John Jones the last surviving Gilbert Islands Coast Watcher has died aged 96. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/89163265/last-survivor-of-wwii-radio-operators-in-kiribati-dies Jones was one of the New Zealand radio operators who the New Zealand government virtually left to fend for themselves in the Kiribati islands after the Japanese entered the war. Most of the others, working for the antecedent of New Zealand Post and including Jones' three best friends, were executed by Japanese sword. Jones had the good fortune - if you could call it that - of being sent to a prisoner of war camp in Japan. Jones' funeral will be at Snapper Rock on Monday, February 13 at 1pm. He long battled for a memorial for his fellow Coast Watchers and finally saw a permanent memorial unveiled in Wellington in 2014. The Coast Watchers were unarmed volunteers sent to the remote Gilbert Islands, now Kiribati, just before Japan entered the Second World War. Their job was to send reports on German military movements back to Allied forces. Jones was one of seven Coast Watchers on Butaritari atoll in the north of the group. Days after the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, he was captured and taken to a prison camp in Japan. He long battled for a memorial for his fellow Coast Watchers and finally saw a permanent memorial unveiled in Wellington in 2014. Seventeen others were beheaded by the Japanese on Tarawa atoll after being captured in August and September 1942, as retaliation for an American raid on the atolls. An eighteenth, Ron Third, was based on Ocean Island, now called Banaba, died in captivity after the island was captured by Japan in August that year. Five other civilians - three Britons, an Australian and a New Zealander - were also killed in the Tarawa massacre. Toward the end of the war, while still a prisoner, Jones heard from a captured American what had happened to his friends. He remained haunted by the horrific nature of their deaths. A life-time of sorrow and guilt, along with an anger over the lack of recognition for the Coast Watchers, followed for Jones. "I have been trying for years to get the government to give recognition to our people," he told Stuff in October 2014. "They certainly were not listening to me. "It got to the stage where I wasn't expecting anything anyway." For years Jones would not take part in Anzac Day, the memories were too raw. That changed in Anzac Day 2012. Feeling his time was running out, and knowing it had been 70 years since his mates had been murdered, Jones did something he hadn't done before - lay a wreath. "I felt very lonely," he said after laying the wreath at the Takapuna Anzac service, "and I thought believe it or not, my three friends, I will see shortly. "It is the first wreath that has ever been laid for them." He wanted other New Zealanders to know of the men. "Each year I get so sad over the whole damn thing." Successive governments, Jones believes, kept quiet about the executed men, not wanting to make trouble with post-war Japan. Like Jones, most of the executed men were Post and Telegraph department operators and they had all trained for the mission at Wellington's Courtenay Place Post Office. An account of that Anzac Day was seen by the bosses at NZ Post - the direct descendent of the old Post and Telegraph department. Chief executive Brian Roche set up a meeting with Jones and a memorial wall was decided upon. "They were our employees who volunteered for service. A number of them did not come back. It seems appropriate we recognise their contribution." The memorial carried the inscription: "In memory of 17 New Zealand Coast Watchers executed by the Japanese Army, Oct 15th 1942 on Betio Islet, Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands, now Kiribat. "For nine months prior, knowing the 7 Coast Watchers in the northern atolls had been captured before Christmas 1941, they gave daily reports with no outside help and no means of escape." "With lasting memories of my 3 best friends, Rex, Arthur and Cliff". "From Coast Watcher, Butaritari Atoll, Kiribati".
