Remembering the war in New Guinea
ANGAU: Australia New Guinea Administrative Unit (Overview text)
Module name: Relationships (Australian perspective)
This page was contributed by Dr Alan Powell (Northern Territory University)
In February 1942, under controversial circumstances, military government supplanted the civil administrations of both Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. A few weeks later administrative control of both Territories was combined under the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) and remained so for the duration of the Pacific war. ANGAU carried on the civil tasks of maintaining law and medical services in areas not occupied by the Japanese, but its was responsible to New Guinea Force and its major task was to marshal the resources of land and people for the war effort against a formidable enemy. 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 as well as administrative (but not operational) responsibility for the constituent parts of the Pacific Islands Regiment.
The core of ANGAU officers came from the pre-war administration. They and their New Guinean carriers, labourers, scouts, guides and police received high praise from American and Australian military sources, deservedly; but military demands bore heavily on local populations – excessively so in many cases. Probably ANGAU’s most lasting legacy was to implement the combined government of Papua and Australian New Guinea – an administrative change that was never rescinded.