Bespectacled Scot who helped NZ make friends in high places

Peter Fraser (centre) with Winston Churchill and General Dwight Eisenhower in June 1945.

In 1939, when the world went to war, New Zealand had a full-time army of just 593 soldiers.

Its economy was skint and Labour Prime Minister Michael Savage was critically ill with colon cancer - bad news kept secret.

Yet six years later, when the Allies celebrated the victorious end of World War II, New Zealand's wartime leadership could reflect on a period when the country punched above its weight and enjoyed relationships at the highest levels.

A new history of how a small nation on the rim of the Commonwealth won a place at the top table has been told by former top public servant Gerald Hensley.

His book, Beyond the Battlefield: New Zealand and its Allies 1939-45, unfolds through the wartime archives he studied in Wellington, Washington, Canberra and London.

Hensley, former Secretary of Defence and head of the Prime Minister's Department for Muldoon and Lange, follows politicians and diplomats taking the country from backwater to a world-stage at rapid speed.

At the core of his account is Education Minister Peter Fraser, a white-haired, 54-year-old who stepped into the breach before officially becoming prime minister. Fraser went by flying boat to meet his British counterpart Winston Churchill, bankers and the War Cabinet in September 1939.

It was one of many journeys. The 10-day island-hopping trips were tiring and dangerous. Once after Fraser missed his plane, it crashed, killing all on board.

Fraser, a Scot who migrated to New Zealand aged 15, was a night owl who lived on a diet of soggy toast and tea. A former pacifist - he was jailed during World War I for sedition - was uncomfortable sipping brandy at Chequers with Churchill.

He was instead a pragmatist and a tireless slugger. But although not bosom buddies, Churchill respected Fraser, says Hensley, and would silently listen and cut reasonable deals.

In June 1940, after the fall of France, Fraser sent Churchill a personal telegram, saying: "We hope that you do fight on, and if you do we'll back you to the end."

Fraser was not afraid to pop hard questions. He complained in 1940 that ships carrying New Zealand troops were not properly escorted. And when several thousand New Zealanders were marooned on Crete in 1942, Fraser, on another flying mission, politely but firmly asked the Mediterranean fleet commander, Admiral Cunningham, if the Navy could send just one more ship. Cunningham acquiesced and 1400 battle-weary Kiwi troops came home on a cruiser - although the escorting destroyer was sunk.

But Fraser could push things too far. Churchill once wrote a memo saying he was overstepping the mark, but decided not to send it.

Churchill lent a hand on another occasion. By December 1941, after the Japanese had crippled the United States' Pacific Fleet and were apparently heading our way, New Zealand's home guard had no rifles and the army few heavy weapons to defend the nation.

Churchill telegraphed President Franklin Roosevelt at the height of the invasion scare in January 1942 to ask: "What has been done about the New Zealand telegram asking for large quantities of weapons?"

In Wellington, Fraser could be a difficult customer. He burned out his first departmental head, the gifted Carl Berendsen, who put his ulcer largely down to his boss. Fraser regarded Berendsen's replacement Alister McIntosh, as "the man from the library" and would keep him hanging around until 10pm or later. then fall asleep while McIntosh read telegrams aloud.

Hensley says Fraser was skilled at making judgments, but relied particularly on Berendsen, who travelled on the key journeys between 1939 and 1943, to translate his thoughts into fine prose. In 1943 Berendsen was made New Zealand's first High Commissioner to Australia where he was plunged into a row over where New Zealand troops were deployed.

After the battle of El Alamein, Australia's chief concern was the war with the Japanese. It transferred its troops from North Africa, where they had been fighting alongside the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, to New Guinea.

The New Zealand Government considered following suit. But bringing troops back from Europe did not stand up strategically. America and Britain argued the New Zealand force should be used in Italy, just across the Mediterranean. And by early 1943, with New Zealand a significant American base, the Japanese invasion threat was over.

Fraser knew Australia would see this allegedly Eurocentric decision as "treachery." Australia's Prime Minister, John Curtin, accused the New Zealanders of being afraid of malaria, which was causing Aussie Diggers three times as many casualties as the Japanese.

With Australia under threat and their troops in a difficult jungle war, they felt New Zealand should show Anzac spirit, rather than bend to the major powers.

Hensley says this rift was the most serious between the two countries but, in retrospect, the New Zealand point of view was quite logical.

Though relations with Canberra were cool, the heat was on with Washington, in part due to an arrangement called the Lend-Lease system.

This was where America guaranteed it would supply New Zealand with weapons, in return for food for US forces. New Zealand got everything from tanks to tobacco - although a request for condoms was deemed "not part of the war effort".

By 1943, New Zealand's economy was booming, paid for largely by "Uncle Sam". The country, which began the war virtually bankrupt, ended with considerable foreign exchange reserves. Relationships with London and Washington were sound. The only problem lay in the trans-Tasman area as the two countries, observes Hensley, had different views of their own interests.

Beyond the Battlefield: New Zealand and its Allies 1939-45 by Gerald Hensley (Penguin Group) $65.