Merle Stephanie Farland OBE (1906)

Born 1906 in New Zealand

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Biography

Merle Farland OBE is Notable.

Merle Stephanie Farland was born in 1906 in New Zealand. She was the eldest daughter of Harold Farland and Elizabeth Stephens. ^[1]

Proficient at the piano from an early age, Merle took up piano teaching as a young adult.

Merle was a missionary nurse

Towards the late 1920s, however, the Depression 'killed' demand for her services. So, Merle trained as a nurse, becoming State Registered in 1934.

In 1938, she took up a position nursing at the Helena Goldie Hospital at the New Zealand Methodist Mission, Bilua, on Vella Lavella, in the Solomon Islands. Upon arrival, she found the hospital in its own compound, complete with operating theatre, wards and an outpatients clinic. The ex-pat staff comprised a doctor and his wife, and another nurse. Her work entailed not merely basic nursing, but also injections and inoculations, bone-setting, lancing abscesses, delivering babies, raining native nurses and pulling teeth. Merle quickly learned the local dialect and would paddle her canoe to see patients on outlying islands. After three years, Merle enjoyed a six-month furlough in New Zealand, arriving back for duty just as Pearl Harbor was bombed in December 1941. ^[2]

In the subsequent turmoil, as most Europeans evacuated – including the doctor, his wife and other nurse – Merle opted to remain, explaining in a letter to a friend: ^[2]

"It is surely not consistent with Christian service that our medical work should be completely dropped because things are a little difficult. I am the only medical person left. Therefore I stay. There is no other course."

Together with Reverend Watty Silvester, who also remained at Bilua, Merle became a volunteer Coastwatcher, reporting by teleradio on the weather and, shortly, Japanese air and shipping movements. They were ably supported by every native on the island. This they did throughout 1942. Merle was also called upon to travel to and treat downed US aircrews. In early December, she paddled three days to relieve Kiwi Coastwatcher Don Kennedy on New Georgia. The resident commissioner heard at this time that Merle was still in the area and ordered her evacuation. On 21st December she was flown out to Noumea by Catalina flying boat, via an overnight stop at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal – the only female amongst 30,000 US Marines! And the rumour spread that she was the missing aviatrix, Amelia Earhart. ^[2]

At Noumea, as well as nursing on the US base, she was feted with invitations to exclusive parties, rubbing shoulders with generals and their wives. Merle was soon attached to US Army HQ Noumea, using her knowledge of the Solomons to decipher aerial reconnaissance images. One photograph had the Americans stumped – a mysterious white stripin the middle of a field was thought to be a new Japanese military installation. Merle was able to set them straight by explaining it was a cricket pitch! ^[2]

Merle later returned to the Solomons, finishing the war at a New Zealand Army Casualty Station in Honiara. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and awarded the Pacific Star campaign medal. She never spoke of her wartime experiences and never appeared to be asked about them until in her later life in the 1990s. ^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ New Zealand Birth Index #1906/8271
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4} Veitch, Michael. Australia's Secret Army: The Story of the Coastwatchers, the Unsung Heroes of Australia's Armed Forces during World War II. Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2000. ISBN 978 0 7336 4847 2