Woodlark Island Barren and Uninviting

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 160, 8 July 1943, Page 5

Woodlark Island Barren and Uninviting

(British Official Wireless) Eeceived Wednesday, 9.20 p.m. RUGBY, July 6. Living on barren Woodlark Island (occupied by U.S. forces during the South Pacific offensive) are two English prospectors, George Watkins and Arthur Dawkins. Watkins is 80 years of age and came to the island during the gold rush in 1895, leaving it only once since. He and Dawkins both avoided the ' evacuation order last February so that, they could continue prospecting. An Agency correspondent with the American task force on Woodlark Island says the island is the most barren and uninviting area yet seen in these parts. He heard Australians say that even the Japanese were not interested in it, for they looked it over before the war and so far as he has been able to ascertain no Japanese bad set foot on the island since. The present native population is 750 and there are plenty of wild pigs, alligators, * mosquitos and malaria, also scorpions whose bite Is so poisonous that it has to be treated as snakebite. In former days Woodlark Island was one of payua’s best gold-producing areas.