Tropicalities

THE fame of the American Seabees (naval construction battalion) is as great in the Gilberts as in the Solo mons, says Mr. Harold Cooper, back in Suva, Fiji, at the beginning of July, after a tour of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

It was the Seabees who cleaned up the mess on Betio (Tarawa) and converted it, within a few days, into a ready-for use American base. Betio to-day is so shorn of its coconuts as to be little more than a flat coral platform.

Lunching with some American officers, one day, Mr. Cooper said they complained bitterly of the monotonous flatness of the atoll upon which Fate and the Army had seen fit to cast them. "Hell,” was the comment of one bored officer, "why don’t we get the Seabees to build us a mountain?” ♦ ONE of the less lethal and more useful inventions of the 20th century is the zip-fastener. But on occasion even a zip-fastener can cause a lot of trouble.

A story, going the rounds in Suva, tells how a young officer, well-known in Fiji,' salvaged an American jungle hammock.

He was very proud of the contraption, and carried it with him through the jungle and over difficult country, until it was time to camp for the night. He selected two suitable trees, fixed all the pulleys and other gadgets on the ham mock, prepared to retire for the night, and then zippered himself in.

Later that night, when all was still, some Sons of Heaven began a grenade attack nearby. Our hero’s reactions to the sudden noise were violent —so violent that the zip fastener became locked tight and refused to unzip. There was the sol dier, done up as efficiently as an Indian papoose or a cocoon stuck to a twig; and there were the Nips. He swung furiously for what seemed to him to be a very long time, and in what he felt was far too exposed a position; and, eventually, one of the trees supporting the hammock, could stand the strain no longer. The tree broke and the officer landed with a thump on the ground, still done up in his Yankee hammock.

History does not tell of subsequent pro ceedings; it merely records that he there and then promised blasphemously that he would forego modem inventions and seek sleep, for the duration, on good Mother Earth. * rE hotel in Madang stood on a slight rise and was a landmark, insomuch as it was a quaint old building, with its small upper-storey windows, more suited to life in the mountains of Bavaria, perhaps, than to life in tropical Madang.

It was German-built, and the Germans then did not go for the open-air type of bungalow built by the British, who came after. The German concession to tropical heat was the cool, tiled floor of the hotel.

Territorians will fail, perhaps, to recog nise the Madang hotel, past or present, in the following description of it by A.

I. Murray, in the Melbourne "Herald,” but it will* interest them to know the old hotel’s fate: "The Grand Hotel, which overlooked the splendid panorama of the harbour, and was once thronged with tourists and plantation owners, is now razed to its concrete foundations. The hotel had been converted ihto Japanese Head quarters, and the area surrounding it is a mass of fox-holes, pill-boxes and dug outs—dugouts 30 feet deep, constructed pf two layers of tree trunks, 15 inches m diameter, criss-crossed below huge rocks of sturdy coral.”

rRRITORIANS, taking them by and large, take a poor view of anthro pologists—sometimes dismissing them as interfering theorists. The Territorian cannot always be right; but, as a tribe, he will be pleased to note that a new use for devotees of this branch of science has been found in the United States.

Latest advice from that quarter states that Harvard University’s anthropologist, Dr. Ernest A. Hooton, is hard at work at Boston’s north railway station, taking measurements of the American sitter, using a grim-looking contrivance like a dentist’s chair, and determining hip breadth, back height and shoulder width, so that the post-war United States rail way seat will be more comfortable. * AFTER a Japanese garrison on one of the Nissan Islands (200 miles east of Rabaul) was recently wiped out, Private A. E. Travers, of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, discovered three keys and a medal attached to an enemy wireless set.

This silver medal, shaped like a Maltese Cross, was inscribed, "Five Miles Ordin ary Championship, C. R. Wilson. 1892.

New Zealand Cycling Alliance.” Numer ous inquiries were made and eventually it was discovered to be the property of Mr. G. L. Wilson, of Nambour, Queens land, formerly manager of Asalingi Plan tation, 35 miles from Rabaul, New Britain.

Mr. Wilson came to Brisbane with his wife and two sons, on furlough, in Nov ember, 1941, and during his absence, the Japanese over-ran New Britain, and pre vented his return. All of his personal belongings were in his home on the plan tation, the medal among them. Mr. John Stokie (whose exploits against the Jap anese and whose rescue, with some American airmen, were featured in the press last year) informed him that the house had been looted by natives.

Mr. Wilson says that the medal was given to him by his father, in 1909. and, at present, it is in the possession of his aunt, in Christchurch, NZ. who is for warding it to him. The ordinary cham

pionship referred to, on the medal, was won on a bicycle commonly known as a "penny-farthing.”—R. E. FEREDAY.

SHADES of Boram and the old "Blood house” and all that went with it!

How memories are revived by that article in May "PIM”! I remember when I came out of hospital there, and food could not be varied, however one tried; and how I coaxed some of the owner’s (Tom Ifould’s) fowls, by a trace of rice, to come and deposit their eggs in a box under the hut. I got two a day for some time—and then Tom came over for a cup of tea, one day, and the damned cockaroo cackled under his feet! But Jimmy Wil ton, who was nursing me, saved' the day and did the right thing by decapitating a bottle of VB.-CWK. ♦ IN a recent letter, Flying-Officer Don Aidney, of Fiji, describes how he went to London on leave; "Half a dozen of us went along to Veeraswamy’s in Regent Street, for sup per. I treated myself to curry and asked for a hot one. I have tasted some pretty strong stuff at home, but this effort was 90% raw chili and 10% prussic acid.

"I managed to struggle through it, although I lost about two gallons of perspiration and wept copiously. The other lads were rather amused—until they tasted it; but the waiters were awe struck.

"I think the concoction was a trap for unwary travellers.” * IHATE to mention it: but in some New Guinea dialects the word "Angau” (so familiar to us as the initial let ters of Australian New Guinea Adminis trative Unit) means "false,” or "fake,” or "pseudo.” “Pren angau” is "insincere friend”; "tamboram angau” is "imitation ghost”; "tok-tok angau” is "salesman’s talk”—and so on. However, tell the ANGAU lads not to be discouraged. Mr.

Tojo has gone; and the whole war set-up in New Guinea will not be far behind. — A.N.

The Rev. W. Pidgeon, of Suva. Fiji, has been appointed an Assistant Probation Officer, Suva.