War-torn Lae and Abandoned Salamaua

By Toby Millar, a New Guinea "Old-timer"

IT is surprising that very little has been published about the present condition of such well-known New Guinea towns as Salamaua, Lae, Wau, etc.

What has the conflict done to and for these once-important links in the eco nomy of New Guinea?

I was assigned to Base “E” (Lae) on salvage the Army Transport Service, US /frmy, just after the fall of Lae, in September, 1943. Flying from Brisbane, I landed at Gilli-Gilli Drome, Milne Bay, and boarded a pre-war coaster.

As we crept up that huge bay—in which, a few months later, I was to see over a thousand craft riding at anchor, and where our speed was handicapped by the capricious antics of our tow (an old, engineless, Manly ferry)—and made East Cape, and turned on a northerly course, I was thrilled with the one thought—we were en route to Lae. I had left the Morobe district as far back as 1937 for the Wewak and Aitape goldfields, which in turn I forsook in October, 1939, to enlist in the 6th Division, AIP, and nat urally I was interested in what I was going to see.

We passed Buna, Gona, Oro and the Waria, and so to Morobe—still a veritable spot of tropical beauty, despite the scars of bombs and shells. Just as Salamaua usurped its pre-war position of import ance and usefulness, so Lae’s geographic ally strategical superiority in war has relegated both Morobe and Salamaua to very minor roles.

WE went on from Morobe; and, luck ily, the approaching dawn enabled me to distinguish the unmistakeable isthmus and promontory of Salamaua on our port. I stood lost in a host of memories—from 1926 to 1937—and gradu ally Navis was swallowed in the semi light, and I turned towards Lae, to catch the first glimpse of its celebrated land mark, “The Tree.” Was it still standing?

Yes! There it was—and only Morobe ites will appreciate the thrill that I experienced as Nature’s “lead” loomed up like an island out of the mist on that early mom.

As I stepped ashore the excitement of anticipation left me—l was home Reporting for duty, I was granted the remainder of the day to get set in; so I wangled a jeep and went on a tour of inspection.

The airstrip, bordered on the west side by a junk-heap of ground-strafed Jap planes, was intact. The huge metal hangar stood out like a skeleton devoid of waffs and roofing; the crane still defiantiv raised its derrick to the skies.

The Aussies had managed to get the ice-works “icing”; and the remains of the once-attractive bungalows could be glimpsed, showing their battered roofs over the edge of the terrace. The resi dence of the Guinea Airways manager, a sorry spectacle, was patched up bv the ice-works staff. King Brothers’ house m °re or less habitable, and I made that my headouarters, when ashore tor quite a few months.

Abandoning the jeep, and dodging busy Yank bulldozers, trucks, trailers ieeps y ducks,” ambulances, etc., and wending my a ™ on s st bomb craters, large and small, I thirstily cast about for the&pub— pardon me. “The Hotel Cecil’’—lnd at last I found it. The vine-covered trellis or arbor-an emblem of past cold beers and a promise of future happy nogginl still stood, beside the bomb-cratered con crete floor of all that remained of Mrs Flo Stewart’s pride. Ah, Kate! Alas,’

Dorothy! I could have g'one all Omar ish over “the cup that flows” as I sor rowfully and still thirstily gazed on that piece of destruction. Thence, to the old jetty, with its decidedly drunken list to starboard, and to Voco Point.

Sunken and half-submerged Jap barges littered the foreshores; and, off-shore, directly opposite the airstrip, a Jap freighter raised her bows out of the sea at an acute angle. Further east, about two miles above Voco Point, another Jap was beached—she was like a sieve.

And that was war-torn Lae.

IN a few short months, the Yanks did wonders. Order blossomed out of chaos; engineering feats overcame every obstacle;* pre-war impossibilities became just a mere matter of routine, and were successfully completed. I, a New Guinea-ite, watched in amazement.

Three very serviceable wharves ap peared like magic,, from which shot excel lent roads at all angles; the strip was lengthened and widened; a road to Nad zab Air Base, 25 miles up the Markham.

Ammunition and fuel dumps, tents, marquees, native-built churches and Red Cross centres, prefabricated hospitals, warehouses, workshops, mess-halls and offices sprang up . like mushrooms—and still the base increased in area. Open air movies were every few miles; baseball fields.

The Aussies were there in some force, and it was like old times to see the lines of ANGAU-controlled natives going to and fro on jobs of, road maintenance, shrub clearing, mosquito blitzing, house building and—alas! —digging and tending the all-too-numerous Australian and American graves, rE Aussies built the Labu-Wau-Bull dog Road; and, as I was assigned further north before its completion, I unfortunately missed a jeep trip to Wau. On returning south on leave, early in 1944, the pilot of the Douglas was good enough to circle Wau at a low altitude and, from the glimpse I managed to catch, Wau appeared to have got it in the neck—mainly from our own scorched earth tactics.

HOWEVER, I did find time to take a cr?sh boat over to Salamaua. Poor old Nabis—The Beach, as we affec tionately called it —was abandoned to its lonely thoughts of its past glories; and, as the jumping-off point and port to the goldfields, well and truly it once served its purpose.

Now it is flattened out of all recogni tion. There remain only one or two bat tered bungalows: the skeleton of Guinea Airways office and store; the fly-wheel of the pub refrigerator. Bomb craters are everywhere, and the promontory is scored by naval shell explosions.

The ’drome is a mass of bomb craters and thick secondary growth. The Bita paka aerial still stands. Not a coconut tree remains of all those tall old palms that formed the beautiful avenue along the isthmus; and a lump formed in my throat when I stood beside the remnants of that wonderful old califilium tree, alongside the hotel. The Japs, in dig ging a fox-hole at its base, had evidently cut its life-root and in place of the luxu riant, spreading, shade-giving old war rior only a blackened wreck remains.

No reconstruction has been attempted: Salamaua is just a sorry and heart breaking memory. Vale; old-timer! I doubt whether you’ll ever regain your place as the Goldfields port.