Additional information for Chapter 2 New Guinea calls

 

In Chapter 2 David Marsh described his first airplane flight which was in 1940 from Kila Kila Airfield near Port Moresby, to the Yodda Goldfield, and that a Mr and Mrs Searle and their two children were fellow passengers on the flight. Dr Searle, son of Clen and Pat, has also mentioned this flight in his e-book “Kokoda to the Coast: Orokaivas, Japanese and Rubber”.

 

Information sourced from the September 2002 edition of the PNGAA (Papua New Guinea Association of Australia) newsletter sourced from pngaa.net/Vale/vale_sept02.htm is summarised below :

 

Mr Clen Searle worked as a radio operator at the AWA wireless station on Ela Beach which provided communication links with outstations, expeditions, and shipping. It also formed part of the first radio program broadcasts in the South Pacific when Radio Station 4PM began broadcasting in 1935.

 

Mrs Pat Searle assisted with the radio announcements and live transmission of Papuan choirs, and locally produced plays.

 

Pat and Clen took up a lease in 1940 at Kokoda to grow rubber, and established the plantation Awala near Popondetta.

 

 

After Pearl Harbor was bombed, Pat and the two children Peter and Rhonwena were evacuated to Adelaide, and Clen enlisted with ANGAU.

 

In World War II Awala was used as an Army base for radio spotters in the Northern Division and the house and plantation buildings were destroyed during the Kokoda Campaign.

 

After the war, the Searles returned to their plantation and grew rubber, coffee and cocoa, and also had to deal with the eruption of Mt Lamington in 1951.

 

They retired to Nambour Queensland Australia in 1977.

 

Awala became part of the Anglican Mission’s Martyrs’ School, and the plantation was closed.

 

Clen died of cancer in 1988 and Pat died in 2002 age 97.