We became the Americal Division when we reached Fiji. The division was not assigned a number. It was the Americal (Americans In New Caledonia). Real corny.

In early March, '43 we were at our R&R location on the main island (Viti Levu) of Fiji. Specifically we were on the western part of the island near Lautoka (La-Toe-Ka) and Nadi (pronounced Nandi to rhyme with "dandy"). Nadi was the site of an airfield; Lautoka was a fairly large village, largely inhabited by indentured émigrés from India, a number of Indians who had managed to buy out of their servitude, a few Chinese merchants and a hard core of English Colonials. Pushed to the side in their thatched hut sections were native Fijians and half-castes.

On the third day after our arrival two of us were called into the headquarters tent and told to take a jeep ride to Suva, the main city and capitol of Fiji. The objective was to pick up supplies which were being held at the port. Of course, when it was noised about that we were headed for Suva, we had many requests to search out likely spots for rest and recreation with emphasis on the latter.

The trip covered about 150 miles over well kept (though unpaved) roads. The scenery was beautiful - lush, green, unspoiled hills with very little sign of habitation. We arrived in Suva in mid-afternoon and searched out the city's only hotel (for which we had vouchers).

After our primary objective of securing and loading the supplies, we looked into the secondary reason for the trip: the assessment of the area as a base for seven days' leave. It wasn't too encouraging: a small city, a few souvenir shops, one hotel that lacked electricity (no-one knew how to fix the system), a soldier population that at least equaled the locals, but many well-stocked restaurants that served a steak and eggs meal for seventy-five cents. Tent cities were being set up for the expected influx of soldiers on leave.

A few days after we returned, a couple of my tent-mates quietly asked if I wanted to go on a seven day cruise for my allotted seven day leave. They had hired a native sail boat with a crew of four to take six of us to a small chain of islands - the Yasawa Islands. It would cost each of us a dollar and a quarter - seven dollars for the week's rental of the craft and fifty cents to buy a large bag of Kava root. More of that and its use later.

We begged food - Army K rations, a five pound can of hard candy and several cartons of cigarettes from company supply. On a bright Saturday morning we boarded a two-masted sail craft and embarked on our cruise.

There is an interesting preamble to the trip description. Several of the fellows had made friends with the Sun Oil Company representative for Fiji - a "proper but affable" English colonial. He arranged the same trip for another group before ours. When our group asked him to arrange a similar tour for our group, he explained it wouldn't be possible: the crew captain had four dollars and each crew member had a dollar. That was wealth to last them a month. A meeting was arranged with the captain with the logical negative results. "Boat has hole in bottom, has to be fixed. Sail is torn, have to get new. Two crew are sick; bad stomachs. No trip!" Our English friend found another boat and crew for us.

Sailing with full reliance on the wind to move us and the crew to keep us in the right direction was a new experience to me. I enjoyed it to the hilt. Any and all of our concerns or questions were answered with the same sentence: "Don't worry. The captain is with you!" And he was. He, or one of the crew, tailed us everywhere we went, even when we searched for a likely toilet spot.

Each island visit was the same except for the Chief's island. Except for one occasion we six were the only non-natives on any of the chain.

In mid-afternoon of the first day we arrived at Vomo, the first island. A large gathering of natives waited for us on shore. We landed with a canteen cup full of the hard candy to be distributed to the children - young and old. Our captain, by pre-arrangement, distributed the candy equitably and in an orderly fashion. (We would have been mobbed.) Then we were escorted to our area and left alone.

We rested, washed, opened a can of army rations and had a hot meal. Just before sundown the drum beating (sticks on logs) and hand clapping started. Six native girls came to escort us to the "Tra-la-la." None of the women (or young ladies) came up to Hollywood standards of South Sea Islanders. They were well-fed but not flabby; I would guess it was not the style to be thin and shapely.

Around a blazing fire, the men were arrayed on one side, pounding out rhythms with sticks against anything that would make a noise - logs, coconuts, rocks - you name it. The girls, six or eight at a time, danced in a circle around the fire while the whole assemblage sang a native song. We sat and joined in the clapping to the rhythm. This went on, so help me, until after 2 A.M. The ship's captain finally broke up the party. We shook hands with all the participants, went back to our area and climbed into our bed rolls on the sand. We slept soundly.

By 8 o'clock the next morning we had broken camp and were on the way to the beach. Every man, woman and child was there to bid us Goodbye - safe journey - come again. (We didn't know the words of their language but could interpret.)

Onto the sail boat and anchor aweigh. Out of the harbor and into the expanse of water. Soon all six of us were catching the sleep we had missed. We were in good hands because "the captain is with you." We were awake before noon, refreshed, sailing along at a good clip under a cloudless sky, cutting our way through moderate waves.

About mid-afternoon, one of the crew pointed off in the distance. At first we could see nothing but then, dimly a shape stood out on the horizon. We were heading for a landing on Waya Lailai (Why-a Lie-a-lie). The greeting on landing and the evening/night celebration were carbons of the previous day. After we had rested, the captain announced that we would visit the "store." Down the beach and around a bend was a boarded-up shed. The captain explained: this had been a trading post, run by a Chinese but owned and financed by the English on the mainland. A supply boat came once a month and deposited what the natives ordered - mostly cloth and a few staples such as sugar, spices, etc. These were bartered at pre-arranged prices for coconuts, mother-of-pearl shells, dried fish, an occasional turtle, etc. What happened to the Chinese trader? When the war started, the natives chased him off. He looked too Japanese. Now the English brought the supplies monthly and made their own trades.

Again that night a tra-la-la.

The next morning, after the natives waved us off, we noticed some fast-moving small clouds overhead. When we cleared the harbor we saw that we had white-capped waves, rather than our usual calm water. Still, we had good sailing until early afternoon. The wind picked up, the waves got bigger and the white clouds turned dirty. A half hour of this and the captain started a tacking maneuver. We saw our island and heard the surf against the shore. Many times as we tacked back and forth to make our landfall we heard the reassuring: "Don't worry. The captain is with you." Suddenly, as though some divine benevolent hand had stilled the waters, we were in a calm harbor and we could see that we had made a protected cove.

Here we met the only whites on the trip. Just shortly after we felt dry land under our feet, we heard a shout from the bay: "Will you give us a hand here?" A small power boat had pulled into the bay and was standing offshore. The six of us (captain and crew stayed on the beach) waded out to the boat. The water was chest deep. A family of five - two children, man and wife and wife's mother - needed transport to shore. The children rode piggy-back. The wife and mother rode in "arm baskets" - two of us making a square seat with hands grasping wrists. The man told us that he, too, would need a ride to shore after he had secured his boat. He, too, was carried in using an "arm basket."

When he was deposited on shore, and without a word of thanks, he announced: "I hope you chaps realize this is private property and you can't camp here." British Cheek!

The captain quickly told us that one of the crew members would guide us to the other side of the island. The captain and other two crew members brought the sail boat around. After about a half-hour walk we were at another beach, the sun came out and our boat came into sight.

This was the island Waya. We had a clean, sandy beach as our home. The island was relatively uninhabited. We spent some time climbing the low hills, following cliff paths and exploring gullies. Of course, we were always shadowed by the crew members. We saw no more than a half dozen native men who greeted our crew while quizzically eyeing the white-skinned foreigners. Our crew must have made a good explanation for we received a warm smile and hand wave when they left.

Without any dark-skinned sultry beauties to sing and dance around the bonfire we had no Tra-la-la that night. We were more than glad to spend the hours sleeping.

The next day we sailed in beautiful weather to Naviti (Nah-Vee-Tee). This was the island of the chief of the Yasawa group of islands. A rough-hewn canoe, manned by four natives, pulled along-side our sailboat and we were invited to get in. The captain stayed with his craft to bring it to anchorage. It was logical that our native craft, with four natives, six white soldiers and three crew members, would swamp before we got to shore. With great peals of laughter we were thrown into chin-deep water. We made it to shore in a mad scramble.

Our captain arrived soon after we and just in time, for we were surrounded by outstretched hands. Of course, he had brought the ration of candy and a carton of cigarettes. We passed out the candy and the captain doled out the cigarettes - two to each man and one to each woman. We were then escorted to the chief's hut and were presented to the chief. Each of us received a handshake and three or four Tiger's Eyes - a semi-precious stone harvested from the sea floor by native divers.

Our captain had also brought our bag of Kava. Kava is a thin, stringy root and as purchased still had a quantity of topsoil attached. The chief expressed his deep appreciation and clapped his hands as a signal to prepare for the Kava ceremony. A large pot was brought in, a fire was built, the root was dropped into the pot of water with native incantations (and also with the original garden dirt attached). It was boiled, transferred to another pot to cool and set aside. We six soldiers, the chief, our captain and crew and what must have been the island council (eight or ten) formed a circle sitting cross-legged on the ground.

A half coconut shell was dipped into the warm Kava and presented to the chief. He took a drink and passed it to his guests then on to the captain, crew and council. As it was emptied, the shell was refilled. When it had made a transit of half the circle, a second "cup" was brought out and continued the round. Incidentally, it tasted like muddy water in which some nondescript weed had been boiled. After the ceremonial drink had made three complete circuits, the chief rose a bit unsteadily, clapped his hands and the dancing girls came forth for a tra-la-la.

They say that Kava is mildly narcotic, causing a weakness in the legs. I'll leave it up to you how your legs would feel after squatting cross-legged for a long fifteen minutes.

The chief announced (and our captain interpreted) that we would sleep in his hut on straw mats that night.

While the dance went on we were served palm-leaf trays of broiled fish and clams. It was tasty.

A large pit had been dug in the sand about four feet wide, six feet long and a foot and a half deep. The pit was filled with dried coconut husks and set on fire. The coconut husks make a very hot fire. When the flames had died down and the white hot embers remained, one of the native boys let out a yell and ran toward the six foot length of the fire. He didn't stop but took two steps over the coals. We were watching Fijian fire walkers! (Actually, they were fire runners but I wouldn't do it!) A half dozen natives and even two of our crew made the run. I watched closely to see the trick. Their feet did not sink into the hot embers but seemed to skim over the surface. It probably helped, too, that their feet, never having been encased in shoes, had very thick callused soles. We gave them a long round of applause, well deserved.

Eventually we went to bed in the chief's hut. In the morning we awoke to a breakfast of spit-broiled chicken, one for each of us served on the spit fore and aft. Actually they were small chickens - about squab-sized. Very delicious and tender.

Our captain had a short, serious conversation with the chief, then relayed a message and request to us: Chief had sore knees and back. Did we have any medicine? We were truly sorry that none of us had so much as an aspirin to relieve his rheumatism or arthritis.

We spent the fifth day sailing to and visiting Yangetta (Yan-Get-A) and Nathula (Naw-Thu-La). Yangetta was a short trip and Nathula was our overnight area. Neither island was heavily populated.

Our plan had been to spend the sixth day at Yasawa (Yaw-Sow-A) island, the last in the chain. We were told that it had an underwater cave with "chinese" writing on the walls. However, when the sixth day dawned, our captain noted the wind and gathering clouds and elected to head home, stopping at Waya overnight and on the mainland on our last day. The captain was right in his assessment, as usual. We debarked at Lautoka, said goodbye to our captain and crew and returned to our camp.

Though we didn't know it, we still had about six months residing on Viti Levu Island, Fiji. We, as a new division, found that it was not much different than when we had been a task force. Since we had been split off from a medium maintenance ordnance to become a light maintenance we were a smaller group and were told we would have less duties. We picked up quite a number of new men since the reorganization had left us undermanned.

The instrument repair group, on our arrival at Fiji, consisted of Joe the section chief and another Joe, repairman. The first replacement group gave us Ernie, a watchmaker, and Paul, Ronald and Don, repairmen. Ernie was Mexican, Paul was Slavic, Don was a quiet Jewish fellow and Ronald was I don't know what. The other Joe soon decided to transfer to the small arms section to be near his hometown buddy.

Ernie conceded that he was the Mexican Bing Crosby, though he sounded more like Bert Lahr. Paul was energetic and quick to learn. Don quietly went his way but did more work than anyone. He made up for Ronald who snuck in bunk time whenever he could get away with it. In all, it was a workable group.

For a while our Captain insisted that we find something to do in the shops, even if there was little or no actual work. He soon realized this was futile and told us we were on our own: When work came, it should be first priority until finished. During dead periods we could do as we pleased as long as we stayed out of trouble. It worked out well.

We found a nearby tree loaded with mangos, ripe and delicious. We visited Lautoka, bought hand-made silver trinkets from the Indian merchants. Tried curry and rice meals and just generally touristed.

One day another group set up tents next to our area. We learned that they were quartermaster corps. One rather large tent had two guards posted at the front entrance. This greatly heightened our curiosity, so while Paul and I engaged the guards in conversation: "What's your outfit? Where's your home town?, etc.," two of our tentmates were surveying the contents of the tent, having made entrance under the rear flap. When we met them back at our tent, they had treasure: a carton of sealed tins marked "Planter's Peanuts." We opened a can to find we had a load of Avalon cigarettes. Served us right.

Our English friend from Sun Oil visited our camp and introduced us to an Australian Red Cross worker who was recruiting for parts in his staging of "The Merry Widow." After several weeks of rehearsals in Lautoka with some local girls (one of whom had a beautiful soprano voice) it was apparent that the show would be better called "Selections from the Merry Widow and other Operettas." Providentially, the Red Cross worker was called back to Australia and the show was taken over by the Army Special Services Group, which had its own performers. They replaced the semi-classical songs with parodies: "Spam, the illegitimate ham" and "Atabrine" to the tune of "Tangerine."

We were visited by Eleanor Roosevelt. We spent a day policing the area, straightening the line of tents, getting out our dress uniforms, shining shoes, etc., etc. Next morning we ran through a mock inspection, straightened out a few things that hadn't looked right, had a second mock inspection and then stood and waited. After about half an hour, someone yelled, "Here they come!" and we could see a parade of staff cars proceeding past our road along the main route a half mile away at the foot of our hill. As they disappeared around a curve, some wag yelled, "There they go!" Such was our visit with Eleanor.

But all good things must come to an end and so did our stay in Fiji. In late December '43 we were again on a troop ship, the USS American Legion.