Luckiest Men In The Fmf

rpHREE NCO’s in the First Fiji Battalion ± who arrived in Fiji in mid-May for special leave, consider themselves the luckiest men in the Fiji Military Forces.

Only a few days before they were on Bougainville, with no immediate prospect of returning to Fiji, then their Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Sir Philip Mitchell, arrived to pay their battalion a brief visit. He had three vacant seats in his plane and he asked Colonel Upton which NCO’s in the battalion were most deserving of leave. Colonel Upton named Sergt. Patrick Melbourne Slatter (whose mother lives in Gorrie Street, Suva), Sergt. Savenaca Uluibau, who is from Nairai, in the Lau Group, and Cpl. Jene Samaibulu, who is from Taveuni.

These three, who flew back to Fiji with Sir Philip, joined up in 1940 and have been with the First Battalion since its formation.

The Rev. Susie Rankin, who is attached to the London Missionary Society, but who has been in Australia since the

evacuation, has received word that she may now return to New Guinea, where her husband is serving at one of the Papuan mission stations.