New Australian Army
p. 40 · Read in the full issue
Post On Dng Border
I¥THEN Captain Ray Baxter, of TT Australian Northern Com mand, returned to Brisbane in mid-February he reported that his party of 28 Australian Army en gineers had, in four months, built an army post at Wanimo, in Nor thern New Guinea.
Wanimo is on the sea-coast, north of Aitape and just on the Austra lian side of the Dutch border. Be fore the war it was an Administra tion patrol post. It is about 40 miles from Hollandia.
It has been suggested that the establishment of a military post at Wanimo is connected with coast watching and the possible infiltra tion of Indonesians from Dutch New Guinea This theory is discounted by Authority, which speaks of the post’s weather-watching functions (“first contact with monsoons build ing up north of NG and sweeping down on Queensland”) and the op portunities afforded there for train ing the native troops of the Pacific Islands Regiment.
However, Territories residents, who probably did not know’ before that Queensland’s cyclones orig inated in Wanimo, and who hither to have only known of the place as a native village which was the jumping-off place for DNG in the old bird-of-paradise hunting days,
can put their own construction upon the creation of the new post.
According to Australian Navy and Air Minister there will soon be an increase in sea and air patrols over the whole area from Manus to Dar win: there will be two battalions of native troops: and the formation of a new coast-watching service.
Old Territory residents, who know what it is like to be left out on the
end of a limb in the matter of defence, will no doubt be glad to hear of these plans.
Captain Alex Frame, formerly a pilot with Trans-Oceanic Airways, left Sydney in February to Join Aii Tahiti, which has resumed opera tions in French Oceania with foul small flying-boats.