As you rip, so shall you sew: Bob Cleland
“Julie, have you got a curved needle and some strong thread?” “I think so, I’ll look. Why do you want it?” “Because I want to sew up a DC3.” “Ooooh . . . ....
Category: Transport
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...
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...
About pumps and fuel: Jim Eames
One of the nice things about being editor of the New Guinea Times Courier in Lae in the ’60s was the close relationships you forged with some of the people in the aviation industry....
Kiaps on bikes: Chips MacKellar
(Published in Una Voce, December 1998, page 5) Malcolm (Chips) MacKellar 1953-1955 CPO Daru and Lake Murray (Western District) 1955-1956 P.O. Mount Hagen (Western Highlands District) 1957 ASOPA Long Course 1958-1964 PO at Madang...
From Cairns to Salamaua: Derek Crisp
Copy of E.D. Crisp’s report on flight from Cairns to Salamaua, 16 February to 2 March 1938. The following narrative is also shown as slides in the Photo Gallery under reference “One of the...
Last flight: Bob Cleland
As related by Julia Lesley Cleland Our second daughter Kathryn was born at home at Balimo in the remote Western District of PNG on my birthday, 8 February 1959. I had planned to go...
Fifty years ago in PNG: Brian Darcey
In 1955, I had just returned to Sydney from a trans-Tasman crossing to New Zealand in Kylie, a steel ketch which had taken up the previous two years of my young life as we...
Days of adventure with Denis Buchanan: Leo Butler
Back in the early 1960s, when I returned to Lae in a marketing capacity, I was visiting Goroka and naturally my first call was to again meet Denis Buchanan who had taken over Territory...
All in the day’s work: Roger Wilson
It is 1950, the Second World War in which I flew as a pilot has been over for five years. I am now in Lae, capital of New Guinea, one of Qantas’s two bases,...
MIVA in North Bougainville 1934: Chris Diercke
Rigu strip, N Bougainville 1934 L – R Johnny Sanson, Dr Kroning (of Toberoi Plantation) talking to Fr Tonjes, Rudi Diercke (of Woskawitz Plantation), Peter Berkenheier (camera man). By the 1930s the Catholic...
Madang Airport 1973: Bruce O’Reilly
A PATAIR DC3, on charter to TAA, registration VH PNB, left Madang for Mendi on a government charter with building materials (no passengers) and on approach to land discovered it had no brakes and so...
Marooned in the Mortlock Islands: Mike Bourke
In September-October 2002, I spent six weeks in Bougainville Province, now the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, doing field work for a study of village agriculture. The first indication of the transport troubles that lay...
In the driver’s seat: Paul Dennett
The first set of wheels that I acquired in PNG, soon after I arrived in my first posting, was a bright red Honda 55 trail bike with an upswept exhaust. I think it cost...
Balus ikam – Talair PNG in the 1980s: Robin Mead
During the 1980s I worked in Papua New Guinea for Talair, one of the largest third-level airlines in the world, with a mixed fleet of 55 aircraft flying a complex network of scheduled and...
