A warming relationship: Murray McCully outlines the ever-deepening ties between New Zealand and the United States 70 years after US troops arrived on New Zealand soil.

• Author: McCully, Murray

New Zealand has very longstanding links with the United States, but the closest interaction occurred during the Pacific War of 1941-45. For two years New Zealand was host to up to 45,000 American servicemen and women. Units of all three New Zealand armed services fought in the Solomon Islands under American command. The friendship forged in those years continues to grow. It is based on a common set of interests and common set of values. We have a vigorous dialogue, and the basis for a strategic partnership has been laid in the Wellington Declaration. Our co-operation has been especially fruitful in the Pacific, with participation in a range of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities.

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Ties between the United States and the Pacific region go back as far as there has been a United States of America. It seems appropriate that today we should acknowledge the role of the Pacific War in reinforcing and strengthening our relationship. For it is almost 70 years to the day since the first American troops landed in the South Pacific as part of the long, hard island campaign against Japan in the Second World War. On 12 June 1942 five American transport ships, a cruiser and a destroyer sailed into Auckland harbour. One of the advance guard gave the following piece of news to his compatriots as they set foot on New Zealand shores: 'No Scotch, two per cent beer, but nice folks.' Some things, thankfully, change with time. Other things, I hope, do not.

For the following two years, at any point in time, between 15,000 and 45,000 American servicemen and women were stationed in New Zealand--a place described in their guide book as 'deep in the heart of the South Pacific'. Over the next three years the fates of the South Pacific and the United States of America were linked. More than two million American soldiers, including a future US President, John F. Kennedy, passed through Henderson Field in the Solomon Islands. Battles were fought and won by servicemen from the United States, Australia and New Zealand and reinforced by soldiers from right across the Pacific.

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What gave the encounter a special quality was that the American and New Zealand societies of the day were similar enough to communicate easily, but sufficiently different to find each other intriguing. Both were former British colonies with a frontier past. Both believed in democracy, freedom and the protection of civil liberties. And both shared a Pacific coastline.

In June the American contribution to New Zealand's Second World War security was the subject of special commemoration. For three weeks from 14 June 50 US Marines and a 50-person Marine band were in New Zealand on the invitation of our government for a...