Celebrating A Long-Ago Liberation

In the 27th of October in 1943, New Zealand troops landed on the tiny island of Mono in the Treasury Islands, northwest of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The invasion, supported by Royal New Zealand Air Force fighters and American aircraft, was part of an allied campaign to halt Japan's advance across the Pacific toward Australia.

Mono Island dancer at liberation celebration. Photo: Jocelyn Carlin

A Japanese garrison resisted the attack, but then retreated north only to meet another battalion of New Zealanders. Over about three days almost all the 300 Japanese defenders, and 40 New Zealanders died in the fierce fighting. For Mono Islanders it was a liberation that they've never forgotten. Every year since, on October 27th, Mono Islanders celebrate New Zealand Day as a public holiday.

Last October, 60 years after the liberation, a team of VIPs-key personnel from the Kiwi military and guests-were out at Honiara's Henderson Field at 4:00 a.m. ready to travel the 600 miles to Mono. The support this time was the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands-efficient, matey Australian pilots who tucked everyone into a Royal Australian Air Force Caribou, that noisy but reliable military transporter.

There was one stop at Gizo to pick up Chris Carter, New Zealand's Minister for the Environment, who'd been touring the Solomons. Three hours from take off the visitors were on the airstrip at Stirling Island. The allies had built the airfield after the battle 60 years ago. It was one of many built for emergency landings and bombing missions as the Pacific war forged on for another two years after Mono's liberation.

Last October, Mono officials were waiting to exchange last minute details with Lt. Al McHaffie, Royal New Zealand Navy, who had organized the event at the Kiwi end.

Kiwi Troops perform traditional Maori haka. Photo: Jocelyn Carlin

A flotilla of canoes, otherwise known as "banana boats," ferried people across Falamai Bay where local dignitaries waited expectantly as the tour party was carried shoulder high to dry land. The 22 visitors gathered on the beach and proceeded up through a decorated walkway toward a crowd of about 1,000 Mono inhabitants, amassed in the distance. Women in traditional garb sang and danced as they followed the visitors inland. Warriors with painted bodies and large spears then leapt out of the bush questioning the visitor's presence in loud brusque pidgin. It was a moment based on the ancient tradition of challenge to newcomers.

Kiwi soldiers had landed on the same beach six decades before. The newest Kiwi "invaders" were on Mono to acknowledge the enduring gratitude of the people and to remember the dead.

At the October 2003 celebration, Chief John Goldie Palupalu of Mono spoke for the islanders. "The daring acts of men who devoted their lives to pay the price at any cost for freedom for our people is the reason this day is so dear to our hearts," said Palupalu's spokesman as he stood solemnly beside listening to the speech he had written down in perfectly-constructed English.

Most Solomon Islanders speak their native tribal tongue-there are around 80 across the islands-and Pidgin, the jargonese of all the Solomons since the era of European traders and colonists.

Chief Goldie continued through his spokesman: "This event is also significant to us because it was this scenario that initiated this unique relationship which has developed between the people of New Zealand and Mono over these 60 years. It is unique because I believe there has never been another relationship in history which remains unbroken and intact like this one."

Mono Islanders and the Kiwi military today are bonded in this trust. Kiwi soldiers remained on the island for sometime after the battle to set up a radar station to the north of the island on watch for further Japanese advances, which fortunately were not to be. While here, they built a church and a school. Those Kiwi soldiers had a great deal of compassion for the innocent victims of war.

Environment Minister Carter had a special place here, not only as the official representative of the New Zealand government, but also since he represented his father, Private Joseph Carter, who had taken part in the original battle on Mono Island.

The Melanesian people opened the event in song, followed by the Kiwis who embellished the sentiments of speakers in waiata, the Maori way. Following Army Brigadier Warren Whiting's speech, the New Zealand soldiers responded with a compelling haka led by the senior national officer of the Operation Rata, the blonde, blue-eyed pakeha wing commander Shaun Clarke.

The crowd laughed and cheered and mimicked the haka movements knowingly. It was a crowd of mostly young people and one couldn't help thinking the response was a heartfelt collective genetic memory. All in attendance understood the power of the oral tradition in the Pacific.

The New Zealand High Commissioner Heather Riddell answered the Mono chief, and the very British Commissioner Bill Morrell reminded all in the audience of the country's present grief.

Mono Island elder at commemoration ceremony. Photo: Jocelyn Carlin

This tiny island had itself suffered a modicum of civil unrest over the years of ethnic tensions. Due to its proximity to Bougainville, the Bougainville Liberation Army had made a nuisance of itself as it passed through en route to "protect" the Western Province.

Kiwi troops have shown the same compassion for local people who are the innocent victims today. The troopers are well known for their local engagement, including peacekeeping and diplomacy. In the touring party two mechanics brought tools and parts to fix a tractor that had been broken down for some time.

The day's activities moved from speeches to refreshments, to church, to the universally moving flag-lowering, wreath laying military ceremony. Lunch followed and then hours of entertainment and intermingling. Tired but happy people boarded the canoes to return them to the Caribou, and the relationship was again consolidated.

Wing commander Clarke had come into the Solomon Islands on the July 24, 2003 with the first of the coalition forces from five Pacific nations. They came to assist the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force to restore the rule of law to a country ravaged by civil war. Operation Rata is the Kiwi contingent of RAMSI.

"By accident New Zealanders find themselves with a high degree of empathy for a lot of the world's tensions which are almost always about territory, ethnicity and belief systems," Clarke observed. About the 2003 effort he says, "We at command level did our own thing from very early on, maintaining a big picture awareness of how the game was unfolding, that our national objectives were being observed. On the ground we have our own interests, our own relationships, our own way of doing things."

That was on the diplomatic front in far-away Honiara, but the Mono commemorations were certainly an opportunity for New Zealand to express formally its increasingly active contribution to Island nations' stability-and to solemnize one of its most long-standing Melanesian relationships.