Deaths Of Islands People

Sir Patrick Gordon Taylor Sir Patrick Gordon Taylor, a con temporary of famed Pacific fliers Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm, died in Honolulu on December 16, aged 70. On his death he had been making plans for a new flying boat cruise service in the Islands, of the type that he operated after World War 11.

Sir Gordon, or “PG”, was born in Sydney, and served with the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, winning the Military Cross as a result of 40 offensive patrols at low altitude under heavy fire on the Western Front.

Back in Australia he engaged in air photography and stunting, operated as an airline captain with the old ANA and became navigator and pilot with Kingsford-Smith in the Southern Cross trans-Tasman flight in 1933.

The same year he was navigator and pilot with Ulm in Faith in Australia, in the record breaking Australia-UK flight.

In 1934, again with Kingsford- Smith, he was navigator-pilot in a single engine aircraft in the first West- East crossing of the Pacific, from Brisbane to Oakland, California. He established the air base at Canton Island that year.

In 1935 he was awarded the George Cross, highest civilian award for valour, following an unsuccessful trans-Tasman flight of the Southern Cross when he climbed out on the wing in flight six times to replenish oil in a failing engine, thus enabling the aircraft to get home PC’s long pioneer flying-boat flights included the first Indian Ocean crossing in 1939, a mid-Pacific crossing from Mexico to Australia via Clipperton Island in 1944, a South Pacific crossing from Australia to Chile via Easter Island in 1951.

After the war he was a constant advocate for a regular air service from Australia, through Mexico to Europe.

PG knew the South Pacific in timately, but his flying-boat cruise service was probably established before its time, for so soon after the war travellers were not interested in the South Pacific. But he saw renewed opportunities not long before his death.

Sir Gordon Taylor was known to a wide audience through the books he wrote of his aviation experiences, several of which were best sellers.

Australia’s Minister for Civil

Aviation, Mr. R. W. Swartz, in a tribute in December said that Sir Gordon’s courage and pioneering flights had earned him a special place in Australian and world aviation.

Sir Gordon was married twice. His first wife died in 1951.

Mrs. Meering Edith Specer

Mrs. Meering Edith Specer of Lae, New Guinea, died suddenly in late October, while on leave with her husband, Wal, at Caloundra, Queens land.

Mrs. Specer was a popular identity in the territory and had lived in most of the districts. Her ashes were to be scattered privately near Samarai, where the Specers lived just after the war.

Mrs. V. B. Thomas Mr. Verney Blanche Thomas, one of New Guinea’s true pioneer women, died of cancer in Concord Repatria tion Hospital, Sydney, on November 29, aged about 77.

Mrs. Thomas lived in the territory for the best part of 47 years, after going there as a young bride in 1919 from her home at Cooktown, north Queensland. She was then Mrs.

Henry Cardew. Her husband had been appointed District Officer at Kieta.

In 1921 Mr. Cardew was transfer red to Rabaul as Commissioner for Native Affairs and there, at their Namanula home, a son, Richard and then a daughter, Betty (now Mrs.

Ken Fisher, of Bulolo) were born.

In 1926 Mrs. Thomas accompanied her husband when he opened the government station at Salamaua, on the New Guinea mainland, following the discovery of gold and a rush over the hazardous mountains from the coast to Wau by miners and traders.

She was soon to spend long, arduous days and nights under canvas, among millions of mosquitos, flies and other insects, nursing the sick after they were carried back to the coast broken with blackwater fever, malaria, scrub typhus and other ailments.

The Cardews returned to Rabaul after Salamaua was established as a town. Henry Cardew died in Rabaul in 1935. Soon after his death Mrs. Cardew decided to go back to the mainland and flew into Wau from Salamaua where she met and married surveyor Frank Thomas. At the time he was surveying a track from Wau to Salamaua through the Black Cat and White Cat gaps, a track used by

some miners in those days but; which was to become better kn in 1943 when it was used by s 4,000 Japanese soldiers in an successful attempt to capture during the Jap advance toward tralia.

Serving with the Australian Division in Malaya in 1942, Tho was posted missing, believed ki The same year Mrs. Thomas her two children were evacuate* Australia with other territory woe and children, but in 1947 she back again in Lae, where she to help another territory pioi Mrs. Flora Stewart, re-establish hotel business, using the Army AV Barracks.

Mrs. Thomas later took over running of the Administration B at Lae, and later again moveo Rabaul and Bulolo. She went Sydney for hospital treatment!

October.—JH.

Mr. C. H. V. Hodgess The death of C. H. V. Hodt occurred on November 24 while was in Toowoomba, Qld., on I days. He was a planter in the H although his home had been in I ney for the last few years.

He was born in Mexico in I but was educated in Australia, went to the Solomons for Lever* 1921 but later worked for Fa mead Sugar Co. He started on his own account as a planter trader in 1930.

He served in the AIF in Fra during World War I; and in War II with AIB in the SW Pao As a guide and adviser to the Am cans he made the initial landing v them in 1942 on Guadalcanal, subsequently was with the BSI Labi Corps as company commander.

Sir Gordon Taylor.

jived the US Legion of Merit for standing services rendered in con tion with the Guadalcanal cam ple is survived by his wife, Mary.

Mr. Charles Lawrie he death of Mr. Charles Lawrie irred at the Central Hospital, liara, on November 15. He was Ir. Lawrie went to the British »mon Islands Protectorate in 8, when he took up a position manager of Hu Farm. Early in X he started his own poultry i at Kukum, and simultaneously ked as a building supervisor for al Industries Ltd. Before going to Solomons Mr. Lawrie spent 12 s in the New Hebrides and ua-New Guinea. He leaves a 3W, Helen.

Mr. Patrick James Lunney Ir. Patrick James Lunney, ship ;ht on the Burns Philp vessel ilo for the past 15 years, died Sydney on November 13 after a t illness.

Ir. Lunney was born in England, served in the Royal Navy in *ld War II and then came to Aus a as shipwright in the Malekula. [951 he transferred to the Bulolo. aid Captain Brett Hilder, of the ?10, after his death: “He was th his weight in gold to the 010, attending to the ship day and it. He was a sterling character, ;h liked and respected by officers shipmates.” [e is survived by his wife, Jean, Springwood, NSW. She is the ghter of Charlie and Kathleen lall of the Solomon Islands and v Guinea. They ran the Fulakora itation of Ysabel Island, BSIP, in 1937 Kathleen took over the el Rabaul. Both are now dead.

Ir. Lunney was cremated on 'ember 15 and his ashes were to scattered from the Bulolo in the al Sea on December 13.

Mr. J. Chapman Ir. John Chapman, manager of Fiji Pastoral Co., Navua, from 8 to 1945, died in Christchurch, v Zealand, on November 22, 1 76.

Ir. Chapman had a great influ ; in the affairs of the district, ;re dairying was the chief industry, r the Vancouver Sugar Co. ended operations there.

Ir. Chapman married Brita, a ghter of the late Sir Maynard Istrom. They had three daughters, ine (Mrs. M. L. Bernacchi, whose band was Resident Commissioner

in the GEIC from 1952 to 1962), Barbara and Elizabeth.

Mr. Richard Frederick Reid Mr. Richard Frederick Reid, a member of one of the oldest business families in American Samoa, died at Pago Pago in November aged 55.

Mr. Reid was educated in Sydney.

After many years work in Pago port administration for the US Navy, Mr.

Richard Reid entered the family busi ess after Warld War 11. He was in the United States from 1958 until his return to Pago Pago last year.

Mr. Reid is survived by his wife, Maud, six sons and two daughters.

Mr. James Brown Mr. James Brown, 27, son of Mr.

D. C. Brown, trader and ship-owner of Rarotonga and former Cook Islands Leader of Government Busi ness, was killed in a motor cycle accident on Rarotonga in late No vember.

The Cook Islands Legislative Assembly adjourned for his funeral on December 1. Hundreds of people attended, including the Premier, Mr.

A. R. Henry.