fields—New Caledonia

New Roads—New Air fields—New Caledonia

From Our Own Correspondent

Noumea, Jan. 1.

NO single worker has contributed more to New Caledonia’s war effort than Australian tractor-driver Oliver Jones, who comes from the Dorrigo, Grafton and Kyogle districts of New South Wales.

To-day, there is scarcely an airport runway in the island in which he has not had a hand—usually it is he who pulls the first stump and who remains to complete the surfacing and dig the last ditch.

Jones arrived in 1938, speaking not a word of French, under contract to cut and haul kauri timber for Australian veneer-making, out of the wild moun tain slopes of the Chaine Centrale. He immediately became a mystery to the locals, who had never seen a caterpillar tractor or a tractor-driver in their lives.

They were startled when, in a matter of weeks, practically unaided and with everything against him he put in 35 kilometres of road through winding tor tuous country traversed by creeks, which would have taken them years of painstaking building. Since then, when ever they come across him and his tire less and inseparable RD6 caterpillar they say to one another: “Voila I’Australien Monsieur Jones. C’est un grand travailleur!”

Early in 1941 he was requisitioned for defence work by the New Caledonian Government, putting in four months on an Australian surveyed airport. He was an indispensible part of their defence organisation until, sometime in 1942, the American Army took him over.

From about the beginning of 1942, under the spur of the Japanese menace, the Free-French-plus-Jones effort was vastly augmented by the arrival of Aus tralian Main Roads Board employees, complete with rock crushers, grinders compressor drivers, RDB caterpillars and all other necessary material. They came under a six weeks’ contract, but stayed for some time longer, and many of them later volunteered for United States Army constructional work, and stayed on, ac cepting American in preference for Aus tralian rates of pay, this being a dollar an hour and one and a half dollars an hour for overtime. A large party of em ployees of the Hawaiian Construction Co. was also on the island for some months.

Other good work, on local airports has been done by the marines and army en gineer battalions—the latter have won recognition from Department heads in Washington. In fact, airport construc tsol} in New Caledonia has been a real United Nations affair, and one must not forget the assistance of hundreds of Melanesian natives and Javanese and Indo-Chinese coolies under Caledonian white foremen. But when individual per formances are spoken of, both French Public Works officials and the American Army would probably agree that Jones’s contribution has been outstanding.

Dr. Donald Buchanan, who was form erly port medical officer in Port Moresby, Papua, died recently in London.

Judge F. B. Phillips, of New Guinea (popularly known as “Monty” Phillips), who went to Britain late in 1941, on spe cial duty with the RAAF, has now attained the rank of Wing-Commander.

He served in the 1914-18 war; and he was the administrative officer in charge at Rabaul when the eruption occurred in 1937. and rendered distinguished service in superintending the evacuation,