Radio Technician with the New Zealand Post Office (NZPO) at enlistment and postwar.

Mr Martin writes in 2007 " NZPO asked if I could go to Fiji to work in Suva "Aeradio" station. I consented. Everyone who was going into this sort of job in the Pacific area was put into uniform because some people on coastwatch duties who had been/ were NZPO employees had been executed as spies by the Japanese at Tarawa.

While working in Fiji, based in Suva, the senior NZPO officer, (Bill Perry who ranked as temporary Captain) was the person responsible for our work. We remained on NZPO pay rates (including overtime) and got a "tropical" allowance of 1 pound per week. All my basic pay was banked in New Zealand and I lived off the allowance and overtime.

We were entitled to army rations but lived on local produce bought from a food kitty all the NZPO people voluntarily paid into. The NZ Army food was from America but the Americans based in Nadi were eating NZ lamb and local veges.

My work was helping to run a major radio communication centre which served the armed forces in the Western Pacific and also the local Fiji Post Office communication between the Fiji Islands group. We kept the technical gear going. Some operators were "service" signalmen and some were civilian (Fijian) and some were NZPO employees seconded to the army - rather the army might say we were army personnel seconded to the NZ Post office. I like to say that I went away disguised as a signalman.

When the war ended the Americans pulled out of Nadi where they had a radio base and some NZPO people were transferred to Nadi to maintain the station there. Later some remained and some transferred to the newly formed Civil Aviation Dept. who took over the new Nadi radio station. I stayed on at Suva Aeradio until April 1946.

I was discharged from the army just after the war ended in 1945. Nothing changed except I had to return most of my army gear and buy some civies.

The whole set up was most peculiar"

Certificate of discharge records date as 1946, Mr Martin feels this year is a typo and should be 1945. The period enlisted is probably correct. Discharge certificate is stamped 14 April 1947, Mr Martin notes he had been back in NZ for 1 year by this time and was working at Makara

Cenotaph record initially prepared with the serviceman in 2007 AWMM