War Letters – New Guinea: 20 Jan 1944, Port Moresby; Catching up with colleagues

Public Relations
Field Unit
HDQ
N.G. Force

20th Jan 44

Darling,

I am trying to write this in the correspondents dormitory.1Colloquially known as St Percy’s Seminary by the correspondents, it was situated at Headquarters, New Guinea Force in Four Mile Valley on the main road to Port Moresby – See FOUR MILE VALLEY, PAPUA, NEW GUINEA. 1944-01-02. A VIEW OF THE MAIN PORT MORESBY ROAD AT FOUR …. (2024, January 19). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C54321  Three or 4 of them lie about spine bashing – Others reminisce of their experiences in the area.  It is about 4.30 pm & it is still hot – albeit not so bad as Townsville where on Tuesday the water out of the taps (when one was allowed to use them) was 92º.

Left about 6 in the morning & we here for lunch.  It’s quite a treat to see land after flying over the sea for a couple of hours.  There were lots of clouds about & occasionally you could get glimpses of the barrier reef below – not that its much to see from the air.  Circled the town & landed amongst hills very little different from those down south.  The foliage & earth are much the same colour as that around Darwin.  However it is a picturesque spot as the mountains run fairly close to the sea & are an ominous blue under the clouds.  Long long off above the clouds can be see peaks jutting through – I guess they must be plenty high!

Tried to ring Tommy2Frederick Thomas O’Dea was the former General Manager of Guinea Airways and life-long close friend of Wep’s. At the beginning of the war he joined the RAAF and flew in an out of remote areas in New Guinea with supplies but following a severe crash he was unable to fly again and transfrred to the RAN where with the rank of Lieutenant became a Naval Coastwatcher in New Guinea.3WABAG, NEW GUINEA. NATIVES SURROUND THE FIRST AEROPLANE TO LAND AT WABAG WITH SUPPLIES FOR THE …. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2557734Myola 2, Papua, 1942-10-22. A crowd of Australian soldiers gathers around a Ford tri-motor …. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C3190565LAE, NEW GUINEA. 1944-06-02. VX65671 MAJOR J.T. TAYLOR, OFFICER- IN- CHARGE, NORTHERN ECHELON, …. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C64803 but they said they hadn’t heard of him so I suppose he has not arrived yet.  I would have rung him in Brisbane but didn’t.

I don’t know that there is much I can tell you about this place without infringing security regulations.  Letters take some time to get down to you from here & God knows how long from other areas.  If you do not hear from me for a while don’t worry because it will be purely a matter of mail difficulties.  I ……[torn]…….. will not be writing much under …………………….. I shan’t be able to get many ………[torn]………………d… 10 days so don’t bother ………[torn]………… feel like it.

Am leaving here tomorrow for more important spots.  Have been issued with jungle green clothing – that beautiful aspidistra leaf trembling in the breeze over there will be me.  I don’t feel like doing anything here – even writing – it’s such a dead end.  When I move off I shall probably be too tired to send much.

There were 2 correspondents here who were at Darwin.  Caught up again with Trotter  yesterday but he moved out today.  Bill Dargie official war artist6Captain William Dargie. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P65046 called in on me yesterday & we passed the time of day.  Roy Hodgkinson7Captain Roy Cecil Hodgkinson. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P65080 called this morning & I lunched with him at his mess up the road a bit.  He and Alice are divorced.  She is about to marry the Yank corpl (?)  Roy seems quite happy about it all.

Saw a native sing song which was turned on for Stella Wilson8Austral Groves Wilson. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austral_Groves_Wilson9New Guinea. Private M. Daly of Bendigo, Vic, offers Miss Strella Wilson a mug of Army tea after …. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C238355 who is up here at the moment.  It was interesting enough but somewhat scrappy around the edges.  Not the real McCoy.  Hardly get the best effect when the music consists of a boong banging a bucket with sticks and another playing a drum like the one we have at home.

Am going tonight with the rest of the gang to hear the final concert from Stella Wilson and Edwin Styles.10Edwin Styles. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Styles

Reg Harris who used to work in the office11Reg Harris was also a fomer Smith’s Weekly journalist and later press secretary to several Federal Ministers. has just stuck his head around the door & sends his regards to you & Petrovs12Geoff and Molly Turton, etc.  You probably don’t remember him but what the hell!  He is not a reporter.  Has just returned from Shaggy Ridge after months of front line fighting.  He very decently gave me aluminium mess tins to save on weight.  Said you  can buy him a drink when he gets back.

Later

I’ve had a rest – a shower – a shave, etc. Tea – & the rest.

All are getting ready for the show so bye-bye for the present dear.  Hope you are well and are being careful with Junior.  Not too much work – grog – travel – and contemplation.

Lots of love, darling,
Bill

Notes:

  • 1
    Colloquially known as St Percy’s Seminary by the correspondents, it was situated at Headquarters, New Guinea Force in Four Mile Valley on the main road to Port Moresby – See FOUR MILE VALLEY, PAPUA, NEW GUINEA. 1944-01-02. A VIEW OF THE MAIN PORT MORESBY ROAD AT FOUR …. (2024, January 19). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C54321
  • 2
    Frederick Thomas O’Dea was the former General Manager of Guinea Airways and life-long close friend of Wep’s. At the beginning of the war he joined the RAAF and flew in an out of remote areas in New Guinea with supplies but following a severe crash he was unable to fly again and transfrred to the RAN where with the rank of Lieutenant became a Naval Coastwatcher in New Guinea.
  • 3
    WABAG, NEW GUINEA. NATIVES SURROUND THE FIRST AEROPLANE TO LAND AT WABAG WITH SUPPLIES FOR THE …. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C255773
  • 4
    Myola 2, Papua, 1942-10-22. A crowd of Australian soldiers gathers around a Ford tri-motor …. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C319056
  • 5
    LAE, NEW GUINEA. 1944-06-02. VX65671 MAJOR J.T. TAYLOR, OFFICER- IN- CHARGE, NORTHERN ECHELON, …. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C64803
  • 6
    Captain William Dargie. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P65046
  • 7
    Captain Roy Cecil Hodgkinson. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P65080
  • 8
    Austral Groves Wilson. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austral_Groves_Wilson
  • 9
    New Guinea. Private M. Daly of Bendigo, Vic, offers Miss Strella Wilson a mug of Army tea after …. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C238355
  • 10
    Edwin Styles. (2024, January 16). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Styles
  • 11
    Reg Harris was also a fomer Smith’s Weekly journalist and later press secretary to several Federal Ministers.
  • 12
    Geoff and Molly Turton

Les Tanner Remembers

I first met Bill when I was a seventeen year old copy boy in the artist room at the Sydney Daily Telegraph in 1944. He had just returned from New Guinea and I was greatly in awe of him. I had seen his work long before (my father had worked in the publishing rooms of various papers and always brought copies home – the Telegraph, Smith’s Weekly, Women’s Weekly, etc) so I was familiar with his comic illustrations. What I now discovered was his immense versatility in the war paintings he did.

He was probably the first adult I was encouraged to call by his first name. At his insistence he was either Bill or Billy Wep or Bill Pidge. Everyone else was Mr. or Sir. He was very warm, friendly, encouraging and funny.

He had a reputation for heavy drinking being among those that appeared in the pub when they opened at 10a.m.. What very few knew was that he’d already worked six hours, rising at 4a.m.. Newspapers were pretty boozy places anyway so the reputation did him no harm.

I didn’t know Jess at all as she was very sick but I heard a lot about her from his friends and colleagues. I know he adored her and that she was strikingly good looking and that he adored her not only for that but for her spirit and all the qualities she had and shared with others. He nursed her until her tragic death.

He used to come to the Artist’s room to get pencils, ink, white poster colour and paper but would always look at what I was drawing and say things like ‘that’s very funny, do more like that’ or show me the books of the old masters. I remember him showing me a book of Hokusai the Japanese 18th century print maker and telling me that he signed his work ‘An old man mad about drawing’. Bill thought that was marvelous.

Bill would appear always wearing a pork pie hat, always well dressed in a casual way. He had a soft voice, workman like hands with solid blunt fingers (as I well remember, from having one of them down my throat to make me up-chuck some of the excess liquor I’d consumed at the Artists’ Ball so I’d be sober enough to drive home.)

He was great encourager of young talent, Brett Whiteley, Peter Harrigan and me. He even set up a travelling scholarship which I was told later he meant for me but I was in the Army in Japan and madly in love with an American girl and didn’t enter. Peter Harrigan did and deservedly won a year in London. I think he was so in love with drawing and painting and just creating with his hands that when he saw talent in others he couldn’t help but foster and encourage. I remember him showing me a short flight of concrete steps at Northwood. He was so proud of having made them that he signed them Wep.

His friends Geoff Turton, George Finey, Bill Mahony and others told me stories about him shocking a posh dinner party with an oyster stuck in his nostril waggling about. About him taking Lennie Lower away to the Snowy Mountains with instructions not to give Lower any more money than two shillings (20c). Lower went to Cooma with his two shillings and came back rotten drunk with seven and sixpence change. He’d gone into Cooma, told everyone who he was and that he was there with Wep so no-one would let him pay for a drink and actually pressed money on him thus defeating the other instruction ‘sober him up and keep him sober’.

I saw a lot of your father when he was cartooning for the ‘Sunday Tele’ as I was rostered on on Saturdays. We used to drink in the Windsor hotel in Castlereagh St. He had his paper on the bar marking stories that might give him an idea for a cartoon. We’d go back to the canteen for a cold pork sandwich and he’d buy a bottle of dry sherry to share with the women in the Social dept. next door to our rooms.

Ure Smith the publisher got me to design the cover for ‘They’re A Weird Mob’ which I did but came down with appendicitis. Ure Smith asked Bill to illustrate it which was a bit much as he was trying to break away from illustration for serious portraiture and in fact had won his first Archibald [not at that time – 1957]. I think it was when he and your mother were either courting or had just married. I know he visited me in hospital to tell me he would do it. I only mention it because when the book launch was held, the author John O’Grady, a XXXX man at best, made his speech he hoped “You all made enough out of my talents to buy a new suit of clothes.” This was greeted by us all in stunned silence until someone announced that Bill had won his second [actually his first] Archibald. O’Grady was lost in the cheers that went up. O’Grady was very put out.

I met your mother several times both before and after marriage and have fond memories of her.

– Les Tanner, Feb. 2000

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