have not found any trace of such a publication.)
When it was recorded in 1942, the title “A Simple, Country Lad” was hand-written (probably by Noel Palmer) on the disc labels. The story would have played on air in New Zealand sometime in late 1942 or early 1943, in one of several radio programmes dedicated to recordings sent back from the war fronts by the mobile broadcasting units. However, when the discs came to be catalogued by the RNZ Sound Archives, the connection to Bobbie Loughnan’s story and the context of the title was no longer known. Cataloguers possibly felt the title seemed a little dismissive, and so listed the recordings with a title more descriptive of the contents: “The story of a gunner injured in Libya.”
And so they remained until February this year when Bobbie Loughnan’s son, Robert contacted me via this blog, mentioning his father had recorded a story entitled “A Simple Country Lad.” The name rang a bell as I had come across the correspondence from Noel Palmer and Captain E. Halstead in my research at Archives New Zealand. A quick search on his father’s name in Ngā Taonga’s catalogue found the recordings – albeit, under the later title “ The story of a gunner injured in Libya.”
Robert Loughnan very kindly shared with me the journey he has been on uncovering the details of his father’s wartime experience and recovery, and with his permission, I can share some of those details here. After recovering from his wounds, Bobbie Loughnan was eventually furloughed back to New Zealand in 1944. He married, raised a family and worked as a stock buyer and then as public relations officer for the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company. He had some involvement with rural radio programmes in this role, on station 3YA in Christchurch. Additionally, as publicity officer for the Canterbury Ski Association he used to present weekly snow and ski reports on air during winter months.
Bobbie passed away following a series of strokes in 1984, and some months later, his son Robert visited the Radio New Zealand Sound Archives (which were then in Timaru), hoping to be able to hear some of these reports if they had been archived. To his great surprise, he heard instead, the recording his father made in 1942 – a very emotional experience as Bobbie had never shared the details of his wartime wounding and shipwreck escape with his family.
This prompted a long period of research by Robert into his father’s war and he was able to meet Morven Stewart, the fellow New Zealand Div. Cav. member who Bobbie mentions in the recording and who was responsible for him surviving the sinking of the “Chakdina.” Robert also eventually met former New Zealand army nurse Gaye Collington, who had nursed Bobbie in Egypt. It was she who had encouraged him to initially write down his experiences as a way of processing the trauma he had gone through. It was Gaye who took the photo of Bobbie Loughnan above, in his ‘hospital blues” (patient’s uniform) on the roof of the Egypt hospital in 1942. She talked about her experience nursing Bobbie in an oral history, which was published in the book “Mates and Mayhem” by Lawrence Watt (HarperCollins, 1996).
Incredibly, Robert also met a former British seaman Les Edwards, who was the Royal Navy sailor who had pulled the wounded Bobbie out of the Mediterranean and aboard the “HMS Farndale.” Les had eventually settled in New Zealand and advertised through the R.S.A. Review newspaper that he wanted to meet any survivors of the “Chakdina” sinking. Morven Stewart saw the notice and eventually Robert Loughnan was able to meet up with Les and Morven in 1999. As he wrote, “How do you say thank you in some adequate manner to the very men who in rescuing my father, gave me life?… What a lucky man I am to have met, and known, Gaye, Morven and Les. All three in some way responsible for the life I have enjoyed.” [3]
Morven Stewart, Robert Loughnan, Les Edwards in 1999 [Courtesy Robert Loughnan]
Robert also kindly shared with me a letter his father Bobbie wrote to his parents during the war, telling them about the story and how he came to record it.
“I read in the NZEF Times of a competition instituted by the Official Archivist for personal account stories of the Div, fighting. The Archivist, one of the Public Relation blokes, was looking for material of a more personal nature than the bald statements of fact which come to him in each Unit’s War Diary. He required this stuff to use in the eventual writing of the Division’s History after the war… I wrote and wrote and wrote and found myself getting really excited over it all. And for two nights I wrote away there till the small hours. When it was done I borrowed a typewriter and typed a draft. 20,000 words it was and some effort for me to type. Then I got busy with a blue pencil and gave it an awful hiding. Finally produced the finished article… I handed the manuscript to Murray, to pass in, as we went through Cairo and up the line. I was thankful to see the last of it – so I thought.
A week or so later I had a message from Murray saying that my story had been lodged all right and had produced a visit to him in Base by another Public Relations bloke – the wireless recorder – to find out whom this Loughnan bloke was and whether he would make a recording for broadcast.
In September the Div was given four days Cairo leave before the big fight, so I went out to Maadi expecting to be introduced to a microphone and with a commentator, to make this sort of record:
Commentator: “What’s it like in battle?”
Me: (nervously) “Pretty bloody”
C: “What’s it like when the Stukas come?”
Me: “Pretty bloody”
C: “Do you like fighting?”
Me: “Not bloody likely”
…….etc. etc, ad lib.
But I was greeted instead by my whole manuscript all jacked up for easy reading and ready annotated for emphasis and inflexion etc. with every page (there were some twenty of them) stamped by every censor imaginable. There was the Chief Naval censors stamp, RAF Middle East, GHQ Middle East and Lord knows what.
I was coached up in reading. We had a trial run for a page or so and finally got to work. The whole business burnt up the best part of a day. In one place I broke down (did my scone) and the recording wallah took the record, 12 inches of it, broke it over his knees and just said “OK, take a spell and then go back to so-and-so.” Oh yes. They turned your son into quite a showman.
Then, when it was all over, I got the biggest kick of the lot. He played it all back to me and made me follow very critically right through. While this was going on the door opened and in came someone in a, then, strange uniform. The recorder turned down the volume for a minute and introduced me to this bloke. As usual I played no attention to his name but shook his hands, sat down and went on listening. After the last record – there were some 16, 12” sides – this fellow said: “Did you make that recording?” The recorder pipes up: “Yes, and wrote it. He happens to be the hero too.”
In the broadest of accents comes the spontaneous remark: “Boy, you’ve a natural commentator’s voice” (pronounced – commentah). He was a technician from one of the big American Commercial Radio Links!! That was the biggest “kick” of the lot.” [4]
Bobbie Loughnan’s skill with words continued after the war. As well as some radio work, he was tasked with writing the official war history of his unit, the New Zealand Divisional Cavalry. It was published in 1963 and can be read online.
(Many thanks to Robert Loughnan for his help in writing this story of his father’s recording and permission to republish photographs and excerpts from his correspondence.)
[1] Noel Palmer to James Shelley, National Broadcasting Service, 17 Sep 1942. Archives NZ R22011495
[2] Captain E. Halstead to E. McCormick, Army Archives, HQ Wellington, 18 Sep 1942. Archives NZ R22011495
[3] Robert Loughnan, The sinking of the Chakdina, March 2022
[4] Personal correspondence, R.J.M. Loughnan to his mother, 21 September 1943.
Neptune Calling exhibition, Torpedo Bay Navy Museum
Some of the most poignant recordings made by the Mobile Broadcasting Unit are now able to be heard in a new exhibit at the Torpedo Bay Navy Museum in Auckland, which opened this week. They contain the voices of 50 New Zealand sailors, recorded on board the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Neptune, on 13 November 1941.
Broadcasters Arch Curry and Noel Palmer went on board the Neptune while it was docked at Alexandria, Egypt, and recorded radio messages from 50 of the 150 New Zealanders who were serving amongst its crew of nearly 800 men. They also recorded the ship’s British officers, Captain Rory O’Conor and First Lieutenant Frank Woodward, who spoke about about the history of the ship and the part the New Zealanders were playing in its crew.
Tragically, just over a month later on 19 December 1941, HMS Neptune struck a minefield in the Mediterranean and sunk, with the loss of all but 1 of its crew, including 150 New Zealanders.
Northern Advocate, 3 January 1942, Page 5 [via Papers Past]
Next-of-kin received the tragic news around Christmas, and it was announced publicly in New Zealand in early January 1942. The timing of the disaster added to the terrible poignancy of the men’s final messages, which are mostly Christmas greetings to family and loved ones. Two New Zealand families tragically lost two sons each in the sinking, and Dunedin was hit particularly hard, with the loss of 30 local men.
Dunedin’s Memorial to the local men lost on HMS Neptune, erected in 2008 [Wikimedia Commons]
By the time of the Neptune’s sinking, the recorded discs with the voices of the Kiwi crew were on their way back to New Zealand for broadcasting in the popular weekly radio programme, “With the Boys Overseas.” However, the standard National Broadcasting Service practice when a man had been killed or declared missing in action, was to not play his message on air. Instead, the grieving families were notified that they could come and listen to the recording in private at their nearest NBS station.
So the Neptune messages never went to air during the war, and for many years after they remained in the NBS archives un-played, as it was felt it would be too painful for any family members to hear their lost loved one on the radio. However, by the late 1990s broadcasters believed enough time had passed and most immediate relations would have passed away, so occasionally the Neptune messages began to be heard on programmes such as “Sounds Historical”, hosted by Jim Sullivan on RNZ.
A typical disc of the HMS Neptune messages can be heard online here. Arch Curry introduces 11 men, who each send a brief message to their friends and families. They had been chosen by ballot to record a message, and almost all add another greeting on behalf of one of their mates who had missed out.
With the arrival of the internet in the 1990s, family historians began to discover mention of the recordings online and RNZ’s Sound Archives made contact with the official HMS Neptune Association in the UK, to let them know the recordings existed and that copies could be supplied to family members. In 2012, RNZ’s “Spectrum” documentary team made a radio programme about descendants of one young Auckland sailor, Eddie Vazey, hearing his voice for the first time on the archived HMS Neptune discs. You can listen to “Finding Eddie Vazey” on RNZ’s website.
New Zealand Herald, 08 January 1942
Since then, the recordings have also been used by the Royal New Zealand Navy to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Neptune’s sinking in 2016, and now all the messages are available for visitors to listen to at the Torpedo Bay Navy Museum in Auckland The “Neptune Calling” exhibit opened this week and curator Jane Cotty hopes it will remain in place for the rest of this year, so visitors can hear and pay their respects to the New Zealand men killed in what remains our worst naval disaster.
New Zealand crew of HMS Neptune whose voices are heard in the surviving Mobile Unit recordings:
Jack Ball, Christchurch
Bill Brown, Christchurch
Stan Percival, Wellington
Allan Roper, Featherston
Reg Gillan, Dunedin
Ras (Kauru) Forgie, Auckland
Ross Jenkin, Dunedin
Bruce McKinnon, Wairoa
Doug Harvey, New Plymouth
Jim Leckie, Dunedin
Frank Leyland, Rotorua
Jack True, Auckland
Alf Simpson, Dunedin
Rolly (Roland) Morley, Outram
Mansell (Lloyd) Lord, Auckland
Ross Andrew, Island Bay
Jim Walker, Auckland
Hud (Hudson) Biggs, Dunedin
Keg (Kevin) Garrett, Onehunga
Derek Baron, Lower Hutt
Roy Hook, Dunedin
Darcy (Arthur) Heaney, Gisborne
Ted (Edward) Tamplin, Christchurch
Peter (Edwin) Alder, Auckland
Ian Kennedy, Auckland
Eddie (Edward) Vazey, Auckland
Howard Cooper, Auckland
Bill (William) Perry, Lower Hutt
George Hansen, Christchurch
Robert Cronquest, Shannon Herbert Christie, Ashburton
Doug Laurenson (right) recording a crew member onboard HMS Leander in 1941. [The New Zealand Listener, 7 August 1941, cover]
As members of the first New Zealand Broadcasting Service mobile unit sailed towards the war in late August 1940, they began making recordings on-board their ship, the converted Canadian passenger liner, Empress of Japan. These discs were sent back to New Zealand from the various ports of call they stopped at en route. The surviving recordings, plus correspondence from the men themselves, convey a sense of anticipation that many members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force must have felt; the trepidation of heading off to war tempered by the chance (for most) to travel overseas for the first time.
The Broadcasting Unit sailed from Wellington on 27 August 1940. Three days out from New Zealand, their troopship convoy of the Empress of Japan, Mauretania and Orcades, paused in the Tasman Sea to farewell their escort, the cruiser HMS Achilles, which was heading back to New Zealand. The convoy was joined by an Australian contingent sailing out of Sydney, and HMAS Perth and HMAS Canberra would take over escort duties for the next leg of their journey. 1
The Achilles was already the toast of New Zealand in 1940, after taking part in the Battle of the River Plate in the South Atlantic in December 1939, where it had become the first New Zealand unit to strike at the enemy, firing on the German pocket battleship Graf Spee. The German crew subsequently scuttled their damaged vessel and the battle was seen as a victory and great morale boost to Britain and the Empire. 2
HMS Achilles with some of the crew on deck. [Ref. 1/2-049007-F Alexander Turnbull Library]
On their return to New Zealand in February 1940, Achilles and her crew were given a hero’s welcome, with parades and receptions in Auckland and Wellington. In this silent film footage taken by Lt. Richard Washbourn, (who would earn a DSO, CB, OBE, and eventually become a Rear Admiral and Commander of the Royal New Zealand Navy) you can watch her crew in the South Atlantic. There is no footage of the battle (understandably) but the unscripted, home movie gives a great feel for life on board and leave onshore. At the end of the online footage, as the cruiser enters Auckland on February 23, 1940, we see huge banners “Well done Achilles” and “Bravo Achilles“, adorning harbourfront buildings, as well as hundreds of waving Aucklanders crowding the docks and small craft which sailed out to greet her.
In this British newsreel footage of Achilles welcome, the enthusiasm of wartime Auckland is captured, with streamers and tickertape showering the marching crew on Queen Street.
Therefore, it would have been quite a fillip for the men of the Third Echelon to have this famous New Zealand vessel as their escort out of Wellington, later that same year. So much so, that when Achilles prepared to hand them over to an Australian escort and turn for home, the Broadcasting Unit ran out their microphone and recorded the event on deck on 30 August 1940.
Mobile Unit commentator Doug Laurenson (who is seen in the Listener magazine cover photo at the top of this blog) narrates the recording, which was recorded in four parts over two lacquer discs which have been digitised and made available to listen to on Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision’s website. In the first, he explains Achilles is to cruise around all the ships of the convoy and farewell them each in turn. Men are lining the decks and clustered around portholes. It is 5pm and the Tasman Sea is “beautifully calm” as the sun sets. In the second, he observes on the decks of their sister ship (Mauretania) the scarlet capes of New Zealand army nursing sisters, dotted among the soldiers and crew. Laurenson describes Achilles as it pulls alongside, flying a string of signal flags, which are being interpreted by his ship’s signalmen. In an aside, the kind of minor detail which enriches so many of the Mobile Unit recordings, he notes the men on his vessel “have had their vaccine inoculations today and are all nursing rather sore arms, so they will be sure to wave to Achilles with the other arm.”
Finally, in the third part of the series,Achilles‘ crew is heard giving three cheers to the men on the Empress of Japan, and receive the same in return. Through the noise of the wind on the open Tasman, Achilles‘ band can be heard playing on deck as her ratings sing “the Māori song of farewell” (“Pō Atarau/Now is the Hour”) for the Third Echelon’s men. They return the compliment by singing “For They are Jolly Good Fellows” as Achilles slips astern and heads for home, severing one final link with New Zealand.
Nearly a week later, the first stop for the 2 N.Z.E.F. convoy was Fremantle, the port for Perth in Western Australia. Here the Mobile Unit reported that the Kiwis were given a grand welcome by the locals, with cheering crowds and cars meeting the ships, ready to whisk men off to see the sights, as most had 12 hours’ shore-leave.
New Zealand Broadcasting Unit assistant engineer Norman “Johnny” Johnston, labelling a lacquer disc [Photograph from “Cairo Calling” – Egyptian State Broadcasting Service magazine, 30 November, 1940. Archives NZ ADQZ 18886 WAII1 R20107884]
The unit’s assistant engineer, 23 year old Norman “Johnny” Johnston, wrote to his parents about visiting Australia: “The train journey from the port to the city was a great experience – people all along the way cheering and motor cars tooting their horns. Our first job was to post what records we had made back to N.Z. …They were 12 pounds weight of discs and as the rate is 5 pence per half ounce and we had to send them collect, it will be a pleasant surprise for the firm [the NZBS.]” Johnny also called on the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s local radio station and was given a tour of their facilities, and then visited an aunt of his mother’s who lived in Perth, before catching up with other NZEF men in town for an obligatory beer and dinner at a city restaurant.
“The New Zealanders took complete control of the city and there were some of the funniest sights I’ve ever seen. Two Auckland chaps pinched horses from somewhere and galloped up and down the main street. Others stood at crossings controlling traffic. The local inhabitants were fortunately very long-suffering and didn’t seem to mind a bit.”3
Hay Street, Perth, c. 1940s [Courtesy museumofperth.wordpress.com]
Back on board, the commentator Doug Laurenson made a six-part series of recordings about impressions of their first shore leave and the waving crowds that greeted the New Zealanders. (Note that due to wartime censorship neither Fremantle, Perth nor Australia are mentioned by name in his report.) Special troop trains carried the men from the port into the city throughout the day, with both sides of the track lined by cheering locals. “We were welcomed by thousands of waving hands: children lined up at the windows of their classrooms… people grouped in their gardens and back verandahs, on overhead bridges and shop doorways…all stopped to give us a cheer and the universal sign “Thumbs up New Zealand!”4
In Parts 2 and 3 of this series, which is entitled “News from the Troops”, they recorded the unit’s first greetings from New Zealanders for broadcast to families at home. It seems the unit was still establishing a format for this type of broadcast, and frustratingly, none of the speakers are fully named in these recordings: a sergeant named “Basil” sends greetings to Christchurch and Okuru and Jackson’s Bay (in South Westland), a man named “George” sends greetings to Auckland, Whangarei and Kaukau, and an unidentified nursing sister says hello to ‘Mangatawiri’ (sic. possibly Mangatāwhiri or Maungatāwhiri.) She describes how the nurses on board enjoyed their first shore leave, with hospitality provided by the local Perth nurse’s association, including dinner and dancing.
Happily, Parts 4 and 5 are more satisfactory, for although “Bert” the Quartermaster Sergeant interviewed in them is not fully named, he helpfully ends his recording by greeting “39 Tarikaka Street, Ngaio” (Wellington.) Using this detail and his rank, I was able to identify him on Auckland War Memorial Museum’s Online Cenotaph database as Albert John Wyeth 27368. Bert gives details of a typical day on-board a troopship, from reveille at 6.30am, through roll call, physical training, games and route marches on deck (to recorded music provided by the Broadcasting Unit.) A World War I veteran, Bert says this troopship is about four times larger than the one he travelled on “last time.” He notes boots must be worn during route marches, in order to keep the mens’ feet in shape for when they finally get back on land. Blackout is observed on deck after dusk, so no smoking is permitted outside. He says the weather has been splendid, making it a most enjoyable voyage, “especially for those lads, for who this is their first trip.”5
This first of what would be many thousands of recordings of messages for New Zealand radio listeners, ends with a Canadian. Captain John Wallace Thomas, master of the ship Empress of Japan, sends a few words to the friends and families of his New Zealand passengers. Before the war, his vessel was a luxury passenger liner of the Canadian-Pacific company, sailing the Vancouver–Yokohama–Kobe–Shanghai–Hong Kong route.
Her Canadian and Chinese crew carried celebrities such as American baseball legend Babe Ruth across the Pacific.6 Requisitioned in late 1939 for war service, she ferried New Zealand and Australian personnel to the Middle East for several years, changing her name to Empress of Scotland after Japan entered the war with the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941.
After safely delivering the New Zealand Third Echelon to their destination, Captain Thomas and his ship were to have an eventful war, surviving several near misses. On November 9, 1940 off Western Ireland, they suffered a German air attack. During the air raid, Captain Thomas and Ho Kan, the ship’s Chinese quartermaster, heroically manned the wheelhouse, steering the ship to take evasive action. In the face of enemy machine gun fire, Ho Kan at the wheel calmly carried out his commander’s instructions from a lying position. Both men were later decorated, Captain Thomas with the CBE, and Ho Kan the BEM. Captain Thomas is one of 14 figures from Canada’s military history remembered with a bust at the nation’s “Valiants Memorial” in Ottawa.7
Statue of John Wallace Thomas, Valiants Memorial, Ottawa, Canada. [Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons]
New Zealand nurses, waving farewell from a deck of a troopship during World War II. The Evening Post newspaper. Ref: PAColl-5482-018. Alexander Turnbull Library. /records/22299346
Over 90 percent of the voices heard in the Mobile Broadcasting Unit’s wartime recordings aremale. As with any archive, it is important to consider what is missing from the official record: whose stories haven’t been written, whose voices are not heard? In the case of a sound archive, it can be a very literal ‘archival silence’.
The absence of female voices in the collection is largely due to the limited opportunities for New Zealand women to serve overseas during World War II. But there were women on active service – and some of them and the stories of their experiences were recorded. I’ll give a brief overview here of the Unit’s recordings of nurses of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service. Other women were also recorded by the Unit, such as WAACs and Tuis, and their recordings will feature in a later blog.
New Zealand nurses sailed with the First and Second Echelons of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force. When the Third Echelon departed in August 1940, it too contained members of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, as well as the staff of the National Broadcasting Service Mobile Unit. In all, around 600 NZANS members were to serve outside New Zealand between 1939 and 1945. 1
From the deck of the troopship “Empress of Japan” on 26 August 1940, broadcasting commentator Doug Laurenson described watching the loading of their sister vessel “Mauretania”, as both readied to depart Wellington . His recorded commentary painted a picture of the scene for radio audiences: “All along her decks, leaning out of port holes and perched in her rigging can be seen lines and lines of khaki-clad figures. …High up on her boat deck, the most vivid sight is that of the scarlet capes, the grey uniforms and white head dress of Army Sisters. In the sunlight they make an unforgettable splash of colour, flanked by the blue uniforms of the ship’s crew and the khaki drill of our own troops.” 2
Boyer, Charles Percy Samuel, 1902-1973. New Zealand nurses of the 3rd Echelon departing from Wellington during World War 2. New Zealand. Ref: DA-07102-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23023508
The women he was describing were staff of No. 2 New Zealand General Hospital (2NZGH) which sailed with the Third Echelon, some of whom can be seen waving goodbye in the photograph above. In early recordings the Unit made en-route to Egypt, we get small glimpses of what life was like for the handful of women on board a ship with over 1,000 men. In one recording, an unnamed nursing sister gives a brief description of shore leave. Due to wartime censorship, the actual location was not able to be mentioned on-air, but from the date of recording we know it was Fremantle in Western Australia She greets Mangatawhiri (presumably her hometown) and describes how the nurses were met by local (Australian) nurses and shown great hospitality. Arrangements were made at Perth clubs to provide meals and dancing for the women, as well as the New Zealand troops who were also granted shore leave.
Later in the voyage as the Third Echelon headed for its next port (Bombay/Mumbai, India) some of the nurses joined the men in taking part in a traditional “Crossing the Line” ceremony. This is a centuries-old old naval tradition that marks the first time a person sails across the Equator. The Broadcasting Unit recorded a commentary on deck describing the good-natured hi-jinks, which involved the ship’s crew dressing -up and taking the roles of various members of “King Neptune’s Court”. They cover the ‘land-lubber’ initiates who are crossing the line for the first time with soap-lather and them give them a dunk in a pool on the deck. A Sister Anderson, matron of the nurses on board (possibly Lucy Edna Anderson) is described entering into the spirit of the occasion, appearing on deck in fancy dress as an elderly woman complete with bonnet. She takes her lathering and dunking as a “good sport”, but turns the tables on “King Neptune” pushing him into the water as well, much to the amusement of the crowd! 3
Crossing the Line on the troop transport Empress of Australia, August 1941. The initiate being ducked by the ‘bears’ after being shaved by King Neptune’s barber. Imperial War Museum A5176 via http://hmsgambia.org/
Once the Third Echelon reached Egypt and settled into life at Maadi Camp near Cairo, the Mobile Broadcasting Unit staff began preparing one of its longest early broadcasts, which was to be played in New Zealand on Christmas Day 1940.
It was an ambitious programme, obtaining recorded messages from representatives of various branches of the New Zealand Division, as well as men serving with the Royal Navy and Air Force, a Christmas message from New Zealand commander General Bernard Freyberg himself and a talk by “a Middle East nursing sister.” Apart from the General, all participants in this programme are frustratingly unnamed. Perhaps it was intended that through their anonymity, the speakers would be representatives of all the New Zealanders overseas. However, the unnamed nurse is introduced as having been overseas for nearly a year at the time of the recording, which means she was most likely one of the 18 nurses in the First Echelon who had left New Zealand in January 1940.
In what would become something of a feature of the Broadcasting Unit’s recordings of women, the nurse in the 1940 Christmas programme addresses herself directly “to the womenfolk of New Zealand, whether wives, mothers or sweethearts.” She describes the conditions in Egypt: the weather, food, and the outings arranged for off-duty mento see the sights. She ends by telling listeners that “All the men in our care on Christmas Day will be looked after and we’ll see that their stockings are filled.” 4 Hearing these reassurances in the voice of a New Zealand woman on the other side of the world, might have gone some way towards the Broadcasting Unit’s stated aim of boosting morale on the homefront.
New Zealand nurses continue to appear sporadically in the Unit’s recordings throughout the war. As the “messages home” became a regular popular feature on New Zealand radio, they too were given an opportunity to appear in front of the microphone and send greetings to loved ones. In March 1941 the Unit visited the New Zealand General Hospital at Helwan, and recorded greetings from nurses, including the Matron Doris Brown.
Patient and nurse at the NZ General Hospital, Egypt. New Zealand. ca.1941 Ref: DA-01247-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22336255
A couple of months later in May 1941 the Unit recorded a talk by Matron Eva Mackay who had been in charge of the party of nurses which went to Greece in February to set up a tent hospital for New Zealanders fighting there. However, as that campaign rapidly unravelled, she instead found herself helping to lead over 100 British, Australian and New Zealand nurses in a hurried evacuation away from advancing German forces.
Their journey through Greece and Crete was a dangerous and arduous one, pursued by the advancing enemy and under fire from German aircraft. In the New Zealand Nurses’ Journal she wrote “Never will I forget my few weeks in Greece. The last part will be like a nightmare for some time to come and the relief at stepping ashore in the Middle East was almost too much for me.” 5
New Zealand nurses in a cemetery, during the withdrawal from Greece, World War 2. Evening Post newspaper. Ref: PAColl-7796-87. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22448626
In her interview for New Zealand radio recorded shortly after ‘stepping ashore’, she described how the evacuating nurses’ truck convoy was bombed and strafed from the air, forcing the women to shelter for a day in an old Greek cemetery before continuing their journey in darkness. The interview was written up as a full-page feature article for The New Zealand Listener magazine in June 1941, under the headline N.Z. Nurses in Greece. Their experiences told by Miss E.C. Mackay in the N.B.S. session “With the Boys Overseas.”6.
Other wartime recordings of nurses which survive in the sound archives include Sister Vera Hodges, who nursed in a casualty clearing station in the North African Western Desert campaign and gave an account of their work to the Broadcasting Unit in early 1943. (She noted the men were amazed to find New Zealand women so close to the front line. ) She had also been interviewed when the Unit travelled to visit New Zealanders in Syria in 1942 and recorded greetings from a handful of nurses in a CCS there.
Matron-in-Chief of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, Emily Nutsey was interviewed shortly before her departure from that role in November 1943, when she had to return to New Zealand due to ill health. Her interview, in which she which reviews the work of the NZANS in the war to that point, is still awaiting digitisation. Once it is available it will become yet another useful resource for researchers interested in the role of New Zealand nurses on active service in the war.
References: 1. New Zealand Army Nursing Service Roll World War Two, https://www.nzans.org , 2. Doug Laurenson in Embarkation of the Third Echelon commentary, ID11155 Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, 3. Crossing the Equator Pts 1-5 ID11030 Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, 4. Talk by a Middle East nursing sister, ID 19066 Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, 5. Eva MacKay in New Zealand Journal of Nursing 15 July 1941, cited in Anna Rogers, While You’re Away: New Zealand nurses at war 1899-1948 (AUP 2003) p223, 6. The New Zealand Listener, 20 Jun 1941 p7.
Awatea Maori Choir singing for the Kiwi Request Session at the British Forces Radio Station in Bari, Italy, 1945. Photograph by E.E. Winter. Ref: DA-08473-F. Alexander Turnbull Library. /records/22888595
The choir was made up of men from the 28 (Māori) Battalion. From left to right: J.H. Bowman, Coromandel; B.K. Ormond, Hawkes Bay; F.L. Bunting, Auckland; M.Mason, New Plymouth; J. Taingahoe, Ruatoria; H. Raukawa, Taihape; S. Taniora, North Auckland, J.J. Turei, Whakatane; N. Mate, Whakatane; T. Paora, Waitara.
The recordings the Mobile Unit made with the men of the 28 (Māori) Battalion are probably the most well-known of all the recordings they made. Between 2010 and 2013, many were transcribed, translated and uploaded to the official Māori Battalion website, created by historian Dr Monty Soutar and Manatū Taonga, New Zealand’s Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Recordings of waiata sung by these men have become part of the rich legacy of this unit.
If you haven’t visited the Battalion website, I highly recommend it. It now features a page for every man who served in the 28 Battalion in World War II and also men of the Māori Contingent and Pioneer Battalion in World War I. It is rich in photographs, diary entries and letters, whānau contributions and archival audio. This website was my introduction to the Mobile Unit recordings. While working for the RNZ Sound Archives in 2012, I was asked to search for any Māori Battalion material that might have been overlooked in earlier searches. I came across this recording made by the Mobile Unit in Egypt in January 1943.
It was described in the existing catalogue as “Christmas in a NZ General Hospital with carol singing by a Māori party.” On listening to the recording, it was found to contain the voices of 14 men from the Māori Battalion who send greetings to whānau in te reo Māori, while others sing “Tapu te Pō – Silent Night”, together with Nurse Wiki Kātene (Ngāti Toa). It is an incredibly culturally rich recording, but one seemed to have been largely overlooked for the 70 years since it was recorded. With Monty’ s help we picked out the names of most of the men and the hapu and iwi to whom they sent greetings. They were men who had been wounded during the fighting of the Alamein campaign in October and November 1942.
Finding this taonga made me wonder what else could be hiding in this collection, and inspired a desire to work with it to enable the voices in it to be more widely known and available for everyone to hear.
Members of 28 (Māori) Battalion with the Broadcasting Unit. On the far right, Arch Curry holds the microphone for an officer – probably Captain Charles Bennett. He is possibly recording this radio talk about the Battalion’s actions in Libya, in January 1942. Photograph taken by Dr C N D’Arcy [Ref: DA-11481-F. Alexander Turnbull Library /records/22826929 ]
Captain Charles Bennett (Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Pikiao), who is seen being recorded in the photo above, eventually became the Māori Battalion’s Commanding Officer. Before the war he had worked for the National Broadcasting Service, providing commentary for some of their early broadcasts of major Māori events and hui. You can hear him at work in 1938 covering the hui at Tūrangawaewae when Princess Te Puea Hērangi was presented with her C.B.E. by the Governor-General. After the war he had an illustrious public service career, was New Zealand’s first Māori High Commissioner (spending several years in Malaysia), and was knighted in 1975.
In November 1944, while recuperating from severe wounds he received from a mine in North Africa, Charles Bennett was interviewed for The Listener magazine and commented on the work of the Broadcasting Service Mobile Unit. The interviewer asked about Bennett’s own work as a broadcaster while overseas, which included some commentary for the BBC and for the New Zealand unit: “When there were Māori broadcasts, I was the compere,” he said, noting that Māori men were recorded “not as often as we would have liked, but most acceptable when it happened. It means a good deal for Māori soldiers to be able to speak to their people. More I think than it does to Pākēha troops.” 1
Portrait of Lt-Col Charles Bennett, D.S.O., The New Zealand Listener, 24 Nov 1944. [Photograph by Spencer Digby]
Bennett observed that Māori soldiers themselves chose the men who would make recordings and speak on behalf of their unit, and this was often done along tribal lines. He explained that the messages home were highly valued by his people, because they were a continuation of Māori oral traditions. “As far back as our traditions go we have been moved by the human voice. We don’t write our thoughts. We utter them. Broadcasting makes our past live again,” he said.2
As well as the men of the Māori Battalion, it is important to note Māori who served elsewhere were also recorded. This recording from 1942 features greetings from several Māori men who were in the Royal Air Force in North Africa, while Tamaio Paiki (Kāti Huirapa, Kāi Tahu) who served with 2 Divisional Signals, recorded this talk about being the first Māori to enter the fortress of Tobruk in 1941.
Messages from Māori men to whānau and friends back home were recorded and broadcast as part of the programme “With the Boys Overseas” (which you can read more about here.) They were also recorded speaking and singing in special programmes such as these concerts recorded in Egypt and Italy. Māori officers were recorded delivering ‘talks’ about the actions their men had been involved in and sending condolences to whānau of the dead and injured. These were often presented in te reo Māori and English, and may have featured in the Sunday night Māori news bulletins presented by Wiremu Parker during the war.
How many Māori were recorded by the Mobile Unit? At this point we simply don’t know, because we don’t even have a total for how many New Zealanders as a whole were recorded on the 1600 discs of the Mobile Unit which survive today. On some discs there may only be one man speaking, on others up to a dozen. On some, there may be more men speaking than are currently listed in written metadata. A full survey of the surviving discs and identifying and counting all the speakers is part of the scope of the work I am doing this year. Uncovering the number of Māori who were recorded, and the hapu and iwi they are from will form part of this research. There may even be recordings of Māori soldiers in overseas sound archives – the image at the top of this page is of a broadcast being made by a Māori choir on British Forces Radio in Italy in 1945 – another avenue of research.
I hope at the end of my work to be able to create lists of men whose voices can be still heard, so that these can be shared with their iwi, hapu and descendants and linked to each man’s entry in databases such as the Māori Battalion website and Auckland War Memorial Museum’s Online Cenotaph
References: 1, 2 “When the Māoris come home again”, The New Zealand Listener, 24 November 1944, p.11.
Flight Sergeant A G Newman, one of the New Zealanders serving with the Royal Air Force in the Cassino area in Italy, records his message to be broadcast in NZ. Archibald Curry, of the NZ Broadcasting Unit, holds the microphone. Photograph taken in Venafro, Italy, on 27 April 1944 by George Robert Bull. DA-05602-FAlexander Turnbull Library /records/23236585[Listen to his message here]
From late 1940 until the end of the war, the staff of the Mobile Units recorded hundreds of hours of radio broadcast material in the various theatres of war where New Zealanders were fighting.
There were interviews with men and women about their roles in the war or their recent experiences, such as the evacuations from Greece and Crete, or daring expeditions across the North African desert. Or more mundane but vital work such as nursing in a field hospital, operating an army bakery to keep the thousands of New Zealanders in bread and meat pies, or working in the Army Post Office to make sure the all-important mail from home got delivered.
There were also the voice reports by the unit’s commentators, describing military action (often, as it happened) which were sometimes broadcast via the BBC to New Zealand and the world within 24 hours – a new immediacy in international war reporting.
But for the radio listeners back in New Zealand, the Mobile Unit’s most important role, the one for which it became best-known and remembered, was recording thousands of simple 15-20 second “messages home”, from New Zealanders serving in both the 2NZEF and also in the Royal Navy or Air Force. These began to reach the airwaves back home in late 1940, appearing as part of a programme of various recordings received from the Mobile Unit. However, such was the response that in February 1941, a new dedicated programme was created, called “With the Boys Overseas.”
“So great has been the public interest in the messages from the New Zealand Broadcasting Unit in the Middle East, expressed in telephone calls, letters and telegrams after every broadcast”, 1 wrote the New Zealand Listener magazine, announcing that from Sunday 09 February 1941, the new programme would run for an hour from 9.00-10.00am, and would be repeated again the following Tuesday evening. At the beginning of the programme, a New Zealand-based announcer would read out a list of the names of men whose messages were coming up, allowing listeners to contact anyone who would be interested – a feature that the Listener felt, would be “of great help to mothers, sisters and sweethearts listening for personal messages.”
In a pre-internet era when even an international telephone call was impossible, these messages took on a significance for families that is almost unimaginable in our modern, hyper-connected world. “With the Boys Overseas” became appointment listening in many homes and its opening theme music, “Sons of the Anzacs” performed by the Trentham Army Camp Military Band, became one of the best-known New Zealand tunes of the war, after “The Māori Battalion March”. (A Mobile Unit recording of the song is not yet available online, but you can hear a slightly slower tempo, modern rendition here.)
In the photo above and in the one below, you can see the men being recorded are holding a small piece of paper, on which their greeting was written. Everything being recorded for broadcast had to be checked first by the military censor, in case a soldier accidentally revealed useful information that could be used by the enemy – no place names could be mentioned and the men could not talk about recent or upcoming action. It was also expected that their message would be cheery and reassuring – the sort of thing worried parents or wives would want to hear.
New Zealand soldiers on the Cassino Front, Italy, record messages to be broadcast home – Photograph taken by George Bull. Ref: DA-05596-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22832174
This meant the contents of the messages tend towards the generic. You can hear Flight Sergeant “Pat” Newman’s message home to Timaru, (which he is recording in the image at top of this page), on Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision’s web catalogue. It follows the standard format: “Hello Mum and family, I am fit and well, ” followed by greetings to various friends and family members.
Wartime broadcaster Peter Harcourt who compiled “With the Boys Overseas” in Wellington from the Mobile Unit discs, explained that for New Zealanders at home by their radios, the content of the message was not so important – it was simply hearing that beloved voice. “It is often not what is said that matters, but merely the sound of the voice itself,” he wrote.2
In an interview recorded in later life, commentator Doug Laurenson reflected on his work with the Mobile Unit and the “With the Boys Overseas” messages. He felt there was an “infinite sadness to the long lines of men stretched out in the blazing desert sun, waiting to record their short messages: ‘Are you there love? Keep your chin up – it won’t be long now’, ‘Hello son. Are you being a good boy and looking after Mummy? That’s the chap, keep it up'”3
Occasionally a man might make reference to receiving a parcel from home – or ask for more mail to be sent – and most memorably, Doug recalled a dairy farmer who sent greetings to “Old Blossom” , the pride of his Jersey herd, urging her to “keep milking on all cylinders.” Sadly, that particular message has not survived in the sound archive.
Speakers of te reo would sometimes record their greeting in Māori – and a surprising number of Pākēha use “Kia ora” in their greetings. (It would be interesting to know if this indicates that the Māori greeting was in more widespread usage by New Zealanders in the 1940s, before dying out and then being revived with recent efforts to revitalise te reo since the 1970s. )
A New Zealand sailor on board H.M.S. Leander records a message home for the Mobile Unit’s microphone, with commentator Doug Laurenson [Detail from the cover of The New Zealand Listener, 07 August 1941.]
By 09 May 1941 the Listener headlines read “Boys Overseas radio feature receives huge mail.” Extra members of staff had to be hired by the NBS to cope with the influx: “No single feature ever presented by radio in New Zealand has been the cause of so many letters to the NBS as the Sunday morning programme “With the Boys Overseas”, the article explained. 4
Much of the correspondence was from families who had missed hearing a message from their loved one and wanted it repeated. Or from families who had received mail from their soldier saying he had been recorded, asking when they could expect to hear his message. (In a future post I will explain the delays and logistical nightmare involved in getting the Mobile Unit discs back to New Zealand – and then getting them on air.)
The NBS explained in the May article that repeating an individual’s message, beyond the full repeat programme on Tuesday nights, was impossible in most cases. However, if the soldier’s name was given, then the service would try to notify the family when an upcoming message would be broadcast. The problem of ‘correct names’ and matching them with the men heard in the recordings was already causing headaches, as the article concludes: “There are many thousands of soldiers in the Middle East and many of them have names like Smith or Brown. An inquiry for a message from “John Smith” or “Sergeant D.J. Smith” is almost useless, if the announcer with the unit refers to him [by his nickname] as “Jack Smith.” If inquirers would give the names that their soldier friends would be likely to use, it would save the NBS staff an immense amount of trouble.” 5
In another post I will explain how this very same problem is still causing headaches some 80 years later, as we try to verify the identity of all the “Boys Overseas” on the Mobile Unit discs, so their descendants can find them – and hear their messages home once again.
References: 1: The New Zealand Listener, 07 February 1941 p.7; 2: Downes, Peter and Harcourt, Peter, Voices in the Air (1976, Methuen); 3: Doug Laurenson interview, ID30392, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision; 4, 5: The New Zealand Listener, 09 May 1941 p3
Members of the first National Broadcasting Service Mobile Recording Unit, in August 1940 (L-R): Norman Johnston, Noel Palmer, Doug Laurenson [Image: The New Zealand Listener, 13 Dec 1940]
The Mobile Units were initiated in February 1940 when the Director of the National Broadcasting Service, Professor James Shelley wrote to the government suggesting it might be a good idea to send broadcasters with the New Zealand Division to boost morale and keep radio listeners at home in touch with what their men were up to on the other side of the world.
This would be the first time New Zealand broadcasters had gone into a conflict zone and working out how to transport heavy, cumbersome recording equipment was a challenge for NBS engineers. This was the era before magnetic tape recording, which did not come into use until after the war. In 1940, sound recording could only be achieved by cutting directly with a lathe or disc cutter, onto large, lacquer discs – something which was hard to do successfully outside a radio studio as it required an absolutely still, steady, level surface.
In the end, the engineering team built a recording van at the Petone Railway Workshops, fitted it out with two disc cutters, microphones, cables, blank discs and various other pieces of equipment. The team also took a “Presto” portable disc recorder, which eventually ended up being their most useful bit of kit.
“Presto” disc recorder advertisement [via Presto History ]
The First Echelon of men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, (under the command of World War I hero Major-General Bernard Freyberg V.C.) had sailed from New Zealand in January 1940, bound for the Middle East. Shortly before their departure, Freyberg broadcast a farewell speech to New Zealand radio listeners, in which he poignantly recalled his service in World War I and the deaths of his friends and brother. Many young New Zealand men were enthusiastically signing up to fight, but he was under no illusions as to what ‘heading off to war’ meant.
In the next few months, while the Mobile Unit recording van was being built and equipped, the Second Echelon of New Zealanders also departed. The team to staff the Mobile Unit was named: NBS engineer Noel Palmer would be in charge, with young Norman Johnston as his assistant engineer. From Auckland station 1ZB of the National Commercial Broadcasting Service came the unit’s “commentator” Doug Laurenson, who was also a veteran of the previous war, having served with the Royal Flying Corps. (Eventually these three men would be rotated out and replaced by other NBS staff – and a second Mobile Unit would later travel to the war in the Pacific.)
None of the men were radio journalists – or even official war correspondents initially. They were government employees, embedded with the Army Headquarters Public Relations Office. They were not given military rank, but had the status and privileges of officers and wore military uniforms.
They left Wellington on 27 August 1940, onboard a converted Canadian passenger liner, the Empress of Japan. (At this point, Japan had not yet entered the war against Britain and her allies. Once she did in December 1941, the vessel was renamed the Empress of Scotland.) Together with another troopship, the Mauretania it was photographed moored at Wellington’s King’s Wharf (below). In the photograph, rail lines can be clearly seen running along the wharves beside the ships. In some of the first recordings made by the unit, as the ships were being loaded with thousands of men and their supplies, you can clearly hear the unmistakable sounds of steam locomotives, as they pull up alongside the ships.
Troopships Mauretania and Empress of Japan at the King’s Wharf, Wellington, August 1940. Photograph by William Raine. [Ref: 1/1-021750-GAlexander Turnbull Library.]
Commentator Doug Laurenson recorded his commentary describing the embarkation of the Third Echelon from the deck of the Empress. In the background, as well as the steam trains, you can hear the shouting and cheering of the men calling out to their mates and military bands on the wharves below playing jaunty marches. The actuality recorded in this, their first official recording, is a good demonstration of how well a radio microphone and recording equipment can paint a vivid sound picture of a time and place. Listening to archival sound recordings like this one, is to me a form of time travel. It forces the mind to imagine the scene the ears are hearing and in doing so, seems to evoke a more complete image of the past than a photograph or even moving pictures in a film. Archival sound can take you into the past.
RMS Empress of Japan [later renamed Empress of Scotland] as a civilian passenger liner in 1930. As a troop ship, she transported the New Zealand Division’s 3rd Echelon from Wellington to Egypt in August 1940 – including the Mobile Unit. [Image in public domain via Wikimedia Commons}
The embarkation recordings were not heard by New Zealand radio listeners until weeks after the ship sailed, when the discs were able to be sent back to the NBS in Wellington from Egypt. In them, we hear from the three broadcasters themselves who explain their hopes for what they wish to achieve in their work overseas, linking New Zealand listeners with their men on active service. Doug Laurenson signs off on behalf of their fellow passengers, the men of the Third Echelon: “They ask me to tell you to cheer up, to write often and look forward to their return, someday.” And to the strains of “Po atarau – Now is the Hour” , the ship departs, and they’re on their way.
Mobile Unit engineer Noel Palmer inside the recording van at Maadi, Egypt in 1942. Photograph by M.D. Elias[Image: Ref. DA-04274-F Alexander Turnbull Library]
The New Zealand Listener magazine was launched in 1939. It was published by the National Broadcasting Service targetting New Zealand radio listeners. The magazine featured radio programme listings, previewed future programmes, reviewed recent ones and profiled personalities and issues debated on-air.
The magazine carried several features throughout the war about Mobile Unit. The issue of 23 August 1940 contained an article “Radio with our Troops. Travelling Broadcasting Unit now Complete.” This profiled the specifications of the Mobile Unit truck which had recently been tested at Trentham Army Camp and then driven through the streets of Wellington where it “caused considerable interest.. Like all other military vehicles, the unit has been camouflaged with futuristic patches of khaki and green paint. When it arrives at its destination if will be mounted on a Leyland [truck] chassis, a large Army one weighing 3 tons, capable of moving over any country in which the New Zealand forces may be operating.”1.
The article goes on to describe the recording van body and its fittings in glorious detail: “Outwardly the unit resembles a large rectangular caravan, though happily free from all fantastic shape. ..The interior is a marvel of compact arrangement.” Originally, it was envisaged that as well as making recordings, the unit would regularly broadcast news and programmes from New Zealand to the troops overseas from the van, so it was equipped with outside broadcast equipment, amplifiers and loudspeakers. This aspect of its work did not last long and that equipment was soon dispensed with in Egypt.
The Mobile Unit van and trailer, built at the Petone Railway Workshops. [ The New Zealand Listener, 23 August 1940.]
The recording equipment contained in the van consisted of disc cutters, which captured sound by cutting it onto blank lacquer or acetate discs (similar in size to a modern vinyl LP record, but heavier and more rigid, having a core of aluminium.) The cutters look something like a modern turntable and playback arm – two can be seen in the van’s interior image at the top of this page. Cutting into the disc produced a highly flammable fine ribbon of waste lacquer called ‘swarf’ – hence the fire extinguisher in the photo above the disc cutters.
The two cutters sit inside dust covers, which could be zipped up when not in use to protect the equipment from desert conditions. The Listener article continued: “The windows are fly-proof and sand-proof…the roof is insulated…on the outside hooks have been inserted in the walls to hold curtains for a “black-out” when the men are operating at night.”2
A Mobile Unit disc, prior to cleaning and preservation by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. [Image: Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.]
The desert sand still managed to find its way onto the discs however. When they were first preserved in the early 1990s by the Radio New Zealand Sound Archives, dirt and sand still had to be washed from the grooves.
The recording van and its trailer power-unit were transported to Egypt with the first three Mobile Unit staff on board the Empress of Japan in August 1940. The men arrived in September and the van was finally delivered to them at Maadi Camp outside Cairo in October. However, the Leyland truck chassis which the NBS had ordered from Britain, did not arrive in Egypt until July 1941 – meaning the ‘Mobile’ Unit would have been rather ‘immobile’ for its first few months. Fortunately however, they also brought a “Presto” portable disc recorder with them from New Zealand and when the truck delivery delay became apparent, unit chief Noel Palmer got permission from Wellington to buy a Ford Mercury car in February 1941.
Prime Minister Peter Fraser outside the Mobile Unit recording van in Egypt, May 1941. (Note the van body is on the ground – waiting for the arrival of the truck, but still has its outside broadcast loudspeaker attached to the roof.) [Ref: DA-00818-F Alexander Turnbull Library]
Even after the Leyland did arrive, the Presto-plus-car combination made the unit much more mobile. The 3-ton truck proved too slow in keeping up with the New Zealand Division as it chased Axis forces across the desert, so in the end it was used largely as a base unit for sound editing and recording in Maadi Camp, while a lot of the off-site recording was carried out by a portable Presto, which can be seen in this photograph from 1943. Several more Prestos were eventually purchased.
Mobile Unit staff record greetings from recently liberated New Zealand prisoners of war, shortly after their arrival at 1 New Zealand General Hospital, Helwan, Egypt c. 03 Nov 1943. From left: Charles Goodwyn Lewis (with recording equipment), John William Proudfoot (holding microphone), Sergeant Harry A Taituha, Private C A Petrie. Photograph taken by George Robert Bull [Ref. DA-03223-F Alexander Turnbull Library]
For some missions in North Africa, the Army loaned the unit a light truck and a driver-mechanic, but by the end of the war the Ford Mercury had still racked up 80,000 miles and gone through three engine changes and several gearboxes.3
When peace came, the Mobile Unit found itself in Trieste in northern Italy. The recording van was stripped down and reusable equipment and parts were sent back to New Zealand. while the faithful Mercury was donated to the Army, whose mechanics had done so much work keeping it running.
Ford Mercury advertisement, [Northern Advocate, 1 November 1946 via Papers Past]
References: 1, 2: The New Zealand Listener, 23 August 1940 p.13; 3: Hall, John Herbert, The History of Broadcasting in New Zealand 1920-1954, (BCNZ, 1980) p.133.
World War Voices 