Townsend’S

Kassa’

Ng Memoirs

In September Pacific Publica 3ns will publish a book of New uinea memoirs by G. W. L.

Dwnsend, who was something

a legend in his own time in e territory. It’s called District

dicer (“From untamed New

uinea to Lake Success. 1921- ?”) and that just about sums ) its contents.

After the author had served 25 ars in the territory, he went to ; UN Secretariat in New York for more and although this is touched ly briefly it throws an unexpected d interesting light on Townsend’s aracter.

Tragically he died just as he had ished this manuscript, and it is e to the efforts of his widow, Mrs.

L. Townsend, of Queensland, that was preserved and will now, with : assistance of the Commonwealth erary Fund, be published.

There is a foreword by Judy dor, who knew Townsend and td in the Sepik during his last m there.

During his years in New Guinea, W. L. Townsend was known as ssa and fought three wars—the t two more prolonged than the rd and last, which was against the )anese.

Df the prolonged wars one was iinst head-hunters. “If you go ding and take heads”, he told his )jects on the Sepik River, “I will it you down and Government will ig you”.

Yhen the young men ignored his rning and took the heads that, for remembered time, had been their isport into adult society, Townsend what he had promised. He hunted m down, sent them to Rabaul trial and when he got them :k as convicted murderers, erected lows where their crimes had been nmitted and saw them hanged.

His second war was against Rabaul bureaucracy office-bound men of the territory’s then capital, who could not see his vision of New Guinea for a forest of account-books; who harassed him over balancing his postage-stamps when he was trying, almost single-handed, to bring law to 16,000 square miles of primitive country.

His occasional exchanges with his departmental heads in Rabaul, sometimes waspish, sometimes whimsical, usually rebellious, he regarded as legitimate out-station sport, not to be taken too seriously.

But in 1941, when he was refused permission to enlist but was offered a certificate instead, he was incensed.

Convinced that neither the Australian Government nor the New Guinea Administration was doing anything to protect the territory in the event of enemy attack, he resigned to return to the Army.

Although Kassa Townsend served in every district of New Guinea, his favourite district was the Sepik, particularly the mighty River itself and the unpredictable people who lived along its banks.

District Officer is a personal story but it also is the story of the Australian administration of New Guinea in its first 20 years, when the Mandated Territory was expected to pay its own way, and did, without any help from Australia. It is written with honesty, without whitewashing and without hindsight. It is often moving and sometimes hilarious.

District Officer will be illustrated and sell for about $4.50 (272 pages).