Port Moresby

War front reports are all depressing today. The Nazis claim they have driven to the edge of Stalingrad. At the same time the Japanese have broken through a mountain range in Guinea and are only 44 miles from Port Moresby, keystone of New Guinea defenses. 

Kimber, A. J. Papua New Guinea Food Crops Conference Proceedings, Dept. Prim. Indus., Wilson, K. Bourke, R. M., eds., Port Moresby, New Guinea, 1975, p. 63. 

Eddowes, Peter J. Commercial Timbers of Papua New Guinea Hebamo Press Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 1977. 

Psoralea badocana (Blanco) Benth. Port Moresby, PNG L w [18]... 

Sinclair, A. 1957. Field and Clinical Survey of the Mental Heabh of the Indigenes of the Territory of Papua New Guinea. W.S. Nicholas, Port Moresby, New Guinea. 

Sandell and his sergeants spent a few days in the Port Moresby area locating the chemical equipment which the regiments had discarded on landing. Most of the equipment was in a deplorable state, having been scattered in odd piles about Port Moresby and exposed to the elements. The gas masks, approximately 5,000, had been collected and put under cover. USASOS had established a forward base at Port Moresby, but the base chemical officer, inexperienced and recuperating from malaria, had been unable to locate either the labor or the materials... 

Responsibility for CWS operational supply projects rested with Marriott. Since he had very little assistance and since, after the move to Alamo Force at Milne Bay, even his own section was divided, most of the supply policy load fell directly upon his own shoulders. But even this was not difficulty enough in the difficult Pacific area. He lacked the logistic information and means of transportation, and his ability to improvise locally was practically nil, since there was no available civilian source of transportation and no substitute line of communication to Allied forces such as many field chemical officers had. New Guinea had no motor roads, no industry, and only a little unskilled manpower. Air transportation carried very high priority and water transportation was at a premium. Until 15 November 1943, he could deal with the Chemical Officer, Advance Section, USASOS, at Port Moresby. From 15 November until 31 March 1944 he dealt with chemical officers of Advance Section at Lae and Intermediate Section at Port Moresby. But miles of water or air lay between the USASOS sections and his office in Alamo Force headquarters, which was at Milne Bay until October, at Goodenough Island until December, and near Finschhafen until May 1944. ... 

In May 1943 the theater asked the Chief, CWS, to comment on Its tentative plans for a smoke installation at Milne Bay, which, as had been foreseen, was now a more exposed harbor than Port Moresby. These plans, which included the employment of generators both on land and on water to conceal shipping activity in the harbor, suffered from a lack of power boats on which to mount the generators which were to be waterborne. The theater requested the War Department to send several craft suitable for this purpose along with the two smoke companies requisitioned earlier in the year. ... 

But if the flame thrower was too temperamental to rely on, it was potentially too useful to abandon. Back on New Guinea, Sergeant King made one last effort to make flame throwers serviceable. New weapons were flown in from Port Moresby, across the mountains, but these, too, were unfit for use. They were checked and serviced and... 

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