Delay angers kin of Kiwis executed in Kiribati

Just months after this August 1941 picture, 17 of the coastwatchers were captured and beheaded. Photo / Supplied

The Defence Force has been criticised for nine months of "evasive" responses to the possible discovery of long-lost Kiwi war heroes in the Pacific.

Seventeen New Zealanders were abandoned and beheaded in Kiribati during World War II, but little effort was made to find them until last October, when a New Zealand diplomat followed a tip-off with a digger and found a set of bodies.

Families have called for action, hoping their loved ones may finally be found, and a forensic scientist has volunteered his expertise with identifications.

The Defence Force sent a letter last month to the United States military asking its team of experts to investigate the next time they were in the area.

"This just feels like a continuation of the almost 70 years of abandonment my uncle and his comrades have endured," said Paul McCredie, whose uncle Arthur Heenan was one of the 17 men killed in the atrocity.

The men, known as "coastwatchers", were unarmed radio operators who were set up in a chain to alert the Allies to enemy ship movements.

But the men were abandoned in their stations by the New Zealand Government as the Japanese approached, according to The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War.

They were captured and beheaded days after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

Heenan is one of the few coastwatchers with living siblings: Eddie Heenan, 91, in Invercargill; Joyce McCredie 89, in Wellington; and Bob Heenan, 84, in Mosgiel.

Pat Nichol, 91, in Omokoroa, brother of Jack, is another coastwatcher sibling still alive, while John Jones, 91, is the sole surviving coastwatcher after being taken prisoner rather than killed.

Keith Stewart, 94, was in Fiji receiving the coastwatchers' communications, which he said became increasingly "harrowing" in the final days.

Allan Clarke, 89, was also involved but died two weeks ago.

Mr McCredie said the people left who knew the coastwatchers were "all just hanging on" - and yet the Defence Force had been evasive and slow to act.

"I mean, it's like the ... war all over again, [the men] saying, 'Please come rescue us' and being ignored. It almost makes my blood boil, and I don't know whether to cry or get angry."

Mr McCredie said he wrote to the Secretary of Defence late last year and was referred to a press release.

He had no response from the Defence communications group director.

H sent an Official Information Act request, followed it up with another message, and eventually received a call.

"It's quite a special case, and we should be doing more about it than just say it was something that happened 70 years ago and we can sweep it under the carpet," Mr McCredie said.

Anne Cooper, niece of coastwatcher Thomas Murray, said her family backed calls to have the remains identified. "But if you recall the recent story about our veterans going to Crete, I don't feel our Defence guys are really interested in spending money in that direction."

A Defence source said a specific inter-government/agency departmental working group of officials existed to progress the matter.

He said existing evidence had been reviewed, a historian had been asked about further information and a request made to an arm of the US military to investigate the site. Accusations of evasiveness were unfair.

Professor Sean Davison of South Africa has offered to identify the bodies.

Beheaded in Kiribati

17 New Zealand civilians and
5 British/Australian civilians

R.G. Morgan. A.L. Sadd. A.E. McKenna. L.B. Speedy. R. Jones. W.A.R. Parker. B. Cleary. A.C. Heenan. A.L. Taylor. C.J. Owen. R.A. Ellis. R.M. McKenzie. I.R. Handley. J.J. McCarthy. T.C. Murray. D.H. Howe. C.A. Kilpin. A.M. McArthur. H.R.C. Hearn. C.A. Pearsall. R.J. Hitchon. J.H. Nichol.