Death’S Toll Of Png Pioneers

Death took a heavy toll in the last few months of the steadily diminishing band of Papua New Guinea pioneers. Below PIM records the passing of five of them, veteran-aviator Captain Orm Denny, Bob Schultze, a link with German colonial days, Mr. W.M. Middleton, who had a 65-year-old link with the country,Fred Turner,ex-RSL president, and Jack Fox, gold miner and explorer.

Captain Orm Denny

Captain Orm Denny has died at the age of 78, leaving a widow and three married daughters.

The name Orm Denny needs no introduction to long-time readers of PIM. One of the fast-dwindling band of pioneer aviators in Papua New Guinea, he had a distinguished lifetime career in aviation, retiring from active flying as recently as June, 1959.

He became a pilot after World War I, flying for Qantas during the early years and joining Guinea Airways Ltd in 1931. Until 1938 Orm Denny flew Junkers, De Havilland and Ford tri-motor machines out of Lae. It was during this incredible decade that New Guinea became the world leader in civil aviation difficult as this may be to believe today and Denny was one of the

best known of those superb pilots, men of the calibre of Pard Mustar, Ray Parer, Lionel Shoppee, Bill Wiltshire, Bert Heath, Bob Gurney, Tommy O’Dea, Les Holden, Dick Mant, and so many others.

Denny rejoined Qantas in 1938, but his connection with New Guinea aviation was by no means over. He was the leader of the team that effected the amazing evacuation of the Mt Hagen refugees in May, 1942, when Japan looked set to overrun the whole of the Pacific.

There were 77 men and a lone woman, Matron Jones, at Mt Hagen, and their plight was desperate. To seek aid, the Catholic missionary, Fr John Glover, made an amazing flight in a tiny DH6O Moth with engineer Karl Nagy to Australia, and Orm Denny was asked to rescue them. Using two DHB6 Airliners

(slow, four-engined biplanes, com pletely unarmed), Denny and his team Captains Sims, Rex Nicholl and Tommy O’Dea, radio operators F. S. Furniss, R. J. Anderson and L W. Louttit, and engineers D. E.

Chambers and R. Carswell made 17 dangerous flights over a period of a fortnight from Horn Island to Mt Hagen and return and brought out the refugees.

The skies were filled with Japanese fighters, but not one of the party was lost. Denny and his team were highly commended by the Australian Government for this great feat. Later, during the Buna operations, Denny averaged three trips per day for eight straight days in his Lockheed over the Owen Stanleys to lift a total of 74 884 lbs of urgently needed war supplies, After the war Denny became as

sistant operations manager and later operations manager for Qantas in PNG and was largely responsible for the rapid expansion of the inter nal network of routes that con tributed so much to the postwar development of the country.

In 1959 he retired from Qantas at the age of 60. Returning to Australia, Denny joined the Royal Flying Doctor Service as NSW branch manager and served aviation for a further nine years before retir ing, finally, at age 70.

His was a lifetime of dedication to the cause of civil aviation. Both as a pilot and a man, he will be sorely

missed.

J.S.

Mr Bob Schultze One of the few remaining links with the early colonial times in Papua New Guinea and, partic ularly, between that country and Samoa, was broken by Bob Schultze’s death in Sydney Helmut Arthur Lebrecht Schultze, younger son of Adolph Curt Schultze and Carolina Rosminia Schultze nee Coe, was born in Kavieng, New Ireland, in September 1906.

An officer in the German army, Bob’s father had spent several years in Australia, including a stint as German vice-consul in Brisbane, before going to New Guinea in 1901 and becoming secretary to Dr Hahl, governor of German New Guinea.

He resigned in 1903 and began to develop a coconut plantation on the Gazelle Peninsula.

Carolina was a niece of Emma Forsayth Kolbe.

Carolina was engaged to Curt Schultze when she almost lost her life during an attack on a plantation by Tolais, in retaliation for wrongdoings by whites. Only her thick coil of hair and the help of a New Guinean who hid her in the rafters of the planter’s house saved her life. She married Curt shortly afterwards and they moved to r plantation on New Ireland, given to her by Queen Emma.

Bob and his brother were taken to Germany where he attended high school in Berlin and then studied at the world-renowned Institute for Tropical and Sub-tropical Agriculture which continues to flourish. He returned to New Guinea in 1925 and, after working on the goldfields and as a labour re cruiter, ran a small trading vessel.

He was on one of the plantations of Phoebe Parkinson, sister of Queen Emma, near Namatanai, New Ire land, when war came to the Pacific.

After several years in Australia, Bob, his wife Doris (whom he had married during the war) and their two daughters lived at Lebrechtshof, a plantation near Ka vieng which his father had estab lished. In recent years, the Schultzes have lived in Australia.

As proud of his Samoan descent as he was of his European upbring ing and Australian nationality, Bob Schultze had an abiding love for New Guinea, the country of his birth.

His many friends are the poorer

for his passing.

H.J.

Mr W. M. Middleton Mr William Maxwell Middleton, an Australian who had close links with Papua New Guinea for 65 years, has died in Australia, aged 89. Mr Middleton, Bill to his friends, but Max within his family, apart from roughing it in PNG, also found time to serve in the two world wars.

He was born in Adelaide and as a young man of 24, in 1910, went to Samarai, as assistant manager of the Bank of NSW.

In Australia on leave in 1914 when World War I broke out, he im mediately enlisted in the AIF, and was soon in Egypt, working in a hospital in Cairo as a member of the Medical Corps. The invasion of Gallipoli was looming and he was not in the draft to go. Without con sulting those above him he managed to get into a draft by the simple ex pedient of changing places with a man who didn’t want to go. His departure, however, caused him to be posted as a deserter, a matter which was rectified when it was dis covered he was with the troops in Gallipoli.

Mr Middleton later became a Lewis machine-gunner, and was badly wounded during the second battle of the Somme. He lost an eye and suffered lung damage which plagued him for the rest of his life.

Invalided to Australia, he was soon on his way back to PNG, no longer with the Bank of NSW, but as assistant manager of Giligili, a Lever Bros plantation at Milne Bay.

Soon after he went into partnership in a trading enterprise at Baimara.

One of his moves at that time was to start a plantation known as Manapi.

Mr Middleton later went to Rabaul to join the Expropriation

Board.

As the work of the board started to run down, Mr Middleton looked for new activities. He acquired Kulili on Karkar Island and set about making it a top copra estate.

He acquired four further estates on Karkar, to become one of the biggest plantation holders in New Guinea.

In 1927, he married Miss Alice Tre gent, a Victorian who had a business in Sydney.

The world depression started to hit the planters, but Mr Middleton was a shrewd businessman who had so arranged his affairs that he was able to weather that economic storm. All his efforts were paying off when World War II broke out and he had to leave his properties.

On his way back to Australia, he had to put up with his share of or deals, one of which included tramp ing from Wau to Mt Hagen. He also served as a coast watcher for

periods.

In Australia in mid-1942 there was a call for such men as he with knowledge of Papua New Guinea to join ANGAU. He was soon com missioned as a lieutenant in this or ganisation.

After World War 11, Mr Mid dleton, like so many other Euro peans, found it difficult to get back to PNG because of the policies of the then Australian Government.

With his son, John, not long out of school, he eventually made it to Karkar to find all the plantations run down, and reverting to jungle.

Labour was also difficult to get.

Through hard work the five plan tations were rehabilitated, and as an experiment, Mr Middleton started to grow cocoa between the coconut trees. The results are now paying off handsomely.

Mr Middleton is survived by his wife, sons John and Roger, and three grandsons.

Mr Fred Turner Longtime Papua New Guinea identity, Mr Fred Turner, has died at 73 at his home in Boroko.

The Ela Beach Branch of the RSL, known as the “Town Branch” of Port Moresby, of which Mr Turner was president at the time of his death, closed its doors for two days as a mark of respect on his passing. He was a past president of the PNG branch of the RSL Mr Turner first went to PNG in 1934 to work as a medical assistant

at Rouna near Port Moresby.

He joined ANGAU during World War II and was in charge of the medical store and supplies in the Wau-Bulolo area Mr Turner returned to Port Moresby in 1945 and was dis charged from the army in that year.

He joined the administration and worked with it until his retirement in 1964.

He then went into private busi ness, starting as a driving instructor and later as a tour operator. In this capacity he became widely known, earning the nickname “Fearless Fred” for his performance behind the wheel.

Mr Jack Fox Mr Jack Fox, who has been a vital part of Papua New Guinea’s Western Highlands Province for nearly 30 years, has died at his farm near Mt Hagen, aged 84.

Returning from his customary walk one day in late October, Mr Fox was told by Talair officials that a Beechcraft Baron aircraft piloted by his son John was missing in the Milne Bay Province (see PIM, News in a Nutshell). Mr Fox’s family said the strain was too great for his weakened heart.

Born in England, Mr Fox and his brother Tom first came to PNG in 1914 with the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Forces.

Jack and Tom Fox, who were identical twins, became gold miners, and built up a reputation as good, tough men who had no hesitation in travelling through uncontrolled ter ritory where white men had never been seen. Their most famous ex pedition was in 1934 when they prospected from Mt Hagen to the then Dutch-border, and turned up emaciated, after being given up for lost.

Dr D avid Purdy Dr David Purdy, an Australian in charge of government veterinary and stock services throughout Papua New Guinea, was killed in a yacht ing accident in Port Moresby Har bour in October.

Dr Purdy, 35, and married with two children, was struck on the head by a boom on his yacht and knocked overboard. He was apparently un conscious when he hit the water, as he was a good swimmer.

Dr Purdy, who had lived in Port Moresby for 16 years, held the num ber one registration on the PNG registry of veterinary surgeons.