Apirana Ngata acting on a letter from C Company officers and probably prompted by the action at Point 209 on 26 & 27 March where C Company, who went into the attack with 128 men, returned with 31 survivors. That action caused 22 men to be killed. Two days after the news of the attack reached New Zealand Apirana phoned the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, and sent the following letter to him.
COPY RUATORIA March 30th, 1943
Rt. Hon. Mr. Fraser
Prime Minister,
Wellington.
Dear Mr. Fraser, I send herewith the original letter mentioned to you over the ‘phone this morning, also a copy of same and a translation by myself. The last is a hurried production, so that I may catch the mail, but it conveys what the writers seek to convey.
I should like to have the original letter back, when you have finished with it.
My own reactions to the communication are -
(a) Many men in the Maori unit are being used too often due to fact that the flow of reinforcements ceased for 12 months for reasons well known and beyond control. Official information on the actual detailed state of sub-units and reinforcements has for some reason not been as full as it might have been. In part this is due to the changes in command and its nature.
(b) The war weariness of the men, intensified by the knocking about they have had, has been clouded over by the easy assumption here that they do not wish to return and want to be in at the death, wherever that may take place. This letter puts the situation quite bluntly from the point of view of those closest in touch with the men.
(c) The circulation of this letter will intensify the wish of the Maori people, already unanimously expressed to you at Rotorua, that the men of the highly trained second Maori Battalion should go to the Middle East.
Personally I should like the whole unit going as one reinforcement. If that is impracticable then the number to go, including those already selected and awaiting at Trentham should be increased to one half of the Unit’s strength with the necessary complement of officers. For the Oversea Officers are as war weary as the men.
The argument that Maori and Pakeha should be treated alike stands, but it should be remembered that the 28th Maori Battalion is attached and non-divisional.
Yours sincerely,
(Sgd) A.T. Ngata
The short of it all was that the Government instituted furlough schemes; in May 1943 Lt-Col Keiha (now OC) and 128 men returned home for three months’ furlough leave. They disembarked in Wellington and C Coy headed home. They stopped at a number of marae from Gisborne through the East Coast to Otuwhare at Omaio with the intent of dropping the men off. However, none of them would remain at their own marae and they all saw the trip out to Otuwhare before returning home. Through further pressure brought to bear on Government at the end of their furlough these Maori soldiers were not sent back to the battlefront, they were allowed to return to civilian life.
What is particularly interesting about the letter from the C Coy officer is the fourth point made: the attempt to withdraw from the front-line brothers of men who had already been killed so there might be a morehu, or survivor, in that family. Of the families mentioned, Frank Brooking, Rangi Henderson as well as Moana Ngarimu (a signatory to the letter) were to lose their lives in the attack on Pt 209 five weeks after the letter was written. The full list of those killed in the attack on Pt 209 is as follows:
2 Lt Moana Ngarimu | Killed in Action | C Coy |
L-Sgt Wiki Silver | Died of Wounds | A Coy |
L-Cpl Rangi Henderson | Killed in Action | C Coy |
L-Cpl Henry Taiuru | Killed in Action | D Coy |
Pte Frank Brooking | Killed in Action | C Coy |
Pte Rangiora Keelan | Killed in Action | C Coy |
Pte Keni Mauhana | Killed in Action | C Coy |
Pte Wi Tawhai | Killed in Action | C Coy |
Pte Wi Fox | Died of Wounds | C Coy |
Pte John Parkes | Killed in Action | A Coy |
Pte Hori Taupe | Killed in Action | B Coy |
Pte R. Thompson | Killed in Action |
|
Pte Harry Hema | Killed in Action | A Coy |
Pte John Lloyd | Killed in Action | A Coy |
Pte Henry Anderson | Killed in Action | D Coy |
Pte Massey Karanga | Killed in Action | A Coy |
Pte Waka Porter | Killed in Action | C Coy |
Pte Reg Tai | Killed in Action | B Coy |
Pte Pakau Tanirau | Killed in Action | B Coy |
Pte Harvey Brown | Killed in Action | D Coy |
Pte William West | Died of Wounds | A Coy |
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