Private funerary arrangements have been arranged in accordance with dad’s wishes. Rest in Peace, Dad. Shan and I are deeply grateful to those who maintained contact with dad over the years and particularly while he was in hospital during his last days. It gave him strength.

__________

KEITH JACKSON writes:

Des was an occasional contributor to PNG Attitude over the years and a number of his observations remain as gems, especially the last reminiscence I have included in this series….

“Looking back to those faraway days when I was the ADO Kiap at Ambunti in 1960-63, I had a liklik dokta [medical assistant] whose small hospital provided excellent medical facilities to local people and medivac by air to base hospital in Wewak for those needing advanced treatment. Seems that things have gone downhill a bit since then” (2014)

“Phil Fitzpatrick was unfortunate to have been posted as a cadet under the irascible Tom Ellis. Tom was either greatly admired or greatly hated by those who served under him. Indeed some were afraid of him.” (2014)

I respect Mathias Kin for his efforts to seek out the history of his people. He should try and get hold of a book with the strange title of ‘Not a Poor Man's Field’ by Michael Waterhouse. The main theme is the history of the search for gold in New Guinea (not Papua) in the 1920s up to 1942. It covers in depth the murders of miners and their workers and some kiaps and police and importantly the aggressive attitude of the New Guinea Administration of those days. The policy was retaliation and attacks on patrols were countered with lethal force and there is strong evidence of punitive expeditions to get the message across that attacks on government patrols and miners would not be tolerated.

“The situation was different in Papua and immediately post- WW2 there was tension between the Kiaps posted there and those in New Guinea. The old pre war Papuan kiaps, the Resident and Assistant Resident Magistrates, disliked their NG counterparts and even as late as 1956 on my first posting to Papua after three terms in NG the pre-war Papuan who was DC at the time took me aside and to my astonishment warned me against using New Guinea style administration methods now I was in Papua.” (2014)

“Bill Brown’s reports in PNG Attitude are read with interest by all of us old kiaps and the latest chapter on Dreikikir brought back memories of my time there. I don’t know if, when Bill were at Dreik, he saw my Patrol Report 1/51 when I ventured well down south of Mai Mai following reports of tribal murders. I found that the occasional patrols pre- and post-war had only penetrated the main tracks and villages and discovered I was well into uncontrolled territory where no previous contact had been made.

“The main characters doing the killing were from a Yilui group paying back attacks made weeks earlier by another group from Eismala. I was a bit late, a day or so behind the Yilui, then bumped into them when the raiding group was resting. Arrows were fired before they fled. I assumed at the time the Yilui were returning from a raid but found later they were on their way to attack the Eismala group.

“When I arrived at Eismala the next day, I found a number of bodies on the track obviously killed while fleeing the scene and many more with arrow wounds with the shafts broken off. Others who had fled the attackers came back when I arrived but were suffering PTSD and were no danger to the patrol. A number were badly wounded and could not have survived but there was nothing I could do to prevent their suffering.

“I also found that the Yiluis had been accompanied by warriors from other local groups. When I moved on and arrived in the Yilui area after seven or eight hours walk, the patrol was attacked by a large group. As one of the police later told his mate, “Spia bilong benarra pundaun olsem rain” [the arrows fell like rain].

“I ordered the police not to open fire and Sergeant Nemo and I rushed forward and tackled the fight leader dodging arrows as we did so. I fired my pistol into the ground which startled the fight leader who was attempting to fire at Nemo and me. We handcuffed him and his mates ran off probably because they had not seen a kiap or police before. When we entered the area and set up camp, friendly relations were established particularly as the fight leader found we were not going to kill him.

“The area was actually in the Aitape Sub-District but, as I had received the report of tribal fighting, I followed it up. As I reported to headquarters via Rup Haviland, the Assistant District Officer at Maprik, I was unable to make arrests as too many scattered groups were involved and there was no way the area could be controlled until a patrol post was established. Headquarters agreed as it was policy not to try to prevent tribal fighting unless the locality was under government influence. No departmental staff were available at the time so the status quo remained until Nuku was opened a couple of years later.

“I might add that the police, carriers and I were totally exhausted after three weeks of wallowing around in swampy ground. Those were the days.” (2017)