Category: Political Development

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...

“One cannot spend over 27 years in Papua New Guinea and fail to experience sadness and regret when forced to leave it, particularly when the circumstances are beyond one’s control,” writes J. P. Sinclair,...

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,...

When I set up a permanent Base Camp at Mindik in the middle of the Huon Peninsula in1970, I arrived with the usual Patrol gear (Kerosene stove, canvas shower bucket and a “bedsail”. The...

When Bob Cole was Commissioner of the Royal Papua and New Guinea Constabulary, it was customary for kiaps passing through Port Moresby on posting or on leave, to drop in and pay their respects. So...

So read the heading on one of the pages of a booklet for school-leavers circulated when I was completing my “Intermediate” (Year 4), the year after I had arrived in Melbourne as a Pommie...

Speech given at Sharing Histories: Kiap tribute event at the National Archives of Australia, 20 November 2010 In March 2002 Chris Viner-Smith commenced a lone campaign to have the service of Kiaps formerly recognised...

(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...

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,...

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...

I was interested to read the articles in the latest Una Voce regarding the role of kiaps in pre-independence Papua New Guinea. I was especially interested in the statement that Cadet Patrol Officers were...

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....

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...