He Presented a Tabu a

Harold Cooper Returns From United States

AFTER a two months’ tour of the United States, Mr. Harold Cooper, of the Fiji Information Office, returned to Suva on April 1. While in America he gave 59 broadcasts and lectures, most of them dealing with the war efforts of Fijians and other Pacific islanders.

' At Columbus, Ohio, he presented Governor Lausche with a tabua sent by Ratu Sukuna as a symbol of the lasting friendship forged between Fiji’s own fighting men and the men of the famous US 37th Division, on the battlefields of the Solomons. The 37th was formerly the Ohio National Guard.

The tabua caused great interest in the States. Photographs of it and accounts of its place in Fijian culture appeared in many leading newspapers.

When Mr. Cooper told a group of Boston University students how Major Martin Clemens, of the British Colonial Service, stayed on Guadalcanal through out the enemy occupation and, when the Marines landed, trekked through the Japanese lines to report at General Vandergrift’s headquarters, a young man in the audience got up and said: “I can vouch for the accuracy of your story about Major Clemens, because I was the sentry who challenged him when he approached the Marine lines. I was the first American to speak to the Major after we had landed to end the Japanese occupation.”

Miss F. E. Caldwell, newly appointed as a nurse in the Melanesian Mission, left for the Solomons in January.

Miss Edith Bromhill, of the Anglican Mission, has arrived in Port Moresby, but she has been held up there almost indefinitely owing to lack of transport along the south coast of Papua to Milne Bay and thence to Ibogura.

Lieut.-Colonel H. T. Allan, OBE, who has been with the AIF in Jacquinot Bay. has received promotion lately and has been transferred to another operational area. Pre-war, he was a well-known resident of Wau, New Guinea.