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[Page 158]
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On the 3rd December I received the following message from the Secretary for Defence :-
"Please send working party to W/T Station at Bita Paka to clean up the station building and grounds, and overhaul the engine, store, etc. and prepare for arrival Wireless Engineer in the "Eastern".
This matter had already been attended to, but certain portions of the plant were some ago removed from Bita Paka to improve the working of the Namanula Station at Rabaul, which is now giving great satisfaction.
In September last, immediately after the capture of Bita Paka Station, I suggested to the Admiral that I should place a small garrison there to prevent any damage being done, so that the station might be turned to account for our own purposes. He, however, considered that it would take some months to restore the Station, and unless I required to hold it for Military reasons, he thought a garrison was unnecessary, and he gave instructions for the Fleet Wireless Officer to at once establish the present Wireless Station at Rabaul. Instruments were then removed from Bita Paka and installed at Rabaul. There are, however. many thousands of pounds worth of up-to-date plant still at Bita Paka Station, which is in a very isolated and inaccessible position, but probably in this account it may be of more value as a Wireless Station than if situated near the Coast.
In addition to the plant at Bita Paka, there is a considerable quantity of material now lying unpacked at the wharf at Kaba Kaul. This is claimed by the Telefunken Coy., who have an agent here named Mirow. The latter was recently appointed Attorney for the Company, and he made a formal application to me for permission to remove this material, or if such property had been requisitioned by the British Forces, that a receipt for the same be handed to him. He claimed that according to the ruling of the Hague Conference such property, which is only conditional contraband of war, and not on the sea, could not be seized. I replied that I could not take the same view. These stores were intended for use in War, and had we been a little later in arriving all would have been at Bita Paka, and that the loss of life on both sides during the occupation of New Britain was due to the defence of this very Station and plant, although not in use, must be held as contraband of War until the conclusion of hostilities, when the question of its ultimate disposal would be considered.
For your information I am forwarding by same mail, copy of a plan of survey of site of Bita Paka Wireless Station, and also a plan I have had prepared of a survey of the road from Kaba Kaul to Bita Paka, shewing the position of the defences constructed across such road, where the fighting took place on the 11th and 12th September last.
In my despatch fo 28th November, I furnished an explanation of my action in employing certain German officials temporarily, when I stated it was unlikely their services would be renewed beyond the 12th instant, except in the case of the Curator, Botanic Gardens, and the Medical Officers. After the flogging on the 30th November of the German Prisoners concerned in the assault on the Chairman of the Methodist Mission at Namatanai, New Ireland, which was also