The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [155]
Roughly a decade after Maclay’s adventures, Britain and Germany were competing for large parts of the island. In late 1884 Britain declared southeastern New Guinea a protectorate and not long after hoisted the Union Jack over Port Moresby. After the cheering subsided, Britain dispatched Major General Sir Peter Scratchley, the protectorate’s first commissioner. Scratchley, however, died of malaria after only three months in the territory.
Germany’s colonial administration took the form of the Neu Guinea Kompagnie, which Germany’s chancellor Otto von Bismarck put in charge of the adventure. Commissioned by the Kompagnie to find sites for potential settlement, in what became known as Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, Dr. Otto Finch made five journeys to northeastern New Guinea, naming the region’s greatest river (the Sepik) the Kaiserin Augusta. In honor of Dr. Finch’s discoveries, the Kompagnie named its first settlement Finchhafen. In establishing the settlement, though, the Kompagnie could not have chosen more poorly. Finchhafen was a desperate place, beset by a hellishly humid climate, earthquakes, a lethal strain of malaria, and soul-deadening monotony. The chancellor’s nephew, who worked in the colony as a surveyor, wrote that one of the two most frequented spots in the town was the cemetery. Upon leaving Finchhafen, he wrote, “I am one of the few to get out of that malaria-hole Finchhafen with a whole skin because I treated the fever with alcohol instead of quinine, and the orders of the Neu Guinea Kompagnie similarly—with alcohol instead of respect.”
Details from Smith’s books and details of the gold rush are in Souter’s New Guinea.
In 1889, a half-century before Company G attempted to negotiate the high mountain country of the Owen Stanleys, Sir William MacGregor, a short, square, indomitable Scot, led the first official expedition into the mountains. MacGregor was appointed administrator over what was then known as British New Guinea, after Britain assumed sovereignty over the protectorate in 1888, and he was determined to investigate the Papuan Peninsula’s wild interior. MacGregor’s carriers, who were familiar with the terrain, said the mountains could not be reached. MacGregor was not deterred until he actually entered them. From Port Moresby it had taken his team nearly a month to reach the second highest peak in British New Guinea. It was 13,363 feet tall, and he named it Mt. Victoria. Much to his surprise, Mt. Victoria was not the gigantic, isolated mountain he had imagined. It was part of a huge, sprawling mountain chain.
Regarding the drop sites, Medendorp and Keast’s team successfully pinpointed, and sometimes cleared, drop sites along the trail.
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 was passed by the United States Congress on September 6, 1940, becoming the first peacetime conscription in U.S. history. The draft began in October 1940. By the early summer of 1941, FDR asked Congress to extend the term of duty for the draftees beyond twelve months. The House of Representatives approved the extension by a single vote. The terminal point of service would soon be extended to six months after the war.
Bottcher’s description is from “Fire and Blood in the Jungle” by George Moorad. Lieutenant James Hunt’s recollection is found in his letter to Stutterin’ Smith.
Odell also writes of the grueling nature of the hike in his diary.
The Bailey quote is taken from interviews with Katherine (Bailey) Matthews.
Problems between Australians and American soldiers were growing so bad that on August 15, Harding delivered a lecture on relations with Australian soldiers. Gangs were trying “to find stray American troops and to kill them.” One Australian general described the animosity as “a most despicable thing between allies.”
According to Gailey there were a number of “embarrassing problems caused by the influx of American troops.” “Australia,” he writes, “had an all-white immigration policy. MacArthur