JUNGLE SAWMILLS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 83, 5 October 1944, Page 4

JUNGLE SAWMILLS

HEAVY WORK.IN TROPICS

.LOGGING ON GUADALCANAL

(R.N.Z.A.F. Official News Service.)

GUADALCANAL, October,2. Two sawmills, manned exclusively by men of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, are now at work on Guadalcanal, supplying timber not only for the many Dominion installations in the Solomons, but also for the United States Forces. One mill, established seme 18 months ago, has been turning out an average of 50,000 feet a week of mahogany, rubberwood, teak, and a little rosewood for the past seven months,. while the second, a new unit, has just commenced production. The Japanese tank motors used earlier to supply power at the original mill have long since gone the way ox the Japanese troops who once occupied Guadalcanal. They gave up the unequal struggle and were scrapped and replaced by a heavy marine motor. With the passing of - the months, civilisation has come to the island, and the original mill, installed under the greatest difficulties, has grown into a flourishing concern with an output that compares favourably with small mills in New Zealand. The bushmen are now working nearly six miles back in the jungle, having built their , own access roads. Logs are hauled to the loading banks by tractors, and then brought by truck to the mill. So acute is the demand for timber that a seven-day week is frequently worked, with the saws turning out a daily average in the vicinity of 8000 feet of timber. MALARIA CONTROL. The work, both in the bush and at the mill, is particularly arduous, but there has been in recent months a marked improvement in the general health of the men, compared with conditions prevailing a year ago. Malaria control has now reached such a degree of perfection that cases of this illness are a comparative rarity, and there has been a sharp drop in the incidence of malaria among the mill hands. Although the mills are self-con-tained tmits, and the men not only operate them but also undertake all maintenance and repairs to the machinery, tractors, and other transport, only a small proportion of the airmen are experienced mill workers. Some 80 per cent, had no previous experience of sawmilling, but practical work, under many difficulties, has welded teams which in the opinion o±" those in charge could hold their own anywhere. A direct and originally unexpected result of the activities of the Royal New Zealand Air Force sawmill units is that hundreds of airmen in ' the forward area live in huts built . of mahogany that would be a prize in New Zealand, and that many a washbasin rests upon a rough bench of some exotic tropical wood. • Even ebony and rosewood are milled, and probably some of the most ramshackle "bedroom suites" in the world have been roughly nailed together in timber that, could it be brought to the Dominion, would cause interest among the finest craftsmen in the joinery trade.