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The Kiwi Club - interview with Trevor Doel

Submitted by Editorial team on 10 March 2008 - 2:13am.

Interview with Trevor Doel about the Kiwi Club

The Kiwi Club

Extract from an interview with Paul Diamond, 27 August 2007

Reproduced with permission of Trevor Doel

Down the back end of the compound was something that my warrant officer and I started up, and that was the Kiwi Club.

And what was that?

My warrant officer and I acquired from all sorts of different sources refrigerators, air conditioners, plonk, and everything else, even got dartboards shipped up courtesy of Dominion Breweries from New Zealand. They outfitted proper dartboards, cabinet surrounds, everything else. And we had the Kiwi Club.

And how did that operate?

When we knocked off work, straight down into the fridge that'd been well stocked up. Oh, the Americans round the area loved it, the Aussies were always coming in for a coldy. It was within the compound.

So everyone in the compound could go there?

Yeah. Plus there was also an outfit, we called them the Hush Puppy Boys, it was the 82nd military police group CID. And they were based in Cho Long, which is right down town.

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Comments

THERE ARE 2 COMMENTS
Editorial team commented:
Tue, 23 June 2009 - 01:11am
Noel Bell has informed me that the warrant officer Trevor Doel refers to in the above interview is Mac Baker. WO2 Baker was Chief Clerk at HQ V Force and was very good sourcing 'hard to find' materials in Vietnam - as well as fitting out the Kiwi Club he used his connections with US aid organisations to secure materials for the building of a playground and classroom at the Binh Loi orphanage. Gareth Phipps (Website Content Officer) on behalf of Noel Bell.
Noel commented:
Tue, 06 July 2010 - 10:42pm
In 1972 the building was required for other purposes. A smaller Kiwi Club was established in one of the rooms in the Free World Forces building. It comprised a fridge, small bar and a couple of sofas with table. From memory some of the plaques etc from the old bar were returned to New Zealand.