John Stuart Jones with a poem he wrote for the Ranui Base magazine in 1943. The poster also carries an image of John as a young man.Photo / Paul Charman.
John Stuart Jones with a poem he wrote for the Ranui Base magazine in 1943. The poster also carries an image of John as a young man.Photo / Paul Charman.
On March 26, the last of the southern coastwatchers, Mr John Stuart Jones, was to have voyaged to the Auckland Islands with an expedition to restore his old home in Ranui Cove.
But several days ago doctors told the 91-year-old Te Awamutu resident that he wouldn't be joining the HNNZS Wellington for the voyage.
Now his son, Brian Jones, of Tauranga, will represent the family, assist with building and take part in an Anzac service at the Ranui coastwatchers' base.
John Stuart Jones. Photo / Supplied
"It's okay, I got to go back there with a film crew in the mid-1990s," said John. "And two-weeks on the Wellington might have been tough going. But I've long taken an interest in the history of these islands, and so I'm delighted the coastwatchers are to be acknowledged."
Confusingly, of several hundred New Zealand men who served as coastwatchers during World War II, the last two survivors are named John Jones.
But the wartime experiences of these two men could not have been more of a contrast. John Stuart Jones was posted to Ranui Cove twice, and visited the other Sub-Antarctic bases.
John Mace Jones,94, of Takapuna, was sent to the northernmost extremity of the coastwatchers' network, closer to advancing Japanese than any of his comrades. Three days following the bombing of Pearl harbour he was taken prisoner on Butaritari, in the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati) and spent the rest of the war as a POW.
John Mace Jones,94, of Takapuna, was sent to the northernmost extremity of the coastwatchers' network, closer to advancing Japanese than any of his comrades. Photo / Supplied
The following year, the Japanese Army rounded up 17 fellow Gilbert Islands coastwatchers and imprisoned them on Tarawa, where they and others were eventually beheaded.
Following the war, John Mace Jones spent years trying to find out why the killing of his comrades was not officially memorialised by the New Zealand Government.
Last year, thanks in large part to his efforts, a permanent memorial was unveiled, a steel wall in Whitmore Street, outside New Zealand Post House, inscribed with the names of the men.
Today John Mace Jones lives in a rest home on the North Shore, where his son Lindsey describes his condition as frail.
"However dad wants to be taken out to attend the Anzac service here in Takapuna," says Lindsey. "Anzac Day has always been a painful time for dad, but I think the official remembrance of his comrades has bought some degree of healing."
The now Auckland-based Ranui, with Rangitoto in the background.
Photo/Supplied
Over the years, the media and occasionally even members of their families, have muddled the two coastwatchers named John Jones.
"When John (Mace Jones) succeeded in getting the memorial set up, a nephew of mine, whom I hadn't seen for about 20 years contacted me, and said he'd seen me on television," said John Stuart Jones.
When the Herald caught up with him last week, he (John Stuart Jones) was visiting Auckland solicitor Richard Allen, who owns one of the original boats which served the coastwatchers.
Kauri ketch
The 22-metre kauri and totara ketch, Ranui, was built on Stewart Island in 1936.
It was commandeered by the New Zealand Government in 1939, pressed into service as one of three craft which served the so-called Cape Expedition: The two coastwatcher bases in the Auckland Islands and one on Campbell Island.
Today Mr Allen uses the historic 70 tonne ketch for a wide variety of adventures, including as the mainstay of a charitable foundation he is involved with called the New Zealand Children's Health and Education Trust.
This charity delivers aid programmes in Vanuatu, including soap-making, boat building, a tool cooperative and solar-powered freshwater reticulation and desalination.
In her long career, the Ranui has also been a Bluff oyster boat, mothership for a waka voyage across the Pacific and expeditions to the Kermadec and Antipodes Island Groups.
Richard Allen and John Jones. Photo / Supplied
During the Cape Expedition years, she carried supplies to-and-from bases on Auckland and Campbell Islands. For part of the war, she was also secretly moored in Waterfall Cove, in case coastwatchers required emergency transportation to the mainland.
"I just love this old boat and it's great to see her in such great condition and still so useful to others," says Mr Jones.
He recalled that due to the upredicatability of the Southern Ocean, his initial voyage to the Auckland Islands as an 18-year old in December 1942, was utterly miserable.
Appalling seas meant the scheduled four-day-trip from Wellington to the Auckland Islands, ended up taking eight days.
That voyage was aboard one of the Ranui's Cape Expedition sister ships, the Tagua. "The other men going down to the Sub Antarctic as coastwatchers stayed in their bunks but I had to get up to operate the radio.
"When we reached Ranui Cove, I was determined not to travel back to New Zealand by sea, and spent days thinking of ways I could achieve that."
But on a second posting to the Auckland Islands in 1944, he travelled there aboard the Ranui.
During this passage, the crew enjoyed fair weather, so much so that during a "doggo watch" between midnight and 6am, the skipper gave Mr Jones the wheel and went off for a sleep.
"I was totally inexperienced at steering a ship. I was supposed to keep the rigging lined up with a special star, but that proved difficult in the pitch and roll. It didn't seem to matter though. I was still at the wheel as day dawned and the Auckland Islands loomed into view. Those are the kind of memories you just cherish."
