Discovering Fiji: Women who defended Fiji in world wars

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Ladies’ Machine Gun Cops on Fiji Day. Picture: fiji.webs.com/C.LIAVA’A

Men were not the only ones who defended Fiji’s borders during World War I and WWII.

Women also played a role, not so much in combat but in other safer “less active” roles.

War history records contend that it was not until late 1940 that a Women’s War Service Auxiliary (WWSA) was formed in this part of the world to co-ordinate women’s employment and deployment during WWII.

In New Zealand, this led to the formation of a female auxiliary service.

NZ women’s engagement in the war allowed their men, hundreds of whom were in Fiji, to do other active service and work in essential industries.

Hence, the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) was officially established in July 1942 under the command of Vida Jowett.

The initial plan was to have 10,000 women under the WAA. In January 1943, a WAAF party was dispatched to Fiji.

A light of WAAFs marching through Suva in 1943. Picture: “Laucala Bay”/Air Force Museum

But women from Fiji had first participated in the war at the outbreak of WWI in 1914.

In 2014, during the launch of an exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of WWI, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau confirmed that women were an important part of the war effort.

At the outbreak of that war, the Fiji Defence Force was formed for the sole purpose of defending Fiji from potential attack by German forces.

Initially, this force was restricted to people of European descent, but by 1917 the FDF was made of four homogenous platoons — two for Europeans, one for part-Europeans and one for I-Taukei.

“The Fiji Defence Force also included a band, a machine gun section, a signals section, and a motor cyclist section,” Ratu Epeli said.

“The local force also accepted women who joined as volunteer nurses and also recruited women as members of the “girls’ maxim gun squad”.

In one of the late Dr Teresia Teaiwa’s findings on “sotia yalewa, Fiji’s women soldiers 1914-2008”, she noted that during WWI, white women were given the first chance to engage in battle.

Dr Teaiwa said in 1914, when women in Fiji were recruited to be part of the “ladies’ machine gun cops. Their jobs were to operate machine guns and serve as nurses.

She said in 1941 things changed, women from New Zealand in the Women Auxiliary Air Force (WWAF) were deployed to Fiji “as teleport or operators”.

It was not until 1961 that twelve Fijian women made history when they were recruited into the British Army.

Some of the batch of women who were among the first from Fiji to serve in the British Army in 1961. Picture: National Archives of Fiji

The first 1943 WAAF party sent to Fiji had nineteen members. They were shorthand typists, clerks, drivers, and equipment assistants.

“Later a stronger emphasis was placed on signals duties, and W.A.A.F. wireless operators, telephone and teleprinter operators, and cipher officers formed a substantial proportion of the seventy-seven airwomen who served overseas at the time of the greatest expansion,” said Victory University of Wellington’s electronic text collection.

Others served as meteorological observers and medical orderlies.

In Fiji the women’s military service was limited to eighteen months, but usually their stay lasted up to a year.

Later contracts were further reduced to nine months. This gave WAAF members an opportunity to get work experience overseas.

In the war book, Laucala Bay, author Bee Dawson, said the first contingent of WAAFs lived in what had previously been a government house for cable staff families.

The building was located opposite the back gates of the Government House. It had a run-around veranda where the WAAF slept. Because of its proximity to the governor’s residence, the women were often invited to play squash and use the swimming pool.

By 1944, the WAAFs moved to Laucala Bay. Here, cypher officers slept in a row of cabins near the office.

“I shared a basic two-roomed cabin with wooden shutters rather than windows,” recalled Nel Bethwaite in Laucala Bay.

“The wardrobes, dressing tables and beds were all shrouded in khaki cotton open-weaved mosquito nets. It was a relatively luxurious life, as much of the drudgery was done by house girls such as “Wati”, a lovely happy person who taught some of us the Fijian farewell song “Isa Lei”.”

In fact, the famous farewell song rose to become a popular melody during the war.

Once, it was included in an ensemble of sheet music performed by the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) band when it toured a few islands of the Pacific during WWII.

Much of the WAAfs relaxation time was spent in bure built as a sitting room. Located on the top of the hill, the women enjoyed cool breezes and the best views of Catalina flying boats floating in Laucala bay.

Dawson said due to Fiji’s heat though, the women found their uniforms unsuitable for moving around and work in, particularly, Gwen Christopher.

“They sent is up with equipment for the tropics. Our khaki jackets were lined and had long sleeves. The working skirts were khaki and long-sleeved,” Christopher said in Laucala Bay.

“Once we got to Fiji, our WAAF supervisor Katherine Lough said “this is totally impossible”.”

Indian tailors in Suva were asked to make adjustments by making the sleeves short, doing away with stockings and replacing shoes with sandals.

The uniforms were later changed to a blue dress with polished buttons and white flashes with “New Zealand” on them. They also wore white dresses for smarter occasions and felt hats.

WAAFs in their best white uniforms. Picture: “Laucala Bay”/Air Force Museum

Meals were eaten in the mess with airmen on one side and the ladies on the other.

Much of the food was American and some WAAFs found the food largely revolting.

However, when milk and fresh green vegetables arrived from NZ on the ship, Matua, there was excitement. There were also lots of fresh local fruits.

“Fortunately, there was always fruit in abundance. Local Fijians would frequently turn up at the station carrying big cane baskets full of pineapples while Indian children sold mangoes and brilliant green mandarins,” Dawson wrote.

Outdoor activities were plentiful. They included swimming, rugby and other sports and mounting climbing.

On one weekend, the WAAFs visited the chiefly island of Bau, where they took part in a traditional feast of lovo food. Sometimes, they visit Nukulau Island.

Many jobs undertaken by the W.A.A.F. needed thorough training. It took three months to qualify as an instrument repairer, a job demanding special aptitude.

One of the most thorough of all courses was that taken by members of the W.A.A.F. running marine crafts.

Their seamanship course included methods of salvaging marine craft, beaching them for repairs, laying and picking up temporary moorings for aircraft, sweeping for lost torpedoes, and a knowledge of the “rule of the road” in narrow or thronged channels.

They had also to learn visual signalling, first aid, and artificial respiration and pass a special test swimming 50 yards in all their clothes.

One of the greatest adventures that the WAAFs took part in was attending one of their colleague’s wedding.

According to Dawson, Joan Rowberry had been in Fiji for only four or five months when some post office lads dropped into the meteorological office in order to see where the messages they were sending out by Morse originated.

One week later one of the men asked Joan out on a date. She later got married to Bob McVicar at the Holy Trinity Church in Suva.

WAAF Joan Rowberry and post office employee Bob McVicar on their wedding day at the Holy Trinity Church, Suva in 1944. Picture/”Laucala Bay”/Air Force Museum.

In 1961, over a decade after the last WAAF member left Fiji at the end of WWII, 12 Fiji women made a name for themselves when they became the first batch of locals to be recruited into the British Army.

They were given the name “the sunshine squad” by the London newspaper, Daily Mirror, back in 1961 after they touched down in England.

It was an exciting prospect and a daunting task as the young women tried to adapt to the cold winter and the media fascination with them.

Australian Author David Tough in his book 212 Soldiers for the Queen — Fijians in the British Army 1961-1997, said the women did not get their three-year contract in the army renewed.

Some served between one and two years in the army and returned to Fiji while others served and later married and settled in England, Australia, and New Zealand.

The women’s recruitment was met with opposition and racism of the time.

The then director of WRAC, Brigadier Dame Jean Rivett-Drake, wrote a confidential memorandum to the Director of Recruiting, MajGen J.E.L Morris on August 28, 1961.

“I am under the impression that they will be jet black and woolly-haired and I feel most strongly these women will present considerably more problems to us than the coffee coloured Seychellois…” the memorandum read.

“If the worst happens and we are told at the highest level we must consider women from Fiji I feel we must insist that the numbers be very restricted.”

Some of the women enjoyed their brief stint while some did not like the constant attention.

According to Edwina Jameson, one of the 12 women, the British Army saw them as “exotic” and needed special food (assuming that they were not familiar with Western food) and they were made to dance the hula.

The 12 women were Munivai Brooks, Laurel Roberta Bentley later Harper, Tausia Cakauyawa, later Savu, Edwina Caroline Eyre, later Jameson, Betty Roaline Foster, later Hansen, Victoria Grant, later Partridge, Emma Olive Heffernan, later Grant, Louisa Pekham, later Baldwin, Doreen Petersen, later Wilkes, Lillian Pirie, later Millar, Fane Sivoki and Vaciseva Tabua.
Now many women from Fiji serve as officers of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, prison, fire authority, police and navy.
Gone is the days when the military and the disciplined force was a men’s world.

  •  History being the subject it is, a group’s version of events may not be the same as that held by another group. When publishing one account, it is not our intention to cause division or to disrespect other oral traditions. Those with a different version can contact us so we can publish your account of history too — Editor.
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