Bem Winner In Sydney

On Leave

ON leave in Sydney, in February, was Mrs. Ruby Boye, of the Santa Cruz Group of the Solomons. Mrs, Boye was awarded the British Empire Medal last year for outstanding work in the Allied cause. She is entitled to wear also the ribbon of the 1939-43 Star on the tunic of her WRANS uniform.

Returning to her home in Vanikoro, where her husband is manager of the Kauri Timber Co,, shortly after the out break of war, she found that the com pany’s teleradio operator was anxious to leave for Australia to enlist in the RAAF.

Mrs. Boye stepped into the breach, took a day off to learn to operate the machine and six weeks to learn Morse. From that time she has carried on alone.

“When Japan came into the war,” she said recently, in Sydney, “I found myself relaying messages for the Navy and ever since I have been at it seven days a week.” Finally, Mrs. Boye was given the rank of honorary third officer in the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service.

She was the only white woman on the island, but she has been too busy to be lonely. One of her proudest possessions is a letter from Downing Street, express ing appreciation for her services during four difficult and dangerous years.

Captain L. G. H. Sinclair, of the BSI Defence Force, has been promoted to the rank of Acting-Major while perform ing the duties of Legal Advisor.

Mr. J. Ballantyne, of Samarai, Papua, whose daughter Anna married Mr.

Geor°e Hanson, of Namatanai, New Guinea, just before the war, has had word of Mr. and Mrs. Hanson through the International Red Cross. They were caught by the Huns in Denmark, and interned in Germany early in 1940. They now have been living under prisoner-of war conditions for five years. Mr. Ballan tyne is living in Fleming Street, Edgehlll, near Cairns, Queensland,