Megan Hutching (ed.) with Ian McGibbon, Inside Stories: New Zealand Prisoners of War Remember, HarperCollins in association with the History Group, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Auckland, 2002. $39.95. 282 pp. ISBN 1-86950-435-6.
Reviewed by Tony Nightingale
Inside Stories: New Zealand Prisoners of War Remember is an official oral history of New Zealand survivors of Second World War prisoner of war camps. In a Foreword, the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, recommends these stories 'of humour, ingenuity, loyalty to mates, artistic and literary creativity (especially in the production of camp theatricals), and, above all, a stubborn determination to keep the spirits up and not give in' (p. 7).
Ian McGibbon's introductory essay provides a synthesis of the Olympian official war histories that were produced in the 1950s and 1960s. He reminds us that New Zealand soldiers' experience in the Second World War was primarily European. More than 90 per cent of New Zealand's 8369 prisoners of war were captured in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy. These men were overwhelmingly from the army and spent their internment in camps in Italy and central Europe. Approximately 500 New Zealand airmen and 63 naval personnel were also captured, most of the latter by the Japanese. These men were serving in the Far East with the Royal Navy. The maps of POW camps in Italy and central Europe are helpful resources for those who want to locate the European stories.
The book presents selected and amended transcriptions of interviews with sixteen prisoners of war. The selection has carefully included prisoners from all the services, plus Katherine M. Wood, who worked for the YMCA's War Prisoners' Aid Unit in Switzerland. There has also been an attempt to interview POWS who had differing experiences. Alan Jones 391706, AC (aircraftsman) 2, RNZAF, was captured in transit 500 miles east of Gisborne aboard the Rangitane in late November 1940, and spent the rest of the war in German POW camps. By contrast, Eric Osboldstone 411617, Flying Officer, 27 Squadron RAF, was taken prisoner by the Japanese in December 1944 south of Mandalay, and returned to New Zealand in August 1945.
The narratives follow the pattern set by Ian McGibbon's essay: capture, incarceration and liberation. There are also many stories of escape attempts. When asked how it felt to be captured by the Germans, William Flint 3259, Private, 18 Battalion, said:
It's the most heart-sinking sensation in the world. The only thing that kept me on my toes was the fact that I was almost certain they were going to shoot me, and I didn't want to bow the knee or anything. We did have a hatred of them.
For the prisoner who had food, boredom and depression were the greatest threats. Card games, chess, music, ritualised talking and theatre saved many a POW's sanity. George Lochhead 8282, Lance Sergeant, 20 Battalion, discussed more intimately than most the tactics that were used to maintain morale:
Guys who were good with fabric made the dresses to make the guys into females. We got musical instruments through the [YMCA]. We would have a band. There were comedians, singers; they formed choirs. The plays I think of were Pygmalion, Of Mice and Men, Les Miserables. A lot of these things were done from memory. At Christmas time a chap produced The Messiah - the words, the music, all from memory.
Robert Campbell 4257, Private, 19 Battalion, was captured in Crete. He spent considerable time attempting to escape, and was in Stalag XXA, near Thorn in Poland, for nearly two years. When finally released in May 1945:
He was in poor condition - only seven stone when his normal weight was around eleven - but soon recovered once he reached England. He arrived back in New Zealand on 30 August, and returned to his family in Waimate. His mother was delighted to see him, but died only two months later.
This book is a dialogue between a community that recognises the enormous debt it owes to these former soldiers, and the soldiers themselves. The intermediaries are the oral history recorders and editors. This is a responsibility that Megan Hutching, Ian McGibbon, Sherryl Allen, David Green and Bronwyn Dalley have undertaken thoughtfully and carefully. It is an attempt to acknowledge that debt while the ageing combatants from the Second World War remain with us.
I have read transcriptions of First World War veterans, and interviewed a Second World War POW who had been interned in Singapore. When these men talked about the deaths of friends - often for the first time - their accounts were raw and intense. I am not sure whether it is the structure of the book or the different experiences of these POWs, but this volume does not communicate the same sense of release for the interviewees. The role of the interviewers has been minimised, while connecting narratives have been added to link inconveniently scoped stories. Such interventions were necessary to adapt very long interviews to text, but I found this process somewhat disruptive. However, this inelegance does not significantly detract from this powerful publication, in which stories of courage, survival and hope shine through.
I concur with the Prime Minister that 'these men deserve our respect no less than those who won fame on the battlefield', and that this publication is one token of that respect. Wilfred Owen captured the dilemma for those who survive the war. The soldiers grow older and those who come after them are increasingly removed from the values of their time. For the next generations, there is an increasing need to believe that 'We shall remember them.'
After the blast of lightning from the east,
The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne;
After the drums of time have rolled and ceased,
And by the bronze west long retreat is blown,
Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth,
All death will he annul, all tears assuage?
Or fill these void veins full again with youth,
And wash, with an immortal water, Age?When I do ask white Age, he saith not so:
'My head hangs weighed with snow.'
And when I harken to the Earth, she saith:
'My fiery heart shrinks, aching. It is death.
Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified,
Nor my titanic tears, the seas, be dried.'Wilfred Owen
Tony Nightingale is an historian with the Department of Conservation. His publications include Waiuta 1906-1951, a centennial history of Mobil Oil New Zealand, essays in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, and a plate in the New Zealand Historical Atlas.
[ Related link: Website exhibition based on this book on NZHistory.net.nz ]
