BOMBED BY THE JAPANESE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22215, 7 March 1942, Page 4

BOMBED BY THE JAPANESE

j Visitor To Timaru Missionary’s Experiences Several views of Japanese bombers from the vantage point of slit trenches have been obtained by the Rev. John F. Goldie, ehairman of the Methodist Mission District in the Western Solomon Islands, at present a visitor to Timaru, Mr Goldie, who was in Rabaul at the same time as the first Japanese raiders, gave his impressions to a “Timaru Herald” reporter yesterday. Returning on furlough to New Zealand, where he planned to attend the annual conference of the Missions Board of the Methodist Church, Mr Goldie on January 3 left Gizo in the British Solomons by steamer for Rabaul to connect with a plane for Sydney. As the steamer entered Rabaul Harbour, the passengers noticed a number of planes overhead, and naturally thought they were British. They proved to be Japanese bombers. Local defence planes took off to engage the raiders and the anti-aircraft guns went into action without much apparent effect The Japanese formation passed over the harbour and town and went on to the aerodrome, where considerable damage was caused by bombs and a number of planes destroyed on the ground. The raiders dropped their bombs with uncanny accuracy. Some natives were killed and others badly wounded. “At first,” Mr Goldie said, “it was difficult to get the natives into the slit trenches, but after some were killed it was difficult to get them out again A great many of them slept there,” Unpleasant Sensation It was thought that the Japanese would come back to bomb the ship in the harbour. Mr Goldie continued, but although it was there for two days and Japanese bombers came over twice a day, it was not hit. From Rabaul, Mr Goldie went to Salamaua, on the mainland of New Guinea, and they heard that the Japanese had been over viewing the town. The bombing started later. He then flew over the mountains to Port Moresby, and a week later proceeded by way of Cairns to Sydney. There he found the trans-Tasman plane booked up for months ahead, but managed to reach Auckland two days before the meeting of the Board of Missions. "It is not a very pleasant sensation gazing out of slit trenches at the Japanese overhead wondering what they are going to do,” Mr Goldie remarked reminiscently. “It is hard to say what effect the Japanese occupation of the mandated islands and New Guinea will have on the native population,” Mr Goldie continued. “In the Marshall Islands the Japanese regimented the natives rather stiffly, on the lines of German principles. The natives are allowed to trade only with Japan and permitted no other education than Japanese. Possibly the same policy will be enforced in the occupied territory.” Turning to the work of the Church in the Solomon Islands, Mr Goldie said that when he went there first in 1902 there was practically no Government, and no mission work of any kind had been done. The natives had no written language and one of his first duties was to reduce the language to writing and teach the natives to write a language which they could speak better than anyone. In the territory now were 220 day schools of the mission, practically the only educational agency in that part of the group. Sons of the old savages and head hunters were now filling positions as native physicians and efficient native clerks, not mere office boys, but handling Government money, collecting taxes and issuing licences. Under the provisions of the Rockefeller Foundation candidates for the medical course were sent by the Government to Suva for a four or five years’ course of training and came back efficient medical practitioners, able to perform difficult operations, although the courses were not Sarallel with the medical courses in ew Zealand Most of the students were from the Methodist schools. As a result of the war, said Mr Goldie, the bottom had fallen out of the copra market and other island products, but he did not expect that the Japanese would occupy the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Evidently the Japanese were pledged to restore to Germany the old Imperial colony in New Guinea, including the two northernmost islands of the Solomons. Mr Goldie expressed the opinion that the native Church would carry on with the schools and Church services, and the trained medical natives would carry on as far as they were permitted. Mr Goldie said he hoped to be back in the Solomons later in the year. He will leave Timaru to-day for Invercargill.