Death Of Peter Kyllert
p. 25 · Read in the full issue
Tragedy of the Jap Invasion of
Tng
OLD Territorians will learn with much regret of the death of Mr. Peter Kyl lert, of Stockholm Plantation, New Britain, in a Sydney Hospital, on July 29, aged 64. This is one of the tragedies of the Jap invasion.
Mr. Kyllert, a Swede, was one of the pioneers of New Guinea. He hacked a very large and excellent plantation out of the jungle on lonely Lihir Island, off the New Ireland coast, and for years he was the only white resident. Later, he acquired Stockholm Plantation, on New Britain, and the Maragon plantations, on Tabar Islands.
When the Japs came in in January, 1942, Kyllert remained at Stockholm Plan tation. The Japs “investigated” him two or three times, and took him into Rabaul; but, on account of his age, apparently, he was generally left alone. He and his family (part-native) suffered privations through lack of proper food.
Then, in the hours before dawn, one night in 1944. he was awakened by stealthy movements in his bungalow. He got ready to fight—and then discovered that the in truders were Australian commandos, who had most courageously penetrated deep be hind the Japanese lines in New Britain Mr. Kyllert and his wife, hiding by day and travelling in canoes by night, got away westward with the Australians, and eventually reached Sydney.
Mr. Kyllert became a well-known figure at all gatherings of Territorians. He and his wife felt keenly the cold of Austra lian winters and they dreamed of the day when they could return north. But al though New Britain was liberated in late 1945, and although Australia desper ately needed copra, and although Kyllert with three valuable plantations to ad minister, made repeated applications for permission to return, he was kept in Syd ney until his spirit and his health were broken. By the irony of fate, his per mit to return to New Guinea was granted as he lay dying in hospital.
It may be that the permit was delayed while officialdom investigated certain malicious reports that Kvllert had in some way collaborated with the Japs TTiose who have known him for a quarter of a century angrily repudiate any such suggestion. They say he was incapable of a mean action, and “no more loyal member of the white race ever lived.”