John Werner

I thank you for this advice. I remember "Balus" means pigeon or any bird and also is used to refer to any thing that flies like a fixed-wing aircraft in Tok Pisin. For example, "Balus ilaik go" ,means "the plane is about to leave". The tok pisin description of a helicopter on Bougainville was "mixmaster bilong Jesus Christ" reflecting the influence of the missionaries. One American missionary on Buka (Sohano) named local village twin boys Cocoa Cola and Pepsi Cola as an "in" joke which I found to be in poor taste and told him so. Cheers, JW.

Wow. I appreciate your post and its history. By the way, on a break from Panguna Copper Mine on Bougainville Island, staying in Rabaul I met a couple who owned Kulon Plantation near Kokopo, East New Britain Province PNG. They asked me to look after the plantation so that they could have a well-deserved vacation in Europe. I agreed and spent a couple of months there after a brief period being "shown the ropes" on what that entailed - basically supervision of the indentured labour on the plantation and the copra processing operation and export of the smoked product through the port of Rabaul. Simple stuff. Here are some photos of Kulon and environs at the time (1970). The tunnels were dug into the soft volcanic ash deposits (tuff or tufa) by the Japanese military during WW2 and still contained munitions like mortar rounds, artillery shells, AP mines and aerial bombs. Locals used these as sources of high explosives to stun fish on the fringing reefs and quite a few of the men had missing limbs owing to "accidents" during their fishing expeditions.

To be fair, the purpose at the time was as a training exercise in explosives, earthworks, plant operations and surveying for the sappers. The airstrip construction was simply a training device in the very early days of the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area and I don't think it was an end in itself then. And what military is concerned about the cost of doing business? That's for the accountants to worry about and they're all in Canberra.

I agree with what you say about the fatigue factor. We wouldn't get away with that as a pilot today, that's for sure.... or even a truck driver probably. It would be very difficult to display superior airmanship under those local conditions with that level of fatigue.

By coincidence, I came upon this old photo of MAF's first pilot in New Guinea, Harry Hartwig standing in front of VH-KAN, both of which were lost as discussed above in 1951 at Asaroka Gap.

Thinking about Military Exercise: Talisman Sabre now on at Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area, north-east of Rockhampton. My unit, No. 20 Company of the Royal Engineers (20 CRE -Works) based at Kelvin Grove Barracks, Brisbane, constructed the first airstrip there in 1966. First, the trees were removed by using plastic explosives in auger holes in the lateral roots then TNT slabs were placed on the tree trunks to control the direction of fall. After clearing the airstrip alignment, we used mobile plant (dozers and graders) to level the strip to survey standards. Our Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) used to detonate a slab of TNT suspended from a nearby tree branch by CordTex as "Reveille". I still love the smell of TNT in the mornings. The airstrip has since been sealed and upgraded to international standards and renamed Williamson Airfield (ICAO: YWIS) as shown in the photo. Shoalwater Bay is mentioned in "I Was Only Nineteen", the #1 single by Redgum from the 1983 album 'Caught in the Act'. It is also mentioned in the video game ARMA 2, when a USMC private named Kowalski mentions he had a fun time with the "Aussies at Shoalwater Bay".

Between 1965 and 1996, there were 685 accidents (as opposed to incidents) involving aircraft in Papua New Guinea, that led to 467 fatalities. Most of these accidents were the result of controlled flight into terrain in single-engine aircraft. Hundreds of aircraft lost during World War II are still unaccounted for. One problem was inaccurate maps. Still, there are currently no World Aeronautical Charts available for PNG either from Civil Aviation Safety. Over the same period, 101 deaths involving 28 aircraft were the result of trying to fly through the high-altitude gaps or passes in the ranges, which rise to nearly 15,000 feet. Although the average sector length in PNG flying is less than 30 minutes, it frequently involves negotiating one or more of these gaps. The pilot flies through them on the way out to destinations and through them again on the way back to base. I was in PNG during part of that period and I recall many accidents, often fatal, involving those brave pilots of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) starting with pilot and engineer, Harry Hartwig in 1951 with an Auster Autocar (VH-KAN) in PNG. After a very encouraging start, clocking up almost 300 hours in his first month, disaster struck. Harry Hartwig had flown into the Asaroka Gap and a deadly mix of conditions that still present a trap for unwary pilots in Papua New Guinea: low cloud, rugged terrain and unsuitable aircraft. The fate of the radio-less aircraft and its pilot might have forever remained a mystery, had not a New Guinean schoolteacher (at a mission outpost near the Asaroka Gap) seen an aircraft that afternoon circling in and out of cloud, before hearing an impact on the mountain. Immediately he dispatched two boys to carry the message to Asaroka, but it would still be another day and a half before the aircraft and the body of its pilot were located, 300 feet below the Gap. I have spoken to some of the brave pilots about tactics employed in such hazardous flying conditions and one I recall is that if experiencing a sudden whiteout in eight oktas of cloud, seek out the lightest patch and head for there in the hope of a break in the cloud cover. It has been suggested that was the tactic employed by one aviator but unfortunately he flew his Cessna 185 into a white limestone escarpment that may have been the Hindenburg Wall in the Star Mountains of Western District from memory. The attached photo shows just how that may have occurred.

.... oddly enough, a mate of mine who worked in a tin mine in Bolivia brought me back a gift of Bolivian denim shirts with Birds of Paradise motifs on the front and which I never wore for fear of ....

..... since this post, I have changed my name by speed doll from "Javier" to "Guillermo Villas" in an attempt to improve my tennis game. It must have worked somewhat as Captain is still looking for the ball in the Avenida del Mayo in between bouts of .....

.... which consists of ... welcome news to .... captain and turbo et al .....

..... fact that, over the weekend (pronounced "weekend" in French), medical science has discovered a cure for the virulent form of verbosity which consisits of one part silence and two parts introspection which should be welcome news to .....

.... explained the reasons that experienced boa constrictors (aka penile circumnavigators) tend to employ non-secateurs when undertaking the congenital mutilation of either gender. Awarded an ABC Circumcisors World Magazine Best Buy for the best all round tip bypass, these simple non-secateurs have fewer moving parts or gimmicks yet their strong, Japanese steel blades cut cleanly and effortlessly. They're ideal for all pruning tasks, including heavy duty jobs like mature foreskins, cutting consistently well and are well made, sharp and easy to use and feel long-lasting. Their red and white handles make them hard to lose in the undergrowth, both during the day and at night and although the safety catch, which is at the end of the handle takes some getting used to, once mastered, it's a breeze. They have a handy hole for hanging them up after use and although the blade will rust slightly if not cared for and dipped in Olive Oil occasionally, provided these non-secateurs are looked after well they should last you years. Remember, a non-sequitur joke has no explanation, but it reflects the idiosyncrasies, mental frames and alternative world of the particular comic persona who is doing the circumcision or congenital mutilation, as the case may be, at the time. We tested the different types of non-secateurs, using them on a range of different men and at different times of the day and night to help you find the right pair for your synagogue. This text was brought to you after many years of research and failed operations by Sir Cumference, otherwise known as .....

.... this novitiate would like to see the very turban that was used by Izmel for his session of mammoth circumcisions mentioned in dispatches by the ladies, including Melania Trump (nee Knauss). The very clever juxtaposition of the two symbols of male and female reproductive technology from the early Pleistocene to the Bronze Age is notable for its relevance to the current discussion in this NES forum, without prejudice, according to my lawyer and captain who shall remain nameless whilst pointing out that there is a vas deferens between men and women necessitating the employment of contraband devices on every conceivable occasion as Spike Milligan noted when he .....

.... minimum temperatures in Hobart and Brisbane will be the same 6 degrees C on Sunday morning which will just go to prove that Victoria and NSW no longer exist as meteorological buffers in the national scheme of things even allowing for the preponderance of hygroscopic nuclei within their borders, unless ......

..... onslaught of circumlocution as all present discussed the necessity for removing the forecastle from the organ whilst the vessel was still in port. Could the hierarchy of the religion be taking the texts too literally or were they just so practised in phallic torture that they couldn't help themselves. All these questions, and more, will be answered in the revised edition of Revelations for Novices, due out any millenium now. Meanwhile, back at the temple, Saint Simon Templar was preparing himself for another bite of the cherry if his circumvented author would write him into the Ketuvim of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament before Ecclesiastes realises that although everything is meaningless, there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens, provided that ....