The collection of stories told by my family concerning my father, Keith Loughrey's World War 2 experiences in the Solomon Islands is remarkable for its brevity.
Sharing cigarettes with Japanese prisoners of war; a lifelong problem with vertigo kicking in while climbing rope nets on the side of a ship; and the fear he experienced during night patrols in the jungle searching for the enemy are some.
Another, told to me shortly before his death, was of the American pilots of a landing craft training their weapons on their Kiwi passengers - whom they deemed too keen on shooting at Japanese planes buzzing above - lest they draw fire.
Part of the reason more of these stories were neither told nor requested, was due to the times.
Compared with the popularity of and reverence for wartime efforts shown by the large crowds turning up at Anzac Day events across the country in recent years, in the 1970s, interest was low, and war did not capture the public's imagination.
My father's commitment to remembrance extended to a more-cheerful-than-usual kiss on my mother's cheek when he came home from the Returned Services Association on a Wednesday night, after a couple with his friend, which, every week, resulted in a quiet complaint about his boozy breath.
My father was 5ft 6in (168cm), a gentle man and a gentleman, about as far from the soldier of popular imagination as it is possible to get.
But he was a part of the conflict that tore apart or ended the lives of so many, and Lance Sergeant Loughrey's war experiences echo those of so many others from families across New Zealand.
While much of his involvement seems set to stay lost, the history of the campaign is well recorded.
As part of 3rd New Zealand Divisional Artillery, my father's war was what has been described in the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History as a "mopping-up" operation, clearing the Solomon Islands of Japanese after the Americans had taken Guadalcanal in a bitter campaign.
The "moppin-up" description, though , belies the struggle that took place.
By March 1942, Japanese forces occupied the Solomons, but their attempt to seize Port Moresby was stopped by the Americans at the Battle of the Coral Sea, which was followed by a ground-based counteroffensive.
Guadalcanal was the scene of intense fighting, and was finally taken by the Allies in June 1943.
The Americans began to move north, and the New Zealand 3rd Division, garrisoned at New Caledonia, began its work.
My father's story began a few years earlier.
A friend who served with him, who preferred not to be named for this story, had, with my father, joined the Territorials in 1937, training at St Kilda, where council housing now stands.
"We were both in the 14th Battalion, artillery, at St Kilda.
"That's where we were, that's where we started out.
"A lot of people were in the Territorials. We joined up because we wanted something to do.
"That's where I met Keith.
"He was a signaller; I wanted to be one too.
"God, we had some fun reeling out the signal wire."
Weekly parade was on Monday night, there were weekend camps at Mt Cargill and Whare Flat with mock battles, and week-long camps at Sutton.
"We would sleep in tents, and there would be live shooting up the back of the Lammerlaw Range.
"There were rocks that were painted white. We'd shoot those."
Things changed when war broke out, and troops were sent to a three-month camp at Wingatui racecourse,
"We had great times out there. We'd get into town on leave; there was a train from Wingatui.
"We'd go back into town, into the Criterion pub.
"We had no right to be there, we were only 19 or 20."
That was followed by a train trip back "as full as ticks".
Their next move was to Papakura, a military camp south of Auckland.
My father's war-service record shows movements from Dunedin to Wingatui, Burnham, Washdyke and Rangiora before boarding the USS West Point, formerly the cruise ship America, with about 8000 troops, on December 27, 1942.
The Gunners, an account of the 3rd Division's campaign by J. A. Evans, takes up the story of the 17th field regiment, to which my father was posted as a signalman.
The division landed in New Caledonia, where began a period marked by Dengue fever, tropical rain, training, Vienna sausage and spam, tolerated "because we had to or starve, but like it; never".
On September 13, the move began to Vella Lavella.
The 3rd Division's operations on Vella Lavella ran from September 21 to October 9, 1943.
The division's 14th brigade group was initially landed at an American base on the island's south coast and mounted amphibious landings and patrols to drive the small Japanese garrison from the north of the island.
The New Zealanders killed between 200 and 300 Japanese, with the remaining 589 Japanese personnel being evacuated on the night of October 6-7.
Total New Zealand casualties were 32 killed and 32 wounded.
Montecillo resident Alan Boyle was a "sapper" (engineer) in the 20th field company, which served with the 17th field regiment as it moved through the islands.
It was on Vella Lavella, it seems, the patrols my father spoke of took place.
Alan said Japanese could be seen on beaches of nearby islands, and "we knew they wanted to cross".
"They were trying to get on [the island] at different times. There's no doubt at different times they did get over."
The Gunners tells of a force of 600 to 800 Japanese holding areas in the north and west, and the fight to get rid of them.
"The general scheme of operations was for the combat teams to proceed by barge around the island, landing at various bays on the way and patrolling until they encountered Jap opposition.
"Then they were to withdraw to the last safe bay, establish themselves there and work forward, eliminating opposition until the Japanese were well enclosed in the two jaws of the trap.
"These tactics were very successful."
The jungle, author Evans says, was no place for humans.
"It has eyes but no view, heat but no comfort.
"The sweat silently dams up and spills over in little rivulets down one's spine, cooled by the icy chills of fear.
"As you catfoot through the bog or stumble on the spikes of coral, you have the feeling that slant eyes are watching and yellow fingers tensing on the trigger.
"And then it comes, and you go to ground perhaps for ever, or maybe it's not your turn yet.
"You've found where 'they' are but you're still not sure where 'it' came from.
"Every moving leaf is a menace; mossy veils on the trees loom and threaten. You daren't move. Then the guns begin and you sigh with relief. The gunner's voice risks his betrayal, but it has to be done, and it is done."
By early October the job was done, although aerial bombing by the Japanese continued.
As with war today, "friendly fire" was a problem.
Alan Boyle remembers fellow sappers sent to get a Japanese barge stuck on a reef and abandoned; a vehicle, it was decided, that could prove useful.
"Over come some bloody American fighters.
"They spotted this thing - they were poor navigators - and down they swept."
Three people working on the barge were killed.
The 17th field regiment's next move was to Nissan, or Green Island.
3rd NZ Division's operations there ran from February 15 to February 27, 1944.
The heavily reinforced 14th brigade made an opposed landing on Nissan Island against dogged Japanese resistance on February 15.
The small Japanese garrison resisted the invasion strongly but was overwhelmed by the much larger New Zealand force, with organised resistance coming to an end on February 23.
New Zealand casualties were 10 killed and 21 wounded.
Very few of the defenders surrendered.
Nissan Island, Alan Boyle said, was "a true atoll" with a lagoon in the middle.
The New Zealanders, he said, were bombed by the Japanese as they landed, though their bombers were harassed by Allied fighters, and "not many" Kiwis were killed in the operation.
"It didn't take long to get rid of the Japs there."
Of my father's involvement, one sentence in The Gunners perhaps sheds some light when it notes that the landing began at 8.30am, and "radio communication between all parties was established by 10am".
That success appears to have been tempered by the fact "Allied bulldozers tore out our line communications several times a day, for they changed their roadways every time they changed their minds".
For my father's friend it was the boredom after that he remembered.
"We had a lot of free time, time on your hands to get completely bored.
"Most blokes were sitting around with some hobby; some would do great artworks out of old shell casings."
Other "hobbies" included making "jungle juice", alcoholic concoctions made of everything from fruit juice to peanut butter.
With my father, another way to fill the time was by trying to remember every pub in Dunedin, and planning a day visiting the lot.
In early 1944 the New Zealand Government faced a manpower crisis caused by the demands of maintaining two divisions overseas while simultaneously maintaining agricultural and industrial production to meet the needs of the Allied countries.
The decision was made to disband the 3rd Division.
Lance Sergeant Loughrey's war ended in July 1944, when he disembarked from a ship in Auckland, and his record shows him remaining with his unit, but his health by then meant he was "not fit for the tropics".
There was one final operation carried out, with two troops attempting to fulfil the island dream of visiting every pub in Dunedin.
They made it from Normanby as far as St Clair.
