Deaths

of Islands People

J.K.McCarthy,

'man of action'

John Keith McCarthy, who died in Melbourne on October 29aged 71, had the kind of career in the Pacific usually reserved for heroes of adventure fiction. It spanned 40 colourful years.

As a young man of 22 in 1927, he joined the New Guinea Administra tion as one of its early patrol officers, and for 15 years was involved in many notable and often exciting exploits in the field.

During the Pacific War he rose to the rank of lieut-colonel and commanded a number of celebrated units in New Guinea, including the Coastwatchers, and the ANGAU Scouts, winning the MBE and a US citation for his work; for one period he was wartime Military Resident Commissioner in Sarawak, Borneo. In New Guinea after the war he became District Commissioner in several important districts, a Member of the PNG Legislative Council and later the House of Assembly; he acted as Administrator of Nauru in 1957 before taking over the top post of Papua New Guinea’s Director of Native Affairs, which he held for six years until his retirement in 1967 to his hometown, Melbourne.

Keith McCarthy was a man of action, who preferred to be in the field rather than at a desk, to resolve problems face to face rather than by correspondence. Yet the other side to him was his strong artistic interests. He was a clever black and white artist, who frequently published cartoons; he held successful exhibitions of his oil paintings; he wrote and published two books; he had great regard for native m, which he collected. At home, wherever it might be, he was a splendid lost and witty raconteur with a sensitive understanding of and sym pathy for people of every background.

Among his pre-war patrol officer experiences was an incident in 1933 in which his patrol was ambushed and several men including himself seri >usly wounded by arrows, one man lying of his wounds, McCarthy spend everal weeks in hospital, and recalled

that when he was discharged the government handed him a hospital bill for thirty guineas, and that “to show the government how fit I was, I paid it.”

With his bride Jean, he survived the 1937 volcanic eruption at Rabaul, in which hundreds died.

He was an Assistant District Officer in New Britain in 1942 when the Japanese occupied Rabaul, and he organised and carried through with his extraordinary energy and initiative a mass evacuation of troops by land and sea, which won him the MBE, and which is still regarded as one of the great Pacific escape stories.

The many tributes to Keith McCarthy following his death in cluded one from Sir John Guise, Governor-General of Papua New Guinea, who said that Keith McCarthy had been “deeply loved and respected” by the PNG people.

“His place is assured in our history as a man who cared much for the people of PNG and who laid the foundation stones of the road to nationhood,” Sir John said.

Keith McCarthy is survived by Jean, with whom he shared a long and

haoDV marriage.

S.I.

Tuala Tuiasau Alec Macdonald Well-known South Pacific sportsman and businessman, Tuala Tuiasau Alec Macdonald has died in Western Samoa on his 70th birthday.

Tuala’s business activities included chairmanship of the board of the Gold Star Transport Co, for many years Western Samoa’s leading transport firm, and ownership of a 150-acre plantation near Apia.

An outstanding rugby player for Western Samoa in the 19305, Tuala became an active rugby coach, manager and administrator. At the time of his death he had only recently returned from managing the Western Samoan rugby team on a tour of New Zealand.

Tuala is survived by his wife, Maria, three sons and four daughters.

Mr L. Bentley Mr Leonard Bentley, who was a well-known businessman in Fiji for more than 50 years, died in October, aged 80. He was born at Levuka, and joined Burns Philp there in 1909. He transferred to Burns Philp in Suva in 1927, and in 1937 joined Pearce and Co Ltd, importers and agents. Mr Bentley became chairman of Pearce’s.

He retired in 1965. He had many in terests outside work. He served on the Levuka Town Council, was actively associated with the Anglican Diocese of Polynesia, and held high office in the Masonic United Grand Lodge of England. He was also keen on cricket and golf. Mr Bentley married Miss Margaret Waring of Levuka in 1918, who survives him, along with a son and two daughters.