North Korea threats: Old soldiers say it'll blow over

World War II veteran Ivan Grbich (left), Allen Martin (Korea) and Merv Reid (Korea) are not expecting war with Korea.

Three old soldiers who attended this month's Battle of Britain commemoration at Waipapakauri were not losing any sleep over the possibility of war between North Korea and the United States.

Ivan Grbich, who enlisted with the RNZAF as a 17-year-old in 1940, Allen Martin and Merv Reid, both of whom served in Korea, agreed that the current stand-off would be resolved without resorting to arms.

"There will be a bit of sabre-rattling, but it won't go anywhere," Mr Reid said, although Mr Martin fully expected Japan to retaliate against the threats it was receiving.

Meanwhile Mr Grbich, now aged 94, clearly recalled persuading his father to permit him to enlist with the Navy. He fill in the form at the Herekino Post Office, but was informed that he would not be required at that time. He was invited to try again when he was 18.

"I would have been the best sailor they had ever seen, or so I thought," he said 77 years later, but, "somewhat crestfallen," he returned to the Post Office to apply to the Air Force, before his father had a chance to change his mind.

"They took me," he said.

He went on to serve in the Pacific as a radio/radar operator and gunner with 3 Squadron, initially based at Ohakea, where it remains today, then Whenuapai, before being deployed to Vanuatu in 1942.

It was the first New Zealand squadron to be sent to the front line on Guadalcanal later that year, conducting low-level searches for Japanese staging points.

Re-equipped with Lockheed Venturas in 1944, the squadron was deployed in Bougainville and on Emirau Island, in the Bismarck Archipelago, flying interdiction patrols against Japanese ships and ground targets.