Patrol Reports: sources for assessing war damage in Papua New Guinea Dr IWAMOTO Hiromitsu ( Australian National University, Canberra)

Introduction It is a formidable task to assess the damage and losses caused by the Pacific War in Papua New Guinea. Narratives of villagers who attempt to recall the events over 50 years ago cannot help but be inaccurate. This does not mean that their narratives would be unqualified to assess the war damage, but their memories would be insufficient to quantify the damage by the uniform standard in all areas affected by the war. But this difficulty could be possibly overcome by the information provided in the “patrol reports” – the reports written by patrol officers of the Australian administration. The reports were submitted immediately after the war to facilitate payment of war damage compensation. This paper examines the quality of the patrol reports in order to check their validity as sources for assessing war damage. In doing so, I shall explicate the Australian government”s policy on war damage compensation, which became the basis for patrol officers” investigations on war damage. 1. War Damage Commission Shortly after the beginning of warfare with Japan in the Pacific, the Australian government established the War Damage Commission on 23 February 1942, when “it became apparent that the Government would have to undertake the responsibility of establishing facilities to make available to property-owners a source of compensation to meet war damage to property.”[1] The Commission assessed war damage claims and paid the compensation according to the Australian War Damage Compensation Scheme. The scheme stipulated by the Commission spelled out levels of compensation by setting policies such as “Basic Principles Scheme”, “General Principles of Compensation” and “Application of Scheme to Various Classes of Property”.[2] The scheme covered residents in the Australian territories in Papua and New Guinea, stating that “all property owners throughout Australia and its territories … who are unfortunate enough to suffer loss as a result of war operations will receive compensation.”[3] Based on this scheme, the Australian government began to pay compensation from 1942. The Australian government devoted most of the compensation payments to the damage in Papua and New Guinea. Table 1 shows that territories of New Guinea and Papua were the largest recipients. The payments to both territories for the period from 1942 to 1948 amounted to £6,710,799, equal to 95 per cent of the total payment. The Australian government paid compensation to both white residents and the indigenous population in the territories. Although the reports of the War Damage Commission did not provide data to distinguish payments received by the respective groups, the 1942 report suggests that in the early stage of the war, mainly white residents received the payments because the claims were taken from individuals who evacuated the territories. For contents of buildings, such as plant, stock-in-trade and private chattels, owners were asked to submit complete inventories setting out itemized statements of their belongings, together with their cost, date of purchase and such other data as might assist in establishing values immediately prior to evacuation.[4] This explains the sudden increase of payments from 1945 as shown in Table 1. The payments to indigenous residents began after the war. As I shall explain in the following sections, systematic investigation of the war damage to indigenes and subsequent payments were carried out after the cessation of warfare. Table 1. Payments of War Damage Compensation, 1942-1948 (£) year New Guinea and Papua Queensland Northern Territory North-West Australia New South Wales and Victoria Total 1942* - - - 877 1,378 2,255 1943 800 - 400 539 301 2,040 1944 4,345 - 799 1,013 - 6,157 1945 950,993 5,060 99,054 18,675 542 1,074,324 1946 2,122,666 7,160 70,549 16,986 - 2,215,361 1947 1,918,883 1,196 27,395 11,529 - 1,959,003 1948** 1,715,112 55 69,806 - 15 1,784,988 Total 6,710,799 13,471 268,003 49,619 2,236 7,044,128 * From 23 February to 31 December 1942 ** From 1 January to 15 August 1948 Source: Report of the War Damage Commission for the period 1 January, 1948 to 30 September 1948, p.19 2. Native War Damage Compensation Committee Towards the end of the war, the Australians began to prepare a plan for restoring devastated territories, considering it their obligation “to repair the evil consequences of the war and to institute adequate and effective measures for the rehabilitation of the people”.[5] This “obligation” to rehabilitate the territories was based on two reasons. Firstly, the war proved that the territories were an important strategic area for Australia. Minister of External Affairs, Herbert Evatt, explicitly stated: “Their [Papua New Guinean] goodwill must be fostered, not only because their co-operation is essential to good administration in their own interest, but because they inhabit a vital strategic area.”[6] Secondly, Australians needed to recover their prestige as an administrator. They realised that: Another serious effect of the war is the loss of prestige by the Government. Our defeat is of little moment, as the occupied territory is being gradually recovered; what is of consequence is the fact that we were proved to be weak and vulnerable and left the people to fend themselves. It is important to remember, too, that the enemy was rarely under the necessity of bombing native villages and that, except, in places where he was cut off from overseas supplies, he usually left the natives alone and seldom pressed them into service as labourers. The good name of the Administration has also suffered because circumstances compelled District Officers to engage in recruitment. In former times [prewar period] they played no part in obtaining labour, except to ensure that the provisions of the Ordinances were not infringed.[7] The Australian government needed to reinforce its attention to the indigenous population in order to restore its administration. Thus in late-1944, the Native War Damage Compensation Committee was established. Its chairman was John Barry, a man with a “considered opinion” concerning the welfare of the indigenous population.[8] The Committee”s task was, [T]o recommend a just and practicable plan for compensating natives in Papua and New Guinea for loss of or damage to land and property and death or injury arising from military operations or arising out of causes attributable to the existence of a state of war in the Territories.[9] The Committee worked on this task energetically. In the beginning of 1945, the Committee members visited Nadzab, Finshhafen, Manus, Aitape, Madang, Mt. Hagen, Kerawagi, Benabena, Bougainville, Salamaua, Buna, Doboduru, Oro Bay, Tufi, Baniara, Dogura, Milne Bay, Kwato, Normanby Island and the Trobriands. Also, the Committee members consulted with 78 white experts and “a large number of” indigenes who were familiar with particular areas.[10] The consultants were staff from the Australia New Guinea Administrative Unit’s (ANGAU) headquarters, ANGAU regional commanders, members of the medical branch, acting resident commissioners, legal officers, agricultural officers, members of the War Damage Commission and the Army Directorate of Research and several missionaries. After substantial preliminary investigation and consultation, the Committee submitted its report in July 1945. The report was titled Compensation to natives of Papua and New Guinea for war injuries and war damage. It ran to 167 pages with 98 pages of appendices. The report set out the ambit of the compensation scheme, which reflected the Committee”s sympathetic posture to villagers. It recommended a fair and generous compensation irrespective of the causes of damage. The report said the scheme should cover all war damage, whether caused by Allied or Japanese forces. The report stated: A. It [the scheme] must embrace and apply to all natives except those who have assisted the enemy actively, voluntarily and with a realisation that it was wrong to do so. B. It must ensure that where the event has arisen out of the conduct or prosecution of the war, either by the enemy or the Allies or has arisen from unlawful acts by natives in areas formerly under government control from which the civil administration was withdrawn as a result of the Japanese invasion, pecuniary compensation shall be paid to any native.[11] In practical terms, the scheme covered almost all damage or loss caused by the war. Items for compensation included death or personal injury, illness or disease, suffering caused by the death of a husband, wife, father, mother, uncle, brother, sister, son, daughter, nephew or niece, destruction, deprivation or forced abandonment of personal chattels, destruction or damage of crops, palms, fruit-bearing trees or timber, and destruction of dwelling.[12] Permanent damage to land, either by Allied or Japanese activities, was also subject to compensation.[13] 3. Administration of the Compensation Scheme Speed and generosity were required for the administration of the scheme. The Committee recommended the administrative machinery be “simple” to speed up the rehabilitation of the territories; “flexible” to cope with different circumstances in which damage was incurred; “comprehensive” to cover all who suffered loss; and “expedious” to use the compensation payment for immediate rehabilitation. Above all, the Committee “stressed the importance of meeting native claims promptly, both as a measure of justice and as a method of restoring confidence in the Administration and the District Officers.”[14] The actual administration of the scheme was commissioned to local personnel in the territories. The Director of District Services and Native Affairs and the district officers took charge of this task. They filled the role of arbitrators between the claimants and the Government, rather than of magistrates using the lengthy procedure of the District Court. District officers received villagers’ claims orally and prepared claims in writing on the appropriate forms after investigating claims. The authorities (the Director of District Service and the Administrator) reserved the discretion to approve or reject claims, and claimants had the right to appeal to authorities against decisions.[15] Probably the Director and the district officers were the most appropriate staff for handling the claims. In the pre-war period, they were engaged in arbitrating local disputes, hearing civil claims and adjudicating in quasi-criminal cases. Moreover, they were accustomed to weighing villagers’ evidence. Experienced district officers had the residents’ confidence because of the advice and assistance which they gave to villagers in management of their affairs. Also, the existing machinery for settling all villagers’ complaints was controlled by district officers.[16] In almost all cases concerning the investigation of war damage, district officers visited villages and heard claims from villagers. It was these officers who were called patrol officers as they patrolled the territories. They were also known as kiaps in Pidgin English and indeed, they were the men who had carried out the initial exploration of the territories and brought the villagers under Australian control. Most patrol officers were familiar with local languages and customs and they maintained contact with villagers. More importantly, they acted as the “eyes and ears of the Administration … [and were] virtually the central administration”s sole source of information concerning the villagers, their numbers, hopes, fears”.[17] Some patrol officers were engaged in the war as intelligence officers, or so-called “coast watchers”.[18] Using their expertise, the patrol officers collected information on war damage, recorded and submitted in their official reports called patrol reports. 4. Patrol Reports The patrol reports were periodically submitted after patrols to sub-districts or groups of villages, but on an irregular basis with intervals of several months to several years. The reports had been submitted throughout the periods of Australian administration of the territories until the independence of PNG in 1975. The information related to the war can be found in the reports from 1942 to the early-1950s. There was no rigid format for reporting war damage. Generally, officers reported war damage under headlines such as “War Damage Claims”, “War Damage Compensation”, “Native Compensation Scheme”, “Compensation for War Damage” and so on, but often included under other sections such as “General”, “Native affairs”, “Livestock”, “Poultry”, “Agriculture”, etc. Table 2 shows the number of patrol reports which contain information related to the war. The reports contained information on damage and losses, effects of war, treatment of villagers by both Japanese and the Allies, conditions of villages under occupation of either Japanese or the Allies, recruitment of labourers by the Allied forces and so on. The areas covered in those reports, which are shown in Table 2, overlap with areas affected by the war – battlefields, areas occupied by Japanese or the Allied forces and adjoining areas which often provided food and labourers. Table 2 also shows the grand scale of the war’s impact on village life in the territories: 13 provinces were affected.[19] Two hundred of 482 reports (41 percent) were submitted before the end of the war (Table 2). Those reports came from the areas under the occupation of the Allied forces either from the beginning of the war or after the Japanese retreated. This indicates that quite a few patrol officers were gathering information on the effects of war in the wartime even before the Native Compensation Scheme was put into force in the mid-1945. It is presumable that these officers’ knowledge greatly contributed to postwar assessments of the war damage when they began investigations following the directives from the Native War Damage Compensation Committee. Table 2. The number of Patrol Reports which contain information related to war by areas and year, 1942-1953 Province Area 1942–August 1945 September 1945–1949 1950–1953 Total in area Total in province Central . . . . . 59 . Abau 2 5 - 7 . . Kiaruku 11 4 1 16 . . Port Moresby 11 8 1 20 . . Rigo 12 4 - 16 . Milne Bay . . . . . 55 . Baniara - 2 - 2 . . Esa”ala - 10 2 12 . . Gehua - 6 9 15 . . Losuia - 1 - 1 . . Milne Bay 3 - - 3 . . Misima 1 1 1 3 . . Samarai 13 3 2 18 . . Woodlark - 1 - 1 . Oro . . . . . 28 . Higaturu 2 4 - 6 . . Kokoda 8 2 1 11 . . Tufi 3 8 - 11 . Morobe . . . . . 68 . Finshhafen 17 2 8 27 . . Kaiapit - - 1 1 . . Lae - 2 5 7 . . Markham (North) 22 - - 22 . . Morobe 2 1 - 3 . . Salamaua 4 - - 4 . . Wau 2 2 - 4 . Madang . . . . . 61 . Bogia - 5 2 7 . . Madang 29 6 3 38 . . Ramu 10 - - 10 . . Saidor - 4 2 6 . East Sepik . . . . . 53 . Ambunti - 2 - 2 . . Angoram - 12 4 16 . . Dreikikir - - 1 1 . . Maprik - 14 1 15 . . Wewak - 11 2 13 . . Yangoru - 6 - 6 . West Sepik . . . . . 41 . Aitape 19 17 5 41 . East New Britain . . . . . 16 . Kokopo - 7 5 12 . . Rabaul - - 4 4 . West New Britain . . . . 9 . Gasmata - - 2 2 . . Talasea 7 - - 7 . New Ireland . . . . . 20 . Kavieng - 11 4 15 . . Namatanai - 4 1 5 . Manus . . . . . 11 . Manus 4 6 1 11 . North Solomons . . . . . 55 . Boku/ Buin - 2 5 7 . . Bougainville 15 31 - 46 . . Kieta - - 1 1 . . Sohano - - 1 1 . Eastern Highland . . . . . 6 . Goroka 2 1 - 3 . . Kainantu 1 2 - 3 . Total . 200 207 75 . 482 Source: Compiled from patrol reports kept at National Archives of Papua New Guinea and Manuscript Section of National Library of Australia From july 1945, the patrol officers started collecting war damage claims from villagers. The officers were given the instruction that “claims must be carefully scrutinised and dealt with justly but not generously.”[20] The officers patrolled the villages to explain the scheme to the people, then took claims and investigated them, sometimes by checking pre-war records in the records called “village books”. In many cases the officers actually counted the number of stumps of coconuts which were alleged to have been cut down by Japanese or the Allies in order to verify the villagers”s claims. The items that the officers checked are listed in Table 3. The list shows that almost all physical damage caused by the war was covered. Table 3. Ambit of Compensation Scheme a. Loss of individuals . 1. personal injury, illness or diseases 2. loss capable of estimation in money value by the death of a husband, wife, father, mother, uncle, brother, sister, son, daughter, nephew or nieces 3. destruction, deprivation or forced abandonment of personal chattels 4. destruction or damage of crops, palms, fruit-bearing trees or timber 5. destruction of dwelling b. Loss of community or group of individuals . 1. dispossession of land 2. permanent damage to land 3. destruction or damage of communal houses, meeting places, churches or schools 4. destruction or removal of milling timber 5. destruction of good and chattels (motor trucks, boats, nets, etc.) Source: “Compensation to natives of Papua and New Guinea for war injuries and war damage”, Report of Committee of External Territories – Dated July 1945 – Chairman John Barry, p.18 in National Archives of Australia, A463/17-1956/1096, “War pensions – Torres Strait Islanders”, pp.25–26 A typical report is shown below. This report was made by Patrol Officer G.C. Herkes after his patrol to villages south and southeast of Maprik from 11–30 June 1946.[21] War Damage Claims. Great number of claims were submitted. No village escaped without some damage during the war. The people were therefore greatly impressed to learn that the government intended to replace or recompense their losses. Care has taken to ensure the greatest possible accuracy when recording claims. It is felt that the claims submitted are in all cases honest. Claims were recorded in the presence of the assembled villages. A complete list of damage has been compiled. Details of wages due to pre-war indentured labourers have also been gathered. List of individual items have been prepared and totalled. The following major items are submitted to give an idea of the damage suffered. Native killed or died as a result of the war 70 Pigs destroyed 527 Fowls destroyed 276 Coconut palms destroyed 844 Dwellings burnt 374 Food shortage houses destroyed 146 Mens club houses burnt 6 As Herkes stated in the report, the officers took great care in ensuring the accuracy of the claims, and often dismissed exaggerated or spurious claims. For example, Patrol Officer B.K. Leen of New Ireland District had a sharp eye for exaggerated claims: In many instances natives were submitting written claims and on investigation it was found that they were entirely ignorant of the contents therein. It was revealed that these natives had some twelve months previously requested such natives as Mission teachers and others how could write, to compile these claims for them. These claims were perused very carefully and in nearly all cases, the items claimed were proved to be exaggerated.[22] Similarly Patrol Officer Gordon Steege found that the number of bunches of bananas claimed were all round figures and that the people from other village alleged these numbers were all false after the claimants had gone. Steege then warned the villagers that “dishonest reports would not bring payment” and noted in his report with an underline that,“[p]ayment of claims which are known to other natives to be false, will be a precedent to discourage future honesty.”[23] The following report by Acting District Officer D.F.M. Rutledge of Milne Bay District perhaps shows officers’ competence in examining the accuracy of claims. 389 claims were heard and have yet to be typed. The claims made by the people of BOU can be paid without hesitation as I am sure their claims are under-stated rather than over-stated. I think all the DIVINAI claims will have to be thoroughly checked - of the rest of BUBULETA I feel safe in saying 90% are genuine. The other 10% has been over-stated. V/Const TAPINETO claimed for 450 trees and he was eyed suspiciously. He produced a paper allegedly written by his father in 1911 claiming he owned 500 trees on a certain ground, and he says his father was trading there for years. His ground was partly used for a "Piper-Cub" strip and partly as a timber dump and having roughly traversed the area I now feel he too has understated his claim.[24] It would be unlikely that Rutledge was able to make observations such as “90% are genuine” or “10% has been over-stated” if he had not had blow-by-blow knowledge of the conditions in the villages before and after the war. Abiding by the policy of the compensation scheme, the officers collected the claims for damages irrespective of whether they were caused by Japanese or the Allies. This is demonstrated well in the report by Patrol Officer P.E. Fienberg and Cadet Patrol Officer C.V. Single, who pursued investigations in the Bogadjim and Bagasin areas of Madang District. As was typical in many other parts of coastal areas in northern New Guinea, these areas were occupied by Japanese and thereby exposed to intense Allied bombings. The report stated that the Bogadjim areas in the vicinity of Ramu Valley Road suffered considerable losses because “[t]he Japanese were in occupation here for a lengthy period and construction and maintenance of gangs not only lived to a great extent on the produce of native gardens but cut down numbers of trees and palms for the construction of bridges and other work.”[25] In contrast, the Bagasin area suffered primarily from Allied bombing: Some livestock was killed, houses and household goods damaged or destroyed and garden produce stolen by small [Japanese] foraging parties, but by far the greater amount of damage was caused by Allied bombing raids and uncontrolled (and often, one feels, unnecessary) strafing. A number of deaths were also thus caused and perhaps it is not so surprising that this area carried a bad reputation for collaboration and little sympathy was extended to crashed airmen.[26] After the investigation, the officers endorsed payment of £7,677 to Bogadjim and £2,599 to Bagasin for property other than land and £366 and £550 respectively for compensation for death.[27] It was also part of the patrol officers’ routine to report statistical information on the damage such as the number of claims and amount of compensation payment. An example of such reports is shown in Appendix A. This report was submitted by Patrol Officer Douglas J. Parrish, who patrolled the headwaters of the Warangoi River in Kokopo Sub-District in East New Britain from 30 July to 13 August 1946.[28] Parrish’s report shows names of villagers killed and the causes of their deaths, the number of properties and coconuts trees destroyed and so on, and his valuation of damage according to the rate set by the War Damage Committee. The number of reports containing statistical information is shown in Table 4. The table shows two important aspects. Firstly, it shows that compensation claims were collected from all areas which were affected by the war, and thereby confirms the comprehensiveness of patrol reports’ investigation on war damage. Secondly, it shows that most reports were submitted by 1950, which indicates that most investigations were completed within five years after the end of the war. Most likely it was in this period that the aftermath of war was still recognisable, making accurate assessment possible. Table 4. The number of patrol reports which contain statistical information on war damage, by province, 1945–1952 Province 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 Total Central 2 - 11 3 1 1 - - 18 Milne Bay - - 3 1 5 6 1 3 19 Oro - 2 1 1 1 - - - 5 Morobe - - - - 2 2 2 1 7 Madang - 1 2 1 - - 2 - 6 East Sepik - 1 2 2 3 3 - - 11 West Sepik - - - - - - 1 - 1 East New Britain - 1 1 - - 1 - 4 7 West New Britain - - - - - - 1 - 1 New Ireland - 1 - 2 1 - - - 4 Manus - - 1 1 - - - - 2 North Solomons - - 2 - 2 1 - - 5 Eastern Highland - - - - 1 - - - 1 Total 2 6 23 11 16 14 7 8 87 Note: The above reports contain statistical data such as number of claims and amounts of compensation payments. Those reports which have only a general description of war damage and do not specify the statistical information are not included in this table. Source: Compiled from patrol reports kept at National Archives of Papua New Guinea and in the Manuscript Section of the National Library of Australia Based on the information provided from patrol reports, the Australian government paid compensation of about £2 million in total to indigenous people.[29] Payments were completed around 1954. Conclusion The patrol reports are reliable sources for assessing war damage in PNG. The information therein was collected systemically by patrol officers – the most qualified people to undertake this task. There seems to have been little bias in assessing the damage because the payments were primarily motivated to restore the welfare of the indigenous population, regardless of their stand during the war. As no other written documents possess the quality of information contained in the patrol reports, they are the most useful sources for researchers studying war damage in PNG. Notes 1. Report of the War Damage Commission for the period 23rd February, 1942, to 31st December, 1942,1943, p.3 2. Ibid., pp.4-11 3. Ibid., p.4 “The territories” then meant “the Territory of Papua” and “Mandated Territory of New Guinea”. They are now Papua New Guinea 4. Report of the War Damage Commission for the period 23rd February, 1942, to 31st December, 1942, 1943, p.11 5. “Compensation to natives of Papua and New Guinea for war injuries and war damage. Report of Committee of External Territories - Dated July 1945 - Chairman John Barry, p.18 in National Arhives of Australia (hereafter abbreviated as NAA), A463/17-1956/1096, “War pensions - Torres Strait Islanders” 6. Ibid., p.52 7. Ibid. p.17 8. Ryan, Peter, 1972, “ANGAU (Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit)” in Ryan, Peter (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Papua and New Guinea, Vol.1, Melbourne University, Melbourne, p.23 9. NAA, MP742/1-5/3/167, “Compensation to Natives” 10. NAA, A463/17-1956/1096, op.cit., p. 4 and Appendix A 11. Ibid., p.24 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid, p.29 14. Ibid., p.43 15. Ibid., pp.45-46 16. Ibid. 17. Grosart, Ian, 1972, “District Administration” in Ryan, Peter (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Papua and New Guinea, Vol.I, Melbourne University, Melbourne, p.268 18. For reference to their wartime actions, see McCarthy, John, K., 1963, Patrol into yesterday: my New Guinea years, Cheshire, Sydney; Feldt, Eric, 1946, The Coast Watchers, Oxford University Press, Melbourne 19. Here I used the current administrative zoning “province” following the classification of National Archives of Papua New Guinea. The administrative zoning in the immediate postwar period are slightly different from the current one, and they were then called “district” 20. NAA, “Circular Instruction No.123”, A518/1-A320/3/1 PART 2, “War damage compensation to natives - Policy” 21. National Archives of Papua New Guinea (hereafter abbreviated as NAPNG), Patrol Reports. East Sepik. Box No.9. Vol., No.1.1945-53, Maprik, “Patrol Report No.2 of 1945/46” 22. NAPNG, Patrol Reports. New Ireland. Box 1. Vol.1 1946-48, Kavieng, “PATROL REPORT, NEW IRELAND No.9 of 1948.” 23. NAPNG, Patrol Reports. Central. Box 14, Vol.3, 1947-48, Kairuku, “Patrol Report No.14 of 1947/48” 24. NAPNG, Patrol Reports. Milne Bay. Box 9, Vol.1, 1945-50, Gehua, “Patrol Report No.3 of 1947/48” 25. NAPNG, Patrol Reports. Madang. Box 7, Vol.5, 1946-49, Madang, “Patrol Report. No.1 of 1948/49” 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Patrol Reports. E.N.B. KOKOPO 1946-1970, “Patrol report No. K1/46 of patrol to headwaters of the Warangoi river by D. J. Parrish P. O.”, Manuscript Section, National Library of Australia 29. Ryan, Peter, 1972, “World War II” in Ryan, Peter (ed.), Encyclopedia of Papua and New Guinea, Vol.2, Melbourne University, Melbourne, p.1223 [top of page]