Lae PNG workshops

[Mike K]

I had no idea this large workshop was in use at Lae

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F07167/

[Petr Brezina]

Very interesting footage! Thanks for sharing

[Lynn Eades]

Yes, very interesting, and not one pair of safety glasses in the whole country.

[Mike K]

Yes and the lack of clothing makes you cringe, considering the rampant Malaria and other tropical nasties like scrub typhus .

Why were they smashing up the batteries ?

Also the amount of motor transport in use . Lae was and still is ? landlocked . Those buildings would now be jungle perhaps .

[Private_collector]

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F00209/

I wouldn't want my truck to be driven like that!

[Mike K]

interesting vehicles , a bogged WOA staff car

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F07017/

[Lang]

Mike

Interesting Lae footage.

Lae is not landlocked it is on the beautiful Huon Gulf.

Some of those large tin buildings can still be seen around town. It is PNG second city. The area was a huge base of operations (Nadzab, the biggest WW2 airstrip complex in the Pacific at that time was just down the road and supplied through Lae). The outlying areas were stripped of their buildings after the war to set up elsewhere for commerce or scrapped - few structures were overtaken by the jungle.

The non-clothing is standard in such a humid climate and the dangers of disease are very low if people keep normally clean (not possible for jungle fighters). The "duty mosquito" does not come on the job until nightfall.

I lived with my family in Lae for 6 years, much of it shirtless like everyone else and a better period of my life would be hard to identify.

In the 70's we spent all our spare time wandering in the bush looking at dumps of vehicles and aircraft around the area. The eyes had been picked out by the scrappies in the 40's and 50's but there was still lots to be seen.

Unfortunately the urban drift from the villages has changed Lae from a tropical paradise into a city of crime and run down infrastructure.

Lang