JUNGLE RESCUE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 42, 26 January 1943, Page 2

JUNGLE RESCUE

SAVED BY NATIVES

PILOT IN NEW GUINEA

Pilot Officer Ken Dineer, R.A.A.F, leading Victorian footballer, is another Australian who has New Guinea natives to thank for the fact thai, lie is still alivo. " Lost among the clouds which often hang over the Owen Stanley range, he had to bale out. Here is his own story of what happened to him: "When I. gathered my wits together after the first shock of leaping out Ii had come through the cloud and I could s'ee the jungle covered slopes of a mountain below me. As. I ncared the earth, I picked up a small clearing in the jungle, and did some hard praying that I would finish up in it, or at least near it. Fortunately I did. "I had no rations. In my bait was a revolver with some kinds of rounds! of ammunition and a jungle kiVife. "For three drab, dreary days I followed a river. The only near edible food II came upon was a wildlooking marrow—l tried, to. eat some of it and it. made, me sick. To atV-l to nfy gloom it rained most of every night, but generally I managed to rig some kind of shelter of branches and ferns. "On the third day T, thought my luck had changed, when I spotted a wild duck swimming s'lowly about in the river. Just as 1 was about to shoot it, the rubber flying boots I was wearing slipped, I fell, and my revolver went off, the bullet penetrated not the dujk but my, foot. "For another day and a half I continued to push my way along the. river, and my fogt ached like lie.ll. Just as I felt I was about done, I came out ai. a native village. "An old chap who must have been some kind of witch doctor took off by boot and placed a mash he had from some weeds and water, on my* wound. He muttered away as he put the stuff on and made curious passes like a vaudeville magician over my foot. It looked and sounded like a lot of. rot but after a quarter of an hour my foot felt much easier. What was equally important, the natives turned on a good meal for me. They gave me marrow, taro root, bananas and paw paw. "While I spent, a day resting in the village, the natives went to work and made what turned out to be a very comfortable stretcher from bomboo and; vines. I got aboard it, and for three days they carried me looking after me as though I were a baby, and eventually brought me to Nauro. "An army doctor there dressed uiv wound and put my foot in plaster. Then once again, the natives had the job of carrying me—• this time over the celebrated Owen Stanley track to the point from where, the jeeps begin their run into Moresby."