All hope lost

A Last Secret 15

John Jones was in the huge Zentsuji prisoner of war camp on Japan's Shikoku Island in late 1944 or early 1945 when a wounded American pilot, who had lost his leg after being shot down over the Marshall Islands, was carried in. Jones spoke with him and learnt that the pilot had flown off from Tarawa.

'So I said to him “do you know what happened to the coastwatchers there?” and he said he did not know, then he said, “hang on, there was a monument being put up for them, for the coast watchers, when I was leaving”,’ Jones said. ‘That was when I knew that they had been done in.’

After the disappearance of the New Zealand men, the families were advised that the radio operators had been awarded a Mention-in-Dispatches for bravery. It was only then that the Hearn family learned Rex had been in the army. In December, three months after the killings, the radio operators were attested into the army and given the rank of corporal. It had never happened before that dead men had been enrolled. Doug Vaughan on Funafuti recalled Wernham calling him in on 29 January 1943 and attesting him into the 2NZEF with the rank of corporal.