On The Run Through Melanesia
pp. 75-77 · Read in the full issue
By Makereta Sotutu
DURING the war, we left Bougain ville in New Guinea to escape the Japanese. We went to Guadal canal in the Solomons in 1944. We were missionaries in Buka, which is an island near Bougainville. I had been teaching since I arrived there with my husband in 1928. That was the beginning of Christianity over there. The people did not know about Christ. They were just beginning to learn to read and write.
We lived on a hill on its own with the boys of the school. It was a Methodist Mission station called Scotland. Then in 1941 we heard that Pearl Harbour had been bombed by the Japanese and that there was a war on but we didn’t think that it would come to Buka. There was nothing to come to Buka for so we thought we would be all right. But, one Monday, when we were just getting ready for school and I was ringing the bell, one of the boys ran over and told me that there were three warships coming through the harbour. While the boy was talking to me there were planes flying over the house. They had different signs painted on them, not like the Aus tralian or New Zealand planes.
Each was a round thing like the sun, and it was then we realised that they might be Japanese planes.
We ran into the bush to hide but soldiers came ashore and destroyed everything in the school. They tore up papers and mosquito nets and even stoves were broken up. When we went back there was nothing left to wear or to eat. Everything had been taken or ruined. The next day we received a letter from Mr Jack Reid, the District Commissioner, telling us to get away from Buka but we didn’t go. We thought we would be able to look after ourselves so we stayed on till they bombed Sohano, the government station, and they machine gunned our station. Every European style building was machine-gunned.
Then we went to hide in the bush until we had to go to Bougainville on the orders of the District Com missioner.
VlfE went to Bougainville by canoe ” at night. At this time the Japanese had come to settle near Sohano on the other side of China town. They also came to Bougain ville but they didn’t catch up on us.
We had four policemen to guide us
and we went from one place to hn^h 16 h Wl l h . them - f ° j 54 , weeks - M y husband had joined the Coast- US at howeve h r en h SC l he W * th us however he knew where we were. ihe District Commissioner used to send messages to tell us where to go
• . Japanese. That was the
job of the Coastwatchers.
I had my five children with me.
The youngest was a girl of two and the eldest a boy of twelve. Then there were five Buka boys from the school.
They wouldn’t go home. You see, we were a sort of mother and father to them so they just wouldn’t leave us.
A Fijian family, Pacemaca and her two children, and two couples from Rabaul were also with us. Pacemaca’s husband had also joined the Coastwatchers. In our walk from place to place we were helped by the Coastwatchers so we were reasonably safe.
We were given tobacco and money to pay for labour to carry the little bit of luggage left after the Japan-
ese had destroyed our things. Ameri can planes used to drop food and clothing to us too and they helped US al ° ng Ht night With si S nals and all that. These were all arranged by the District Commissioner.
Our party made up a big family and there we were running away for our lives but the children thought it was a game. Even when the planes came to bomb Japanese camps they used to scream and clap their hands and think it was great fun. They were not afraid at all. While on the run for 54 weeks we got our food from the plantations owned by Burns phi, P and others. We had beef and pork from these places. 117’E had to walk from one side of *T Bougainville to the other but even when we got to the other side where we thought it would be safe. the District Commissioner was there waiting to send us on. The submarine to take us away was under the
surface waiting for us, but an un expected Japanese ship happened to be near the shore so we had to wait for two days for it to leave. When it finally went off we were told to go down in the night and board the submarine. We didn’t know where it was taking us. We just trusted in God.
There were four German Sisters, five Chinese ladies and a part-European lady, their children and ourselves.
It was rather nice travelling by submarine. The only thing you seemed to be conscious of was that the thing was not quite right for us you know, the air in it was rather thick. There was no movement be cause it was under the surface.
When it came up at night you could feel the movement just like an ordinary ship but under the surface it was all right. It was just like sit ting in a house.
On the second day the doctor thought we needed fresh air but, as soon as we came up to the surface an enemy plane spotted us so we had to go back under. We heard bombs being dropped some distance away and we could feel the vibra tions. We had to stay there the whole day, not moving at all until it was dark. Even then we didn’t go up again until we reached Guadalcanal on the third day.
WHEN we arrived in Guadalcanal at night we were told to get into a barge. Again, we didn’t know where we were going. We just trusted them. We were really surprised when the next morning we saw some Fijian boys, Europeans and others. We stayed in a hospital near Henderson Airfield. At last I thought we were safe but we soon found out how wrong we were. There was bombing on Guadalcanal every night. We were rather sorry to have come there; it was safer in Bougainville because nobody seemed to know where we were hiding. We never really came face to face with the enemy in Bougainville but there at Guadal canal we were closer to the enemy than ever before. We had to go into dugouts at night because of the bombings. I was really sorry we were brought to Guadalcanal because I realised how dangerous it was there.
From Guadalcanal we were taken to New Caledonia by ship.
AT' New Caledonia we had another kind of worry. We were put into prison! We were shut in one room and some Japanese prisoners were in the other room. There were
no beds, but we had grass to lie on and some sheets to cover us. The mosquitoes were awful in the place.
I think they were the largest mosquitoes I’d ever seen in my life.
The French put us in prison because we just didn’t understand each other.
The German Sisters couldn’t speak English and neither could the Chinese ladies so I was the only one trying to explain things to them. They didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand them so I must have said something wrong that put us all in prison! On our first morning in prison we were shown by sign language that we could go outside for a walk for an hour.
When we got outside we saw some Americans having a swim in the sea near the prison, so my friend, Pacemaca, and I tied some sheets together and got my son to slide down it with a note. Just as he was doing so an American landrover came by and when the driver saw us putting down the sheet with my son on it he jumped off and came to hold him.
He took the note, waved to us to pull him up and drove off. In the afternoon a man dressed in Chinese clothes came in with some other Chinese people to visit us. They gave us food and clothing and told us to expect them that night. They came and took us away to the American camp and the next morning we were taken to one of the French ships that was coming to Fiji. Even when we were getting on that ship they seemed to hate us. They wouldn’t let us go onto it. They chased us away but the American who helped us (probably a high ranking officer in the Navy) went to the captain who came down and took us into one of the rooms next to his cabin. Then the officers changed their attitude and they were kind to us.
A LL tha t time my husband was still ■Cv working with the Coastwatchers in Bougainville. We had only seen him on the night they came to put us on the submarine which took us to Guadalcanal. We didn’t see him again until a year later when he returned to Fiji.
I went back to teaching at Annesley, the Wesley school at Toorak, and later on I went to the Methodist School at Delainavesi and Davuilevu.
In 1946 my husband and I went back to Bougainville. We were shocked to see the place. It looked so bare. There was hardly anything growing. We had to start our work all over again. However, by 1949, everything was all right again, but my husband became very ill and we had to return to Fiji. This time though, we weren’t on the run.