Deaths
pp. 73-74 · Read in the full issue
of Islands People
W.H. Brooksbank Walter Hugh Brooksbank, who died in Melbourne on May 16 at the age of 85, was the man behind the scenes in Australia’s Coastwatching organisation.
He carried out the mass of detailed work involved in build ing up the organisation from its inception to its peak during the Pacific War, when its behind thc-lines activities earned its wide acclaim.
Waller Brooksbank was born in South Australia and began his long career with the Austra lian Navy Office in Melbourne in 1913 as a civilian staff clerk.
After wartime service with the Australian Army (winning the Military Medal) he became senior naval intelligence clerk when the intelligence division was established by the Navy in 1922. Because, after the first
few years and right up to 1939, the post of Director of Naval Intelligence was not fulltime, it was Brooksbank who provided staff continuity in the division under the various directors.
By 1939, when Commander R.B.M. Long became fulltime director and Brooksbank was appointed his civil assistant, 800 coastwatching reporting stations were already estab lished in Australia and the Islands. The Islands stations were soon expanded through the work of Commander Eric Feldt in Port Moresby.
Brooksbank was a polite, quietly spoken, self-effacing man. When he once appeared unexpectedly on Guadalcanal during heavy fighting to straighten out some communi cations problems, his arrival was described by historian Walter Lord, in Lonely Vigil. this way: k A courtly gentleman in a Palm Beach suit and Panama hat sauntered ashore from the destroyer Colhoun. To the gawking, sweating, grubby Marines he looked like some thing from another world a guest, perhaps, at a quiet sum mer hotel and they watched
with amazement as he made his unperturbed way to Com mander Mackenzie’s Coast watching headquarters.’
He retired from the Navy Office after the war. Four chil dren survive him.
Mum Stuart Mum Stuart was Tahiti’s oldest hoteliere when she died earlier this year, aged 84.
Local folk say she had prob ably welcomed more people to the Papeete waterfront than the Tourist Board itself. She will be remembered for the friendly smile and kind word with which she welcomed her guests from all over the world. Her historic Hotel Stuart, a Papeete harbour landmark since 1926, is now operated by her only son. Bill.
John Cuthbert Potts In Sydney, Australia, on May 27, aged 72. Born at Richmond, New South Wales, Mr Polls worked with the Colonial Sugar Refining Co Ltd in Fiji from 1929 to 1963, except for two years during World War II when he was in Australia doing munitions work. He became
CSR’s chief manager in 1957, and managing director of South Pacific Sugar Mills Ltd when that company was formed in 1962.
Mr Potts was involved in many public activities in Fiji, serving on hospital boards, gov ernment committees, and the leading committees of various sporting bodies.
Iroij Lojelan Kabua At Ebeye, Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands, on May 6, aged 102.
Iroij (King) Kabua, father of Marshall Islands President Amata Kabua, was one of the paramount chiefs and the senior elder in the traditional lines of the Marshall Islands.
In an official proclamation, the Marshalls Government hailed his long and active career of public service, saying; The Marshallese people will mourn his death and miss his wise counsel and guidance.’
It noted that Iroij Kabua was the first paramount chief to pay a personal visit to a US presi dent (the late Lyndon B.
Johnson), and that he had travelled extensively in the in terest of the people of the Marshalls throughout the USA, the Pacific, Japan and Southeast Asia.
It declared a period of mourning for Iroij Kabua last ing from May 8 to 17.
Len Noerr In Auckland, New Zealand, in April, aged 92.
Mr Noerr and his brother Bert went to Fiji in the 1920 s and for the next 30 years were well known as electricians and cinema-owners in Suva.
They bought the Universal Theatre in Pier St, opposite what was then the Pier Hotel, from the Bayly sisters, and around 1938 built the Regal Theatre in Victoria Parade.
Keenly interested in man> charities, through the Rotar> Club of Suva the two brothers were responsible for establish ing the first cinema for lepros> patients at the hospital which was then on Makogai island.
Len Noerr was for a numbei of years senior representative ol the United Grand Lodge ol England.
Captain Trevor Withers At the Defence Club, Suva, ir May, aged 79.
New Zealand-born Captair Withers had a varied career as £ stockbroker, pilot and cruise operator. He mixed a stock broking business in New Zea land before World War II wit! aviation, and was associatec with the Australian airman Sii Charles Kingsford Smith in ar unsuccessful attempt to estab lish a domestic airline in Nev Zealand.
After war service with the Royal New Zealand Air Force he arrived in Fiji in the late ’4O; to join another airman, Harok Gatty, in a failed tuna-fishing venture. Mr Gatty went back te aviation and started Fiji Air ways, now Air Pacific, while Captain Withers bought a for mer government launch anc turned it into a cruiser wit! which he began what became his internationally known Blue Lagoon Cruises, which is todaj a multi-million dollar business, He opened the almost inac cessible Yasawa island group te tourism for the first time, anc made the cruise one of the earb attractions which helped tour ism to grow into one of Fiji’s major industries.
Although he sold control of the business to fellow New Zealander Claude Miller in the ’6os, Captain Withers remainec a director of the company. Blue Lagoon today runs four large steel cruisers to the Yasawas.