"WWII undercover ops can now be revealed
By AIMEE COX
After nearly 60 years, Murrays Bay resident Frank Wigzell and his fallen friends can officially be remembered as being part of special operations in World War II.
For the first time this Anzac Day he can stand before a finished memorial that marks the dedication of the hundreds of New Zealanders, including another North Shore man, who served in three special operations units during WWII.
The operations were so secret that there is no military record of the units' existence or participation and they have never been acknowledged by the New Zealand Government.
However, Papakura Military Base funded and put up three memorials on site to remember Special Operations Australia, Special Operations Executive of the United Kingdom and the Long Range Desert Group, which New Zealanders were involved in.
Two memorials have been put up over the last few years, and the final one, the SOE, was unveiled last month and remembers 12 New Zealand men, including Major Don Stott, whose family is from Birkenhead.
However, the secrecy continues as the public is not allowed to enter the site to visit them.
"At least now we have a home in our own country," Mr Wigzell says.
"Nothing has ever been said by the New Zealand Government or New Zealand defence force about us."
The 82-year-old is one of four men still alive who joined Special Operations Australia, SOA, or `Z' special unit, to take part in intelligence work in Japanese controlled Borneo from 1943 to 1945.
As he had no medical records, no one officially recorded his involvement in the special forces, making it hard to get the pension, until about six months ago.
Major Don Stott, who was already a war hero for pole-vaulting out of a prisoner of war camp in Greece, was again acknowledged for his help blowing up a viaduct Germans were using to send equipment into Athens while on the SOE.
Major Stott then trained with Mr Wigzell, but it is presumed he drowned when he tried to kayak from a submarine to Borneo during his time on the SOA.
Mr Wigzell believes his book, New Zealand Army involvement, Special Operations Australia, which was released in 2002 and covers the in-depth operations of the unit, is the main reason behind the memorial.
He has been researching the units' operations since he was released from Special Secrets Act in 1986, and has written three books of military information, but never has there been such a thorough analysis.
For the first time in history, the public is allowed to buy the book from a Takapuna book store.
"I want to get my friends known in their own country. They never have been for 58 odd years," he says.
In the book, Mr Wigzell, who was the first New Zealander to parachute into the south-west Pacific, remembers when he landed on the rice fields he was greeted by "strong muscular figured native warriors" who he befriended.
He remembers "ear lobes pierced, large Hornbill carvings and leopard teeth adorning same, and heavy ornaments hanging from them to their shoulders".
From then on Mr Wigzell says he went "native all the way", sleeping and fighting with the natives, learning some native tongue, and hardly washing, as the clean scent could increase his chance of being caught.
From the jungle he supplied his forces with vital information about Japanese whereabouts, and killed Japanese he came across so they never found out the SOA were in Borneo.
And now, after all these years, the role of those in special operations is marked with the completed Papakura memorial.
© Fairfax New Zealand Limited 2004"