Kokoda 70 years on: Charlie Lynn
Kokoda is a powerful word. According to the Orokaiva koko means place of skulls, da is village. The combination of syllables conjures up “adventure” in the minds of sedentary beings. It makes sense. Many...
Author: president
Timperley’s rescue voyage
This article was first published in Milne Bay 1942 and is now reprinted with permission from Clive Baker and War Book Shop It was during March that Lt Alan Timperley (ANGAU), was ordered to...
Private Stokie’s war in the jungle: Don Hook
One of the more extraordinary stories to come out of WW2 involves John Stokie, a New Guinea planter and one-time private in the NGVR, who ended the war as a decorated coastwatcher and guerilla...
Edward (Ted) Kenna, VC: Charles Betteridge
Edward (Ted) Kenna was born in Hamilton, Victoria, on 6 July 1919. He died there on 8 July 2009, aged 90 years and two days. He was the last surviving Australian Victoria Cross winner...
Transport troubles in Bougainville: Mike Bourke
Continued from Marooned in the Mortlock Islands My colleague, Tom Betitis, had only limited time left for fieldwork, so to complete the second half of our agricultural survey, it was important that we leave...
Tropical force and the Kavieng graves: Greg Knight
Kavieng is the principal town of Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland and less than three degrees south of the equator. Present day Nusa Parade runs along Kavieng’s sleepy waterfront with large tropical trees forming...
Telefomin plaque and glider: Bruce O’Reilly
Bruce O’Reilly sent in these photos of the plaque (above) and frame of the Glider flown into Telefomin to mark Telefomin’s dependence on air transport and the first flight there by Stuart Campbell in...
Cruising in Papua New Guinea waters: Don Hook
In May-June this year I spent 28 days with the Collins Brothers as a paying passenger on what was billed as an ‘epic voyage’ from Kiunga on the Fly River to Wewak in East...
Read, Mason, Tashiro and the Bougainville mystery: Ken Wright
During World War 2, two groups of Australian Coast Watchers operating independently of each other played a decisive part in the battle for Guadalcanal and the subsequent Allied advance through the South Pacific. The...
An inadeqquate force: Neville Threlfall
Much has been written lately about the fall of Rabaul in January 1942 and the consequent tragic loss of life when over a thousand prisoners went down in the prison ship Montevideo Maru. These...
Epic voyage 2013: Jacky Lawes
Jacqueline (“Jacky”) Lawes is a great granddaughter of the Reverend Dr William Lawes, of the London Missionary Society We were 32 passengers in all on two ships (the MV Miss Rankin and the Surveyor)1...
Going back for a look: Graham Egan
Graham Egan served in PNG from 1967-81 at Kerema High School, Maprik High School, Mt Hagen Technical College, Administrative College, Rabaul Secretarial College, Goroka Technical College and High School. We had been thinking about...
Ballarat memorials to the Australian POWs and the Montevideo Maru
The commemoration of both the Australian Prisoner-of War Memorial (6 February 2004) and the Memorial for those who died on board the Montevideo Maru (7 February 2004) was attended by a number of PNGAA...
World War II in the Pacific—The closing stages: Charles Betteridge
As World War II in New Guinea progressed, the noose around the Japanese was tightening further. By March 1944, the Americans were in possession of the Admiralty Islands and Madang, where the Japanese were...
The journey home: Rod Noble
One day you’re walking down George Street in Sydney. Next day you’re stranded with a landslide on Daulo Pass on the way to Kundiawa. The stark and sudden contrast is never easy to reconcile....
