Wally remembers his time serving in Japan in the New Zealand infantry
The wall beside Levin Home for War Veterans resident Wally Jensen’s bed is graced with a large, framed silk embroidery that features New Zealand and Japan’s flags over Mt Fujiyama.
The embroidery is an important memento of Wally’s year in Japan with J-Force when aged 19, he spent much of his time there as a guard, mainly in Tokyo.
When the call went out in 1946 to enlist in J-Force Wally was keen to go and help with the clean-up in Japan. He was among the young men and women who had missed out on wartime service and wanted adventure.
“I was only young. It was one of those things I wanted to do,” he says.
The Commonwealth troops oversaw the Japanese demilitarisation and demobilisation. J-Force was initially deployed in the Yamaguchi prefecture on the southern tip of the main island of Honshu, and on nearby Eta Jima Island. The troops arrived in Kure on the Inland Sea of Japan in March 1946.
“The ship put into port at Kure and we had to navigate our way through half-sunken battleships before we could berth,” Wally remembers.
Now 93, Wally says he moved around Japan a lot while there, spending time in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Yamaguchi and Hagi.
“Hiroshima and Nagasaki were as flat as pancakes as a result of the bombings,” he recalls.
On Wally’s arrival back in New Zealand in 1948 he was presented with
the embroidery, which he treasures and which sits proudly on the wall of his room at Enliven’s Levin Home.
In Levin Enliven offers a full continuum of care from independent retirement living to rest home, hospital and dementia care, shortterm respite, health recovery care and an engaging day programme. To learn more about Enliven’s philosophy and services, visit www. enlivencentral.org.nz. You can also call 06 368 7900 (Reevedon Home) or 06 366 0052 (Levin Home).