Author: president

PNG’s location on the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire was given bad press with the death and destruction at many locations, including pre and post war Rabaul, Mt Lamington and Manum and Kairiru Island....

I was saddened to read of Don Vincin’s death in the March 2011 edition of Una Voce. The mention in his obituary of the Maramuni area stirred memories of one of the most satisfying...

Being Queensland born, when I read a Government advertisement for Patrol Officers in PNG, in the Hobart Mercury newspaper (and it was a cold winter in Hobart), I didn’t hesitate to reply. Another incentive...

With thanks to Ross Wilkinson, Paul Oates and the many people who have contributed to this Honour Roll. Died in the service of Australia: 1878 November 27 – William Bairstow Ingham, Government Agent for...

Paul Ryan’s most interesting account of his tours of duty in the Jimi Valley of the Western Highlands District in 1968 (click here) brings to my mind the time I was required to carry...

Like all good stories, this one starts “long, long ago and far, far away” The great bird island to the North of Australia dozed in the tropic seas for millennia until, in the mid-1840s,...

In 1956 and 1957, I was posted to Minj in the Wahgi Valley of the Western Highhlands as a Patrol Officer. It was during this time that Barry Griffin was sent to establish a...

Ken died on Anzac Day aged 85. We had met when he was made ADO Rabaul sub-district in 1962 and I worked for him with pleasure when later he became Actg/DO West New Britain....

Historian Donald Denoon outlines the unique relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea, and the changing role of the kiaps. When civilian administration resumed in Papua and New Guinea after World War II, and...

Reading the commentary about medals for Kiaps afflicts me with conflicting points of view especially given that as an immediate post WW2 Kiap I might be qualified to receive one. My first point is...

On 5 November 2008, Chris Viner-Smith submitted a paper to the Australian Government seeking formal recognition of the services of Kiaps (patrol officers) in the development of the independent state of Papua New Guinea,...

Speech by Paul Oates at the National Archives of Australia Kiap History day, 20 November 2010 Senator Lundy, Maj. Gen Jeffery, High Commissioner Lepani, Director and staff of the National Archives, fellow former kiaps,...

(Published in Una Voce, December 1998, page 16) Adrian Geyle was CPO for two years at Lake Murray, Kiunga, Gaima and Daru, Western District; PO OIC Green River, Sepik District; PO H/Q, Madang District....

John Green, Government Agent, 14 January 1897, Tamata, Northern Division, British New Guinea, together with Corporal Sedu, and Constables Dumai, Gaiwa, Mirio and Taurauki, Armed Native Constabulary. Robert Dorrien Kirby, Patrol Officer, April 1916,...

(Published in Una Voce, December 2003 page 9) A tribute to those who followed in the tradition and footsteps of the pre-war ‘outside’ men in penetrating and establishing law and order in the primitive...