GIRLS’ EXODUS TO MANILA

Evening Star, Issue 25684, 7 January 1946, Page 5

GIRLS’ EXODUS TO MANILA

MR GHIFLEY ORDERS INQUIRY SYDNEY, January 5/ The Prime Minister, Mr j. B. Chifley, ordered an inquiry into the secret trip from Brisbane to Manila olf 15 Australian girls employed by the United States forces. The officer in charge of . the United States base in Brisbane told immigration officers that lie regarded the girls as enlisted members of the American Army. He said he did not think they required passports. The Minister of Immigration, Mr A. A. Calwell, has asked Mr Chifley to take the matter up with high United States authorities. The girls were not' enlisted members of the ’United States Army, said Mr Calwell. ' They were civilian workers employed, like many other Australians, in American Army' establishments. ■ [A previous message stated that 15 Australian girls employed by the American forces in Brisbane had been smuggled out of Australia to Manila. The girls left secretly by a Douglas Dakota transport plane from Eagle Farm aerodrome at 4.30 a.m. on Wednesday. American Army transport vehicles had picked them up from their homes an hour earlier. The Australian Customs recently refused the girls passports, and if they left the United States forces they would be stranded without passports. The girls, who were employed in confidential secretarial work for American officers, had been, posted to similar duties. They would be paid £740 a year. Possibly many would be taken on to Japan and thence to America.]