12 Questions: Dr Monty Soutar

Monty Soutar enjoyed army life after having a taste of rules and discipline while at college. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Author and historian Dr Monty Soutar specialises in Maori military history in both World Wars and is involved in Maori TV’s Anzac Day coverage. He talks war, racism and the East Coast

1. The 28th Maori Battalion had the highest casualty rate of any in World War II - how many were killed?
About 660 of the 3600 who went over there. And that's because they were such an effective battalion, they were often used as the spearhead of an attack. They were also constructed on a tribal basis, which meant that if they got into a sticky situation they would fight longer and harder than they should, they wouldn't withdraw, because their cousin or brother was stuck out there. And as a result casualties mount. I think they were also trying to do more than everybody else so that they would earn the respect of New Zealanders and change could occur in this country.

2. Were Maori treated better in New Zealand after World War II?
It was slow. But there were changes, for example, the law in this country didn't allow Maori to buy alcohol and take it away from a hotel. And then when they started to have reunions of World War II servicemen they would serve drinks in a marquee and if they had applied the law, Maori servicemen wouldn't have been allowed to participate, because that's drinking in a public place. So in 1947 the act was changed.

3. Was there any resentment among Maori that their young men were being sent off and killed on behalf of England?
Absolutely. The pain and the grief that families suffered, they never got over. My mother's brother was 21 when he was killed in Italy. The impact on my grandmother was terrible. The walls of her lounge room were like some sort of memorial to her son. His name was Sam Paniora. He was killed in a place in Italy called Faenza and buried in the town next to it called Forli. I have uncles and aunties called Faenza, Forli and Soldier Sam. My grandmother adopted children and gave them names to do with the loss of her son, which is a very Maori thing to do. You retain the history that way.

4. Are the Maori Battalion remembered in Italy?
Absolutely. I went to talk in a place called San Cassiano in the Tuscany area. Through interpreters an older lady and man told me that when they were children the American troops were not very good to them but they could go and see the Maori troops and they would give them all the food they had. They said they were like angels from heaven.

5. Were there romances between Maori soldiers and Italian women?
Oh yeah. The war ended in May 1945 and the Maori Battalion were not brought back till Christmas, so there was six months of downtime. When they were leaving Florence the Italian women were wailing on the platform as the train pulled away. The orders were that if you wanted to marry an Italian bride you had to go home and make your own way back to get them. Very few had the means of doing that. Some of the women they were leaving pregnant. They came back knowing they had a child in Italy but they sort of got on with life back here and forgot about it.

6. What was your childhood like?
I'm from a family of seven brothers and sisters. We were in the country, near Ruatoria, and 95 per cent of the community was Maori, everything around me was Maori. The few Pakeha who lived there thought they were Maori too. So my impression of the world was that we were the dominant culture in New Zealand. It wasn't until I left the East Coast that I realised that wasn't the case.

7. Can you remember a time when you experienced racism?
Many times. When I was a child we shifted to Palmerston North and I got sent to the dairy to buy a packet of cigarettes for my uncle. I paid the money and waited for the change. The shopkeeper said to me "what are you waiting for?" He thought he'd given me the change but I wasn't leaving the shop because I didn't want to go back to my uncle without it. And he said "don't you ever try that again, you little Hori!" I'd never in my life heard anybody talk like that. I told my uncle and we went back and he said to the shopkeeper, "if I ever hear of you saying something like that again, I'll be back down here to break your neck". I remember thinking, oh so that's how you deal with that sort of thing.

8. Have you seen your children experience that kind of thing?
Yes, I had to go and correct a shopkeeper. He told my daughter not to speak "that language" in his shop. I took my daughter down there so she could see how you deal with people like that. I said, "did you not know that Maori is an official language of New Zealand?" My eldest three couldn't speak English until they were about 5 or 6. You always wonder, am I doing the right thing? But now I can see that they're biculturally solid. It gives them options.

9. In your 20s you were in the Territorials and the New Zealand Army. Did you enjoy army life?
Yeah, I'd been to a Maori boys' boarding school down in Feilding. It was a similar type of life: rules set down, a lot of physical fitness, discipline. I was quite comfortable in that environment.

10. Did you ever have a rebellious period?
Oh yeah, yeah. I was expelled from boarding school, for leaving the premises. We shot away to the hotel that was down the road - went to buy some beers for the boys.

11. You've said that the 28th Maori Battalion story would make a best- selling novel. Are you going to write it?
I might have a go if someone else doesn't do it. I am writing a novel at the moment, based on a different piece of New Zealand history. It's a real challenge for me. I've been giving it to my wife and my daughters to read and they make it clear to me: "It's emotionless, your writing". And I say, well, that's because it's a change after all these years of writing facts.

12. Do you have a romantic view of war?
My whole experience in research has taught me that war is a terrible thing. A lot of the returned servicemen from World War II found solace in drinking and it was all about trying to cope with the terrors they had seen.

• Maori TV's Anzac Day coverage runs from 5.50am to midnight.