Toti Donnelly
It is a sad reality that many of our Ngati Porou military veterans have gone to their graves without having their life stories told.
I am writing a series of their stories which I want to share with you about these honourable ladies and gentlemen who are now in the twilight of their years, before it is too late. The first is a former sailor who I have come to know a lot more personally since returning home.
His name is Teurangaotera Tuwhakairiora Tuhaka, QSM.
He was born in 1935 at Rangitukia.
Many only know him as Toti or Totitoti (limp along) which will be explained later.
He was christened at Waiomatatini on the Porourangi Marae by Sir Apirana Ngata who gave Toti his Christian name, Teurangaotera, which means arrival of the sun. Tuwhakairiora is the sacred name of the legendary Ngati Porou ancestor.
He attended Rangitukia Primary School where his mother was his teacher.
The whānau owned and worked a farm.
They then moved to Waiomatatini to be closer to his grandparents.
As a very young boy Toti was given the task of caring for his grandfather Turei who had fallen off his horse and as a result was crippled and walked with a permanent limp.
Every day Toti would help his grandfather and both would be seen limping together, so he was given the name Toti which has stuck with him to this very day.
One day during his first year at Ruatoria High School the navy recruiters arrived.
“Who are they?” Toti said to his mate. “What are they talking about?”
The boys had never ever seen a navy warship.
Then his mate made a simple statement that would change Toti's life forever —“let's join the navy”
Nine students went through to Gisborne on the back of a cream truck squeezed among the cream cans.
The recruiting office was part of the old Gisborne RSA in those days.
Toti and his mates sat the entrance exam but only Toti passed.
A few weeks later he received a letter saying he had been accepted to join the navy.
His bus trip to Auckland was a real “eye opener”.
He saw what a strange but wonderful world awaited him.
As a 15-year-old boy seaman, nine months on Motuihe Island/Te Motu-a-Ihenga in the Hauraki Gulf was a harsh reality, but Toti enjoyed the tough discipline and comradeship that naval training brought to his life.
Then he was drafted to HMNZS Bellona for sea training and to categorise the boys into specialist qualifications. Toti had no preference as to what branch he served and he was selected to be a gunnery rate.
When the Korean war broke out he and his good friend Charlie “Boogie” Brown, also from Gisborne, were drafted to HMNZS Hawea.
It was the beginning of a 12-month deployment in Korea.
As a gunner and loading number on the ship's main armament, the 4-inch single barrel gun, Toti said, “I never worried too much about my safety whenever we went into action. My sole aim was to keep the gun firing.”
They never knew whether they had hit their targets, or their identity.
Their main mission was to patrol the Han River, offer naval gun fire support (NGFS) and to engage shore targets when the occasion arose.
On one such occasion the Hawea was sent up the Han River to shore-spot for the American battleship USS Missouri.
They came under heavy fire from a shore battery with shells falling all around them only a few yards away.
The commanding officer immediately turned the ship around and withdrew from the area at full speed and began a zigzag course.
Toti and his gun crew were helpless to do anything as their gun could not train beyond the safety arcs.
“It was a horrific feeling that I felt as we were so vulnerable for that period of time.”
How their ship never got hit was indeed a miracle, Toti reckons. “God must have been on our side that day.”
Back in Auckland the ship's company were given part annual leave, so Toti returned home.
One day while he was in the hills scrubcutting the local policeman yelled out, “Hey Toti, you're been recalled back to the naval base immediately.”
On arrival back to the naval base he was informed that he had been drafted to HMNZS Kaniere which was to go back up to Korea.
Kaniere was to be the last New Zealand frigate involved in the Korean war.
Once again their role was patrols and NGFS.
They were also involved in the evacuation of South Korean partisans.
Toti recalls the freezing cold sub-zero weather conditions whenever they went on to the upper deck.
They had to keep ice from forming on certain parts of their weapons.
“As a more experienced gunner I was also required to take charge of the 40/60 Bofors close range gun and teach the crew gun drill.”
The Kaniere was on patrol and engaged in a NGFS engagement against shore targets when the ceasefire was declared.
However, Kaniere continued on in a peacekeeping role until she returned home in March 1954.
“You never ever get used to war, it is something that remains with you forever.
“I am just so proud that I served and so grateful that I lived.”
After “swallowing the anchor” (retiring) from the RNZN, Toti found employment with the Gisborne Harbour Board as a diver.
(He had been a ship's diver in the navy).
He worked for the New Zealand Railways as an electrician specialising in tunnel lighting, and as a supervisor of the Gisborne Underwater Club.
A former shipmate, Brian “Brushes” Nolan asked Toti to join him in a diving job on the Dutch dredge Formosa Prince which had come to Gisborne to dredge parts of the harbour. Toti immediately accepted.
Once the task was completed Toti was offered the chance to go to Singapore with the dredge but he declined, as his wife Teaaupare (Bena) was pregnant.
Later Toti and Bena ran a pest control business which was very successful.
He credits his wife with the success and running of their business.
When he finally retired Toti, who was a member of the Gisborne RSA and was known for helping war veterans and for his wider service to the community, was awarded the Queen's Service Medal.
Nowadays Toti watches TV, enjoys going to the RSA with his daughter Simone who is his carer, having a beer or two and a meal and likes to talk about the good old days.
At home he is surrounded by his moko who take loving care of their “pop”, a navy veteran whose life has been a long and wonderful voyage.
“He heramana ahau.”
“I am a sailor.
“I shall pass through this life but once, any good or kindness to my fellow human beings that I can do, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.”
Gisborne marae received more than $800,000 for solar and battery installations.