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It was something that was necessary, they decided, because Wellington and the other cities - Christchurch and Auckland�- had been flooded with marines over here for rest and recuperation. They were a long way from home and they were young and they were much more emotional than our own men and they seemed to be hungry for women's company - contact with women. When there is a need it's generally met in some way or another you know. And this is how it happened, at least for some of them, these places sprang up in Wellington to meet their needs.
Interviewer: Now how were you going to do the job, what was the procedure?
Well, whether it was an American or a New Zealander who was involved they�- let's take the Americans perhaps first of all. When the ships berthed and the men were allowed ashore, they were all told about what was to happen because they were familiar with it in other countries of course. And � at the top of the gangway there was always a supply of contraceptives which the men were supposed to take with them. If they took these and still visited these brothels in Wellington, there were what they call 'blue light stations' on the quay in Wellington where they could go for rapid treatment.
Interviewer: 'Blue light stations'?
Yes, because there was a blue light outside. And if they didn't show proof of having been there and went back on board ship and were found to have contracted the disease, they were given CB for �a certain length of time anyway.
Interviewer: As a punishment? Confined to Barracks�.confined to ship I suppose!
Yes, and put under treatment. But then it was their medical officer of health, his job to obtain from them the name of the people, the person, from whom they had contracted the disease....
Interviewer: Now that's where you came in really, well after the [names..?]
Yes, well at that point the medical officer of health then had to notify the Wellington medical officer of health of the name of the contact. We were sent a little slip. And we weren't given the name of the man who had the condition, but we were given the name of the girl, if he knew the girl, but of course half the time he didn't know the girl at all, but he knew the address as a rule and he could give a physical description of� her.
Interviewer: So it could be pretty tenuous then, you wouldn't be all that certain of who you was searching for�?
No, but if he gave the address, well that was a bit of a clue you see. But they would give extraordinary descriptions -� I remember there was one he said, 'Kathleen with a generous superstructure' well, I knew then to look for a girl with a, you know, a large bosom. And another one who had on her thigh an arrow though a heart. I had to somehow or another have a look at her thigh!
Interviewer: And how did you manage that?
Well, I became quite friendly with some of the girls you see, and they would tell me that they had had perhaps been sick or they� had a cold or a cough or something or other and I would� suggest that perhaps we take their temperature, and then somehow or other, I'd say, 'well let's have a look at your skin, see what� your skin feels like', you see and gradually we'd get to the area. I did find a girl on one occasion with an arrow through a heart.
Interviewer: So this information was passed through the medical officer of health on to you, you were the nurse on the beat as it were - the detective perhaps?
Yes, well I was ... the one in Wellington, there was only one in Wellington�.[And there was] one in Auckland and one in Christchurch, yes.
Interviewer: Dunedin missed out?
Well they didn't have the problem there at that time.
Interviewer: Can you describe the area around Willis Street, Taranaki�.?
Well actually one of the well known houses was, I think it was 318 Upper Willis Street, it was almost opposite the end of Abel Smith Street. It was a big two-storey building painted dark red in those days, and it was well know to the Americans, in fact at one stage they had a picket right round that house.
Interviewer: A picket?
A picket. Yes, I suppose it was to try and keep the men away from it, I can't think of any other reason.
Interviewer: This was the military policemen?
Yes, yes and there were a number of girls there of course, I had to go in and out of there at odd times�
Interviewer: You would have met the owner of the place?
Well it was the same person who had the two down in Abel Smith Street.
Interviewer: She owned three all together?
Yes, yes, and she may have owned even more, but she owned those three anyway.
Interviewer: Did you talk to her much?
Oh yes, when I went to Abel Smith Street I often met her and spoke with her. She would sometimes say to me 'you know I think so and so ought to go up and have another test'. I think she really thought it was a sort of a licensed prostitution idea, which of course it wasn't because New Zealand wasn't licensed to prostitution and never would be.
Interviewer: So she wasn't resentful to you at all?
Not at all, oh no..
Interviewer: What kind of a woman was she?
Well � she could have been anybody's grandmother really. She was tidily enough dressed and spoke reasonably well - she wasn't an educated woman.
Interviewer: And how many girls would she have had working for her?
Oh, well, that would be difficult for me to say, because they varied a lot. But they were two-storey houses, they were sordid sort of places you know, particularly the Abel Smith Street one, well the other one too I suppose. But they were sordid sort of houses.�
Going along to see one girl on one occasion I had to go through it was a narrow sort of dark passage way to her room. I'd asked the owner where so and so was, where Violet's room was you see, she told me at the end of the corridor along to the left. And as I went along I had to almost brush soldiers with a young soldier, a young New Zealand soldier coming out of her room and an old seedy old man. And nobody spoke with me, but the girl herself was lying on bare ticking on the bed with her head on her ticking pillow - no pillowslip, nothing at all. And there were Worcester Sauce bottles and empty beer cans and things on the table, cigarette butts and so on. And she was undernourished of course, and she was actually well advanced in a state of DTs almost. While not really violent, she was quite beyond understanding what I was telling her.
Interviewer: Because she was drunk?
Yes, well she wasn't just ordinarily drunk, she was beyond that you see�But I had instructions you see that if they couldn't understand what I was telling them� I was to pin the notice on them and leave it on them. And so I did that with her, but as I turned she grabbed me by the corner of my coat and said 'give me some money', and I never carried money to those places and I said, 'I haven't any money to give you' and she hung on to my coattails, but she let go, she wasn't violent.��
Somewhere about June [1942] the marines arrived, and a lot of them had brought presents of strings of beads with them for the girls - they thought we would all be wearing red feathers and a hula hula skirt! They arrived and they were delighted that there were houses and that it was civilised. Now the first marines that I saw were at a dance in the town hall - a New Zealand soldier took me. And when I saw these marines I was really quite staggered. I thought goodness, evidently they think the war is going to last for years and years and years, these are sort of school cadets who need 2-3 years training and they must be going to get their training in New Zealand and then go into the war. Well I was dead wrong in that, these poor boys, who I may say looked extremely depressed, extremely miserable, were into it in two or three weeks time and they landed in the Solomons with terrific slaughter.
New Zealand, who had been so vulnerable, met the marines with a fine display of one-eyed insularity. They said, 'they can't fight, they're too young'. And then, of course, all the pretty little girls around Wellington got into the act and they and the marines flew into each other's arms and people said, 'they're messing 'round with our girls, how awful!' So the marines were not awfully popular to begin with, but as far� as the marines and the little girls flying into each other's arms, I would never raise a word of criticism about that. I think that those poor boys who were going to this ghastly slaughter could not have been better employed in their last few months around town - and I will stand by that.
I can remember Christmas day that year [1942], and my father and I went for a walk down Glenmore Street and across Anderson's Park and up round, you know, past the observatory. And when we got to Glenmore Street we ran into about 700 Americans marching at ease, coming up Glenmore Street. They were from a troop ship in the harbour apparently and they'd been sent to get a bit of exercise, I presume while their cooks cooked Christmas dinner. As soon as they saw us they started, they cheered, they wolf-whistled, they said [false American accent] 'hello [parb?]', and 'hello honey, gee you look nice, I wish I knew you, oh I wish I knew you!' Well when you've got to go past 700 men all wishing they knew you it is a bit of a strain - I was very glad to see the last of them. My father said 'good luck boys, good luck boys' all the way along, but I said nothing at all, I didn't want to start another burst and I was very glad to see the last of them really. And we went across Anderson's Park, up past the observatory, up Upland Road and oh my goodness what did we meet when we got by Grove Road, but the same 700 coming 'round! They'd come up around the viaduct you see and they were making their way, going to make their way, down Glasgow Street to their ship, and as soon as they saw us the whole 700 jeered, and they started off again, 'oh, gee honey you look nice, I wish I knew you'.
Well, you know, it was Christmas Day. There wasn't a soul on Upland Road. I just don't understand New Zealanders sometimes. Wouldn't you have thought that somebody could have come out and said 'good luck boys, we're glad to see you, thanks for coming', or even a 'merry Christmas', but not a soul appeared and they disappeared down Glasgow Street back to their ship. We're a funny crowd.
They [the marines] were very harshly treated indeed by their military police. They really behaved pretty well all things considered, but if they didn't behave well they were for it. These military police -� I think they� were called 'snow drops' because of their white helmets - patrolled the town in twos and they had long batons - which I seem to remember were called hickory bows -� and if an American got out of step in any way they cracked him across the shins and as he doubled up and bent forward, they belted into his temple and whether they killed him or not didn't really seem to matter. For one week in Wellington everybody was talking about some luckless gob who'd got into trouble outside the Hotel Cecil that used to be down near the station, and the police had just cracked him across the temple and people said there were teeth all over the pavement, and I think he was killed. But you see they had unlimited manpower, their attitude to the men was different from the NZ army's attitude to the men.
The town seemed to not belong to us any more. It was an American town and there appeared an army of prostitutes; they'd apparently come over from Sydney, long-legged rangy women, not young, dressed not too ostentatiously with a great deal of makeup on and� peroxidey hair, but with a sort of aggressive self-confidence. I was sitting in a tram once and looking at the Queen Bee of the prostitutes, her name was Freda - she was a peroxidey� blonde and she always used to wear mauve which is an awful colour to wear� - and I was very rudely, I suppose, staring at her and she turned on me and stared me down, I was terrified she was going to fly at me. I suppose a lot of people were shocked at the prostitutes, the hookers, but really I� don't feel that the people who are not going into battle have got any right whatsoever to criticise the doings of the people who are going into battle. Anyhow there were far more shocking things going on, the prostitutes were a very minor affair.
War bride: He was in the army and he was stationed at a navy in Victoria Park and I used to go every week to the dances there and we used to be picked up by a truck and taken there and one night� - there usually were civilian bands, but this one night there was an army band -� and so we were all looking up at this chap and we said oh isn't he just like a friend of my girlfriends� - and we were laughing� and when it came time to go to supper he came down and asked if I'd go to supper with him and then he said 'could he take me home' and I said 'oh', I says, 'we're not allowed to go home' so he says 'oh, I'll get permission', so he got permission to take me and we started dating after that.
Interviewer: How do you mean you weren't allowed to go home?
War bride: Well we were chaperoned there and chaperoned back. The army, the navy would pick us up� - it was a great big truck, a canvas covered truck, and they would pick up the girls..
Interviewer: Pick them where?
War bride: Downtown Auckland. And they would take them to Victoria Park then after the dance was over they'd take us back to that same spot and we weren't allowed to � you know, if we liked the fellas if they asked us to go out with us afterwards, but we weren't� allowed to go home with anybody, but because he was in the band and he couldn't date anybody he asked and got permission to take me home that night.
Marine husband: Well my side of the story is that the ladies, the three of them, were sitting off in the distance and they were all smiling and looking right up at me I thought. And I, but then I only had one thought, on the one person, and of course she is my wife today. And as I looked at her she smiled back, but the part of it was, the two other young ladies - they all three of them rather -� stood up,� the other two walked away and my wife stayed there. It seemed like it was almost meant to be. And I jumped off the stage and I walked and I went right to her and I asked her if she would be willing to have supper with me. And this is how it all came about, she said 'yes, I would, it would be nice' so we went out and we had social I went back up and played in the band - that was our intermission - I went back and played the band, went out, as I say we got our permissions to leave together, and it was all set. So after the dance we got out past the gate and I got my good old whistle going with the mouth and beckoned a taxi cab, it came right up and in big style off we went to her home.
War bride: He came to my house. I had a brother who, when the servicemen, when he saw servicemen that had come back from the islands and they were sick and tired and yellow with malaria and no place to go and looking so forlorn, he'd bring maybe three or four of them home for dinner for a meal and they were so� happy to be with� families you know, after being in the islands. Somehow or another my brother gave a picture of me to one of these boys and he went back to the islands - I think it was to Noumea he went - and he met my [future] husband there. And my husband was going to be shipped to New Zealand� - for some reason, I don't know why, I think it was to go on guard duty - and he said, well I met a family there so I'll give you the address. And he said, you know, it's a good place to go for a meal and they were very kind to me, and he says and this is a picture of the girl that lives there. My husband looked at it and said 'oh, she looks alright, but she's got skinny ankles'!
So he and his friend one rainy day had nothing better to do I guess, so they came up to my house and I wasn't home and I was at work and my mother let them in and she said 'would you like to stay' and they said they were looking for me, they were looking for Joyce. So she said 'well she'll be home from work soon, would you like to stay for dinner?' and they stayed for a meal, and that's how I met him. And he said to his friend, he said 'that's the girl I'm going to marry'. And I didn't, you know, I liked both of them they were very nice, but I was engaged at the time to a New Zealand serviceman so I wasn't, you know, that interested - I wasn't thinking along those lines at all. And so I didn't see him again for a couple of months. He told me after he didn't think it would be fair for him to come back in because I was engaged and he was, he'd made up his mind that I was the one he wanted to marry and he thought well all's fair in love and war, so we started dating and I broke my engagement.���
War bride: Because I didn't have any children we were given inside cabins with no windows. Anybody that had children had an outside cabin with windows - they felt that anybody that didn't have children could always get up on board the ship. It was still suited out for transporting troops, so it wasn't any luxury liner like it had been before the war, and it took us I think five days to go from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia, and they had a train coming from Perth with war brides, so we had to wait one week there. I was fortunate because I had relatives � and since we were under the jurisdiction of the navy my relatives had to come and sign me out to say that they would be responsible for me while I was in Sydney, relieve the navy of the responsibility. And I was able to go and stay with them, and that was very nice. The people that had to stay on board the ship found it very tedious because they were just on board ship, there wasn't anything much to do, and there were a lot of people on board ship so that there wasn't any room to move around.
Interviewer: What about on the trip itself, and going across the Pacific�?
War bride: They had Red Cross personnel there and they were going to teach us New Zealanders how to knit [background laughter]. And they had activities and they told us what we should and shouldn't wear once we got to America. I tell you the New Zealanders were seething, because we were used to dressing up when we went out with our gloves and hat on, and when we did get to America we saw all these middle-aged women running around with bobby socks and jeans on. We thought where are all these dressed up people these Red Cross people thought we were, you know, going to have to keep up to date on? Anyway they were there to entertain us and keep us entertained and there was a lot of people that had children, now their lifestyle was completely different to ours - they had to turn up at a certain time to get their bottles for their babies and their diapers. One officer said we must have left a string of disposable diapers all the way from Auckland, New Zealand to Australia, from Australia to Hawaii and then to San Francisco, because they just threw them out the porthole.
Some of the people remember coming into San Francisco and how rough it was. I don't remember that, all I remember is looking up at the bridge and saying, 'it isn't gold, it's just orange paint'. Well I didn't expect the streets to be paved with gold like so many people did when they came off Ellis Island� - that's what I understood they always said people thought the streets were going to be paved with gold - but I thought they could have rustled up a bit of gold paint for the Golden Gate Bridge!
And we did file off onto to the train - the train was pulled right alongside on the wharf there - and we filed off onto the train and then the train started this - it was� four nights and five days for the people that came all the way across America - and I was let off at Cheyenne, Wyoming, because that was the nearest point that that train was going to go to to Fairbury, Nebraska, which was my ultimate destination. From Cheyenne, Wyoming, I went to� Denver, Colorado, and from Denver, Colorado I went to Fairbury, Nebraska, and I think the train came in March the eighth 1946 about, what nine or ten 'clock at night, in the middle of a snowstorm and I'd never seen snow. And Lewis met me there, that's where we met.
Introduction: About a hundred former United States marines and their wives are in New Zealand on what's become a regular pilgrimage for many of them. Peter Aranyi reports:
Narrator: A memorial stands at� Wellington's Aotea Quay to members of the 2nd Division of the United States Marine Corp, who stopped in New Zealand before going on to die at war in the Pacific. Every five years since 1963 former marines and their family return to renew friendships and honour their fallen comrades. Trip leader Bill Crumpacker [?] says after more than 45 years the marines that survive remember New Zealand as a wonderful place where they were treated as real friends by the local people.
Bill: Our old Division history book, our chapter on New Zealand is entitled, 'The Land They Adored', and that was about our stay in New Zealand and I believe that� says the whole story, we just, we thought we were in heaven when we were down here and it was just a wonderful tour of duty.
Narrator: But even in peaceful New Zealand military life wasn't always easy. Bill Crumpacker [?]� recalls some of the training he and his comrades-in-arms received before going off to war.
Bill: One day we were marched out of camp at Paekakariki with full pack - that of course is the top pack, the bottom pack, rifles, the whole gear - and we marched from Paekakariki to Foxton in� - not one day -� I think about nine hours. And when we got up there we were supposed to march back but we hiked up on the road and when we got to Foxton and took our boots off, there was no way of getting them back on, so they had to truck us back to Paekakariki.
Narrator: Many of the former marines and their family have planned to travel throughout New Zealand over the next few weeks to renew their acquaintance with the country and the people who made them feel so welcome.