MUSHROOM TOWN

Grey River Argus, 25 October 1943, Page 5

MUSHROOM TOWN

PORT MORESBY'S EXPANSION. (Special to N.Z. Press Assn.) (Rec. 7.45.) SYDNEY, Oct. 23. More than two thousand miles ot telephone wire and forty-seven exchanges have been installed in and round Fort Moresby in the past fourteen months, and the New Guinea capital has grown into possibly the world’s largest wartime mushroom itown, with a telephone service ade« quate for a peacetime population of seventy-five thousand. Before this rapid development began “a handful of phones, and a few thousand yards of wire” formed the backbone ot Port Moresby’s communications. War correspondents pay a tribute to Australian- and American signallers responsible for the transformation. Their greatest achievement has been the construction of 150 miles of line across New Guinea. This line was laid 'in twenty-three days. It runs over the twelve-thousand feet Owen Stanley Ranges. Additional sections lead northward and southward. Often Allied signal units have had to figr , it out with Japanese ambushes set cunningly around. The enemy has made a break in one of the Allied wires.