COMMISSIONER IN SOLOMONS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24903, 17 June 1946, Page 4

COMMISSIONER IN SOLOMONS

COLONEL O. C. NOEL

JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF GUADALCANAR

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 16. Resident Commissioner in the Solomon Islands since 1943 and now returning there to resume his post after six months’ furlough in England, Colonel O. C. Noel, with Mrs Noel, arrived in Wellington on the Ruahine to-day. He will go to Fiji to report to the High Commissioner for the Pacific before making his way back to Guadalcanar, his headquarters. When Colonel Noel arrived at his post in 1943, having been transferred from Uganda, East Africa, the Japanese were still in parts of nis administration area. The natives were being very loyal, as their reaction to the invaders was total non-co-operatieh. This, said Colonel Noel, was really their cnly “defence.” There was a British flag which was never lowered. The Assistant-Commissioner (Mr Clemens) had retreated into the centre of the island when the Japanese landed and, under his direction; the natives kept away from them. The Japanese badly needed natives for forced labour, but only the least possible amount was ever afforded them. A special case of this was for the construction of an airfield on Guadalcanal later famous as the American Henderson Field. The Japanese began construction of this well before any Allied landing was a possibility. MrClemens knew of future plans, and directed a certain amount of labour to work with the Japanese. When the American landing began, the airfield was not completed, and the Japanese badly needed labour to finish it. but the natives' disappeared into the bush. Thus, when the Americans captured the area, they found the airfield needing only a little more dfork to be ready for use.

Because of the war, there were much better road systems in the island than existed seven years ago. Many clearings, however, had already reverted to j The natives had bigger ideas of values than they had previously. “Whether they will revert to. earlier standards, one can’t say,” said Colonel Noel. The islands were still in the initial stages of rehabilitation.