Yesterday

The hopes of Norfolk Island’s graveyard caretaker, Vic Ed vards, to inherit part of the massive SUSBSO million estate reputedly eft him by the “late Mr. Robert Edwards” of New York were lashed in early 1949 following PIM inquiries which showed that At. Robert Edwards never existed and neither did his fortune. So t was back to the graveyard for Vic!

Other news items in PIM 20 ears ago included: Flight-Lieutenant C. N. “Sandy” landford, of Numa Numa Plantation, lougainville, was formerly handed he Distinguished Service Order in short ceremony in Victoria.

Sandy” won his DSO for his service /ith American and Australian forces n the Pacific War, particularly in the

lougainville campaign.

A new weekly service, operated by Guinea Air Traders of Lae, had tarted between Wewak and Kavieng, >Jew Guinea, with regular calls along he way at Madang, Lae and Rabaul.

Santas then had a Lae-Kavieng run, ia Manus and Rabaul.

New Ireland residents were up in irms over moves by the sole surviv ng trustee of the Kavieng Club to ;et court direction for disposing of he funds of the club. Local views vere that the Pacific War merely suspended” club activities and the lub never really went out of busi less.

When two associate members of he Western Samoan RSL, Messrs. H.

Crone and B. Brownlee, accidentally hrew some darts at the new Samoan flag, suspended on the RSL Hub’s wall, the action was taken >y some Samoans as a deliberate nsult to the flag. To make amends he two men broadcast apologies in Samoan and English.

After 29 years of paying an annual 10 per cent, dividend, island trader md shipper Bums Philp and Co.

Hd. announced a new rate of Hi )er cent, for the year ended March 11, 1949. Profit was £A228,124 E 8,274 better than the previous year.

In April the British Solomon islands Protectorate’s headquarters vere transferred from Tulagi to Honiara, Guadalcanal, Tulagi was fattened in the Pacific War and FIM reported that it was almost Jeserted in 1949, though most of [he old residency was still standing.

Plans were to maintain a dispensary and a small marine department at Tulagi.

In Rabaul’s Supreme Court four New Guineans from a remote New Britain village were sentenced to death, with a recommendation for mercy, for the murder, in December, 1948, of a Territorian, Alf Robinson, and eight of Mr. Robinson’s New Guinean labourers. Mr. Robinson was one of the few survivors of the Tol massacre, when Japanese butchered troops from Rabaul in 1942.

Georges “Papa Lulu” Spitz, as sistant mayor of Papeete for 25 years, died in March aged 64. A jeweller, he was born in French Polynesia and took a big hand in French Polynesian efforts in both World Wars, receiving several decora tions.

Brett Hilder, nowadays commodore of the Burns Philp shipping fleet, had some harsh things to say after a visit to Tabiteuea, Southern Gilberts. To quote: “These natives are precocious, faithless and op portunist to the Europeans, and no man can truthfully call them a lovable people”.

Mr. F. W. Cuthbert, former owner of Misima Island, Papua, goldmines, which made huge profits in the 1930’5, left an estate of £A 128,987.

He was reported to have paid £2,000 for the mines and sold them seven years later for £95,000. He died aged 93 in October, 1948.

The mounting road fatalities in the Suva area were causing concern. At Suvavou Bridge a bus skidded against a railing and crushed to death an 11year-old part-European girl and at Bypass Road a 16-year-old boy cyclist was killed when his bike and a bus collided.

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were copping their second invasion in less than 10 years (the Japanese took over in the Pacific War). The invader was a “green creeping plant” which an officer from the GEIC Admin istration said would “oust the colony’s remaining small green vegetation”. The plant was growing rapidly “over the scars of battle and old camp sites”.

This picture of the village meeting house at Eita in the Gilbert Islands, taken by Brett Milder, appeared in the May, 1949, issue of PIM.