Kiki Baiyane was one of the forty thousand supply carriers recruited during the Kokoda campaign. The work of a carrier was laborious and exhausting and many carriers, including Kiki were left hungry owing to their position at the end of the supply line. Kiki's strongest memories of his wartime experience were of torrential rain, malaria, dysentery and ulcers. He recalled that "on many cold and rainy nights you would sleep huddled together, only to get up in the morning to find the man beside you dead."
Native carriers employed a system of rotation in their work. There would be an extra person so that they could take turns resting while never needing to put their load down during the day. So for example when Corporal Irvine F. Lloyd was wounded he was carried by five indigenous carriers for several days, in appalling conditions, to a casualty clearing station. Corporal Lloyd said of the indigenous carriers, "The native of New Guinea I could not speak more highly of."
(Source: Australian War Memorial PR00322)
Kokoda (part 1):
Overview text Longer text Images Readings Albert Moore Arnold Potts Harvey Blundell Kiki Baiyane MapClick images to enlarge.
AWM 059111
