Champion

Obituary

Ivan the Champion

Port Moresby-born Ivan Champion,

OBE, Australia’s last great explor er, died on August 12, at Woden Hospital, Canberra, after a brief illness.

He was born on March 9, 1904 at Port Moresby. He was the eldest son of Papua’s then Government Secretary, Herbert W. Champion. Ivan Champion was regarded as a determined explorer of the vast interior and rugged high lands of Papua. Between 1925 and 1940 he conducted a series of exploring ex peditions which established him as the best known explorer of Papua.

As a Junior Officer in Papua’s Mag isterial Service, Champion accompanied the late Assistant Resident Magistrate, Charles Karius, on the the Great North West Patrol of 1926-1928 which disco vered the source of Papua’s mighty Fly

River and the headwaters of the Sepik River.

Champion wrote a book about this famous expedition, Across New Guinea from the Fly to the Speik (London, Con stable, 1932). It is an acknowledged clas sic of the literature of New Guinea Ex ploration.

Champion distinguished himself as a Royal Australian Navy officer in World War 11. In 1942, as captain of HMAS Laurabada, he sailed his ship deep into Japanese-held territory to rescue the remnants of Australia’s Rabaul Military Garrison who had escaped from Rabaul.

In a daring operation, Champion took on board 150 exhausted, sick and wounded soldiers and in a violent tropic al thunderstorm, navigated the Lauraba da back to the safety of Port Moresby without incident.

Towards the end of 1944 Champion was assigned to the HMS Challenger for six months to survey a route through the Torres Straits for the passage of the British Fleet. After he was discharged from the navy in October 1945, he was

appointed to the Provisional Administra tion of Papua and New Guinea. He later became acting Director of the Depart ment of District Services and Native Affairs.

In 1951 Champion was in charge of the massive relief operations that fol lowed the catastrophic eruption of Mount Lamington volcano. At least 35 Australians and 3000 Papuans perished in this tragic eruption. In 1961, Trans Australian Airlines (now Australian Air lines) named a DC cargo plane VH-SBM The Ivan Champion.

Champion’s life as an explorer is the subject of a recently published book by James Sinclair, the foremost Australian writes of books about Papua New Guinea. The book, Last Frontiers: The Explorations of Ivan Champion of Papua published in 1989 by Pacific Press (Gold Coast), recounts the triumphs, tra vails accomplishments and progress of Champion and his fellow Australians who explored the enormous swamps, the vast grasslands and rugged mountains of the interior of Papua New Guinea. □