Remember?

Do You Remember?

In England 20 years ago this month, the German air offensive was

reaching its peak, with attacks being

almost ceaseless. There was, said “PIM”, no real answer yet to the night bombing. As this went on over there, over here the South Pacific was becoming more and more in volved with what was soon to be a World War.

Here are some extracts from the

issue of October, 1940.

There was big news from the French possessions in the Pacific. The colonies declared themselves clearly and unequivoc ally for Free France and the British Alliance, with the Nazi-dominated Vichy Government repudiated. Hero of the hour was the pro-de Gaulle Resident Com missioner in the New Hebrides, Henri Sautot. Sautot arrived in New Caledonia aboard a warship and took over as Governor. More than 1.200 Free French men announced they were anxious to join de Gaulle’s forces against Germany and many of them said that if they could not join de Gaulle they would like to form a unit of the Australian Army. * * * A Suva correspondent reported that "notwithstanding the copra industry hav ing completely collapsed, and the banana trade being little better, the finances of Fiji are buoyant”. He says doubtless this was owing to the sugar and mining in dustries continuing to give profitable re turns. * * * With little notice from the Australian newspapers, Charles Henry Karius, one of Papua’s noted explorers, died in Sydney on September 19 at the age of 47. He had been ill for some time. The most out standing event of Karius’ career was the expedition which he led across the centre of New Guinea in 1927. Accompanied by Mr. Ivan Champion, he found the source of the Ply and Strickland Rivers, and the headwaters of the Sepik River. * * * The Fiji Government announced that it would start immediately on the construc tion of a sea plane base at Laucala Bay, near Suva. It said that Pan American Airways had promised to include Suva as a regular call on its airmail service from America to New Zealand as soon as the base was completed. * * * Things were grim in Rarotonga. Rightly or wrongly, old residents were blaming New Zealand’s Labour Government for the state of depression in which the fruit in dustry had found itself. Old residents were leaving the island one by one, ‘‘to escape the blanket pall”, as one corres pondent put it. * * * Although it was to be another 12 months before the Japanese were to make their real influence felt in the South Pacific, the Christian Missions were already hard hit. The big trouble was that subscriptions from Britain had fallen off at a great rate and the Missions were in financial diffi culties. With the depressed state of the copra market, the natives, too, were un able to give as they had in the past, and medical work by the Missions everywhere was at a reduced tempo.