Old-Timers

How They Are Helping to Chase the Jap Out of New Guinea

AN old resident of the Morobe gold field, now an officer in the AIF, says in a private letter that he “got a tremendous kick” out of the recapture of Salamaua, Lae and Finschhaven. The Europeans had hated leaving those places when the Japs came in, and apparently deserting their well-trained “boys”; so their pleasure in going back, and chasing out the Japs, and regaining contact with the natives, was great.

“At Tambu Bay I met many old friends —Ted Jenyns, Ernie Hitchcock, George Clark, Les Ireland, George Whittaker—all doing sterling jobs, in which their knowledge of the country and the natives was most valuable,” he says.

“I was in some of the fighting around Finschhaven, accompanied by a number of my own natives. I had found them waiting for us in the bush at Lae. I hadn’t seen them for four years; but they were all there, and they were as pleased to see me as I was to find them.

“Their behaviour during the fighting amazed me. They were quite ready to go anywhere that I went, and I have had no desertions on account of bomb ing, or anything else. I was able to give some help at Finschhaven, as I knew the luluais and tultuls . . . The effect upon the natives of seeing their old masters returning was good; and it speaks well for our treatment of them in the past—both by the Administration and by private employers—that they have returned to us so readily and have done so much for us.

“In this area I found more old friends —Joe Taylor, Rube Hanrahan, Pauley, S. Ashton. Whalen, Jack Sutherland, and Ferris —all old-timers, Down in Lae I saw Niall, Keith Norris, Bill Heinickie, Jim Leahy, Jim Wright, Charlie Blake, Les Simpson and many others from the goldfields.

“It is a grand thing to find so many of the old Territorians here and playing such an important part in the recapture and restoration of our country. Their influence is the best guarantee we have that the effect upon the natives of the intrusion of so many troops, who do not understand natives, will not be harmful —or, if harmful, will be only temporary.

“What is needed now is someone to record the deeds of many of our New Guinea people—what reading they would make! It makes one proud to belong to such a mob, and to see how they have made good.

“The fine standard set by the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles is being main tained, and the work these chaps are doing, and the numbers who have taken part in the struggle, are the strongest argument we have to back our plea that they should be given an effective voice in the future government of this country.”