In September 1940, aged 18, he enlisted in the expeditionary force founded by Captain Félix Broche, which would become the Pacific Battalion.
He fought at the Battle of Bir Hakeim, in Tunisia, in Italy, then, from the summer of 1944 and the landing in Provence, he followed the rise of the 1st Free French Division as far as the Vosges.
[1] He married in Paris in 1945 before returning to Tahiti with the other surviving volunteers of the Pacific Battalion, including one of his cousins, Walter Grand, president of the Territorial Assembly of French Polynesia from 1955 to 1958.
After the war, John Martin served from 1946 to 1950 in the Territory's Economic Affairs, before joining Radio Tahiti, where he became director of Tahitian language programs.
[2] After three years spent in Paris as deputy to the head of the delegation of French Polynesia, from 1962 to 1965, he joined the government of the territory as chief of staff.