CHRIS OVERLAND
“The greatest care is taken in selecting and building up patrols which are to penetrate an uncontrolled area and establish a new post. Only experienced officers are used in this work. New and inexperienced officers are not posted to a new area until my responsible officers are satisfied that it is under control, and only then in company with experienced officers” – PNG Administrator’s Press Release, 12 November 1953 (from A Kiap’s Chronicle by Bill Brown)
ADELAIDE - The nominal restrictions on what young, inexperienced Cadet Patrol Officers and Assistant Patrol Officers were allowed to do in terms of their field operations in colonial days are of interest to me.
My first two patrols as a brand new APO in 1969-70 were in the Kukukuku country north of Kerema. This area had been officially declared "controlled' a couple of years earlier, but that control was still tenuous at best.
On neither of those patrols was I accompanied by a senior officer, other than by Assistant District Officer John Mundell for the first week of a 32-day patrol surveying a road between Kaintiba Patrol Post and Murua Agricultural Station.
John was recalled for some reason and I was left to my own devices under the wise guidance of the redoubtable Father Alex Michelod, who was helping survey the road.
The second time, I was dropped off by helicopter at a remote mountain village in the same area to coordinate efforts to deal with the Hong Kong influenza epidemic of 1969-70. On that occasion I was accompanied by two capable medical assistants and two experienced RPNGC constables.
The patrol came under threat at one point, accused of working black magic and causing the epidemic. In a roundabout way, this was partially true. After all, if PNG had been left undisturbed, maybe the flu would never have got there.
Anyway, that was the only time I felt obliged to carry a loaded revolver (a very inaccurate .38 Smith and Wesson) and a much more dangerous .303 Lee Enfield Carbine. Happily, the threats amounted to nothing but it was, I think, an act of faith by District Commissioner Bob Bell to hope and believe that an inexperienced officer would not get into strife.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the DC was scraping the bottom of the proverbial staffing barrel to get the job done and an 18-year old novice was the only resource available to do it.
There seems to me to be echoes of the situation at Telefomin in the mid 1950's in what happened to me. It must have been contrary to policy to send me off alone, so Bob Bell was taking a risk on me both surviving and not managing to do any harm.
I guess not much had changed since the opening up of Telefomin 15 years later.