Vale, "Dusty"

Miller

TN June, 1940, just after France had L collapsed, and Britain stood in greater peril than at any time in all her long history, the following was published in the “PIM”:— On May 10, Mr. Winston Churchill, Britain’s new Prime Minister, moved in to No. 10 Downing Street. One of the first radiograms placed in his hands read as follows: — “Samarai, May 9.—Congratulations.

Held fast. We are coming.—Dusty Miller.”

“What’s this? Is it a joke? Where’s Samarai?” snapped the anxious Prime Minister.

A solemn secretary, batting no eye-lid, said: “Samarai is in Papua, sir—an Aus tralian-New Guinea territory. I presume it means that some men have enlisted.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Churchill. “Well, we want all the humour we can get, these days—so long as there is a rifle at the end of it!”

In due course, Mr. G. E. Miller (Burns, Fhilp staff) and eight other men from isolated Misima Island, Eastern Papua, embarked at Samarai, to join the Aus tralian forces. Their average height is 5 ft. 11 in., and their average weight 11 stone 8 lb.

And that is typical—something that the dear old Hun, torpedoing merchant ships and smashing into neutral coun tries, has not figured on. For some weeks, now, from every little, lone out-post of Empire, a slow, grim, increasing trickle of free British men are hurrying to cen tral places for drill and armament, and to give, if need be, the service of their lives. Gradually, those trickles will become streams, and the streams a mighty tor rent, sufficient to destroy the goose stepping legions of Hitlerism. This old Empire is terribly slow to move —but, when it does move, God help its enemies. * * ♦ “Dusty” Miller, loved by all who knew him, joined the RAAF. He is reported to have been killed in action over Germany.

Miss F. E. Tolley, of the Fiji Methodist Mission, has been forced to resign because of continued ill-health.