METHODIST MISSIONARY’S SON ACCEPTED FOR MINISTRY

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30529, 26 August 1964, Page 23

METHODIST MISSIONARY’S SON ACCEPTED FOR MINISTRY

(From Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, August 25. The recommendation to the Methodist Conference by South Canterbury Synod, meeting at Timaru, that Mr David Alley, an inspector in the Department of Agriculture at Ashburton, be accepted as a candidate for the Methodist Ministry, recalls a war-time episode of the Pacific. The Rev. Donald C. Alleyi father of the candidate, went to the Solomon Islands as a missionary in 1936. In 1942 the Government station in Buka Passage, north of Bougainville, became Japanese headquarters, and Skotolan, on Buka, was made an armed base to cover shipping lanes. When a Japanese destroyer visited Teop harbour, Mr Alley, at that time in Skotolan, returned to the mainland of Bougainville and thence to a plantation where there were two elderly women who refused to be evacuated to the hills. Mr Alley and a neighbouring planter stayed with them and met the Japanese patrol as it came ashore. Mr Alley was placed under arrest. The others, being neutrals, were allowed to remain provided they did not communicate with Allied forces. On March 31, 1942, Mr Alley was taken by the Japanese naval forces and interned at Rabaul.

For nearly three years the Mission Board in New Zealand tried to locate him. After Japan capitulated, hopes were raised through reports reach ing New Zealand, but thesF related to Mr Alley’s cousin, Mr Rewi Alley. In December, 1945, news was received that Mr Alley was lost at sea when the Japanese vessel, Montevideo Maru, in which he and other internees were being conveyed to Japan, was torpedoed off Luzon in June, 1942. The ship was carrying 845 prisoners of war and 208 civilians. Among these were 13

Australian Methodist missionaries who had been stationed at New Britain.

During his six years in the islands, Mr Alley did excellent missionary work. On the head station he developed the training of students and, with his wife, extended medical work as well as opening up new stations in the mountains of North Bougainville. Having acquired a good knowledge of the Teop dialect, he was able to collab-

orate with native ministers in translation work. Mrs Alley and her two sons left the mission field soon after Pearl Harbour, and were in Sydney when word was received of the Japanese landings in Rabaul and on Bougainville. At Kekesu, in the Teop circuit on Bougainville Island, the Donald Ailey Memorial Hospital stands as a monument to this gallant Methodist.