BP Manager on Wallis Is.

Marooned For Two

Years

A REMARKABLE story of how he was marooned for over two years in a Vichy France remnant in the Pacific was told by Mr. F. W. Roe, Burns Philp’s manager on Wallis Island, when he re cently arrived in Sydney, Wallis and Futuna Islands, constitute a depedency of New Caledonia, and they lie roughly be tween Fiji and Samoa, somewhat nearer the equator.

Mr. Roe’s only link with the outside world was his wireless receiving set, which he was able to keep in working order most of the time. As there were no visiting ships, he and Mr. Greene, his BP colleague on Futuna Island, 80 miles away, were unable to get in touch with each other.

Apart from the native population of 4,200, the only other inhabitants of Wallis are a French Resident and his wife, a Roman Catholic bishop, three priests and six nuns.

When France collapsed, in June, 1940, the French Resident Commissioner de clared for Vichy; and, for a good while, Mr. Roe, as the sole and isolated re presentative of a British firm, found that the situation was embarrassing. When Japan entered the war, at the end of 1941, the position became worse. Food stocks had given out, and it became necessary to live on the produce of the island. Yam and taro became his daily diet, with fish and wood pigeons as luxuries—when he could get them.

About the middle of 1941, beer and whisky stocks came to an end; but Mr.

Roe—who came originally from Erin— justly claimed that it is “the will of God to be Irish.” He had brought an idea or two with him when he left Ireland, years ago, and so a “still” materialised, and from it dripped, after much patient toil and perseverance, a potheen distilled from bananas. Mr. Roe claims that the liquor was second in quality only to Irish

whisky.

By the end of 1941, the French political situation in the Pacific had become settled, and in 1942 Wallis Island changed its allegiance from Petain to de Gaulle. Ships returned to Wallis, and finally Burns Philp were able to send some one to relieve Mr. Roe at his lonely post. But his troubles were by no means over. He could not return to Australia by the usual more or less direct route, but instead, through force of war circum stances, he had to make a “snakes and ladders” journey of several weeks’ dura tion, up, down and across the Pacific; and he finally got home through one of Australia’s back doors.