FROM NEW GUINEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 24, 29 January 1942, Page 10

FROM NEW GUINEA

EVACUATED FAMILY AT

AUCKLAND

Evacuated with other women and children from New Guinea a month ago, Mrs. W. G. Setchell, formerly Miss Nance Macklow. of Auckland, has arrived at Auckland with lier three small children, and will live temporarily at Albany.

Mrs. Setchell, whose husband owns a copra plantation just outside Rabaul, said that when three enemy reconnaissance aeroplanes were seen flying over Rabaul the women living in New Guinea realised that they would have to leave the island. Two ships took the women and children away at very short notice, but three who refused to leave their husbands and homes took to the bush to hide, and the vessels had to leave without them. When those who left arrived at Darwin they found it impossible to obtain a house, as earlier arrivals from other places had got those that .vere available. Much the same condition obtained in Sydney.

Mrs. Setchell's youngest child is only nine months old, and her eldest three years. When on the vessel which took her.to Australia Mrs. Setchell made a sling to wear across her shoulders in which she carried the baby, while the pockets in her frock and coat all contained iron rations for the children.