9 C COMPANY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Monty Soutar Te

C COMPANY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Monty Soutar
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Porou
The C Company Oral History Project grew out of preparations for
the 50th anniversary of the award of the Victoria Cross to Second
Lieutenant Te Moananui a Kiwa Ngarimu and the C Company
reunion held at Ruatoria in 1993. I was asked by Kate Walker and
Selwyn Parata (members of the organising committee) to collect and
copy photographs from marae and whānau of C Company men for
the occasion and display these in the Uepōhatu War Memorial Hall.1
After the reunion some of the photographs, mounted in a large
album, were taken to Massey University, where I was a staff
member, to see if funding was available to complete the further
transfer of photographs. In 1994, the university’s Māori Studies
Department, led by Professor Mason Durie, in partnership with the
Gisborne branch of the 28th Māori Battalion Association, secured
funds to undertake a one-year research project. The project defined
as its brief the collation of oral history on video of 60 survivors who
served in the 28 Māori Battalion’s C Company.
Rapata (Bob) Maru, a C Company veteran, was passionate and
committed to the project from the outset. He headed the subcommittee of the Gisborne branch which was tasked with overseeing
the project. He and I liaised regularly as representatives of our
respective organisations to ensure that the initial planning was
sound. At that time it was thought that 60 interviews was an
ambitious target and we realised that we did not have a definitive
list of the men who had served in the 28th Māori Battalion, let alone
with C Company. It was during those initial stages of the project that
the database was developed by Tata Lawton using official
embarkation records and the reinforcement list’s offered by Sir
Henare Ngata from his father’s records. A group of surviving
veterans then identified about 135 men who came from the C
Company district that were still alive.
At Massey University some dozen or so Māori students and
other interested individuals based in the Wellington region joined
me and we became the C Company research team. Most of the team
hailed from the Tairāwhiti where nearly everyone was either related
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to, or knew someone who served in the Battalion. Drawn to the
project by the emotive pull of the sacrifice their grandfathers, fathers
and uncles made to the war, the researchers began reviewing
archival records and seeking advice from oral history practitioners to
gain an appreciation of the scope of the exercise ahead of them.
There were no wages paid to the team ─ the privilege of hearing the
veterans share their stories was deemed sufficient compensation.
Without labour costs to meet and Professor Durie’s generosity2, the
budget was stretched beyond reasonable expectations to allow many
more interviews to be carried out.
It was at this time that one of the researchers, Hirini Reedy,
located a letter written by Sir Apirana Ngata to Judge Carr.3 The
discovery of the letter was perceived as a high level mandate to
undertake the work and became a major motivating factor for all
those involved.
What was in Ngata’s mind when he formulated his letter? Why
did he feel there was a need to compile a history of one company
when the Māori Battalion’s official history was already being
written? Why did it take 60 years to complete the history? These are
important questions, the answers to which provide clues to how the
book Nga Tama Toa: The Price of Citizenship was shaped.4
Why a C Company history?
The letter was typed nine weeks after the Battalion, home from the
battlefields of Italy, disembarked in Wellington. On the wharf at
Pipitea, after a tremendous reception, the unit was formally
disbanded and the following day, nearly 200 men from the
Tairāwhiti region − the district lying between Muriwai just south of
Gisborne and Tōrere in the eastern Bay of Plenty − were welcomed
onto the marae at Te Poho-o-Rāwiri in Gisborne. In the Battalion
organisation C Company was their tribal unit, but because of force of
numbers, several of these young men had served in the Battalion’s
other four companies.
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Ngata’s letter to Carr
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Joyous but poignant scenes also greeted the veterans at other key
marae as they made their pilgrimage through the district fulfilling
the ‘tangi ki nga mate’ ritual – the lament for lost comrades. At each
welcome ceremony senior officers replied on behalf of the Company
and veterans who had returned ahead of them were among the local
pae (speakers). Brief accounts about fallen relatives and the manner
of their dying were mentioned on the marae courtyard, undoubtedly
prompting Ngata to highlight in his letter the need to record oral
accounts while the facts were still vivid.
At the Ruatōria reception it was the koroua (male elder) himself
who delivered the main address. ‘This part of New Zealand,’ he told
the huge gathering, ‘provided the backbone of the Māori Battalion. If
it had not been for the keenness shown here in the recruiting of men
for the unit the Māori Battalion could not have been formed, much
less maintained at strength in the field.’ He added that the region
between Muriwai and Tōrere had a Māori population of about 12,000
men, women and children. From those numbers no fewer than 1100
men had been voluntarily recruited for the forces, some of them for
the air force, others for the navy, though the great majority went to
strengthen the Māori Battalion.5
Here was a statistic worth recording. No other part of the British
Commonwealth, with the exception of England itself, had done
better in serving the national cause through the war. Such a
contribution might be missed in a battalion history but would be
central to an account of C Company. While Māori participation in
the armed forces at the outbreak of war was commendable, not all
districts were enthusiastic when the call went out for reinforcements
to replace casualties overseas. A company history could explain the
high contribution from the Tairāwhiti district while at the same time
clarify why the districts responded differently.
Another reason for putting C Company on record had to do with
the writing of the Battalion’s official history. In 1945, the newly
formed War History Branch had begun preparing preliminary
narratives to assist the historian who would be commissioned to
write the unit’s history. After reading the early drafts Ngata felt it
was lacking in the style and flavour that would interest a Māori
audience. Writing up the war from a Māori perspective was not a
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new concern of his. The Māori contribution in the Great War 19141918, in his view, was not given the coverage it deserved. In a letter
to Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Bennett, who had written about the
battle of Medenine and the Māori Battalion’s bearing on it, Ngata
listed several ideals for a unit history. ‘The facts of war’, he wrote,
‘should be silhouetted against the moving background of our
ancestral past to make it interesting to our people.’6 In the same letter
he enquired how the Branch would view a company history. When
the Army Secretary reassured the Native Minister, Rex Mason, that a
separate history for one company would not create ‘invidious
comparisons’, Ngata was advised that while archival records and
land board funds could be made available, any company history had
to be considered a ‘private matter’ and therefore, one assumes,
would not be entitled to government assistance.7
Perhaps the Company history was further motivated by the need
to record for posterity the war effort at home. Ngata had earlier
advised those involved in planning the Māori Battalion book that
one or more chapters ‘should deal with the formation of the
Battalion and its maintenance in personnel.‛8 No one knew better
than he the effort that had gone in on the home front to support the
Battalion, and he offered to write these chapters if asked. His
suggestion had not been taken up and after reading the early drafts
he probably felt this important feature of the unit’s history would be
overlooked.
Possibly the most important motive behind the history was that
Ngata wanted Pākehā New Zealanders to understand the reasons for
the voluntary involvement of his people overseas and to appreciate
what such a contribution implied. Support from the Pākehā majority
was a prerequisite to gaining any concessions from the Government
after the war. After reading his correspondence for the war period, it
is clear that Ngata, like other Māori leaders – particularly those
whose tribes had not suffered through the confiscation of their lands
– held the view that if Māori were to enjoy the full benefits and
privileges of British citizenship imparted to them through the Treaty
of Waitangi, they had in turn an obligation to rally to the defence of
the country. This view was reflected in The Price of Citizenship – a
booklet he prepared for the Ngarimu VC investiture in 1943. In the
booklet, while pondering the future of Māori in a post-war New
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Zealand, he asked whether the Battalion’s meritorious war service
would be translated into factual equality. In one of the most
powerful passages of the booklet he wrote:
What is the gain for so much loss? Can the former be gauged
in clear terms of compensation? The Maori in the last war
was denied a place in the forefront of the battle; not because
he was not deemed worthy or efficient but because of a
sentiment that he should be spared the slaughter and
decimation of war. In this war he asked to take his full share
in the front line, and in this he has been fully indulged. Has
he proved a claim to be an asset to his country? If so he asks
to be dealt with as such. An asset discovered in the crucible
of war should have a value in the coming peace. The men of
the New Zealand Division have seen it below the brown
skins of their Maori comrades. Have the civilians of New
Zealand, men and women, fully realized the implications of
the joint participation of Pakeha and Maori in this last and
greatest demonstration of the highest citizenship?9
The degree of wartime service and the subsequent benefits (or
Government concessions) that accrued to Māori as a consequence of
that service is a major theme in Nga Tama Toa. This is why we
reclaimed the title The Price of Citizenship.
In 1946, the research for the Company history did get underway
when Lieutenant-Colonel Awatere began interviewing returned
men. ‘Peta Awatere starts the history of C Coy next week,‛ Ngata
told his youngest son:
He is getting plenty of inspiration from his visits to us and a
good idea of planning his work. A feature will be the
personal accounts which he will have to pick up and the
collection of correspondence from the men. He will have to
pay frequent visits to Wellington for the official data.10
Awatere, who had credibility both as kin and as an ex-commander of
the Battalion, had already agreed to carry out oral interviews with
the veterans and Army Headquarters were being consulted about
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making their records available to the project. Ngata had a veritable
goldmine of letters about the Battalion’s activities received from
hundreds of correspondents ranging from politicians and
administrators to servicemen and their relatives. Once collated these
records would provide the bulk of the data necessary for the history.
Financial support would come primarily from local land blocks and
incorporations. Judge Carr, who was president of the Tairāwhiti
District Māori Land Board, would have to endorse the proposal
before ministerial approval would be given to release the funds.
Oddly, before the year had ended, the project was shelved for
reasons that to this day remain unclear because the file, containing
much of the correspondence to do with the project, is missing.11
Presumably priorities changed, and the veterans, including Awatere,
wanted to get on with making a living and so put the war behind
them.
Sir Apirana Turupa Ngata
15
Sir Apirana Ngata died in 1950 and for almost half a century his
letter to Carr lay buried in a mass of archival files belonging to the
Department of Māori Affairs. In the 1990s, quite by chance, the letter
came to light just as a major oral history project on C Company was
about to get under way.
Ko Te Amorangi ki Mua, Ko Te Hapai-ō ki Muri
In November of 1994, the researchers undertook a ten day journey,
accompanied by Bob Maru and other C Company veterans, their
wives and widows (some who had been hurriedly trained as
interviewers), called on communities between Tōrere and Muriwai,
interviewing those servicemen who were willing to talk about the
war. Any questions about the credibility of the project and its
research team were dispelled by the veterans group which left the
research team to get on with the work. The veterans themselves
promoted the project as ‘the last round-up of the cowboys‛ – this
being the nickname the other companies had given the men in C
Company during the War.
Taina McGregor, Pia Pohatu and Linnae Pohatu were three
members of the research team keen to experiment with interview
techniques. Sometimes people were recorded individually and at
other times in groups. There was a distinct difference in the
information offered by a person when they were being interviewed
on their own rather than when they were being interviewed in a
group.
On each marae there were four interview teams using interview
booklets as a guideline and tucked away in any quiet space available,
while two roving cameras captured snippets from whānau members
around the marae. Interviews were carried out en masse, and the
original plan was expanded to include interviews with anyone in the
community who had a story to tell about the war. Wives, widows,
family members, brothers who served in the navy, air force and
other units, prisoners of war, and the men who were manpowered
onto the farms were all invited to speak. In many cases the veterans
asked the questions while the researchers filmed the interview on
video.
We also experimented with different types of venues such as the
RSAs, homes, marae, and whānau centres. Often we had to interview
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at night and on many occasions run several interviews in the same
room. In the interviews we allowed for whānau participation, visual
and oral prompts and peer interviewing. The best interviews were
those where we used kaumātua as interviewers. The sensitive nature
of the subject matter being discussed sometimes led to the
interviewees becoming very emotional.
We found that the use of both English and Māori needed to be
considered. In this project those who were interviewed were given
the opportunity to speak in the language of their choice. Ninety
percent chose to speak in Māori. This seemed to allow them more
freedom to express their feelings and as a result we have collected
some real gems of stories. We believe we have created a valuable
Māori-language resource for the future.
The research team realised very early on that the material
pouring in went well beyond the scope of a straight military history
of C Company; that, in fact, many of them were hearing for the first
time the untold story of the Māori war effort at home and abroad as
it was experienced from tribe to tribe. The team came to appreciate,
with those who had lived through it, the extent of their service and,
more particularly, the salutary effect the loss of potential leadership
continues to have on these communities today.
Families were encouraged to bring their collection of
photographs for this period to the marae where they were copied on
the spot. This was a labour intensive process but was crucial to the
outcome of the project.
The collection of over 400 hours of video interviews (70%
recorded in Māori), 4000 photographs, and a range of memorabilia,
made this one of the largest oral collections on this subject and
provided one of the primary sources from which research for Nga
Tama Toa was carried out. The development of an audio-visual
presentation helped promote the project as it was shown around the
country by the researchers supported by veterans, their wives and
widows.
In 1999, the Chief of the Defence Force, General Tony Birks gave
us access to the personnel files of the men of the Māori Battalion.
This resource was crucial to the project and enabled the database to
be updated. Because the charges were waived it saved the project
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precious funding which was then able to be spent on other priority
areas.
Ngā Taonga a Ngā Tama Toa Trust
In 1997, the Ngā Taonga a Ngā Tama Toa Trust was formed to
manage the collection. The trust represents veterans, families and
descendants of the men who served overseas and most of its trustees
were elected along tribal lines, C Company having been drawn from
seven iwi. In May 2001, the trustees held three public meetings in the
Tairāwhiti region (at Te Kaha, Ruatōria, and Gisborne) to gauge the
level of support for the type of historical publication first envisaged
by Ngata.12 Community members who attended the hui were hugely
supportive as many felt their own descendants knew little of the
impact the war had had on their lives. Others felt this was an
opportunity to publish uniquely Māori perspectives about the war.
And everyone, of course, was keen to see fulfilled the aspiration set
out in Ngata’s letter.
Trustees and research team reviewing drafts of the book
18
The background research for the book was undertaken by the Trust’s
research arm – a team of eight who had been members of the original
group that collected the oral histories. 13 The first chapter was
completed in 2002, the last in 2008.
No chapter was passed for publication without the approval of
the trustees, and while this policy sometimes meant several redrafts,
it can be said that Nga Tama Toa is C Company’s story as reflected by
the trustees who felt the whānau of C Company would want it
portrayed.
Compiling the book
The record of trust meetings where draft chapters were deliberated
over would fill a small book and certainly make for interesting
reading. Brief coverage of the matters that were discussed are
provided here not only as an indication of the consideration that was
given to constructing Nga Tama Toa but also because it may be of use
to other researchers and historians involved in Māori oral history
and collective biography.
The age range of the trustees and research team (a group of
seventeen or more volunteers) spanned three generations and when
research for the book began some of their views were poles apart. As
the lead researcher and person tasked with writing the book Monty’s
job was to condense that which I felt was relevant to each chapter
from the entire body of source material available. With each chapter
he deliberately provided more information than required leaving it
to the trustees and researchers to reduce the word length. More often
than not the trustees were reluctant to cut back, most of them having
been participants in the war ─ either at home or abroad – and they
felt virtually every segment was of value to the overall story. While
many chapters were reduced, ultimately when the manuscript was
ready for publication it was still 30,000 words over length. In the
end, the Chief Historian (Dr Bronwyn Dalley), the publisher’s senior
editor (Caroline List), one of our research team (Barry Soutar) and
Monty were left to make the final cut.
Drafts were sent to readers in advance of meetings with clear
instructions to indicate the features of the chapter that appealed and
aspects that should be changed or dropped. Discussions that often
developed into healthy debates always resulted in a merging of
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viewpoints. The trustees agreed that families had suffered enough as
a result of the war and we would adopt a policy of doing no further
harm to whānau. Thus, there is an unstated exclusion of negative
references to C Company veterans.
We also determined if a recorded interview was conducted in te
reo (the Māori language) or a letter was penned in Māori that the text
should carry the original followed by a translation. This was about
maintaining the integrity of the quote as well as promoting te reo
Māori in the book. Jossie Kaa, a Māori language specialist,
volunteered to edit the Māori text. Her father, an officer in C
Company, had been killed during the war.
In most cases we opted for precise translations, except where a
liberal interpretation better conveyed the essence of what was being
said. The quotes from interviews were set down as they were heard
and edited only where particles of speech such as ‘he’, ‘i’ and ‘ki’
―often inaudible― have been missed in transcriptions. Also, nearly
all the correspondents or informants quoted in Māori are from the
Tairāwhiti region and their contributions are in the local dialect.
Macrons to indicate vowel length were not employed, despite
the younger members of the team pressing for their use. Nearly all of
the trustees are native speakers and remained unconvinced that
vowel length needed to be specified.
Photographs play a critical part in the finished publication, there
being some 1200 images throughout the book. While the publisher
understood the general New Zealand non-fiction buying market we
felt we had something to offer in terms of the type of layout that
would interest Māori readers. Many Māori like to ‘graze‛ through a
book sampling pieces as they go. Photos with engaging captions,
breakouts with synthesized facts and cutaways with appealing
snippets allow the reader to skim the book without having to hunker
down for the full 447-page, 350,000-word version which the avid
non-fiction reader or historian wants.
The ‘jewel in the crown‛ of Nga Tama Toa is the 942 portraits at
the back of the book. These faces represent every man who served in
the 28th Māori Battalion from the Tairāwhiti region and together they
make the book a real taonga (prized possession).
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A key element in compiling this book was sound leadership and
the involvement of like minds. Members of the research team
provided the following statements:
Without committed leadership, the research project would
have wavered. Whether this is embodied in one person or a
group is immaterial; in this instance Monty Soutar led by
aspiration that stretched people and made them feel a part of
the process. He was the manager, the treasurer, the collector
of the information, the keeper of the records and the
researcher – he surrounded himself with people who
supported with their own sets of skills – whakapapa,
connectivity, passion, technical skills, personal and
institutional resources and time, and most of all a love for
pākeke and history.
Importantly, though Monty surrounded himself with people
who have very similar values, cultural beliefs and an ability
to see opportunities for the wider collective within this
project. We are all essentially tribal Māori – all of us have
strong, active links to our marae and iwi and this project has
enabled us to contribute to our tribal responsibilities and
reflect our tribal values – a real respect for what others,
particularly our pākeke contribute (and our pākeke
continually say that about us so there’s reciprocal respect
between the generations involved in the Trust), a sense of
humour, a sense of history and that this project enables us to
be connected to our history and previous generations of
tīpuna, a sense of community service (we’re almost all public
or iwi servants in our day jobs too – that extends to the
pākeke on the trust who have had similar career paths), and
always focused on the outcome (so not the types to react to
petty or personal squabbles).
Nga Tama Toa targets a reading public perhaps more interested
in people and feelings than in military history. The narrative allows
the voices of those who were there to be heard on almost every page.
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The eyewitness accounts of men, women and some children are
woven together to add to the richness of the earlier publications.
The book is a reflective history which would be different had it
been written in 1946. Nonetheless, it allows the people of the
Tairāwhiti region to learn from their past in order to help them move
forward. Nga Tama Toa contributes to the growing literature about
New Zealand in the Second World War. It offers a unique insight
into the impact of that war on the tribes of the Tairāwhiti district but
it cannot claim to be a record of the entire Māori experience. It
focuses on the region’s war effort overseas, at home and in
government. It is in the overseas sections, especially, that ‘the spirit
of the Māori Battalion, its verve and dash and flair for the
unorthodox’ emerges.
This is a story that has shaped our future. It is to be hoped that
New Zealand’s story will be the richer for it.
Uepohatu was built as a memorial to the Māori Battalion.
The overhead costs usually taken by the University for staff time and resources
were waived and the money was put back into the project.
3 Hirini Reedy found a duplicate copy of the letter at the National Archives in
Wellington. The original was subsequently located at the Māori Trust Office,
Gisborne and is now on display at the Tairāwhiti Museum.
4 Monty Soutar, Nga Tamatoa: the price of citizenship, Auckland, 2008.
5 Gisborne Herald, 26 January 1946.
6 Bennett to Ngata, 15 January 1946, Sir Henare Ngata papers held privately.
7 File Note, Brigadier Adjutant–General Conway, 22 December 1943, 28 Māori
Battalion Unit History pt 1, IA 1, 181/7/28 pt 1, NA.
8 Ibid.
9 A. T. Ngata, The Price of Citizenship, 1943, p. 18.
10 Ngata to Henare Ngata, 25 March 1946, Sir Henare Ngata papers held
privately.
11 The file including the transcripts of interviews disappeared in 1989 when the
Gisborne branch of the Māori Affairs Department was devolved.
12 Trustees have included: Rapata (Bob) Maru, Tini Glover, Sir Henare Ngata,
Noel Raihania, Darcy Ria, John Waititi, Maiki Parkinson, Hine Taare, Kura
Walker, Taina McGregor, Monty Soutar, Jack Papuni and Keita Walker.
13 Tata Lawton, Taina McGregor, Wayne Ngata, Linnae Pohatu, Pia Pohatu,
Hirini Reedy, Barry Soutar, Monty Soutar (research leader) and Sarah Pohatu.
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