ANGAU – One Man Law – Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (1st Edition)

Description

Title: ANGAU – One Man Law – Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit

Author: James, Clarrie

Condition: Near Mint Plus – Signed by the author on the title page.

Edition: 1st Edition

Publication Date: 1999

ISBN: 1876439661

Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 207 pages

Comments: The author was sent to Port Moresby with the 53rd Militia Battalion. He volunteered for the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit that looked after native affairs and organised carriers for the Australian troops. He then found himself in the highlands of New Guinea, with the war against the Japanese raging in the valleys below. This tells of his experiences with ANGAU.

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.