The hazards of the patrol

Out Of The Past

Dr lan Downes recalls the perils of early PNG police-work.

JA S 1936 DREW TO a close Ed ward Taylor, District Officer of the Morobe District in New Guinea, was finding it difficult to cope with the flood of gold prospectors, labour recruiters and missionaries hoping to enter new country being opened up on the New Guinea Main land. The decline of the stabilised goldfields in the Wau-Bulolo area, the

discovery of the huge populations in

the Highlands valleys from Kainantu to Mount Hagen, the recent search for oil and the rejuvenation of island plantations all contributed to this pressure and by late November,

Taylor had only three patrol officers

available for routine patrols (the others were operating from estab lished police posts). There was also a

shortage of experienced national

police to accompany patrols, and the situation was daily growing more diffi cult: the Morobe District, which in cluded Wau, Bulolo, Lae and Fins chaffen and which then extended be hind the Madang and Sepik Districts as far as the border of Dutch New Guinea, was simply being over whelmed by an invasion of Europeans.

All of us patrol officers knew this.

The Montoro had arrived from Syd

ney with patrol officers John Milligan

and Thomas Hough, wno had com pleted their year of study at the Uni versity of Sydney after two years’ ser vice in New Guinea. The Montoro also brought a draft of 20 police const ables, all natives of Bougainville Is

land, who had just completed training

in Rabaul.

Taylor called Milligan, Hough and I

into nis office: we were to go on pat rol within a week. Hough was to pat rol the watershed of the Leron, the northern tributory of the Markham; Milligan was to patrol the Irumu and Erap and I was to complete the pat tern by covering the Wain, Naba and Momalili tribal areas eastward and in ward from the Bakauwa coast. I had the largest area, but the more civilised people. Hough had the smallest area, out its inhabitants had only experi enced half a dozen patrols. We had to record a complete census, visit every hamlet and village and would prob ably be away for two or three months.

I can remember Tom Hough; a tall, rangy, fresh-faced young man with fair surf-bleached hair and pale blue eyes. I think he had been studying architecture before he came to New Guinea: he spoke quietly and was

fond of music, owning one of those

portable wind-up gramophones that

were still the latest thing in 1936.

There were a few photographs of family, and one of a girl, that ne put in the patrol box with nis bush clothes.

On that evening, the last time I saw him in Salamaua, he was playing gra mophone records. I can’t remember why I wanted to ask him why he had come to New Guinea he seemed a most unlikely person to be there but I never did: I left for Lae in the

morning and Milligan and Hough

were to fly as far as Kaiapit in tne

Markham Valley.

On December 17, a runner arrived from Milligan when I was just above Boana Mission station in the Wain: Hough had been wounded, Milligan was on his way to the Leron and in tended to get Hough to Kaiapit.

Would I send a messgae to Alan Roberts, the Assistant District Officer in Lae? Milligan had already sent one runner, but another message would do no harm and perhaps there was a transmitter on the mission station at

Kaiapit.

Jonn Milligan brought Tom Hough

out of the Leron and nad him carried for two days to the airfield at Kaiapit, where an aircraft from Lae was wait ing to fly him to Salamaua. He died nine days after admission to hospital, from complications that followed an arrow wound in the lung. Arrowheads do not have to be poison tipped: if they’re dirty, they will kill you if you don’t get them out in time.

Alan Roberts and John Milligan re turned to the Leron, where 17 men implicated in the attack gave them selves up and “friendly contact was

successfully established”. Only the

man who fired the arrow at Tom Hough was committed for trial in the Supreme Court. He was ultimately sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for manslaughter; the defence coun

sel, paid by the government, argued

that the man who fired at Hough had not even aimed at him. He said ne was

firing at the police.

This is what had happened: Thomas Alfred Hougn was wound ed on a Sunday morning, while lying in a hammock outside nis tent ana reading a book. He had 12 Bougain ville police with him, none of wnom had ever been on patrol before. They had all wandered off unarmed to Suenda Village, about 300 metres away, to go to church.

From evidence presented at the trial, it appeared the police had been refused entry to the Lutheran church because they were Catholics. They had then tried to negotiate for a woman, but had been refused: they had been led to believe at the training depot in Rabaul that it was normal for ‘bush kanakas’ to provide women for police on patrol. Finally, one of them tried a direct approacn to a girl carrying bamboo water containers, apparently on her way to deliver them to Hough’s camp.

Tne rest of the police gathered, sur rounding the young woman, who be gan to run, dropped the bamboo con tainers and called for help. Village men grabbed bows and arrows and startea to shoot. The police were un armed, and ran to the camp with the bowmen sending showers of arrows behind them.

The police rushed past Hough . . . and kept on running. Tom scrambled out of his hammock and for a mo ment was between the police and the Suenda bowmen. He held up his arms, calling on them to stop. They shot at him and ran on after the

fleeing police.

Eight of the Bougainville police nev

er returned. Some of them, however, managed to find Milligan, who had

already learned of Hough’s wounding

by ‘village telegraph’. The Suenda

Ceople and Hough’s cook did their est to look after the injured man un til Milligan arrived.

Tom Hough was the only person wounded in the whole affair: not much more than a month earlier, he had been surfing at Manly.

As was customary, there was a press release from the Minister for Territor ies and a letter of condolence to Hough’s family. In those days it was generally accepted that “death or in jury by violence from natives may be considered one of the occupational hazards of a patrol officer’s life”. I’m sure they had this pasted up some where in the records office of the de partment in Canberra it was in all the letters they wrote to next-of-kin.

In 1937, five of us attending train ing courses at the University of Syd ney seized on this quote and sought a meeting with the then Minister for Territories.

We were assured that something would be done . . . but of course no thing was, until after World War ll.□