Deaths of Islands people

Among the deaths that PIM :ords this month are those of miner, a planter and a mis nary all of whom had colour careers. They are Mrs. Doris oth, miner, who died in Bris le in November; Mr. Carden :on, planter, who died in Bris

tle in November, aged 69; and

stor A. J. Campbell, who died

Sydney in October, aged 69.

re are their stories. st woman on

i NG goldfields

lorn in Brisbane as Doris Regina Ide, Doris Booth married Charles oth in 1919 and went to New inea with him in 1921 to manage dantation at Kokopo. But the dis ery of gold at Bulolo took them d that rugged area in 1924. Doris 3th had first to fight her way ough bureaucracy to get there, as Government Secretary at Rabaul used to issue her a miner’s right permission to go to Bulolo, :ause the country “was inhospit e, the natives hostile and no man could hope to reach the ality”. But if the government was on her side, everybody else was, 1 so she became the first white man to make the arduous six-day k to Bulolo from the coast. Two irs later she was still there, to take t in the gold rush to Edie Creek, ther into the ranges, fhe government was thankful that disobeyed orders, for she was only nurse on the goldfields dur a serious outbreak of dysentery, 1 from the date of her arrival she 1 combined nursing with gold ling.

Mthough without the equipment ! had been used to at Brisbane neral Hospital, where she had -sed, she amputated limbs, sewed wounds and generally performed duties of surgeon/doctor for the ole area, establishing a hospital the Bulolo River in 1926.

When the dysentery outbreak »an Mrs. Booth had three “units” her hospital; a general ward for ives, a private ward for Europeans 1 an isolation ward for bad cases, e popular tonic for convalescing :ients was a brandy and egg flip, tn early 1927 Mrs. Booth went :k to Brisbane to recover from 1 bouts of malaria. But she was

soon back again, and in 1928 she was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire for her nursing work on the goldfields.

When, in 1933, she was herself in hospital in Salamaua with another serious malaria attack, she shared the ward with a young patrol officer named J. K. McCarthy, who had been wounded with arrows when ambushed by Kukukuku tribesmen in the same area. McCarthy later became head of the Department of Native Affairs in P-NG.

Doris and Charles Booth were divorced in 1934 but Doris Booth continued to operate her mining claims, Clifftop and Cliffside, at Bulolo, employing a large staff.

She returned to her mining interests after the Pacific War, but also in volved herself in wider interests — sitting as a nominated member of the P-NG Legislative Council from 1951 to 1957. Her opinions, based on her long and practical experience of the country, were always sound.

She retired to Brisbane, to a house called “Cliffside” a number of years ago.

Her early New Guinea experiences are recorded in her book. Mountains, Gold and Cannibals (1929), which was dedicated to “my comrades of the goldfields”.

Planter who worked

behind enemy lines

Carden Wyndham Seton, who was born and educated in NSW, won fame as a Coastwatcher in the Solomons during the Pacific War. He had gone to the Solomons in 1927, first as an overseer with Shortland Islands Plantations Ltd., and was manager there when war came to the BSIP in 1942.

Returning there in 1946 after the war, he became a planter and trader on his own account at Choiseul, was a member of the BSIP Advisory Council from 1947 to 1949, and re turned to farming in Queensland in 1955.

He still kept in close touch with Islands affairs and was a regular con tributor to P/M’s letter columns to the time of his sudden death. An account of one of his wartime coast watching exploits was sent to PIM only a few weeks before his death.

He had joined the AIF in 1942, but was quickly transferred to the RAN as a coastwatcher because of the BSIP experience. He was on Choiseul from 1942 to 1944 and later

served on Bougainville and New Britain, as a captain. He won the DCM for his Choiseul operations.

Seton’s account for PIM of his arrival on Choiseul tells how he and three others set off from Brisbane in the US submarine Grampus in October, 1942.

The four were to cover The Slot, through which Japanese transports were bringing in reinforcements for Guadalcanal. Seton and Sub-Lieut.

Alexander Waddell (now Sir Alexander Waddell) were landed on Choiseul and Sub-Lieuts H. Josselyn and J. Keenan on Vella Lavella. The submarine attacked Japanese shipping en route and was hunted in turn with Japanese depth charges.

The first two men were landed and a week later it was the turn of Seton and Waddell. They cast off from the submarine at midnight with Seton paddling a collapsible canoe and towing two heavily-laden rubber boats, and Waddell steering, but it turned out to be a tough job. Strong currents in The Slot took them off course, and they struggled to close the shore, using muscles that had been softened by inactivity in the sub marine. Seton recalled: “In spite of all our efforts we were still paddling at dawn. By this time we were near exhaustion and de cided to cast our fate to the wind and shoot the breakers over the reef in order to get ashore and under cover. If the previous four hours had been an ordeal, worse lay ahead.

The easiest part was riding the breakers over the reef; hitting the reef on the other side was another matter. As the breakers dumped us down, the boats with our precious wireless and supplies, were swamped ... as we struggled to regain our feet, we slipped and fell into deep holes in the reef; each step found another fissure until it seemed we would be defeated by the sea and coral instead of the Japs.”

Gradually, Seton and Waddell got the boats and supplies ashore and under cover. The boats were deflated with bayonet stabs, because the two had no time to look for the valves, and then were hidden.

Wrote Seton: “The most important pieces of our eqiupment were safe— the wireless and battery charge, our lifeline. When daylight came we both collapsed and slept among our equip ment, too exhausted to think of much else at the moment. A few hours later we made a reconnaissance and found the area to be uninhabited.

We made camp close by. Towards dusk a native who had crossed our reconnaissance trail and recognised European footprints, came cautiously by canoe. He promised help and

bribed the nearest enemy post.

So ended my longest day—lB ;rs I’ll always remember.”

Tie pair remained on Choiseul for months, constantly reporting my movements, and outwitting Jap ►rts to locate and destroy them. >n received his commission in the i.

end of the

ying Priest"

dexander John Campbell, born in stern Australia, pioneered the ning of the Seventh-day Adventist ;sion in Kainantu, in the Central hlands of Papua-New Guinea. In 5 he, and his wife Emily, had imenced mission service at Buin, igainville, followed by seven years Choiseul, in the British Solomons. ;y went then to the Highlands, were at Kainantu, Goroka and bag in New Guinea. )uring the war, Pastor Campbell > visited at Kainantu by the “flying ;st”, Father Glover, who wanted assistance. After hiding Father ►ver’s Spartan plane in the Ad tist mission compound, the two, i a mechanic, made a nine-day k to the coast, despite Jap activity, the Catholic mission headquarters Sek Island where they were able recover and repair a Tiger Moth raft. toth aircraft remained at Kainantu were the only Allied civil air ft left in the area. They gathered r 100 Europeans stranded in out ts and flew them to safety at Mt. ?en, from where they were ferried the coast. The Spartan later >hed while taking off for Bena 21. owards war’s end Pastor Camp and Father Glover met again at

Lae and Father Glover decided to revisit Kainantu. However, trying to land at the Catholic mission station of Mengendi, Chimbu, he crashed and died. His grave is alongside what is now the main Highland road.

Pastor Campbell was renowned as a trainer of native carpenters in the Central Highlands; his home, the beautiful church, the school and other European-style buildings at Kainantu testify to his success. In spreading the gospel he was a pioneer of the gramophone. He handed out small plastic gramophones to his native ministers and teachers, with records

containing Bible and gospel messages translated into the local dialect, The Campbell family were also renowned for their open hospitality and many a territorian dined at their table. Pastor Campbell was com pelled by ill health to return to Australia in 1960. He was appointed curator of the Adventist Island Pacific Museum in Cooranbong, NSW, and put together an unrivalled collection of South Seas artifacts, His funeral service was conducted by New Guinea missionary, Pastor F. T. Maberly. He leaves a wife, three children and nine grandchildren.