Vale R. H. Wedd!

r T'HE following tribute to the late * Patrol-Officer R. H. Wedd was written by a Territorian who knew him well in New Guinea: WHEN the Governor of Tasmania, Sir Hugh Binney, held an investiture at Government House, in Hobart, recently, the Distinguished Flying Cross was posthumously awarded to F/Lieut.

R. H. Wedd. I was reminded then that his name was not mentioned in the “PIM” Roll of Honour.

Prior to his enlistment, R. H. Wedd served for 2| years with the New Guinea Administration. He was one of the few who did not contract malaria; however, he was on one occasion speared in the leg and side by natives.

It happened when he made a patrol in the uncontrolled area of Mt. Hagen and the Bismarck Range right through to the Papuan border. The natives were not then familiar with the white men.

During the early war years, Wedd criss crossed the backland of the Wewak dis trict. I met him when he was patrolling the coast, and I remember one special incident when he was sent to Kariru Island to round up a big number of revolutionary-minded natives. The “cargo movement,” secret anti-European pro paganda, had risen then to a dangerous pitch. A few cunning scoundrels, ex-gaol birds most of them, had induced the natives to regard the white men as un authorised intruders, as thieves and liars.

Carried away by mob-hysteria, they per formed special rites, prayers and sacri fices —partly Pagan and partly Christian —in secret sessions, and expected their ancestors to return with ships and planes laden with goods stolen by the white men.

Some of these natives became hostile towards the missions and the Govern ment. Their subsequent experience with the Japanese invaders must have con vinced them of their mistake.

The activities of R. H. Wedd, as Patrol- Officer, suppressed their unrest at that time.

But Wedd felt the urge of higher service; -he wanted to be right in the front line. So he resigned from the Government service and enlisted in the RAAF in September, 1941. He passed successfully his training course in Canada, where his friends called him “Uncle Joe” (maybe because of his pre maturely grey hair and his ever-ready broad grin), and finally got his com mission.

In the second part of 1943 he made many bombing sorties over Germany, but on December 20 his plane was shot down over Frankfurt. It was the last mission of the squadron, and he had volunteered to take the place of another bomb-aimer who had fractured his leg. Four days later the Pathfinder Badge was posthum ously awarded to him.

THUS ended a life full of hope, enter prise, energy, ambition, and outstand ing capabilities that should have meant a great deal to the New Guinea Administration.

Educated at St. Virgil’s College, Hobart, he took a position as school teacher at Catamaran, a frontier outpost in Tas mania.

Later on he proved himself to be an efficient Patrol-Officer in the Central New Guinea mountains and the Sepik swamps.

And then “he completed numerous opera tions against the enemy as a bomb aimer. He always fortitude, courage, and devotion to duty.”