Two new documentaries highlight the role of the Pacific Islands in World War II – a theatre of war the programme-makers say is often overlooked.
“So much has been written about the Second World War, but not so much has been written about New Zealand’s part in the Pacific campaign, and even less has been told about the Pacific peoples who had the war forced upon them,” says Les Dawson, who directed Nga Toa o te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa The Warriors of the Pacific: Solomon Islands.

His documentary will screen as part of Maori Television’s ANZAC Day coverage, along with Iulia Leilua’s Nga Toa o te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa The Warriors of the Pacific: Papua New Guinea.

The documentaries tell the untold stories of World War Two in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea as the Allies fought ruthless Japanese forces. Capturing the recollections of wartime witnesses, the programmes highlight how war affected the Pacific’s indigenous people and the critical roles they played defending their countries – and by extension, ours.
Dawson and Leilua say that finding first-hand accounts was a challenge given the age of surviving witnesses, but they found that people’s memories remained remarkably fresh.

Dawson’s documentary focuses on a 1943 battle on a heavily forested western Solomons island called Vella Lavella, which had been occupied by the Japanese. Allied forces from New Zealand and the United States battled for six weeks to recapture the island. Dawson’s film also looks at the vital work of the Solomon Island Scouts and the Coastwatchers – “the silent heroes”, he says.

In Iulia Leilua’s documentary, an elderly man remembers how he was 12 when the Japanese invaded his home province of East New Britain in eastern PNG. “We were not allowed to make any fire during the day because the fire could attract aeroplanes to come with the smoke,” he says. “And at night it was very hard, too, because the light would attract them. So it was very hard for us to survive. We went on eating almost raw food every day in order to survive.” That boy, Paulias Matane, later became a Governor-General of PNG.

Leilua says that PNG was beginning to modernise when war broke out. “Very few people there had ever seen a plane, and suddenly they were being overrun by soldiers with guns, fighting a war that had nothing to do with them.” She adds, “The war in Europe and Africa was seen as more important, more ‘glamorous’ even, but this war was incredibly tough and it was fought very close to New Zealand. If the Japanese had managed to cross the Kokoda Trail – which they almost did – the outcome of the war could have been very different.”

Both documentaries air as part of Maori Television’s ANZAC Day broadcast which starts at 5.50am with the Auckland Dawn Ceremony and concludes at 11.30pm. For a full list of Maori Television’s ANZAC programmes visit www.maoritelevision.com.

ENDS

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