Interview with Owen Hicks
Owen Hicks was an Aircraft Electrician who enlisted in
1942. After completing his training at Wigram he was posted to
the 14th Squadron and based at Whenuapai.
He arrived at Guadalcanal in 1943, after the US Marine Forces had
supposedly rendered the area safe (although there were still
Japanese soldiers spread around the jungle), and was posted home in
May 1944.
tvnz.co.nz: What was your role in the Pacific war?
Owen: I was an Aircraft electrician and looked after all the electrical parts on an aircraft like on a Kitty Hawk. Back in those days, the electrician was coming to its own because if you went back two or three years before that, there were very few electricians around. I had actually been an electrician before I went into the service.
tvnz.co.nz: Is that why they chose you to do the job you did?
Owen: Along that path yes, a follow-on from what I was doing. I thought I was a good electrician before I went into the service but after the three-month course where they taught us precision and how to do things properly, I came out a better one. You had to do everything exactly right or the plane would never come back, and the bolts had to be locked in a certain way to ensure this.
tvnz.co.nz: So you had a very responsible job?
Owen: Partly yes. Because it was mechanics, we worked as a team. It was an interesting time.
tvnz.co.nz: Where were you based?
Owen: From here we ferried the Kittys up from Auckland up to the islands. I was on the second flight but the first flight came to grief as it crash-landed in New Caledonia on the beach but we didn't lose any pilots. The sixth one actually ditched in the harbour but we got through without any mishaps so we stayed to help the first service party put those five together again and had them flying back up in a matter of six weeks. We'd never seen such a workshop like the Americans had.
Then we went on to Santos in the New Hebrides, which was what it was called then. I wasn't there very long and simply again because they needed electricians elsewhere.
tvnz.co.nz: What was Guadalcanal like?
Owen: By the time we got there in 1945, it had been secured (that's what Americans called it - secured). It was secure and we were on fighter strip one. The Japanese had finished building and they were just waiting for their own planes. We were reasonably safe up there as our squadron had about 70 planes.
You saw enough but they were fighting at a higher altitude so you didn't see a lot - that was lower down. Again, I was always away on detached flights because of shortage of men.
tvnz.co.nz: What are 'detached flights?'
Owen: Our main base on Guadalcanal was fighter strip one and say one of our planes came down on Russell island which was a small island north of us, we were the service party of about four people who would go up. We would call them detached flights and repair it so it could fly back.
tvnz.co.nz: Did you ever write letters back to your family?
Owen: Oh yeah, and they used to send us parcels. That's one thing they don't recognise - people forget the actual efforts put in by the families back here at home. They don't recognise what the mothers and fathers did for us.
tvnz.co.nz: What did they send you?
Owen: Baby powder because you would get rashes between the toes, arm pits and groin area as it was so hot. I found baby powder was really good for this and I still actually use it after a shower. We weren't allowed to say where we were in the letters. We got cakes, fruit cakes and some people got biscuits.
tvnz.co.nz: How did they know where to send you a parcel?
Owen: It went through a clearing area.
tvnz.co.nz: What were your living conditions like?
Owen: We had a large operational office and it was very basic - our toilet was a funnel! We were on top of the ridge but it was quite a battlefield when the marines fought there. We used to have one bottle of water a day which wasn't very much in a hot country. We'd line up drums alongside our tents so we could drain the water across the tents into them but we had to be careful as it was a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
tvnz.co.nz: What was the food like?
Owen: That's a good question. When we first got there, the Americans had just secured the post and their living arrangements weren't up to scratch. And down on fighter strip one, they had one very small cook house which they would serve out of from there. If you got down there early, you were ok but if you get there a little bit late, the line would stretch right out, so you missed out.
That went on for a few weeks until the commanding officer came through and saw what was happening, and ordered for it to be pulled and new one to be built. They got the CBs (naval construction) in to build a brand new one and at the same time, they built one for us on the ridge - we then had our own cooks and it was reasonably good.
On Christmas Day we had fresh turkey with all the trimmings. Once they established the place, the first item to be put in place was a big contain refrigerator. They did that for all the troops no matter where they were (were feasible). It was an experience. I listen to stories around here and some are hung up in the past, unfortunately. I don't say very much about myself. I just think I could tell a better story than some!
tvnz.co.nz: Did you feel safe or was there always a threat in the back in your mind?
Owen: You didn't really think about it. You only went by shuttle boat so you didn't get any official information. When I was on Russell Island, we did get bombed but mostly at night. The Japanese air force was disintegrating a bit because they were operating from New Georgia which is the next big island north.
I was in the naval hospital on Russell Island, as I had an accident with my leg, and they dropped a bomb on either side of the hospital along the dug out - but they weren't terrific big ones to be honest. We were in the dug-out and the earth came in on us but not too much.
The reason I was in hospital was because I dropped a machine gun out of the wing of the back of the Kitty Hawk and the cupping handle went into my leg, but luckily not into the muscle. I was helping one of the armourers and he was in the front guiding and sliding it in and I slipped on the coral and it fell so I ended up with two holes in my leg. That's when I went into the naval hospital.
The doctor used a substance called Sulpha Milwhite for dusting
wounds but it didn't work so he went back to binding my leg up and
then added cold water then hot water and that did the
job. Even when we were on fighter strip one, we had night
bombing. It depends how it affects each individual I
suppose.
tvnz.co.nz: How did it affect you?
Owen: I don't go around telling stories, put it that way. I do think about it but we were just there to do a job and we got on with it and that was part of what happened to us.
tvnz.co.nz: When did you go home again?
Owen: I stayed out just over 15 months. Our tour of duty was supposed to be a year but again because of the smallness of our session, I got posted back to Santos, our main base in the Pacific, and got there and they decided to send me back again. I spent another four months or so there.
tvnz.co.nz: What was it like going home again?
Owen: When I got back to Santos they completed a medical on you before they sent you home and they discovered I had a touch of malaria. While we were up we had a special tablet which didn't cure malaria but it stopped it coming on, so they kept me there for a further couple of weeks. It turns out I had only one in a 1,000 field so they sent me home.
I went home in a DC-3, one of our own planes. The ones we went up in were the American DCs that my cousin was a flight engineer for. We went home and I was transferred around and I ended up in Ardmore. I was due to go away again in early 1945 but magically they discovered I had contracted a germ in my nose that left me with sinusitis.
tvnz.co.nz: Where there any times when you couldn't repair the planes?
Owen: We used to go back and try to reclaim as much as we could from the airplanes and take them back to base. We once went up when a PV-1 Ventura was taken down.
tvnz.co.nz: When you look at your photos is there a part of you that wonders if you were really there?
Owen: I know other people feel that, but for me it's history. We have moved on and a lot of other things have happened. I started my own electrical business in 1945 by myself for one year and then I took on an apprentice and went from there. At one stage, I was employing about 14 people. To me, it's always a job as I was never a military person, unlike my brother. He went back to the territorials after the war when they had compulsory military training and they didn't have enough men, so they asked a lot of territorial men to return.
On V-J Day, it was the only time I was AWOL in my service! I went in to celebrate it and I didn't come back for four days. The first thing the guard said when I went through the gate was 'You're wanted in the office' but when I walked in I was given my papers and told if I could get them signed that day, I could be off station and discharged by the end of the day.
tvnz.co.nz: What do you think of Anzac Day?
Owen: I've never been in an Anzac Day parade. I've sat on the side but I don't think we need a special day for it. You remember certain things pretty much every day, you come up against them from time to time and you go back to that time and you remember.
My father was a prisoner of war for four years in Germany and
survived. We had seven cousins, plus my brother and I, who
served in all the services. We had one in the Royal Air Force,
one in the Royal Navy and others in the army and we all came
home. We were one of the lucky families.
