This anthology is a personal selection of written material about 2 New Zealand Division in the Second World War – almost all of it written from within its ranks – and complemented by cartoons and sketches, also by Kiwi soldiers, and photographs. Known to its members as ‘The Div’, the Division was by far the major part of New Zealand’s Second Expeditionary Force, and the country’s main contribution to the war. Naturally it had a distinctly New Zealand character, and despite being caught in several difficult situations in early campaigns – not necessarily of its own doing – the Div gained an international reputation for courage, reliability and achievement.
Because it was produced by a small country, an entity the size of the Division meant that most families and all districts were connected, which created an awareness that did not fade at the war’s end. Despite the loss of nearly 10,000 men, many, many more returned and were involved in every walk of life and leadership. In many ways my generation grew up in the Division’s shadow.
To a lad in post-war Southland it seemed that nearly every man had been ‘away’ – usually in the Div – or were they the ones I noticed? It was a membership that made them more interesting, and visible. Biking to work they wore army greatcoats and berets – especially Div. Cav. black – and usually had an issue haversack slung on their back. Most of my male schoolteachers wore RSA badges, and had a penchant for desks lined up like ‘files on parade’.
Belonging to a family affected by the war meant it was part of my consciousness, making it easy to understand the prophetic exchange with which Dan Davin ended his 1947 novel, For the Rest of Our Lives, based on 2 NZ Division:
And that meant the lives not only of those who ‘went away’, but those they came back to ... or did not come back to. The war was discussed – who was ‘away’, how his family coped, what effect it had on him, what he did when he came back – but little or nothing was said about what he had done in the war.
It is commonly believed that ‘when the boys came home’, they didn’t share their experiences and lived with them as best they could. On the surface, at least, many did that well. Others had difficulty. Some found it impossible. As youngsters we accepted that silence, especially as our thirst for war stories were quenched by Pan, Fontana and Corgi paperbacks like Reach for the Sky, The Great Escape and Two Eggs on My Plate. They were English-authored paperbacks with more than a hint of Boys’ Own about them, but we bought, borrowed, swapped and devoured them. Thanks to Brit ex-POW Pat Reid, I knew more ways out of Colditz Castle than I did out of Invercargill. They were good reads, but they told me nothing about the war in which the men wearing greatcoats, berets and RSA badges had fought.
New Zealand soldiers did write books towards the end of the war and over the following years. But their circulation was hampered by a paper shortage, and they weren’t part of the paperback market. They were authored by no-nonsense Kiwi veterans who wrote without glamour, though with pride and emotion. Extracts from those books are important to this collection.
In later life a number of veterans did share their experiences. The years had mellowed them, their memories or both, and they realised that other New Zealanders were interested in what they done, what they had been through. They shared their stories through major oral history projects, often organised by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and excerpts were collected in several books. Alongside our official Second World War history – an impressive 50-volume archive – the oral archive both broadened and personalised New Zealand’s war record. Most of the official history was written and published in the decade following the war by the War History Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs, led by its editor, Major-General Sir Howard Kippenberger. In addition, many histories have been written of various battles and individuals, the result of extensive research and analysis by war correspondents, academics and military historians. There have also been several biographies of notable wartime figures.
Despite the wealth of material in those forms, with a couple of exceptions excerpts from them do not appear in this collection. They were used for reference, certainly, especially Laurie Barber’s chronology, War Memorial, plus several official histories and biographies. This collection’s intention is to weave together an informal insight into the Division by selecting from the published words of its members or those closely associated with it. These original sources are various: memoirs, fiction, verse, news reports, articles and cartoons and sketches – penned by soldiers of all ranks.
This compilation of the written views and experiences of over 80 insiders creates a glimpse of army life, and how a few of the more than 100,000 New Zealand men who served in the Div reflected on and wrote about their war; how they coped with discipline and disaster, sacrifice and success. This they did with the same frankness, humour, wry cynicism and understatement they brought to the challenge of soldiering overseas.
Of the books from which that material was drawn, a few were written during the war, some almost immediately after. Other authors waited some time – even until they retired – to put down their thoughts. For many this wasn’t just about telling their story, often intended for their families, but as a release. Ex-infantryman Roger Smith is a good example. He wrote his excellent memoir, Up the Blue, in the early 1950s – ‘to make sense of my own part in the Second World War’ – and it was finally published at his family’s behest nearly 50 years later.
For the thoughts of New Zealand soldiers during the war, their weekly newspaper, the NZEF Times, is a goldmine. Published without pause for 235 weeks, it was the troops’ major source of news from home and the war’s other theatres. For this collection the section of most interest was ‘OFF PARADE, a Page for Contributors’. An outlet for both the creative and those who wanted to let off steam, it contained short stories, personal observations, jokes and cartoons, and all manner of verse. And it was all published without even a hint of a swear word – a far cry from life on the lines. ‘OFF PARADE’ was also the only opportunity reader/contributors had for public expression. From the outset, the NZEF Times did not provide a section for letters to the editor.
Several New Zealand war correspondents were attached to the Division, and though their despatches were factual they were written under a censorship that eliminated material of possible interest to the enemy, and met the government’s wish that war news was painted in a positive light. However, their work is included to add continuity, observation and anecdote. Those articles were all published in the NZEF Times, as was some of General Freyberg’s correspondence to the government; excerpts of these are also included.
Much of the collection is drawn from some 40 personal memoirs by members of the Division. Several were privates, one was a general. The rest represent all the ranks in between, and the Division’s various arms: infantry, sappers, gunners, drivers, medical, armour, chaplaincy. There is also fiction, created from the real experiences of authors like Guthrie Wilson and Dan Davin. They and the writers of many memoirs also capture the speech patterns of the time: ‘soldier lingo’ that grew out of street Arabic, rural Italian and abbreviated Army and collided with the slang and idiom of home. For translation, the two-part glossary should be a help.
The poetry included is wide ranging, to say the least, especially the material from the NZEF Times. Humorous, moving, offering new lines for old classics, some of it bends or breaks all the rules of the genre, but it was damn good fun at the time. Most of the more reflective and evocative poetry was written by veterans after the war. In contrast, the cartoons and sketches that enliven the book – as they did the NZEF Times’ pages – were drawn by serving soldiers.
Anthology editors often draw attention to specific works or authors. I have in previous work, but not here. What has been chosen contributes to the whole, especially when the work of several writers is interwoven in a documentary-like narrative to present battles and other significant periods. Some of the soldier writers featured could have contributed much more, but they were taken from the war early as prisoners, severely wounded or killed.
The book follows a chronological order, though subject relevance occasionally outweighs the calendar. In the interests of space, some of the material has been abridged, and this is indicated. But the punctuation and spelling, especially of place names, remains that of the original writer. This may be a little confusing, but whatever the spelling, one battle each at Servia Pass, Bel Hamed or Sidi Rezegh, and many other variously spelt locations, was more than enough.
On the dedication page the extract from Douglas Stewart’s Sonnets to The Unknown Soldier celebrates the ordinary, everyday blokes who for centuries, whatever their motivation, have always come forward to ‘do the fighting’. In that vein this anthology commemorates a unified force of our ordinary blokes who did the fighting. In their own words, What We Did in the War celebrates their being, both as individuals and as a divisional whole. May we never have to produce their like again.