Truly International

Force New Unit in N. Hebrides

W E have heard a good deal of the various Defence Forces of most

Pacific Territories; now Harold

Cooper, who lately toured the South west Pacific . area, tells us of the “international” New Hebrides Defence Force.

IN the middle of 1941 a small party of Australian officers and NCO’s arrived in the New Hebrides to train the Condominium Defence Force, which was then being raised. To-day that small but efficient force is one of the most truly “international” armies in the world.

Its Commandant is a British subject, the son of an Australian father and a French mother. He was educated in French schools and until a few years ago French was his only language. Then he decided to learn English and soon became so fluent in it that he was appointed to a post in the British Administration.

His Second-in-Command is a French national, educated in Australia and com pletely bilingual. The officers and NCO’s of the force are other Britishers and Frenchmen.

The troops are natives, recruited almost entirely from a cluster of tiny atolls known as the Small Islands, which lie off the north-east coast of Malakula.

There were plenty of volunteers forth coming from other parts of the Group, but the Small Islanders were chosen because of their robust health and the fact that they all speak the same lan guage—an unusual circumstance in the Hebrides, where the casual traveller is perplexed to find that almost every vil lage seems to have its own dialect.

Although the troops share a common language, the medium of communication between them and their British and French officers is Pidgin English,