Our people: Brigadier Ian Thorpe CBE

Brigadier Ian Thorpe CBE. Photo/Stephen Parker

When Brigadier Ian Thorpe CBE delivers the address at Wednesday's Anzac civic service Rotorua will be tuned into one of this country's most highly ranked and decorated former Army officers.

Nor is Thorpe a "mere" brigadier. In Fiji where he's also served he's addressed as Brigadier General.

His is a military career that spans more than 50 years during which he's served two monarchs and two countries.

With his service so distinguished it's mission impossible for Our People to do this professional military man justice, rather we've chosen to highlight a handful of postings and personal milestones.

Away from the parade ground, Tarawera has been the Thorpes' playground since 1960 when Thorpe and Pat, his wife of 59 years, were drawn there by two things the army couldn't offer, trout fishing and sailing.

Despite the comings and goings military life demands, they've been integral members of in the local community; for some years Ian was Tarawera and neighbouring Rotomahana lakes' launch master, they've also run a crowd-pulling sailing school.

Thorpe was 17 when his Army career began as a cadet in Australia's Royal Military College, Duntroon.

The son of parents unable to afford a university education for him, the Army was his ideal alternative.

"I was looking for something where I could study and play rugby."

One of only four Kiwis in his intake "three of us are still alive and kicking" the first year was bully central.

"It was called bastardisation, its aim was to pull people down and make them amenable to the harsh training."

Thorpe survived, studying English, physics and chemistry, along with military exercise and three hours of sport a day.

His first New Zealand posting was Papakura Military Camp where he instructed compulsory military trainees (CMT). "Some were my age, 21, I won favour when I formed a company rugby team that included three future All Blacks." All Blacks' captain Wilson Whineray (later Sir Wilson) included.

Thorpe took a CMT contingent earmarked as promising officer material to Waiouru, among them Rotorua's Pita Anaru (Our People, May 31, 2015).

"I had to study late every night to stay one step ahead of them."

Thorpe's Bay of Plenty introduction was in the early 1950s when he was appointed adjutant of the Hauraki Regiment, "the biggest battalion in New Zealand". The Haurakis played an integral role at the recently-crowned Queen's 1954 Arawa Park reception.

"I'm impressed how much kapa haka's improved, then it was very rough and ready, people dressed in all kinds of clothing, . . . Beer bottles everywhere."

Thorpe was earmarked for Korean war service but its ending signalled his first association with Fiji. He was sent to command its platoon tackling communist insurgents in the Malayan jungles.

"It was by far the most efficient unit in the history of the emergency, their job was to kill terrorists, they were twice as effective as the Ghurkhas."

He learnt Fijian and gave himself a fright looking in a mirror. "I'd think my God I've got a white face."

In Jahore the platoon was involved in what could have been an international incident, adroitly avoided, obviously by Thorpe, although he doesn't say so.

"One of our patrols killed a tiger, we discovered tigers belonged to the Sultan, we sent a delegation with a whale's tooth to seek forgiveness . . . Later the crown prince presented us with the most beautiful tiger skin compete with head. It hangs in the military headquarters in Suva, it's a bit moth eaten now."

Thorpe's first meeting with Pat, a teacher turned Army officer, was at Waiouru where he was adjutant of the Army schools. Fraternisation between the sexes came close to firing squad material.

Pat Thorpe gives us a peek of how they got together. "We met in the mess, I immediately thought he was rather nice with the most beautiful accent. I applied for leave, he happened to be going on leave too, offered me a lift to Auckland." The insight ends there.

But we do learn the day after they became engaged Thorpe was directed to attend the UK School of Infantry, attached to the Coldstream Guards as they exercised in Germany.

It was more than a year before the pair reunited and married, the dictates of an inter-military marriage forced Pat Thorpe to relinquish her commission and return to teaching.

Settled in Wellington, Thorpe oversaw the military's involvement in a major SEATO conference.

Getting with military precision to the official opening from Trentham was any Army commander's logistical nightmare, the scheduled transport was a no show.

"I commandeered horse floats, anything on four wheels, to ferry them into Wellington, Land Rovers were tearing along with soldiers standing in trailers, they just had time to brush hay off their uniforms before the formalities began."

In 1962 with their family roll call increased by two daughters, the Thorpes moved to England where Thorpe was seconded to the UK Staff College. Their son was born during that period.

Thorpe was summoned back to Malaya (now Malaysia), "helping clear up the remnants of communists active in Indonesia and Borneo".

At the height of the Vietnam war he was second-in-command of the Anzac Battalion in Nui Dat.

Like most who served there his reaction to that controversial conflict remains guarded.

"It was beneficial to the Army, we got good experience, whether the whole war was worthwhile isn't easy to answer."

Pat Thorpe blames Vietnam for her husband's profound deafness. "We exchanged tapes, all I could hear in the background was gunfire… boom, boom, boom."

He's spent more time in the UK, in Australia and with the SAS. When he retired in 1974 he was director of this country's defence operations. But his Army days weren't done, that's when Fiji snaffled him up – twice, first as its Commander of Military Forces then as Commandant of the Fiji Officers' School and military adviser to the government of that coup-prone island nation.

As Pat Thorpe succinctly puts it, "his life's been rather busy".

IAN THORPE CBE
Born: Auckland, 1930
Education: Remuera Primary, Auckland Grammar, Duntroon Military College
Family: Wife Pat, two daughters, one son, six grandchildren, one great-granddaughter
Honours and decorations: 14 including CBE, OF (Officer of the Order of Fiji), MSD (Meritorious Service Decoration), MID, (Mentioned in Dispatches).
Interests: Family. "Staying alive". Sudoku, crossword puzzles, woodwork (makes beautiful boxes). Sailing, fishing "not so much these days".
On his Life: "I've been very, very lucky."
On Anzac Day: "It's the day people pay attention to old soldiers, sailors, airmen, it's the day for them, the day to remember."
Personal philosophy: "I don't have one."