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Meritorious War Record Of The Pib

Warm Praise for Native Troops by Well-Known Territorian

ACCORDING to a statement from Can berra in July the Pacific Island Regiment in New Guinea is to be disbanded, following a year of agitation on the nart of some Territorians and many conflicting reports as to disorders within the Unit.

As long ago as last September we pub lished in the “PIM” a story of an alleged mutiny among these native troops—a dis turbance which was said to be due to inexperienced European officers and from that time onwards we have received other reports of “incidents,” However, experienced European officers of the Regiment—men who were well-known in the Territories before the war—have de fended these native troops warmly and have stated that unruliness has been grossly exaggerated and that the service rendered the Allied cause by these troops was prodigious.

Lieut.-Colonel S. Elliott-Smith, Com manding Officer of the Papuan Infantry Battalion, the first of the native units to be raised in New Guinea, goes further and states that the war-time service of these men will have a very powerful influence for good in the post-war native com munities and assist the Administration’s programme of social advancement.

Neither does Colonel Elliott-Smith be lieve that troubles within the Regiment were due to inexperienced officers. The PIB, for example, was formed in 1940 and was officered by old Papua or New Guinea Europeans; but after five years of active duty, three hundred officers and NCO’s had been on its rolls and it was impossible

that these men could all have been drawn from local sources.

“WITH the Japanese at the very gates T? of Australia in 1942,” writes Col onel Elliott-Smith, “it would have been absurd to have had officers and NCOS of this battalion, on whom so much depended, composed only of those whose sole accomplishment was their linguistic It has been overlooked that a native battalion is no place to train Europeans to be s<Dldiers and leaders. Right from the beginning it is essential that they he highly trained and possess a strong measure of personal bravery and, equally important, they must be in perfect phy sical condition to stand up to a strain much greater than that imposed on an ordinary infantry unit. ("One company completed eighteen months’front-line ser-

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“it should be understood that native units were raised to assist in the com mon defence against the Japanese, and not for the purpose of maintaining the moral codes formerly existing under the

civil administration. If, due to “lack of proper and adequate control,” there had been some slight tendency on the part of the natives to “revert to type,” the tem porary retrogression should have been weighed against the security which this regiment has helped to ensure and ac cepted philosophically as the inevitable outcome of the war, rather than being made the excuse for a completely un justified attack. However, with supreme administrative authority invested in a field commander with wide pre-war ex

perience and sympathetic understanding of native problems, the alleged war-time decadent trend was and is non-existent.

“Throughout its existence the PIB, at all events, has been implicated in only one major disturbance. It occurred at the end of 1944 on the formation of the Paci fic Island Regiment. It had become a matter of military expediency to transfer all the NG troops in the PIB to Nadzab, to form the nucleus of the proposed NG battalions; and it was against this move that the troops affected staged their de monstration.

“The native mentality was unable to comprehend the reason for the wholesale transfer from a unit for which they had volunteered to fight, to one against which they were prejudiced—from a battalion for whose excellent traditions they were largely responsible, to one without tradi

tions. Significantly the revolt—if it could be so termed—did not take the form of the risings at Nadzab and Jacquinot Bay as has been reported. So great was the respect of the NG natives towards the “inexperienced officers,” “the irresponsible whites,” that there was not the slightest indication of personal resentment, an tagonism or violence. Having been ac customed to strict discipline, the native troops marched out quietly in a body to seek redress at ANGAU headquarters in Port Moresby, “Admittedly a few isolated cases of rape have been reported but a perusal of the daily papers would show that these offences are not confined to native bat talions where its exceptional infrequency is far more fittingly a matter for com ment than for the high-lighting of one or two unfortunate incidents.

From the beginning of 1945 when a further large influx of Europeans occur red. I was the only officer in the unit with previous experience of natives, hav ing spent twenty years in the Papuan Civil Administration, many of them as a magistrate. Of those who served their “apprenticeship” in the batttalion there remained only two officers and nine field NCOs, the latter figure having since been reduced to two. On the principle that the inexperience of officers has been the cause of the alleged unrest, your readers could confidently assume that the re cords of this unit during 1945 should dis close that murder, rape, theft, insolence, insubordination and rebellion would be rife, more particularly so since the ces sation of hostilities. Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth. It is my considered opinion, and that of many other officers of high rank, that the Papuan Infantry Battalion is the best disciplined unit in New Guinea to-day. r!E Battalion is now (May) in the process of disbandment and I am about to rejoin the Administration In a post where I will be closely associ ated with my late troops. I am full of confidence in their keen support and loy alty to the task to be done.”

Mr. Douglas H. Moorhead, aged 19, of 38 Braemar Street, Essendon, W 5, Vic toria, would like to exchange stamps with collectors in the Pacific Islands. He also seeks pen friends there.