Hingston said although Maori made up just 12 per cent of Rotorua's population at the time, all but a half dozen recruits were young Maori men who dreamed of adventure.
"We didn't have an O.E. in those days - this was our O.E.," Hingston said.
He said he had to pull out his nephew's school atlas when he heard word he would be going to Malaya.
The troops trained in the snow-covered tussocks of Waiouru before boarding the ship for the 17-day journey to Singapore where they had more training - and better opportunity to acclimatise to the weather they would face in Malaysia.
Anaru, a school principal who had been in the territorials and had his commission, took his wife with him to Malaya. She found work as a teacher and they saw each other between operations.
The battalion was split into platoons of about 30 men who would go on patrols, often for weeks at a time, to find terrorists.
"I reckon we walked from one end of Malaya to the other about 10 times through the jungle," Bidois said.
The Kiwis, many of whom grew up pig hunting, adjusted well to jungle warfare and gained a special reputation. They were credited with eliminating at least 21 terrorists.
Led by a tracker and dog handler they would snake in single file through the jungle.
Bidois, a scout, said the dog handlers were almost always the first to be targeted by the enemy, as without them the platoon would be directionless.
Aside from ambushes, the main dangers of the jungle were ants, leeches, mosquitoes and malaria. Both Hingston and Bidois were laid up with malaria twice.
"It was like a double dose of flu," Bidois said.
In another platoon a soldier was dragged out of his hammock by a tiger.
The trio remembered the airdrops, which would resupply the platoons every seven to 10 days.
Packages of food, clothing, boots, cigarettes and - if they were lucky - rum bottles would rain from the skies.
As commander, it fell to Anaru to dole out the rum to the 30 men under his control each night.
"I slept with it under my pillow."
It also fell to him to make the morning and evening radio calls back to their company. The signal produced by the old A510 military radio was poor so they used Morse code to communicate.
Talking to the Rotorua Daily Post about it yesterday triggered his muscle memory.
Sixty years fell away for a moment as, smiling, he tapped out on the table the series of dots and dashes that formed his call sign.
The battalion returned home in December of 1959, minus four who fell and were buried in a cemetery in Malaya.
Why this year may be the last
The 1st Battalion, New Zealand Association has reunited every couple of years for decades.
In the early days 200-plus would attend but this year the Rotorua-based organising committee was expecting closer to 60, most of whom would be in their 80s.
Anaru said at the association's AGM on Thursday they would discuss whether to wind up this year; to lower the flag and march together formally one final time in Rotorua.
Reunion programme
Monday, November 27: Informal welcome at the Rotorua Club
Tuesday, November 28: Memorial service at Ohinemutu
Wednesday, November 29: Lakeland Queen cruise on Lake Rotorua and official dinner at Ohinemutu
Thursday, November 30: 1st Battalion New Zealand Regiment Association AGM
Repatriation effort under way for Malaya dead
The four Kiwi men of 1st Battalion, New Zealand Infantry Regiment killed in Malaya are among those whose remains may soon be repatriated.
R.M. Breitmeyer, P. Brown, T. Kawha and B.J. Tuxworth were buried in Kamunting Road Christian Cemetery in Taiping.
In April the Government extended the offer to the families of servicemen and women buried overseas since 1955, to bring them home at public expense.
The Defence Force is leading the project, named Te Auraki (The Return), and expected to bring a plan and costs for Malaysia and Singapore repatriations to Government in early 2018.
