Hide Rodney: General Debates 
Hide Rodney: General Debates 
[Volume:613;Page:9959] 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT) 
: 
 All of us last Sunday attended church services for the 85th remembrance of Armistice Day and all of us I think would have given pause for thought at 11 a.m. yesterday to remember the huge sacrifice that the two generations preceding us gave so we might enjoy our freedom. I think it is fair to say that all of us—every party in this Parliament—want the best for our veterans and we have a struggle all of us to provide a good pension. I want to share with the House the story of one veteran Mr Ross Lynneberg who signed up and was mobilised in 1940 served several months in the Pacific with the Royal New Zealand Navy then through our New Zealand Government was transferred with three other New Zealanders to the Royal Navy and headed to Hong Kong. His timing was bad. They arrived in Hong Kong on 7 December Hong Kong time and the next day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. The Japanese then proceeded to attack Hong Kong and Hong Kong fell on 25 December 1941. The men who were rounded up included Mr Ross Lynneberg and they were held for 9 months in Hong Kong in intolerable conditions. Several men died every day each and every day. 
At the end of those 9 months 1816 men were lined up and loaded on to a freighter the  
Lisbon Maru 
 bound for Japan. They were stowed in three holds. The conditions were tough and there was not enough room for all of them to lie down at once. There were no markings on the  
Lisbon 
Maru 
 and the submarine  
USS Grouper 
 torpedoed her fatally. The Japanese locked the holds so the men could not get out. They off-loaded the 700-odd Japanese soldiers left a skeleton guard and the crew and attempted a tow. The ship started to sink. Men were dying in the holds from the heat the fetid conditions and the diseases. They managed to escape by means of a secreted kitchen knife and were shot as they reached the top. They jumped into the sea where they were also shot and attempted to reach the patrol boats. The patrol boats their screws were used to cut them up in the water. Eventually the Japanese changed the policy because when some lucky men were rescued by Chinese fishermen they realised the game was up. 
Mr Lynneberg was among those who were put on a patrol boat. Some of them died from hypothermia that night. When a roll-call of the 1816 men was taken in Shanghai only 970 answered their names. It was a death ship. Mr Lynneberg survived. He was taken through to Japan where he spent 3 months in what was laughingly called a hospital. A lorry load of men a day would be brought there; at the same time a lorry load of corpses would be taken out. Mr Lynneberg survived and spent something like 3 years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He returned to New Zealand on 27 November at 4 p.m. He started work in a John Newton and Sons soap factory at 8 o’clock the next morning and worked his entire life. 
He discovered in 1997 that he had not been paid. He wrote to Mark Burton complaining about it. Mark Burton said that there was nothing he could do. Mr Lynneberg wrote to me and I wrote to the Prime Minister in March 2002. In September Mark Burton admitted that Mr Lynneberg had been short-changed by an amount in the order £283/10/0. In today’s terms that is $17500. He said: “I have finished all options. There is nothing we can do.” I plead with this Government to show some compassion. I know that Helen Clark cares. I know that each and every member of this Government cares. Every member of Parliament must feel for Ross Lynneberg and his generation for what they went through. We recognise that Mr Lynneberg has been short-changed. It may be that it is the British who owe the money but let the New Zealand Government pick up the tab and then let the Government get it off the English Government. It is not charity; it is the money he is owed.