lived a wholly traditional existence. Their only previous contact with the modern world had come
with the occasional visits of Australian Government patrol officers. They knew nothing of the war
or the nature of modern warfare, until it came crashing into their villages in July 1942.
Both Australian and Japanese soldiers trampled crops, destroyed huts and stole food. Terrified villagers fled
into the jungle to escape the destructive battles and air raids which followed on the heels of the troops.
Villages were destroyed and many villagers were killed, injured or mistreated.
The Papuans were recruited to work as labourers, carriers and scouts for both sides and executed their tasks
in conditions of extreme heat and wet. Teams of carriers brought Australian supplies to the frontlines
and carried seriously wounded and sick soldiers back over the track to Owers’ Corner.
In retrospect the Papuans had little reason to be loyal to their Australian colonial masters, who often
treated them as second class citizens in their own country. Nonetheless many worked until they dropped.
It is said that no living soldier was ever abandoned by the carriers, not even during heavy combat.
Their compassion for the wounded and sick earned them the eternal gratitude of the Australian soldiers, who called them
‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’
