Line of Fire

by Ian Townsend

  The description of the Lassul plantation comes from Mercia Murphy’s photographs (supplied by Julie Harris).

  Pat Boys, Coconuts and Tearooms: Six Years in New Britain, New Guinea in the 1930’s the Colonial Days, P.Boys, Auckland, New Zealand, 1993. This includes a detailed description of life on the Baining coast by Margaret Wood, a neighbour of the Harveys in the 1930s.

  Noel Coward, ‘A Room With a View’, 1928.

  Interview with Beverley Hornby, 12 December 2015. Beverley Hornby is the wife of Alan Hornby, whose first wife was Mercia Murphy. Alan had told Beverley how Mercia came to be in New Britain.

  ‘Cootamundra Races’, Cootamundra Herald, 7 November 1921, p.4, and ‘Jockey Left Wife’, Evening News (Sydney), 22 February 1927, p.10, are among the newspaper reports describing Winifred’s first husband, Ted Murphy. Notes on the Consterdine and Murphy families were also provided by Julie Harris.

  The details of Ted Harvey and Winifred Murphy’s marriage are in NAA: A518, 16/3/316.

  Mercia Murphy’s photographs (supplied by Julie Harris).

  ‘One never tires of the views . . .’ Mercia Murphy, ‘On a Copra Plantation’, The Australasian (Melbourne), 5 October 1935, p.49.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘16 ounces of gold . . .’: ‘Crushings at Kalgoorlie’, Sunday Times (Perth), 27 August 1933, p.3.

  ‘Bardoc Consolidated . . .’: SRSA: GRS/513, Unit 255 File 84/1933.

  The details of Varden Street come from articles in the Kalgoorlie Miner and the Western Argus, November 1933–April 1934, and from Marjorie’s marriage certificate, which shows the couple’s place of residence.

  ‘Personal Item’, Kalgoorlie Miner, 25 January 1934, p.4.

  ‘Night of Unbridled Rioting in Kalgoorlie’, The Canberra Times, 1 February 1934, p.1.

  Certificate of Marriage, Edward Clarence Gasmier and Marjorie Jean Manson, 14 March 1934, Kalgoorlie. Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Perth, Western Australia.

  Jack Gasmier’s court battles in Kalgoorlie are detailed in: ‘Eastern Goldfields’, The West Australian, 26 May 1934, p.15; ‘Mining’, Western Argus (Kalgoorlie), 20 March 1934, p.30; ‘Advertising’, Kalgoorlie Miner, 28 May 1934, p.2; ‘Kalgoorlie Warden’s Court’, Kalgoorlie Miner, May–September 1934; ‘Items of News,’ Western Argus, 25 December 1934, p.18.

  The details of Jack’s arrest and hearing, including references to Marjorie’s illness, were reported in the Perth newspapers, including: ‘Alleged False Pretences’, The West Australian, 26 October 1935, p.23; ‘Alleged “Crook” Cheque’, Kalgoorlie Miner, 26 October 1935, p.6; ‘Used Valueless Cheques’, The Daily News, 31 October 1935, p.5; ‘Valueless Cheques’, Kalgoorlie Miner, 1 November 1935, p.7; ‘Cheque Frauds’, The West Australian, 1 November 1935, p.10; ‘Police Courts’, The West Australian, 7 November 1935, p.23.

  SROWA: ‘Edward Clarence Gasmier, Prisoner No: 17202’, Register of Fremantle Prison Inmates, Series 681, Consignment 4286, 1935.

  ‘Shipping’, The West Australian, 28 November 1935, p.17. Marjorie bought tickets for herself and Dickie under her married name, Gasmier.

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘Mr Gasmier is an instructor of no mean ability . . .’: ‘Championship Wrestling’, Transcontinental (Port Augusta), 17 July 1936, p.3.

  ‘Razzler Nearly Hanged’, Truth (Sydney), 24 May 1936, p.9.

  ‘Whitman Defeats Gasmier’, Transcontinental (Port Augusta), 18 September 1936, p.2.

  ‘failing to pay maintenance . . .’: ‘Warrants Issued’, The South Australian Police Gazette, 24 February 1937, p.70.

  Charles Hope Ltd advertised for car body builders in The Advertiser in 1936 and 1937.

  ‘Through it all we were not on very good terms . . .’: NAA: A518, 16/3/316.

  Queensland State Archives: Item 1081288, Admission Register — West End State Infants School Nos 9860–9875, 29 Jun 1937–20 Jul 1937. ‘Gasmier, Richard, 1937. Parent’s name, occupation and residence: Edward Gasmier, Motor Body Builder, 34 Russal [sic] St, West End.’

  Australian Electoral Commission, and Commonwealth Electoral Office, Queensland Branch (Electoral Rolls) (microfiche). ‘1937 Electoral Roll Division of Brisbane, Subdivision of Fortitude Valley. Gasmier, Edward Clarence, Mascot Flats, Breakfast Creek Road. Motor Body Builder. Gasmier, Marjorie Jean, Mascot Flats, Breakfast Creek Road. Home duties.’

  CHAPTER 9

  ‘Mighty earthquakes shake us from time to time . . .’: Sarah Johnston Chinnery, Malaguna Road: The Papua and New Guinea Diaries of Sarah Chinnery, Edited by Kate Fortune, National Library of Australia, 1998. (nla. gov.au/sites/default/files/malagunaroad.pdf).

  ‘Wedding. Parker — Legge’, The Rabaul Times, 12 December 1941. The wedding was held on Saturday 6 December 1941, and the list of guests included Mrs Coote and Mrs Harvey.

  Most of this chapter is based on interviews with Diana Martell, 2015.

  ‘Bloody Pirates . . .’: Cahill (1987), p.184, quoting Ken Buckley and Kris Klugman, The Australian Presence in the Pacific: Burns Philp 1914–1946, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, p.147.

  Harvey refused to sign what’s called a ‘charging agreement’ (a contract requiring him to sell his produce through one firm and buy his goods through that firm, usually in exchange for a loan) with Burns Philp and W.R. Carpenter. See NAA: A1713, S76.

  I.M., ‘Rakaia’, A Nilai na Dowot (The Voice of Truth), 332, 1937, p.2. This is from an article in the Tolai language magazine of the Rabaul Methodist Church. It was written by a person who gives his initials I.M. and who notes that the Tolai called Vulcan ‘Rakaia’, which literally means ‘The Volcano’. (Accessed from the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Australian National University Canberra in microfilms PMB1291, 539–540.)

  R.W. Johnson, Fire Mountains of the Islands: A History of Volcanic Eruptions and Disaster Management in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, ANU E Press, Acton, ACT, 2013, p.40 (press.anu.edu.au/publications/fire-mountains-islands).

  ‘average bungalow home requires from three to five native servants . . .’: Australia, Prime Minister’s Department, Official Handbook of the Territory of New Guinea Administered by the Commonwealth of Australia under Mandate from the Council of the League of Nations, L.F. Johnston, Commonwealth Government Printer, Canberra, 1937, p.141.

  ‘“Mrs Coote gave me the seeds of this beautiful bauhinia . . .”’: Chinnery (1998).

  George Boegershauser, ‘Eruption of a Volcano at Rabaul’, Rabaul Times, 6 August 1937, p.15. Boegershauser said that in 1900 he had spoken to a chief, To Mulue, about an eruption at Sulphur Creek around 1847.

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘One cannot look at it a moment without being struck at the natural strength . . .’: C.H. Simpson, a letter to the Hydrography of the Admiralty, Whitehall, from HMS Blanche, Sydney, New South Wales, ‘Hydrographical Extract from a Six Months Cruise among the South Sea Islands’, 1 November 1872. (Accessed from the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Australian National University, Canberra, in microfilm PMB1291, 47.)

  Mercia Murphy took photographs of her trip around the harbour (courtesy Julie Harris).

  ‘I would suggest that life buoys be hung round the verandah rails . . .’: George H. Murray quoted in Christopher G. Newhall and Daniel Dzurisin, ‘Historical Unrest at Large Calderas of the World’, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin, Issue 1855, Part 1, 1988.

  Mercia Murphy (1935). Mercia calls Harvey ‘father’.

  There’s a photograph taken by Mercia of her Uncle Cedric on horseback at the plantation at Christmas 1935 (courtesy Julie Harris).

  Wyn’s brother Cedric Consterdine, known as ‘Frank’, later managed the Koko Plantation on New Ireland for W.R. Carpenter. He was executed by the Japanese at Kavieng, New Ireland, during the war. For a full account of the incident, see Raden Dunbar’s The Kavieng Massacre: A War Crime Revealed, Sally Milner Publishing, Binda, NSW, 2007.

  Melville Trevitt, in a letter to Mavis Betts on 4 July 1937 regarding her wedding, said she arrived on the Montoro on Thursday 27 May 1937. (Pacific Manuscrip
ts Bureau PMB1291, 693.)

  Jack Trevitt was the Methodist minister in charge of the George Brown College at Vunairima, on the Baining coast. He married Melville Chaseling on Saturday 29 May 1937 in Rabaul.

  Thursday 27 May 1937 was the feast of Corpus Christi, but the procession was to be held on Sunday 30 May 1937.

  ‘justice, a square deal, and playing the game . . .’: Rabaul Times, 28 May 1937.

  ‘I could not stay in the house, it rocked too much . . .’: Chinnery (1998), p.206.

  ‘a wardrobe had fallen on Mrs Furter . . .’: ‘The Eruption’, Rabaul Times, 4 June 1937, p.1.

  ‘She had to jump . . .’: Chinnery (1998), p.205.

  R.W. Johnson and Neville Threlfall, Volcano Town: The 1937–43 Eruptions at Rabaul, Robert Brown and Associates, Bathurst, NSW, 1985, describes the phenomena preceding the 1937 eruption, including the sea rising and falling.

  ‘the number five tee was shaking so much . . .’: Chinnery (1998), p.214.

  ‘the car literally danced on the ground . . .’: Chinnery (1998), p.206.

  ‘Eruption 29th May 1937. Rabaul’, an unpublished statement from E.W.P. Chinnery’s report on the eruption, including Sarah Chinnery’s diaries. (Pacific Manuscripts Bureau PMB1291, 580.)

  George H. Murray, ‘Attendance at the Birth of a Volcano’, an unpublished signed document ‘supplied to Wally Johnson by Tom Casadevall’, 28 October 1986. (Pacific Manuscripts Bureau PMB1291, 337.)

  ‘Jack and I had an amazing wedding . . .’: Melville Trevitt in a letter to Mavis Betts on 4 July 1937. (Pacific Manuscripts Bureau PMB1291, 693.)

  CHAPTER 11

  ‘Close to Rakaia, the people suffered greatly. . .’: Laurie Linggood, ‘The Disaster’, A Nilai Ra Dovot, Rabaul, 1937. (Pacific Manuscripts Bureau PMB1291, 539–540.)

  Sarah Chinnery (1998) as well as her husband and George Murray all describe their escape from Vulcan.

  The description of the wedding party escape is from Melville Trevitt’s letter of 1937. (Pacific Manuscripts Bureau PMB1291, 693.)

  The descriptions of the Coote family are from Diana Martell (2015). Understandably, given she was only six years old at the time, Diana’s recollections are fragmented. I’ve placed them in a timeline that matches the chronology of the eruption.

  C.E. Stehn and W.G. Woolnough, Report on Volcanological and Seismological Investigations at Rabaul, Commonwealth Government, Canberra, 1937. (Pacific Manuscripts Bureau PMB1291, 39.)

  Dr N.H. Fisher, ‘The Woolnough Article’, Rabaul Times, 7 February 1941. Fisher was scathing of the Woolnough report.

  Eric Johns, ‘To Move Rabaul’, The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 31, No.1, 1996, pp.92–103.

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘the proximity to Rabaul . . .’: N.H. Fisher, ‘Geology and Vulcanology of Blanche Bay and the Surrounding Area, New Britain, Territory of New Guinea’, Government Printer, Canberra, 1939.

  ‘nearly dead . . .’: ibid., p.43.

  Alfred Wegener, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, Dover Publications, New York, 1966.

  Arthur Holmes, Principles of Physical Geology, Nelson and Sons, London, 1944.

  H.H. Hess, ‘History of Ocean Basins’, Petrologic Studies: A Volume in Honor of A.F. Buddington, Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, 1962, pp.599–620.

  Johnson (2013), p.350. For a more detailed explanation of Rabaul’s volcano and volcanology, read Wally Johnson’s Fire Mountains of the Islands, ANU E Press, Acton, ACT, 2013 (press.anu.edu. au?p=223471).

  Iwamoto (1996), p.54, describes Japan’s trading empire.

  Iwamoto, ‘Nanshin: Japanese Settlers in Papua and New Guinea 1890–1949’, The Journal of Pacific History, Division of Pacific and Asian History, Australian National University, Canberra, 1999.

  CHAPTER 13

  Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, libretto, Williamson Music Inc., New York, 1956, p.6. (The book of the libretto is by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan, based on Tales of the South Pacific, by James A. Michener.)

  Australian Electoral Commission, and Commonwealth Electoral Office, Queensland Branch (Electoral Rolls) (microfiche). Commonwealth Electoral Roll 1937, Queensland Division of Brisbane, Sub-division of Fortitude Valley, p.41.

  ‘the international situation is most ominous. . .’: Joseph Lyons, speech delivered at Deloraine, Tasmania, 28 September 1937. Australian Federal Election speeches, Museum of Australian Democracy (electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1937-joseph-lyons).

  ‘Here and There’, The Telegraph, 14 October 1937, p.17. (Ted and Wyn Harvey sailed first to Sydney, and then back up to Brisbane, where they booked into the Carlton Hotel.)

  Tom O’Brien, ‘Bostock, John (1892–1987)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2007 (adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bostock-john-12233/text21943).

  NAA: A518, 16-3-316. Letter from Winifred Harvey to James Halligan, 30 January 1947.

  ‘There is needed the fostered race-pride of wiser nations . . .’: ‘Australia’s Future’, The Telegraph (Brisbane), 2 August 1937, p.14.

  ‘his advice was at Mr Harvey’s request . . .’: NAA: A518, 16-3-316. Letter from Winifred Harvey to James Halligan, 30 January 1947.

  ‘he was treating the Premier of Queensland, William Forgan-Smith . . .’: Telephone conversation with Tom O’Brien, Dr Bostock’s biographer, 5 January 2016.

  Wyn’s funeral notice in The Courier-Mail, 6 August 1964, invites members of Alcoholics Anonymous to attend.

  ‘ALFRED ARTHUR HARVEY, of Hotel Cecil . . .’: ‘Advertising’, The Courier-Mail, 5 November 1937, p.1.

  ‘Mr and Mrs A.A. Harvey . . .’: ‘Sailing by the Nankin’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 November 1937, p.16.

  ‘last heard of at Mascot Flats . . .’: ‘Missing Friends. Richmond — Marjorie Jean Gasmier, nee Manson’, The South Australian Police Gazette, 15 April 1942.

  NAA: A518, 16-3-316. Letter from Phyllis Manson to James Halligan, 20 November 1946. ‘She wrote and told me she was married in January the following year.’

  NAA: A518, 16-3-316. Letter from Winifred Harvey to James Halligan, 17 January 1947. Also a letter signed by both John Bostock and Winifred Harvey, 30 January 1947.

  Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying: Certificate of Title No: 209061, Register Book Vol. 1231, Folio 5, Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Queensland.

  The lot also is described as ‘Resub, 3, sub. 1. resub. 4, subs. 30. 31, allot. 23, parish Enoggera’, and was transferred to Alfred Arthur Harvey on 23 September 1937. The address is 3 Paradise Avenue, Toowong, now called Landsborough Terrace.

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘Sir, — There should be a public inquiry . . .’: ‘Letter to the editor’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 1945, p.2.

  CHAPTER 15

  ‘It’s a fine island . . .’: Enid Blyton, The Secret Island, Basil Blackwell, 1938.

  ‘Each time he went to Sydney he came back with a different woman . . .’: James Macknight ‘Mac’ Hamilton, ‘A Soldier from Rabaul, New Britain’, unpublished manuscript ‘written at Tabragalba camp, Beaudesert, Queensland, 1943’, p.13.

  Pat Boys, Coconuts and Tearooms: Six Years in New Britain, New Guinea in the 1930s, P.Boys, Auckland, New Zealand, 2003, describes life in the Bainings. It was the usual practice for ‘white people’ to be carried ashore.

  The description of Lassul comes from photographs of Lassul plantation bungalow and buildings, courtesy of Julie Harris, as well as Boys (2003) and Mercia Murphy’s descriptions.

  NAA: A518, 16-3-316, Letter from Phyllis Manson to James Halligan, 20 November 1946. ‘She wrote and told me she was married in January the following year.’

  NAA: B2455, Parker William Henry. His war record includes details of when he caught syphilis and how it was treated. This wasn’t unusual. Around 60,000 Australian soldiers were treated for venereal disease in the First World War (see Raden Dunbar’s The Secrets of the Anzacs, Scribe Publications, Brunswick, 2014).r />
  NAA: A1, 1920/22435, ‘W.H. William Henry Parker — Employment Clerk Papua’.

  ‘Marsina’s Passengers’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 October 1920, p.11.

  Parker served for a short time in Papua before leaving for New Ireland in New Guinea.

  Boys (2003). The plantations were all run in similar ways.

  NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/367, p.8. Roca states he had an argument with Harvey at ‘Newcowan’ (Neu Kauern).

  CHAPTER 16

  ‘iron and blood . . .’: Translation of a speech by Otto von Bismarck to the Budget Commission of the Prussian Diet on 30 September 1862, published in Fürst Bismarck als Redner, Vol. 2 (after 1881), edited by Wilhelm Böhm, p.12.

  The history of colonial New Guinea is well described in Cahill (1987), as well as: Stewart Firth, New Guinea Under the Germans, Melbourne University Press, 1982; and Hermann Hiery, The Neglected War: The German South Pacific and the Influence of World War One, University of Hawaii Press, 1995.

  George H. Blakeslee, ‘The Mandates of the Pacific,’ Foreign Affairs, Vol. 1, No.1, 1922, pp.98–115.

  The geology of the Gazelle Peninsula is described by N.H. Fisher in ‘Report on the Seismicity of the Mandated Territory’, in an unpublished memorandum to The Secretary for Lands, Rabaul, 1938 (Pacific Manuscripts Bureau PMB1291, 30).

  R.P. Macnab, Geology of the Gazelle Peninsula, Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics, 1970.

  Richard Stanaway, ‘PNG on the Move — GPS Monitoring of Plate Tectonics and Earthquakes’, in 42nd Association of Surveyors PNG Congress: The Surveyor in the Dynamic Technological World, Port Moresby, 2008.

  The complicated plate tectonics of the region is detailed in Robert J. Holm, Gideon Rosenbaum and Simon W. Richards, ‘Post 8 Ma Reconstruction of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands: Microplate Tectonics in a Convergent Plate Boundary Setting’, Earth Science Reviews, Vol. 156, May 2016, pp.66–81.

  ‘Environmental Impact Statement’, Nautilus Minerals Niugini Limited, Solwara 1 Project, Executive Summary, published by Coffey Natural Systems Pty Ltd and Nautilus Minerals Niugini, September 2008.