Moresby 'Protest'

At French

Bomb Tests

From a Port Moresby Correspondent A Department of Civil Aviation employee in New Guinea slashed the nosewheel of a French naval DC6B aircraft on April 19 to show his re sentment for France’s proposed nuclear tests in the South Pacific.

THE plane was one of a group of eight French naval aircraft which were carrying personnel to the test site at Mururoa Atoll, in the Tua motus, and were parked at Port Moresby’s Jackson Airport overnight.

Electrical technician Richard James Collyn, 43, married, next day pleaded guilty in Port Moresby Court to causing malicious and unlawful damage to the aircraft and was fined $lOO, in default 14 days’ goal.

The magistrate, Mr. A. A. Ger main, told Collyn he was being dealt with leniently.

The police prosecutor, Acting In spector G. Anderton, said a native constable on duty at the aerodrome had discovered Collyn under the air craft scraping away at the fuselage with a knife.

Cuts On Tyres

An inspection revealed a scratch on the fuselage and two cuts on the tyre, which however could still be used.

In a statement to the court Collyn said, “I was sitting at home by my self, when I heard on the news that the Frogs intended to explode an atomic device in the South Pacific.”

Asked what he meant by Frog, Collyn said the French Government.

“What followed, Sir, must have been my method of showing my re sentment,” he told Mr. Germain.

“Now that the Russians and the Americans have decided not to ex plode any more surplus nuclear devices I just resented the French going ahead and doing so,” said Collyn.

Collyn said he had not been in fluenced by any religious beliefs.

“There is not much else I can say.

I think I was influenced by drink.”

Inspector Anderton added that the Department of Civil Aviation would decide whether to dismiss Collyn or transfer him from New Guinea. Until now he had had an exemplary record.