Awaiting the invasion that never came - the last of the Kiwi coastwatchers
Thursday, 11 March 2021
Keeping watch during the dark hours on remote Auckland Island in 1943, could at times be terrifying for a teenage Coastwatcher.
John Stuart Jones, aged 97, vividly recalls scrambling through the darkness up and down the hill behind his Coastwatchers’ hut at Ranui Cove, to take his turn in the tiny lookout post there.
This experience gave the Waikato man some “pretty hairy dreams” at the time.
Jones was part of the then top-secret ‘Cape Expedition’, which sent men to the Sub Antarctic Island bases during the Second World War.
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Every day they scanned the horizons for Japanese warships that were feared to be on their way to invade New Zealand from the south. They never saw one, as the Japanese had no such plan.
But regardless of that, the Coastwatchers have long been praised for overcoming hostile environments to perform their duties, which as well as keeping watch included filing weather reports and doing scientific research.
As an 18-year-old radio operator, Jones was the youngest of 56 men who did tours of duty at the inhospitable southern bases – two located on the Main Auckland Island and one on even more remote Campbell Island.
The former Te Awamutu Postmaster, who still lives in town, is the last surviving Coastwatcher. And almost 80 years after his service, he recalls that the sense of isolation could be intense.
“It was never a good sound when the wind rushed through the forest tops; the darkness was profound on every early morning or late night watch,” Jones recalls.
He cannot fully explain the powerful feelings from living on the thickly forested island, which is about five times the size of Auckland’s Waiheke, and located 500km south of Invercargill.
“The combination of the wind’s furies and the helplessness of the dark was disturbing if one dwelt upon it. but I never allowed myself to be engulfed by it. Quickly move on. Get inside to the warmth of the fire and the comfort of your mates, I told myself.
“I’d also tell myself that the only other men on the island were those at the other Coastwatchers’ base, in Carnley Harbour, and that they were our friends. I wasn’t a coward -- let’s just say I was a bit nervous at times.”
Jones’s great adventure began after his training as a radio and morse code operator in Wellington at the start of the War. He was led to believe that he would be sent as a Coastwatcher to the then Gilbert and Ellice islands (now called Tuvalu), but for some reason his name was missed from the final list of those selected.
Then after a few weeks leave his manager confronted him with an alternative proposition: “He told me he had a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question: Would I be willing to go away for a year, to live in a secret location, during which time I would have no contact with my family … But I didn’t even hesitate – Yes, I will go, I said.”
At the time the young radio operator could not possibly have grasped how blessed he was to have missed out on travelling to the Western Pacific.
Years later he heard first-hand what had happened, when he met up with a near namesake John Mace Jones, a fellow Kiwi Coastwatcher. In 1942 John M Jones had been sent to the Kiribati islands, but later that year got captured by the Japanese, to serve out the rest of the war in Japan as a prisoner.
But John M. Jones, who died in 2017, was one of the lucky ones.
Near the end of 1942 the Japanese Imperial Army executed 17 New Zealand Coastwatchers on the island of Tarawa.
“It really was my great good fortune to be stationed on Auckland Island – and most likely it also kept me out of trouble during those potentially stormy teenage years,” Jones laughs.
However, he soon found that he had “drawn the short straw” as his group’s radio operator, as part of the job description was to send weather reports to the Mainland, three times a day. So rather than hiking or boating round the island as his four companions could in their free time, Jones was largely confined to the area near the base.
“Because of this I became rather boorish and showed signs of resentment till the officer in charge at Ranui Cove, Robert Falla (later to be Sir Robert Falla), took me aside.
Falla said: ‘Look Johnny, we really need you, while you can do the job of every other man here, none of us can do yours.”
Somehow, the message settled his mind and Jones decided that since he had to stay nearer the hut than the others, he would become the best cook he could be.
He soon became Ranui Cove’s undisputed “cookery whiz”, adeptly preparing meals of tinned meat, fish and vegetables, while also teaching himself to bake “pretty passable” bread and cakes.
“Falla was an excellent leader; he managed to keep everyone happy. At Carnley Harbour, one group of men who served there split into factions, refusing to speak to one another for months.”
At the end of his term Jones volunteered to cover for another radio operator at Carnley Harbour until the man’s replacement arrived from New Zealand.
The generous act delayed his departure from the Sub Antarctic, providing his five additional weeks but with few responsibilities. He used this long-awaited opportunity to explore much of both Auckland and Campbell Island, including places well off the beaten track.
Upon returning to New Zealand, Jones married, raised a family and had a successful career in the Post Office, but his wartime Coastwatching experiences stayed with him.
He often spoke about them to various groups, and in 1995 he joined a Heritage Expeditions’ tourist voyage to take his two sons, Brian and Geoffrey, to see Auckland, Campbell and MacQuarrie islands.
Then in 2015, the Navy invited Jones to sail back to the Sub Antarctic see his old base at Ranui Cove.
“But I didn’t go, because my doctor pointed out that, being already aged in my nineties, steel ladders on the Navy ship would be no good for me.”
Jones’s son Brian joined the HMNZS Wellington in his stead, the ship taking DoC staff and volunteers to do maintenance and pest control on the island. These included a team of builders, who re-roofed and re-piled John’s old hut at Ranui Cove.
And as the voyage coincided with Anzac Day, the Navy held a service at the base to honour the Coastwatchers.
Jones still takes an active interest in the Sub Antarctic Islands, for example he was sad to read the recent story by Stuff reporter Andrea Vance, which explained that due to funding issues the Maukahuka Pest Free Auckland Island Project, for Auckland Island, had been postponed.
“Pigs do untold damage to bird and plant life on the main Auckland Island; while on nearby Enderby Island they have been eradicated and you can really see the difference. If we could only clear the pests from the Main Island it would transform the place to become a Garden of Eden, like Enderby. But I understand the financial constrains which caused this, due to Covid19.”
How does John feel to have lived long enough to have become the last of New Zealand’s Coastwatchers?
“I can’t say there is much feeling about that sort of thing. What I really value are the memories of those far off days, when I was a teenager living and working in the Auckland Islands.
“I can just picture myself back in that kitchen of our hut at Ranui Cove, baking bread for my mates. In my mind’s eye I still see the Shacklock coal range, the sink, the flour, the utensils – everything. What a wonderful youth I had.”