NZ Vice-Regal Party
p. 13 · Read in the full issue
True Islands
Welcome
NZ Vice-Regal Party Spend Happy Day in Tonga
The Special Correspondent of the NZ Press Association supplied the fol lowing excellent report of the visit to Nukualofa, Tonga, on July 3, of the Governor-General of New Zealand (Sir Bernard Freyberg, VC) and Lady Freyberg: SMOKING earth ovens of a dozen native villages poured out food for a feast with which Queen Salote and her 40,000 people of the independent island kingdom of Tonga honoured the Governor- General of New Zealand, Sir Bernard Freyberg, VC, and Lady Freyberg on July 3. Garlanded with flowers. Their Excellencies sat cross-legged at either hand of the Queen at the head of laden tables that could have fed an army battalion.
Local European residents and the New Zealand visitors, including a group of officers from the cruiser “Bellona.” were received with lavish hospitalitv on a scale typical of Tonga. The cloth of banana leaves before which they were seated displayed more than 20 separate dishes. Two hundred pigs toasted to crisp brownness on the spits lay end to end along the table. They were supple mented by 300 chickens, ducks and tur keys, a whole roasted bullock split in to massive joints, five tons of cooked yams and taro roots, and a selection of the islands’ fish, turtle, crabs, lobsters and shellfish.
Speech of Welcome For dessert there was a salad contain ing eight different fruits and a pudding prepared from squares of fresh tapioca and wrapped in green leaves with a sauce of sugared coconut milk. Juices of oranges, pineapples, grapefruit, lemons and coconut served as beverages.
While the guests picked with their fingers at the vast repast and a Govern ment band played “Colonel Bogey” and other familiar British marches, the Queen delivered a lengthy speech of welcome, in which she expressed Tonga’s affection for Britain and gratitude for the constant assurance of defence from Britain and New Zealand. She recalled the prompt action taken to garrison the islands when the kingdom was threatened bv Japanese invasion.
Entertainers Perform The kingdom’s most accomplished enter tainers then performed for two hours in the cool of the Queen’s 600-acre palm studded estate. Beyond the parties of capering warriors and graceful women dancers the guests looked across a tongue
of a sparkling lagoon to Mua, the old capital of Tonga, where Salote’s ancestors had established their rule before the Normans conquered England and where Captain Cook made his first contact with what he called the Friendly Islands in 1773.
The “Bellona” anchored at ten o’clock on the morning after the 24 hours’ voyage from Suva. On disembarking. Sir Bernard and Lady Freyberg were met by the Premier, the Hon. Ata. and members of the Tongan Cabinet and. with the British agent and consul, Mr. C. W. T.
Johnson, proceeded to the palace. Beneath the heraldic Royal Standard quartered in brilliant gold, red and blue, Sir Bernard inspected a bare-footed Royal guard and was received by the Queen before return ing to the residency to talk for an hour with 50 Tongan and European ex-Service men of the First and Second World Wars.
These included the Minister of Police, the Hon. Akaulola.
Heroes of Solomons Battle Each wearing the ribbons of the British Military Medal and the Ameri can Silver Star, two young Tongans, Johnny Inukinuhaanga and Simote Viamahi, were introduced as the Tongan heroes of the Battle of the Solomons.
Operating as jungle commandoes, they won their awards when the American patrol with which they served was ambushed by a strong force of Japanese.
The' patro/’s two officers were badly wounded, but the two Tongans stayed with them under heavy fire, dragged them a long distant to safer cover and alone kept up the fight with a vastly superior Japanese force. With hand grenades they inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy, as well as saving the lives of their American commanders.