Evacuee Family

From NNG

I From Pat Robertson, in Brisbane After several Indonesian air id scares in Dutch New Guinea

e only Australian family in the

wn of Sorong was given half i hour’s notice to pack and be ady to leave home on May 18.

IRS. KEN COSS and her three 1 children were taken, together ith Dutch families, to the Isle of ffman which serves as an airstrip r Sorong. The trip is 13 miles and kes about an hour by launch. From ere they were flown to Biak and e now in Maroochydore, Queens nd, where Mrs Coss’ parents-in w live.

All the Dutch wives and families 10 travelled with them on the first ction of the journey were taken to olland, via Tokyo. Their husbands tnained behind at their posts.

It had been planned to evacuate e wives and families of oil com ny personnel at the end of the hool year in July, but the com ny decided it would be safer for em to leave earlier, so they were ot off at half an hour’s notice, lere had been several air raid ares, and everyone had their “safe ices” picked out.

Mr. and Mrs. Coss were both well town in Port Moresby, where they ? ed before they moved to Sorong -out 13 months ago. Mr. Coss was iployed by World Wide Helicopters :d. in Sorong.

Asked about living conditions in

NNG, Mrs. Coss said Papuan servants in NNG could not compare with Port Moresby standards.

She said the families lived mostly on tinned goods. There was a lack of fresh food of any description, and no fresh meat or vegetables. Mrs.

Coss arranged to have frozen meat and vegetables shipped from Port Moresby. Magazines and parcels were received about every three months, and the library, which was Dutch, had very few English books.

Dutch was taught in the schools, and the Coss children were quickly learning the language, plus accent, from their playmates. Gordon, aged 4, has quite a Dutch accent. Malay is the lingua franca, but educated natives spoke Dutch. Most educated Dutch families spoke English.

Mrs. Coss said that Indonesians who were living in NNG prior to 1950 were allowed to take out Dutch citizenship. Quite a few of these did so, and were emploj'ed originally by the oil companies, and later in vari ous shops and offices. The Govern ment was advising all of these naturalised people to go to Holland.

About 3,000 Indonesians (not naturalised) mainly from the Sorong area had been sent back to Indonesia early this year by specially chartered boats, and some of these had re turned, she said, as enemy infiltrants.

Sorong had a community of about 250 Europeans before the evacua tion started.

[?]s. Ken Coss (above), with her three [?] ldren, Andrea (1½), Lindy (3) and Gordon [?], the only Australian family in the Dutch [?]w Guinea town of Sorong, was given half [?] hour's notice to pack up and be ready to leave on May 18.