John Stuart Jones giving an interview for National Radio at his home in Te Awamutu. Photo / Paul Charman
John Stuart Jones giving an interview for National Radio at his home in Te Awamutu. Photo / Paul Charman
In 1942, when young radio operator Johnny Jones was sent to Auckland Islands as a radio operator, he recalls a country on edge. John was an 18-year-old Post Office employee, "a pimply-faced bespectacled kid, and only just above the rank of telegraph boy".
But he became one of 56 men selected for the top secret Cape Expedition. This group was given year-long postings on New Zealand's Sub-Antarctic Islands.
They were instructed to send out radio messages if they saw enemy vessels using the excellent deep-water harbours at the Auckland and Campbell Islands.
The New Zealand Government thought it had good cause to fear an invasion from the south.
In 1939, on the eve of the war, the coal-fired merchant ship Erlangen escaped from New Zealand by making a run to the Auckland Islands. She into sailed Carnley Harbour, where the crew cut 150 tonnes of rata timber to fuel her boilers.
Burning rata as fuel, she just made it to the Argentinian port of Ushaia.
In 1941, the German Raider Orion went of a ship sinking spree in the Pacific, her tally of 10 kills including several sunk by marine mines in New Zealand waters.
Rumour had it the Orion also sailed close to the Auckland Group, though this has never proven. Then Japan came into the war.
The Cape Expedition was established to "guard the back door", establishing two bases in the Auckland Group and one on Campbell Island.
The force was assembled in haste and great secrecy. After being accepted, John had to swear not to mention details of the expedition to anyone. His parents were merely told that he was being sent overseas.
But this proved problematic when, suspecting he was an imposter, military police arrested the uniform-wearing youth in Lampton Quay, just a few hours before his ship was due to sail for the Auckland Islands.
Coastwatchers had been hurriedly attested in the Army as privates and so John had the uniform but lacked the right papers; he was unable to give the MPs details of a camp or unit.
Feared being shot
Neither could he tell them the truth about the Cape Expedition, and thus break his oath. The impasse was broken when he remembered the name of somebody in charge and was released just in time to ship out with comrades (older men, spending final hours ashore in the pub).
Despite near zero previous training in radios and petrol generators, John excelled in his duties with, he says, "high hopes and good luck on my side".
He did a year at the Cape Expedition's No 1 Camp at Port Ross in 1943 and accepted a second posting the following year.
As the war was winding down in 1944, this pared back version of the first expedition only lasted about six months.
Dr Falla's laboratory at Ranui Base is one of the buildings to be renovated later this month. Photo / Supplied
Sharing the base with four comrades, he recalls happy times and hard work. He did most of the cooking, sent coded weather reports to New Zealand several times a day and shared in daily shifts up in the lookout. He also assisted the base leader, famous naturalist Sir Robert Falla, as he collected specimens of animals and plants.
There was time to get away on his own, avoiding the humdrum of his duties by going for short hikes and amusing himself searching for insects and gazing at the prolific rock pool life. Saturday was social night: The men put on clean shirts, ate a special dinner, sang their camp song, played games and drank a passable rum punch. Fun activities included creating a camp magazine, written out in longhand.
Sandy Bay on Enderby Island, a location known as 'The Riviera of the Sub-Antarctic'. Photo / Paul Charman
"Falla was an excellent leader; he managed to keep everyone happy. At the Carnley Harbour, one group split into factions, refusing to speak with one another for months." At the end of his term, John volunteered to cover for another radio operator at Carnley Harbour until the man's replacement arrived from New Zealand.
The generous act delayed John's departure home, providing him five additional weeks in the Sub-Antarctic, but with few responsibilities.
He used this time to explore much of both Auckland and Campbell Islands, including places well off the beaten track.
"It's a wonderful part of the world and we lived there in comfort, compared to the old shipwreck survivors and Hardwicke settlers.
A kakariki parakeet on Enderby Island. Photo / Glenn Hardwick
"Our camp was well sheltered. For the most part the temperature didn't go below about 8 C, though with high winds, the chill factor on the tops can be deadly for anyone caught out in the open. Grandeur of scenery is astonishing, including red flowering of the rata forest in autumn and massive cliffs, more than 300 metres-high on the west coast.
"But it was obvious during my trip back to the islands in the mid 1990s, that removing pests had transformed areas such as Enderby Island, which now has abundant mega-herbs, with other plants and birds returning.
