Jap Fishing Fleet Moves

North

From Our Own Correspondent

Rabaul, Sept. 1.

fITHE Jap fishing fleet which has A been operating in the Solomons area is now working its way home, said Mr. Bert Wickham, owner-master of the Himau, which he uses to collect trochus, etc., from the Tasman group of Islands near Bougainville, TNG.

Mr, Wickham believes that the Daikoku Maru —now piled up on a reef near Kieta—was one of the fleet which consists of a mother ship of some 4,000 tons and seven or eight 50 or 60 tons trawlers of the same type as Daikoku Maru.

Mr. Wickham has already advised ths Government Secretary at Port Moresby that a Japanese vessel visited one of the Tasman’s unin habited islands, stocked up with coconuts and fruit, stayed three days and before leaving, set fire to Wickham’s native-material store which was full of trochus shell.

Mr. Wickham said: “While I was there, a ship came in to the same position on two successive nights and eventually patrolled round the reef with its fishing lines out about a I-mile from the shore. The full length of the reef would be 35 miles. On my return trip I saw that the set lines had been col lected and I presume they have now

moved northwards, towards home, before the North-west season comes.”

Jap Fishing Boats in G&E

From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, Sept. 10.

Pastor G. R, Miller, master of the SDA Mission vessel Fetu-Ao, re ports on arrival at Suva early Sep tember from the Gilberts, that tw6 Japanese vessels, one of about 150 tons and the other of about 250 tons, had been sighted from several islands in the Gilbert and Ellice Groups during August. They were also passed, sailing in company, by the vessel Ada.

The ships probably belong to the large Japanese fishing fleet known to be operating east of the Solo mons, as reported in August PIM.

Public works at present under way on Tutuila Island, E. Samoa, include a new wharf at Pago Pago and a new TB wing to the hospital.