New Guinea Experience – Gold, War and Peace 1940-1965

Description

Title: New Guinea Experience – Gold, War and Peace 1940-1965

Author: Huxley, Jim

Condition: Mint

Edition: 1st Edition

Publication Date: 2007

ISBN: 0980320453

Cover: Hard Cover without Dust Jacket – 387 pages

Comments: Jim Huxley mined gold in New Guinea in 1940 before the war came there. He then joined the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles (NGVR). He worked as a medical orderley in Wau which was the base for Australian commando units. At the end of the war he joined the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU). An eye witness to 25 dramatic years in the history of Papua New Guinea.

The Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) was a civil administration of Territory of Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea formed on 21 March 1942 during World War II. The civil administration of both Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea were replaced by a Australian Army military government and came under the control of ANGAU from February 1942 until the end of World War II.

Civil officers from both Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea were posted to ANGAU based in Port Moresby. ANGAU undertook civil tasks of maintaining law and medical services in areas not occupied by the Imperial Japanese and was responsible to New Guinea Force. The major responsibility of the unit was to organize the resources of land and labour for the war effort. ANGAU was also responsible for recruiting, organising and supervising local labour for the Australian and American armed forces in New Guinea included rehabilitation of the local inhabitants in reoccupied areas. It was also responsible for the administrative responsibility only for the Pacific Islands Regiment.

The ANGAU officers and their New Guinean carriers, labourers, scouts, guides and police were highly regarded by the American and Australian military. After the end of World War II, ANGAU was abolished and was replaced under the Papua New Guinea Provisional Administration Act (1945–46) by the combined government of Papua and Australian New Guinea.