FATAL ARROW WOUNDS

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1933, Page 9

FATAL ARROW WOUNDS

NEW GUINEA TRAGEDY. YOUNG OFFICER KILLED. Mr. lan Mack, assistant-district officer in charge of the patrol which was attacked in the Upper Ramu district of New Guinea on June 11, died in the Salamoa hospital on June 18 from arrow wounds received in the encounter. Efforts were being made to bring him to Rabaul for treatment. Mr. Mack was one of the most promising of the junior officers in the Administration. He was a son of Mrs. Mack, of Geelong, Victoria, and joined the Administration in 1926. He did fine work in the Baining district after the Nakanai murders and was specially selected for patrol work in the. dangerous area in' which he met his death. The tragedy serves to prove the urgent necessity for an inter-island seaplane service, a scheme that is being strongly supported by the Administration. Mr., Harry Melhuish recently spent some time at Mr. Mack’s police camp, which was one of the outposts of the rapidly-expanding goldfields area of the Morobe district. He said, in an interview in Brisbane recently, that he was present when Mr. Mack brought in six prisoners from the village of Triaora. These men had attacked the neighbouring village of Kainantu, and Mr. Mack, with a native police party, had arrested six of them and brought them in handcuffed and held together by a chain. The prisoners escaped during the night and one who managed to .slip his handcuffs succeeded in reaching Triaora, but the others had to pass Kainantu, where their enemies fired on them at short range with arrows and killed them. Mr. Mack,, with three police boys, then set out to capture the survivor, but, on reach Triaora, he found the force opposed to him too great, and was compelled to retire. It ,is believed that it was at the intermediate village of Kainantu that he received his fatal wounds.

Mr. Mack, who until recently had been a patrol officer in New Ireland, had the reputation of being one of the best bushmen in the territory, and had opened up considerable new country in the Baining area. He was to have gone to Australia on leave last January, but the district officer, Mr. Taylor, recognising his ability, had him transferred to the Morobe district.

Referring to the death of Mr. Mack, the Australian Minister of Territories, Mr. Marr, said: “I met Mr. Mack during my recent visit at his post, only a few miles from where the ambush took place, and he was typical of the men in the service in the Mandated Territories—young, keen, resourceful and efficient, and of a pleasing personality. “Mr. Mack received his wounds leading his few constables in a heroic charge against a blockhouse • and overwhelming numbers with a gallantry and disregard for personal safety which in the late war would have gained him the highest honour.”