Territories Talk-Talk

By Tolala

Such a question as that the Buka people asked me in )12 was, in a German Colony, dynamite. I brushed it off as lickly as I could.

C Kandrian (New Britain) atives, who are “eager to wel ome back the Americans,” ding to District Officer West ported in The Rahaul Times time ago, reminded me of Buka people. When I first *d there, in that year, I was „ in all seriousness, by native rs: “When are the English re ag?” ;re was not, of course, at that any grounds for such an as tion on the part of the natives, angely enough, however, a few [is later W. H. Lucas, on board rim schooner Sideia, with old I W. J. Buckley as skipper, id in Kieta and started out ;ting land on Bougainville, gly assisted by Kiap Doellinger. s a starting point of Choiseul ations Ltd. which has proved a lucrative concern. ‘ enquiring natives came to ;ain, following the Lucas tour.

You see,” they said, “Now are the English coming?” it was in December, 1912. In nber, 1914, the Meklong, filled Australian troops, came to and Bougainville was occupied.

I met some of those Buka ■ais. They smiled knowingly: it did we tell you? We knew were coming!” you know? Of was it wishful Lng? Or extra sensory faculty? now: What of the Kandrian s? It would be amusing if were so endowed.

Willie Dupain

)ther one of the BP Old School )assed on with the death at s, last month, of Willie Dupain. ad been manager of the com s Cairns branch for many years, iras also well known through he Pacific, wherever the BP flew: The Solomons, New 3a and Papua branches had all under his management at one or another during the past 40 or so, and Willie and his at ve wife, Muriel, were well n as popular hosts in the true 1 sense. started off as an office boy for i. Lucas, of the Island Depart , graduating to supercargo on i vessels —even as WHL had before him. I first met him

when he boarded the Matunga at Faisi in 1915, he was bound for Rabaul to re-establish the Old Firm’s business there after the Ger man years. He was manager there during most of the Occupation Years; he was still there in 1920. He will be missed by the old-timers who recall his good fellowship; they will turn down an empty glass.

The Tale Can Now Be Told We have had several detailed official and unofficial accounts of the Pacific War affecting New Guinea and Papua. David Selby gave us a good account of the frustration experienced during the retreat from Rabaul in his Hell Fire and High Fever.

Canon James Benson, in his Prisoner's Base and Home Again, lifted the lid from many phases of conditions on his retreat from Gona and his life as an internee in Rabaul.

Several official histories describe the ups and downs of that tragic campaign, mostly the major opera tions, but, so far as I am aware, there has been no story told of those several mysterious disappearances of civilian internees in Rabaul, What happened to them? And Why?

With Japanese records available now we should know the circum stances, however grim they may have been, surrounding the dis appearance from our ken of those internees such as Albert Evensen, Bill Korn et al; of Vic Pratt and his party that were last seen at a Rabaul street corner in August, 1942; of Lassul Harvey and his comrades, including his wife.

And what of the civilians at Kavieng; Whitehead, Topal and his young son and others? What of the actual sinking of the prison ship Monte Video Maru, with all those precious lives aboard? What was the score there? And what of the circumstances surrounding the last moment reprieve of T. C. Wee from the firing squad in the Botanic Gardens, Rabaul, of his eventual journey to his South Coast planta tion and drowning when going ashore in a canoe?

Surely the tale can now be told.

And, in the telling—who knows.

it m ay be a guide for future generations and the pitfalls thev should avoid.

Old Territorians—

Where Are They?

In last month’s PIM, Sanas mentions South Australia being alive with ex-P-NG people (p, 36) but I notice that his old-timers are all Papuans.

This is understandable, no doubt as he is essentially imbued with Papuan interests, although he spent some time in NG after War I, Let’s add to his SA list of residents: Basil Challis, a wel'known identity of the Department of Agriculture in Rabaul pre-war; he played about with meteorologica balloons at one period.

Then there is the scion of an ole: Territorian family, Oscar Rondahh who married and settled “some where” in South Aussie; nor must we forget that inimitable, happy hard-case identity, Bill Heinicke, who for his work during the 1937 eruption, collected a BEM.

It was Bill who headed the march of the first Rabaul Contingent to leave for War 11. I still recall his proud, martial mien as Company RSM he stepped it out as the men marched down to the Rabaul wharf where they embarked for the Middle East, via Queensland.

In 1945 I saw Bill again and the crown had been raised from his arm to his shoulder; he was a full-blown major. (I wonder where he is now?) Dr. and Mrs. D. M. Deland are also now in SA.

Another ex-NGite, who made SA his home, was lan Grabowski, the man who pioneered Air Beef in Australia for an ANA associate company, but before that carried out the Dredge Lift from Lae to Bulolo as manager of Guinea Airways.

Well do I remember the fight he put up in the Rabaul Legco to re tain air-lifts when the Salamaua- Wau Road question was under dis cussion in 1936.

There are two identities in West Australia: Jimmy Twycross (of

> and Tom McAdam. one-time itor of Customs, following r phibbs, and previously a DO ivieng and Kieta. [ the others? Most of them ig roses on the Sydney North or bananas in Queensland or >rn NSW, with a good quota away the days in some ious Victorian suburb.

esians

ropos of the statement in last i’s PIM (p. 141) dealing with tiesians” and Brig. Cleland’s ncy in giving it the green The term “Euronesian” was publicised locally in Rabaul in the early ’thirties and it from the critical pen of a lady, Mrs. Jane T. Wallace, sed to write contentious and ative letters to the editor of cal paper berating the gov nt in no uncertain terms. the Mr. Lewerissa who it up the subject in the Rabaul must surely be one of the which originally came from na in the early days, and if xed blood surely the word an would be more applicable, aging times seem to make more self-conscious of race —in English, at any rate — jr it is the same in other ,ges I wouldn’t have a clue. I somehow, we can overdo this mistic nomenclature.

Truck—

ravel"

Richard Boone heading, a ality on page 82 of PIM, for ;, starts a train of thought: jUCK —WILL STAY, in view recent attempts to dislodge istralian Territories’ Minister )ffice. en think, when perusing some jse tirades directed against tie Hasluck, that he has many to carry which by right be borne by the sometime g Permanent Bureaucrats of partment; a department, by ly, described by one P. D. Day ■gely superfluous and a waste money”. I couldn’t more with Mr. Day. But why out that particular govern department amongst so many could come under the same ry?

Day quotation from the :k 1947 speech: “I cannot that the Public Service or •art of it can ever become rsonal possession of one Min . . .” probably reddened the erial features even if he was referring to Doc Evatt, who ed the box-seat in External 5 at that time. , Mr. Hasluck, with all his , could be as good as the we don’t know and, cut down e, better than a lot we have i the past. Even such popular

Territory Ministers as Billy Hughes and Charlie Marr were pains-in the-neck at times.

The Forgotten People

It seems that the Baining planters are still as much neglected now as hi past years ( PIM, Aug. p. 5).

And no one should know better than Jock Maclean; he’s been on Rang arere now for over 30 years. It was in the ’2o’s that Malcolm Ellis (“Ek Dum” of the Bulletin ), special writer for the Sydney Daily Tele graph, put the area on the map as being neglected and forgotten when he wrote a series of articles lambasting the Exproboard for mal administration and red-tape.

In those days there was a bridle track of sorts that meandered through the district from New Massawa as far as Gavite (with a few gaps) but this closely-settled area, since the early 1900’s when German farmers were brought up from Queensland, has never re ceived the attention it should have.

True, in 1906, the German govern ment did make a move, following the massacre at the St. Paul mission, by making some of the offending natives terrace the hills of Old Massawa, which was then a Neu Guinea Kompagnie plantation.

The main trouble has been that most of the planters have had their own water transport to Rabaul, and the government has thought “That’s good enough”.

Bits and Pieces Snooker enthusiasts in Rabaul were disappointed at the cancella tion of Horace Lindrum’s visit to the town. The “tour was not extensive enough”. Horace was given a great reception in the old New Guinea Club one night back in the early thirties. He was passing through on an E & A boat from the East.

The Rev. D. C. McCaw, former rector of a church at Enfield (NSW) and a War II bomber pilot, will fly a single-engined plane for the Missionary Aviation Fellowship in NG, serving 24 mission centres.

This is the sort of blah that gives a misconception of life in P-NG. It’s culled from a Sydney society column; “With 100 native boys to help round the house Elaine Grove, of Strathfield, will have few chores to do in her plantation home in New Guinea”. Her destination, after her wedding, is a plantation on New Ireland, where hubby-to-be is a manager, (Who’s going to cut that copra?) , The Women’s College at the Syd ney University is erecting a memorial to its former College principal, Miss Camilla Wedgwood. They are seek ing donations. P-NG educational in terests might shell out a few bob.

Authropologist Wedgwood did some good work up there; despite her ivory-tower ideas, she was also

quite practical.