by Glyn Harper
Moana was commissioned as an officer in April 1942 and first became the intelligence officer.
In March 1943 Moana was a platoon commander in C Company, with men from Ngati Porou. By then the war in North Africa was coming to an end. In Tunisia, General Montgomery was trying to break through German positions at Tebaga Gap, 10 kilometres of mountainous terrain that formed part of the Mareth Line. The 2nd New Zealand Division would provide most of the infantry but they were joined by several other units.
On 19 March the New Zealanders set off, moving slowly and in great secrecy. They reached Tebaga Gap two days later, but it was several days before Freyberg was ready to move. A full-scale attack was planned for the afternoon of 26 March. With the Desert Air Force giving close air support, the New Zealand Corps forced the gap open and drove through it in force. The only real opposition came from German units fighting in the hills. Most troublesome was the 2nd Battalion, 433 Panzer Grenadier Regiment of 164 Light Division dug in on Point 209.
Point 209 and a prominent hill just underneath it dominated one side of the Tebaga Gap. The hill, on which most of the fighting took place, was later named Hikurangi, after an important mountain on the North Island’s east coast. This was done as a tribute to the actions of the Ngati Porou company. On 26 March the German defenders poured mortar and machine-gun fire from Point 209 and Hikurangi down onto the New Zealanders. The armoured support for the attack on Hikurangi had turned back after five tanks had been knocked out by a well-hidden 88-mm gun. The Māori Battalion needed to clear Point 209.
Captain Arapeta Awatere, the C Company commander, was ordered to swing his company to the right and capture the heights. The battalion’s three other rifle companies were to dig in where they were. Awatere sent 13 Platoon to work around from the right onto the rear slope. Meanwhile, 15 Platoon was to attack the crest in the centre and Moana’s 14 Platoon was to attack on the left. The attack on Hikurangi began at 5.00 p.m.
All through the evening and night of 26 March, the Māori Battalion thought it was attacking Point 209 but they were wrong. They were attacking Hikurangi, which was separated from Point 209 by a saddle about 900 metres long. So when brigade headquarters was told Point 209 had been taken, they moved their artillery fire to the other slopes. This meant the Māori attack had no artillery support.
Meanwhile, Second Lieutenant Ngarimu, coming in from the left flank, moved his platoon to the base of Hikurangi without suffering any casualties. While 15 Platoon was pinned to the ground at the foot of the hill by the fire coming from Point 209, Moana led his men straight up the steep rocky slope, ignoring the machine-gun and mortar fire. During the climb, Moana destroyed two machine-gun posts by himself and was the first soldier to reach the top of Hikurangi. After a brief but fierce fight Hikurangi was captured. Moana consolidated his position and the men of 13 Platoon joined him.
The two platoon commanders (Moana and Lieutenant S.F. ‘Bully’ Jackson) realised they hadn’t captured the high ground and tried to break through to Point 209, but they didn’t have enough men. They returned to Hikurangi and dug in. Firing from both sides carried on through the night and the top of Hikurangi was swept by machine-gun fire from Point 209.
The Germans counter-attacked again and again through the night but with Moana’s spirited leadership they were defeated. Many Māori soldiers were wounded or killed but the defenders fought on. After the failure of the first counter-attacks the Germans used their mortars, which had a devastating effect on the rocky unprotected hillside. After a heavy mortar attack, followed by a German bayonet attack, Moana bellowed with all his strength for the survivors to stand up and engage the enemy man for man. They leapt up and even though they were outnumbered, they threw the German attackers back. During one of these counter-attacks Moana was hit in the shoulder.
In the next attack some German soldiers penetrated the Māori position. Moana rushed to the area and shot several Germans with a submachine-gun. Those he didn’t hit fled for their lives. Moana searched frantically for a grenade and when he couldn’t find one he threw rocks. The effect was the same and the Germans fled for their lives.
The Germans attacked again and this time forced the Māori soldiers off Hikurangi. Moana rallied the men and led them back onto the ridge in their own ferocious counter-attack. They were successful and took Hikurangi a second time but Moana was wounded again, this time in the leg.
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bennett, the battalion’s commanding officer, climbed onto Hikurangi to inspect the situation. He immediately told the wounded Awatere and Ngarimu to report to the medics. Both refused with Moana pleading, ‘I’m all right, Sir. Let me stay a little longer with my men.’ Bennett relented and allowed him to stay. Awatere later went but only when ‘his wounded leg had swollen so much he could only crawl’.
Lieutenant Jackson took over C Company. Colonel Bennett stressed the hill was to be held at all costs. Awatere replied: ‘Have no fear, Sir. This hill will never be lost.’ Bennett then returned to his battalion headquarters, which he moved close to the foot of Hikurangi.
Dawn on 27 March found 14 Platoon still in possession of the hill but with only Moana and 12 men, 10 of them wounded. Lieutenant Jackson reported to Bennett that he doubted if they could hold out much longer. Reinforcements — two sections from D Company — arrived and the soldiers on Hikurangi waited for another attack. It soon came.
The Germans, reinforced by two fresh platoons, launched a dawn attack in full view of the Māori Battalion’s headquarters. They saw Moana lead another charge, firing his submachine-gun from the hip. They saw him reach the crest of the hill and stand there defiantly. He was silhouetted against the ridgeline when he was shot dead, his body falling among several Germans he had killed. The battle raged around Moana’s body. Fresh waves of Germans arrived but the reinforced Māoris routed them. The Germans fell back to Point 209 and stayed there. Half of the German soldiers involved in this attack had been killed or wounded.
Brigadier Kippenberger visited the Māori Battalion and immediately saw the battalion wasn’t on Point 209 and ordered the artillery gunners to fire on Point 209. This caused devastating damage and was kept up for most of the morning until the Germans surrendered.
C Company, especially 13 and 14 Platoons, had won this tough battle. The 28th (Māori) Battalion lost 22 killed and 77 wounded in the fight for Point 209, but its members received every military bravery decoration available at Tebaga Gap, including the VC. Eyewitness statements from two lieutenants, one corporal and a private supported Moana’s VC recommendation. Corporal P. Tamepo said:
During the night we were attacked many times. Some of us broke but Mr Ngarimu always stayed at his post yelling at us to come around him.
When we ran out of hand grenades we used stones. Our officer was wounded twice. A lot of us told him to get out but he said he would wait until morning to see how he felt then.
Moana’s VC was announced on 4 June 1943. On this day Moana’s father received an urgent telegram from the New Zealand Prime Minister:
I desire to convey to you the Government’s warmest congratulations on this great honour conferred on your son and deeply regret that he did not live to receive the award he had so gallantly won.
On 6 October 1943 the Ngati Porou and Whanau-a-Apanui, his mother’s iwi, gathered in Ruatoria, where the Governor-General, Sir Cyril Newall, presented Moana’s VC to his parents.
THE WAR IN THE AIR
The Wing Walker
SERGEANT JAMES (JIMMY) WARD, RNZAF
The first of the three New Zealand airmen to be awarded the VC in the Second World War was Sergeant James Ward, a pilot in 75 (NZ) Squadron of Bomber Command. This squadron was equipped with Wellington bombers, one of the most advanced planes the RAF had at the time. The Wellington was a twin-engined machine with a range of 3200 kilometres. It could carry 1800 kilograms of bombs, at a speed of 370 kilometres per hour. The plane had a crew of six and a forward turret with two machine-guns, and a tail turret with four. The fuselag
e and wings were made with a lattice frame, called ‘geodetic’, which was flexible and could take a lot of punishment. Like the rest of the plane, these frames were covered in canvas so the Wellington was easy to fix.
Jimmy Ward was born in Whanganui on 14 June 1919, the son of English parents. He attended Wanganui Technical College and then qualified as a teacher, but volunteered to join the RNZAF when war broke out.
Jimmy was given his pilot’s wings on 18 January 1941 and promoted to sergeant before going overseas at the end of the month. After extra training in Scotland, he was posted to 75 Squadron.
The night after his arrival in 75 Squadron — his twenty-second birthday — he flew as second pilot on a raid on Düsseldorf. He flew five more missions, and on the night of 7–8 July 1941 Jimmy Ward was the second pilot of a Wellington returning from a raid on Münster.
They had cleared the coast of Holland and were over the Zuider Zee at about 3900 metres when they were attacked by a Messerschmitt 110 night fighter. Before Sergeant Box, the rear gunner, managed to shoot the attacker down it hit the Wellington with cannon fire and incendiary bullets. These ripped through the starboard wing and set the engine on fire, as well as destroying the radio, rupturing hydraulic pipes and wounding the front gunner. This was a dangerous situation, but it was made even worse by a broken fuel pipe which was feeding the flames on the wing. The crew tried to put the fire out by knocking a hole in the side of the fuselage and using their fire extinguishers and the coffee from their flasks, but it was no use.
The Canadian captain, Squadron Leader R.P. Widdowson, decided to abandon the plane, but Jimmy Ward offered to make a last desperate attempt to stop the fire. He planned to climb out onto the wing, where he would crawl to the engine and smother the fire with the engine cover. The crew tied a line from the inflatable dinghy around him and made him wear his parachute on his chest.
Widdowson brought the plane’s speed down as much as he dared, but even so the Wellington was travelling at over 160 kilometres per hour when Jimmy crawled out of the top of the plane. He got down onto the wing by kicking holes in the fuselage’s canvas sides and putting his feet in the framing. On the wing he got himself down as flat as possible and edged his way towards the fire, making himself hand and footholds by kicking holes in the wing. As he got closer to the engine his job was made even more difficult by turbulence from the propellers, as well as the wind.
When he reached the fire, he managed to pull the cover from inside his jacket and smother the flames. He crawled on to the engine, to try and deal with the leaking fuel pipe. He pushed the cover into the hole the fire had burnt into the wing near the leak, and held it there with one hand while holding onto the wing with the other. Hanging on with only one hand his arm soon became very tired, but when he tried to change hands and took his other hand from the cover it blew out of the hole. Jimmy pushed the cover back into the hole. However, shortly afterwards, when he was again forced to change his grip when his hand started to cramp, the cover was blown away. Exhausted, and with nothing else to stop the fire, Jimmy crawled back inside the plane, helped by the rope around his waist that had been held tight the whole time by his crewmates.
He had done enough. Putting out the fire on the wing had stopped it from spreading. The leaking fuel had nothing left to burn and spilled away into the night and Widdowson was able to set a course for England. They landed at Newmarket airfield around 4.30 a.m, but had no brakes or flaps. They had to use the whole airfield and were finally stopped by a hedge and fence at the far end.
Widdowson was recommended for a DFC, the rear gunner Sergeant Box for the DFM and Jimmy Ward for the VC. The awards were announced on 5 August 1941.
Following that mission Jimmy was reunited with his original crew from training in Scotland, as captain of his own plane, and together they undertook three missions. On 15 September 1941 he and his crew manned one of 12 planes from 75 Squadron in a raid on Hamburg. His Wellington was caught in the searchlights above Hamburg shortly after it had released its bombs but they noticed there was no flak. This was a sure sign that German night fighters were close. Sure enough, some 32 kilometres outside Hamburg, they were shot down. Jimmy Ward was last seen at the controls of his plane, having ordered his crew to bail out. The only two who managed to get out saw the Wellington, with their four crewmates, hit the ground.
The Great Escaper
SQUADRON LEADER LEONARD TRENT, RAF
Leonard Henry Trent was born in Nelson on 14 April 1915, where his father was a dentist. His family moved to Takaka in 1919, and Len went to Nelson College. As a young boy he was fascinated by flying and in 1937 he took his pilot’s licence at the Otago Aero Club and applied to the RAF. He was accepted and after some more flying training at Wigram he went to England to fly with the RAF.
When the war started, Len Trent was sent to France, to fly photo-reconnaissance in Fairey Battle planes. After a while his unit was moved to Blenheim bombers. From May 1940 they carried out raids against the attacking German forces and Len was awarded the DFC.
When he was sent to train other pilots, he was given a commendation for bravery for safely landing a Boston bomber with an engine fire. He spent nearly two years instructing, before he was promoted to squadron leader and posted to 2 Group headquarters of Bomber Command. He wanted to fly operations against the enemy in a Boston squadron. Instead he was sent as a flight commander to help form 487 (NZ) Squadron. This new unit was to be equipped with the Lockheed Ventura light bomber which had a top speed of 520 kilometres an hour, though its operational speed was more like 305 kilometres an hour, and a bomb load of 2250 kilograms. The Ventura was not popular with its crews, as it was considered too slow, tiring to fly, and lacking in adequate defensive firepower. It also required strong fighter cover in order to complete the small, precision daylight raids it was being used for.
On 3 May Squadron Leader Len Trent, DFC, was getting ready to lead a raid on the docks at Flushing on the Dutch coast. A couple of days earlier he and his crew had gone out on another raid, but the plane’s engine had played up and they had had to turn back early and come home to base. This time Len tossed a coin with his squadron commander to see which one of them would lead this raid. He won. But as they waited to take off, the mission was changed.
They were given a new plan, codenamed Ramrod 17, to bomb an electrical power station outside Amsterdam. This was actually a diversion for another raid on the Dutch Steel Works. The bombers were to meet up with a Spitfire escort of three squadrons and fly at sea level to their target, before climbing at the last possible moment to their bombing height. Two more Spitfire squadrons would provide fighter cover from above, following the same flight plan but arriving slightly ahead of the bombers to cover their run over the target. It was very important that everything went exactly to plan, because if the fighter planes showed up too early on the German RADAR it would give the enemy time to get their fighters in the air.
But because the plans were changed at the last minute there wasn’t enough time to brief everyone properly. The bombers and their close escort got it right, but unfortunately the top-cover fighters left 20 minutes early and climbed as soon as they got to Holland. The exact thing the plan was meant to avoid happened. The top-cover Spitfires were picked up by German RADAR and Luftwaffe [German air force] fighters were scrambled. There was more bad luck for Ramrod 17 — some German VIPs were visiting Haarlem, near Amsterdam, and the Luftwaffe were holding a special training exhibition at Schiphol airport. This meant that 70 German planes scrambled to meet the raid, flown by expert pilots determined to show their best.
Worse still, the top-cover fighters who had alerted the enemy were running short of fuel and returned to base before the raid arrived. Ten minutes out from their target, the bomber crews still thought everything was going to plan.
The German fighters dived out of the glare of the sun, with 20 planes fighting with the close escort while another 30 attacked the Venturas. The leader of the other flight of Venturas, Flight Lieut
enant A.V. Duffill, was the first to fall out, his plane smoking as it went down. Six more Venturas were knocked out of the attack after the first pass. Len Trent could see a dogfight with the Spitfires going on behind him. The German fighters thought the bombers were there to attack the VIPs, and kept the remaining four bombers away from Haarlem, not realising they were after a different target.
The Germans came in again and again, and one by one the New Zealand planes fell. Eventually one Luftwaffe pilot made a fatal mistake. Instead of diving under the Ventura as he completed his attacking pass, he banked in front. The Ventura had two .50 calibre and two .30 calibre machine-guns in its nose, fired by the pilot. Len Trent blasted the fighter with all his firepower, and it fell in flames. There were only two bombers left as they came over Amsterdam and flak was fired at them from the ground, while the German fighters continued their attack. Len Trent had to maintain a steady course through all of this to drop his bombs.
When all his bombs were gone, Len couldn’t see any other British planes. As he was closing his bomb doors and wondering how to escape, he lost control of the plane, though it kept flying. Len ordered his crew to bail out, but before they could the plane went into a spin and Len and his navigator were both thrown out and parachuted clear.
Of the 12 Venturas that went on the raid, one had turned back over the English Channel with a loose cover. Ten planes had been destroyed or fallen over the sea after they had been driven back and only one Ventura returned. Flight Lieutenant Duffill had managed to regain control of his plane and bring it back to base, with his wounded crew. Of the 48 bomber aircrew on Ramrod 17, only eight returned to England, 12 were made prisoners of war, including Len Trent, and 28 were killed.