Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 477
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[Page 477]
(23)
maintenance of bridges, roads, wharves, the airstrip, water-waupply points and the hospital and ordnance buildings; but at the same time keeping ourselves in a state of combat readiness to support our forward troops should the Japs attempt to break out in force.
The Royal New Zealand Air Force squadrons were located at the airstrip, on the ridge high above the shore of a limpid lagoon within the Bay, where all the Army installations were situated. Nearly every day flights of their American "Corsairs" and "Venturas" flew over us on their way to bomb the Japanese camps, airstrips and ships at Rabaul, about a hundred miles to the east. With only one or two fighter planes left in serviceable condition and hardly any anti-aircraft artillery, the Japs were quite unable to counter these raids, which wrought almost complete destruction of buildings, parked aircraft, ships and wharves.
The headquarters of Eleventh Division, under Maj-Gen Robertson (Red Robbie) was on a narrow inlet at the back of the Bay, three miles from our Base. Notable visitors to it, in my time, were the Duke of Gloucester, then the Governor General and a keen Army man, who joined enthusiastically in the bawdy night chorussing in the Mess; and Gracie Fields, who gave a fine concert to thousands of the soldiers massed in the open air on one of the rare nights when there was no rain. Gracie was magnificently gowned and coiffured and we discovered that in addition to singing her popular music-hall songs with an affected Lancashire accent, she was capable of singing serious classical songs in a fine cultured voice. Gracie and her current husband pianist, Monty Banks, were accommodated at the Army General Hospital for the night.
During most of the days and nights heavy rain roared straight down as though from some huge heavenly shower-bath. I gauged one such fall, and the intensity, over a whole afternoon, was near enough to four inches an hour. Though the weather was extremely humid, records over a long period of past years indicated that the maximum mean temperature was only a little in excess of ninety seven degrees Farenheit. Somewere I have read that there