FLIGHT FROM JAPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 57, 9 March 1942, Page 3

FLIGHT FROM JAPS.

A 40-MILE JOURNEY

MISSIONARIES' EXPERIENCE

(0.C.) SYDNEY. March 3. In their flight from Ferguson Island, 40 miles east of Samarai, to Port Moresby and then to Cairns, five missionaries made a 40-mile journey in an open boat. The missionaries are Misses Edith Twyford, Nell Pitty and Hetty Muir, nursing sisters, and Misses Florence Pearce and Daisy Coltheart, teachers. "We had a sick Australian trader, i Mr. Reginald Fletcher, of Brisbane, j with us, when we left Ferguson Island," said Miss Twyford. "I had brought him to tne mission hospital the day before from an isolated island where he had a coconut plantation. He died on the first day in the boat. We called in at East Cape on the mainland and gave him Christian burial service. "We arrived at Samarai, main port of Papua, when everyone except the Government officials had evacuated. The whole town was set to be fired if the Japanese came. It was eerie. A store was open, but the proprietor and staff had gone. Traders, copra planters and gold mine engineers had come in from the islands, and there were about 150 men waiting'to get away. "We thought we could get a plane, but were advised by the Government to get in our boat. We took on board three engineers from the Misima goldfields."

Missionaries provisioned the launch, said Miss Twyford, for the Voyage to Townsville, but at the last moment a radio message asked that all men under 45 should go to Port Moresby. At Port Moresby the women missionaries boarded a Burns, Philp boat built to accommodate 12, but packed with 132 passengers, including some Chinese. The boat left Port Moresby at midnight, and at 3 a.m. the town was bombed.