From The Archives

August 1944

Award for heroism Lieutenant W. J. Read, RANVR, for merly an assistant district officer in New Guinea, was awarded the American Distinguished Cross for “extraordinary heroism in action”. The award was made while Lieutenant Read was in Bougainville.

New bishop

The Right Rev Victor Foley was conse crated as Vicar Apostolic of Fiji on August 6. The consecrating prelate was the Right Rev Joseph Damand, Vicar Apostolic of Samoa. The Vicar Apostolic of the Northern Solomons, the Right Rev Thomas Wade, and the Vicar Apostolic of New Caledonia, the Right Rev Edward

Pacifist wb

Bresson also took part in the cere mony.

Seabees fame The fame of the American Seabees (naval construc tion battalion) is as great in the

Gilberts as it is in the Solomons, says Mr Harold Copper back in Suva, Fiji, after a tour of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

It was the Seabees who cleaned up the mess on Betio (Tarawa) and converted it, within a few days, into a ready-for-use American base. Betio today is so shorn of its coconuts as to be little rfiore than a flat coral platform.

Lunching with some American officers, Mr Cooper said they complained bitterly of the monotonous flatness of the atoll on which fate and the army has seen fit to cast them.

“Hell,” was the comment of one bored officer, “why don’t we get the Seabees to build us a mountain?”

Possible cure for malaria American scientists think they may have discovered a cure for malaria. For security reasons the nature of the drug is entirely hush-hush and it is believed at this stage that the treatment contains an ele ment of danger.

The scientists have been aided by vol unteers from the Atlanta (Georgia) peni tentiary who allowed themselves to be infected by anopheles mosquitoes.

These experiments were considered necessary because neither quinine nor atre bin effect a complete cure for malaria and the new drug might revolutionise treatment in combat areas. ■