Gifts For "Fuzzy-Wuzzies"

GIFTS provided by the Australian Comforts Fund were recently dis tributed to about 1,000 native carriers who were employed last year on the Kokoda trail. Gifts consisted of money belts, hair-oil, sweets, beads and tobacco.

The natives then squatted on the ground for nearly an hour, while an Australian officer spoke to them through an interpreter. He said that the Aus tralian people would never forget the way the Fuzzy-Wuzzies had acted in the critical days of last year, and that their self-sacrificing work and untiring pati ence had made a great impression on the “great white people across the water.”

He promised them that the Japanese would soon be driven out and then the Australian Government would see that appreciation was translated into con crete action.

It is understood that these natives, who worked along the Kokoda trail, have been formed into an anti-malaria unit, now that their former job has gone with the threatened Jap invasion of Port Moresby.

Dr. M. H. Watt, Director General of Health in New Zaland, and Miss M. I.

Lambie, Director of Nursing, arrived in Fiji in July. They will make an investi gation of the Public Health and medical services of the colony.

Captain Bruce Hamilton, who has lived for 36 years in Papua and New Guinea, has spent the last two months in military hospitals in Queensland and New South Wales. He is now making a good recovery.

Major Donald Junor, who was for some time in the Middle East, recently returned to Australia. He was promoted and is now officer in charge of the School of Signals, New Guinea Forces.