Gabrielle Huria – 14/05/04
A look at the life of Fred Preece, a surviving member of 28 Maori Battalion
Gabrielle Huria
Reprinted with permission from the Ngai Tahu magazine, “te Karaka”
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Fred Preece Click here to view a larger version |
These days the CNN embedded reporters bring war to the comfort of our living room. It must be difficult not to be biased when one’s fate rests on the protection of those one is embedded with. It’s not good for domestic politics if the body bags are too numerous and the war continues for longer than a month.
The immense scale of human suffering and loss of life during the six years of World War ll is beyond the imagination of those reared in the post Vietnam television generation. In 1945 democracy won, but the dehumanization of millions of ordinary people, when fascism drove humanity, is a hard won lesson that still echoes in our 21st Century lives.
For Alfred Preece a Chatham Island upbringing furnished him with the physical and mental toughness to survive the front line in all but one campaign in Italy, and rise to the rank of Commissioned Officer in charge of 16 platoon of the 28 Maori Battalion D Company. His story is one of extraordinary survival in a war where 55 million others lost their lives.
A home birth attended by the old lady down the road was nothing unusual on the Chathams in 1922. Fred’s mother was a Wixon originally from Ruapuke and Stewart Island. His father was Welsh, arrived on the Chathams as a schoolteacher, left to fight in World War 1 and returned to marry Fred’s mother,’a cheeky islander’. Together they raised six children.
Fred (or Bunty as he is known by many) remembers his childhood as a tremendous life, something to look back on and value. Horses and bare feet were the only means of transport. Materially, they did not have much, but life was what you made it.
“We walked everywhere, miles, and we thought nothing of it. Barefooted. My they walked fast in New Zealand,” he said.
They lived off the rocks and without the paua, sea eggs and fish he thinks they would probably have starved. Albatross and weka were also part of the diet. The albatross was as tough as old boots, but everyone liked it and chewed away at it. The bird’s fat was used to fry doughnuts. Weka were trapped with a piece of string and preserved in their own fat to be eaten in winter. They would cook a lot at once and eat it over two or three days.
“That’s why they reckon we had good teeth. We had all this tough food. We never had a dentist. He came once every three years,” says Fred.
Being a product of a Pakeha father and Maori mother Fred saw both sides of Chatham Island life. As a Maori his mother was not allowed to join any clubs or go into the hotel, and voted in the general election on a different day from his father.
“To be a Maori you were certainly a third class citizen. Being English, Dad was very military minded, not as loving as Mother. She brought us up really. I suppose that’s why I joined the Maori Battalion. When I got there I was very comfortable,” he said.
The church-oriented community, the picnics and weekly housie were a far cry from the killing fields of Europe, although the Italian peasants with their strong sense of family and one set of good clothes reserved for wearing only on Sundays were a reminder of home for Fred.
As a 12 year-old Fred went to work on the local station, and the land that he and his siblings used to beg to go and pinch wood off, he now owns with his son. The 12,000-acre property is an achievement his mother would be proud of.
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Fred and his grandson Hayden at Owenga Station Click here to view a larger version |
Soldiering was always in his blood. He spent many an hour fascinated by his father’s tales of France and the ANZAC landing. The Chathams also had a proud history of their contribution to war. In 1939 Fred joined the army. He tried to enlist in the Maori Battalion but it was during the week that the southern arm had suffered terrible casualties Billy Hopkinson, Tom Pitama and Jack Tainui were killed and Harry Pitama had been wounded at El Alamein. The enlisting officer refused Fred’s application telling him it was the death battalion and to go away. Determined, Fred signed up with the Army Service Corps and was posted overseas with the Ninth Reinforcement. As soon as he got to Egypt he transferred to the 18 Platoon, D company, 28th Maori Battalion.
Fred soon realized that life was expendable when on a 100 mile training march across the desert to Alexandria, the live barrages fell short and landed on their own, killing four and wounding five.
In Italy he saw action for the first time at Orsogna and really understood what it felt like to be afraid.
On arrival at camp, Sergeant Mason said to the newcomers: “Now put all your gears over there you see in that direction.” One fellow replied saying: ” Sergeant the word is not gears, its gear. The Sergeant responded with: “that is what I thought too, but I’ve been in the Maori battalion for two years and I’m bloody convinced the word is gears.”
That night they were instructed to smoke out a gully and climb a cliff to get to a road which was heavily defended. Fred finally climbed the cliff and saw his mates, dead and wounded. The smoke had lifted and the Germans proceeded to machine gun these easy targets. The Battalion lost 50 men that night and 28 the following. Mason had been shot in the stomach. Fred remembers him ripping his coat off and using it to push his stomach back in. He got back down the cliff and across the gully holding his stomach in with his coat.
Life in the trenches was terrible; the snow was thick, constant wet feet and the continual heavy pounding from the shelling made Fred’s gut sore. Donkeys with pierced eardrums, so the shelling would not startle them, carried the food to the front. However the stench of decaying flesh and the fear of a direct hit killed his appetite.
That was always the thing, the smell of dead people. That was something I could never get used to. I was very thin in those days. A dry biscuit, a tin of bully beef and some chocolate would do me.
Absolute discipline was the key to the Maori Battalion success; it was discipline, exerience and ability at its best on the front line and our Maori soldiers were a class outstanding. If you were told to jump you automatically jumped. Their reputation preceded them in Italy and the Germans would often reinforce their troops if they knew the battalion would be on the other side. At one farmhouse where they had stopped to have dinner they encountered an old peasant man several women and some children. An old lady was reading the tab on their uniforms, “New Zealand,” she said, “you got the Maori there.” “Yeah, we’re Maori,” was the reply. With that she grabbed the children and they all bolted and slammed the door. Fred wondered what the hell was wrong with them. The old man returned to the house shaking his head, saying that they had been told the Maoris eat people and to look after the babies or the Maoris would eat them. Fred replied with the black humour highly tuned by the trenches: “We won’t eat you.”
The fear left after his first action, when he saw so many killed and he became determined that no-one would kill him. Later on as a toughened soldier it became a hunting game to him. However one death affected him badly. He was standing next to a handsome young man who had recently arrived when the shelling began. The young man got hit and was badly wounded. As he was dying he managed to pull some letters out of his breast pocket and handed them to Fred and said, “These are for my sweetheart, tell her that I love her.”
“I was astounded to think that he could die in front of me. It was so simple. He was killed in a few seconds.”
Fred saw many men die. When he could he would try to comfort them and give them some hope, telling them not to worry, the stretcher would pick them up, and they would be fine.
” When people die they get that searching look wanting to believe you. You know I never will forget that look. Never, ever, ever – it stays with me.”
On February 18 at Monte Cassino Fred was badly wounded and wondered if he would live to see his 22nd birthday, the next day. Two hospitals and three months later he was back at the front line. Fred was wounded on two more occasions during the war and was Mentioned in Dispatches, which was a great honour because the standard set by the Battalion was so high that decoration did not come easily.
Fred returned to the Chathams after the war and married a local girl Myrtle with whom he had seven children, five girls and two boys.
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Fred and Myrtle on their wedding day with Myrtle’s parents Mary and Tom Hough Click here to view a larger version |
The peace and quiet of island life, Myrtle and his father’s care helped Fred come to terms with the horrors he had experienced. He often did not want to see people. Some nights he would awaken weeping in his father’s arms. As a WW1 survivor his father understood what Fred was going through. Most people back home had no idea and zero tolerance for the recovering veterans. Fred believes if people had television back then the whole experience would have been easier to talk about. But they didn’t and no one really wanted to know about it.
Fred has never had a gun in the house since he returned from the war. He has seen so much of them and hates them.
“It is so simple to pull the trigger and kill someone. I never want one around. People are so careless with their guns these days.”
Family life was precious to Fred but the spectre of the war was always in the wings. When tragedy struck and his son was killed in an accident Fred was devastated.
“To see so many killed then to lose my son who was so precious to me kind of destroyed me, he said.
What has always concerned Fred since the war is that they fought so hard and suffered for what seems in recent years to be so little! The army certainly broadened his horizon and gave him opportunities to shine that he would never have got in civilian life. He saw extreme poverty, learnt to live with all sorts of people and to help and support one another. He also saw the worst side of humanity and prays that his children and grandchildren would never experience the horror and hell of war.
At 81 Fred still keeps the home fires burning and the meals on the table for the family on the station. Between times he spends time in Christchurch with his grandchildren or visiting his second wife Nellie (also a Chatham Islander) who resides in the United States. Fred is the National President of the 28 Maori Battalion.
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Fred at the Cassino Urupa, 2001 Click here to view a larger version |