Arthur Beren's long search for his United States family is the focus of a Sunday programme to be screened on TV1 on Sunday at 7.30pm.
His story has also inspired production company iMana CreatioNZ to stage a musical, Bridge to Paradise. The company is dedicated to promoting Pacific culture, cultural identity and heritage and raising community awareness through traditional history, drama, dance, songs and music.
The musical will be based on American servicemen from Guadalcanal who were sent to Aitutaki Island to build an airport for the Allies.
This was to stop Japanese expansion through the Pacific during World War Two.
Arthur Black Beren, an NCO in the US Army supply corp, fell in love with island girl Martha Taiono while stationed at Aitutake but returned to the United States just before his Cook Island son, namesake Arthur, was born in 1946.
Arthur – one of about 60 war babies left behind in the Cook Islands by American servicemen – is now a Kerikeri grandfather.
This year, after a lifetime of questioning and thanks to a research project led by Otago University historian Judith Bennett about Pacific wartime children, he found out that his father had remained alive until 1995.
He also discovered that he had three siblings in the United States.
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