[1][2] He served as a wireless operator and air gunner in the Lorraine Squadron, flying 51 sorties and receiving numerous decorations, including the lanyard of the Legion of Honour.
[2] He met and married Joyce Elizabeth Riley (1921-1959) in England during World War II.
[3] Following the war he returned to French Polynesia briefly to work as a radio operator and meteorologist, before moving to Auckland.
[4] He later led a Tahitian hula dance troupe that included his daughter Diane,[5] and performed in Auckland and throughout the Pacific in the late 1960s.
[6][7] The pieces recorded by Nat Mara and His Tahitians are among the greatest standards of Polynesian music, constantly reissued and broadcast on the airwaves in the four corners of the world.