Target: Rabaul by Bruce Gamble Page A

welfare. Maligum, the luluai (headman), was a widely respected chief across the entire island cluster. His deputy, Mot, was a “doctor boy” who had learned rudimentary medicine from a missionary. Mot took over treating Doyle’s wounds, which were badly infected, using poultices made from herbs and mud. The ingredients stopped the infection and promoted healing.
    In groups of four, the airmen spent the next several weeks with Maligum and Mot in adjoining villages. At first, those who had discarded their shoes had difficulty moving about, but gradually their feet toughened. The Americans went native in other ways, too. They became proficient at Pidgin English, and when their khaki clothing was reduced to tatters, they adopted lap-laps (traditional sarongs). Most let their hair and beards grow long.
    Island life seemed idyllic, but it could not last. The eight white men not only strained the island’s limited resources, but they put the entire population at risk from the Japanese. Realizing that they could not remain, McMurria and his crew began to investigate the alternatives. More than a month after their arrival, they were excited to learn of a Catholic mission on Kairiru, just a few miles off the New Guinea coast. The island was rumored to be under enemy occupation, but the possibility of assistance from neutral missionaries was too tantalizing to ignore. After much imploring by the Americans, Mot and a small crew of natives set off in a sailing canoe to investigate. Absent for about a week, they finally returned to report that the island was indeed garrisoned by the Japanese, who were mistreating the people at the Catholic mission. Mot had managed to deliver a note from McMurria to an American priest, Father Arthur Manion, who recommended that the airmen surrender.
    Mot had performed one other deed: when he left Kairiru, he brought back several natives who had been stranded there. He meant well, but the methodical Japanese undoubtedly discovered the absent villagers.
    McMurria and his men refused to give up. Their only option was to get to the mainland somehow, then walk to Port Moresby. In their early- to mid-twenties, they naively believed this was possible. They had no concept of the challenges, which included roving patrols of Japanese soldiers, crocodiles, poisonous snakes, hostile natives, disease-carrying insects, and treacherous terrain—to say nothing of the imposing Owen Stanley Mountains. And between the eight men, they had only two pairs of shoes.
    Despite the odds, they set off within a few days with help from the islanders, who would transport the crewmen by canoe to New Guinea. They planned a roundabout route, with stops at several outer islands, until they reached a point seventy miles south of Wewak. They would land below the Sepik River, so its broadmouth would provide a barrier between the Americans and the enemy stronghold. At each stop, they would invoke Maligum’s name to assure assistance from the local population.
    Accompanied by Maligum himself for the first leg, the Americans set sail on March 7 after an emotional farewell with the generous Wokeo Islanders. Unfortunately, with each stop at a new island, the local inhabitants seemed more sullen and malnourished—and less willing to help. McMurria and his crew reached the New Guinea coast on the night of March 12. * But by then they had been betrayed, evidently by the last crew of natives. Put ashore north of the Sepik River, the Americans were kicked awake the next morning by bayonet-wielding soldiers. Seven weeks after being forced down at sea, the crewmen were taken prisoner. Some were actually relieved: they would no longer have to cross New Guinea on foot.
    So began another journey, including a trip of several miles up the Amazon-like Sepik River in a decrepit motor launch. A few days later the prisoners and their captors went the opposite direction, making a choppy run out to sea in a landing craft. It then turned north and followed the