Tira Autahi Moai Tihi

Born 12 Dec 1922 - Died 13 Jun 2006

Service number: WWII 813406 AWMM
Also known as: Moai Tihi AWMM
Armed force / branch: Army AWMM
Last rank: Private AWMM 28 (Maori) Battalion, B Company AWMM
War: World War II, 1939-1945 AWMM

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Biographical information

Husband of Judy Turia

Tangi at Te Rewa Marae, Ruatoki.

From Wira Gardiner's Ake Ake Kia Kaha E! "In a later chapter on Rehabilitation, Tira Autahi Moai Tihi joined up fro, Ruatoki. Half a century later, he still remembered clearly his efforts to win a ballot farm after the war. Knowing he lacked the experience to go directly into the draws for land, he first took a training course focused on dry-stock and sheep farming, and then a course in dairying. Twelve months after attaining these qualifications . Moai was called to his first interview, in Hamilton, where he was competing against twelve other applicants. He missed out on this occasion, and again at a ballot in Te Kuiti. His preparations paid off at his fourth attempt, in Waimana, when he proved to be the only one of fourteen applicants with mixed farming qualifications. He was allocated 195 acres of bare land with no fencing. With government assistance, he built a house and brought stock. Reflecting in 1996 on the challenges he faced, Tihi observed: 'It was worst than the war to fight for your living ... Most of the land that was put for ballots was not fit for dairy and mostly uneconomic.' In his view, the government was focused on delivering on its promise of settling men on the land, regardless of its quality. Men were not treated equitably. some had a ready-made farm; others of us had no improvements on our land .... The hardest thing was to fight for land and develop it ... For [the first] four years we were on the land, our pay was 4 pounds a week to buy our clothes, stores and our pleasure and cigarettes.' Men survived on outside work and by catching eels. They ate bread made from water and flour that was baked in the ashes of fires. They wore bush singlets, ex-army clothing and gumboots. It was four years before Tihi could survive without financial support. 'We were given a chequebook and a mortgage and we were on our own' Maori and Pakeha faced similar challenges, Maoi noted, and many men eventually abandoned their farms because they could earn money much more easily in other occupations. When he was interviewed, he still owned the farm he had won in 1946." p. 359-60. AWMM

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Tira Autahi Moai Tihi