Guinea?

What Hos Happened in New Guinea?

PROBABLY we shall have to wait a long time for a connected account of what happened during the invasion of Rabaul by the Japanese. We do know that when the Japanese arrived some hundreds of Euro pean civilians—all men—went with the Australian troops into the jungles to the westward of Rabaul. We know that the Australian troops—and especially the small party of New Guinea Riflemen who had been organised as a militia unit alongside the Australian troops—put up a magnificent resistance and inflicted heavy losses upon the invaders. But after that all is vague.

We may presume that a section of the younger civilians made sufficient use of their local knowledge to maintain themselves in the jungle.

The Australian soldiers who surrendered to the Japanese and who were subsequently murdered probably were beaten by the jungle.

Many unofficial reports of atrocities committed by the Japanese in New Guinea are in circulation; but people with interests there would be wise to accept these with reserve and await official statements. The latter are made only after the most careful investigation.

Mrs. Phoebe Parkinson, a well-known resident of the Rabaul district of New Guinea, did not come to Aus tralia when the evacuation of women was ordered. Mrs.

Parkinson is now over 80 years old and on latest reports was residing with her son. who is manager of a coconut plantation in the Namatanai district of New Ireland.