Journey back in time to find pilot
‘Mission accomplished’ as family lay wreath at Kiwi airman’s remote WWII crash site in Papua New Guinea
Seventy-six years after a WWII fighter plane crashed in Papua New Guinea, the pilot’s nieces and nephews have tracked down the wreckage along with their uncle’s burial site.
Gisborne locals Phillida Eivers and Marcus Williams travelled to the Pacific nation in February, taking a trip back in time to find out about their uncle Jack’s life and tragic wartime death.
RNZAF fighter pilot Jack Williams was just 22 when he died while on a mission in PNG during World War II.
It was thought the young pilot had been affected by sunstrike in the moments before his aircraft crashed into another New Zealand military plane on December 19, 1943. Both planes were Kittyhawks — American single-engined fighters.
In the lead-up to Anzac Day Eivers and Williams spoke to the Weekend Herald about their emotional trip to the small village of Torokina, whose community helped them piece together Jack’s tale.
Eivers, 65, said Jack was “very much a part of their world” growing up, despite the fact she and her four siblings never met him.
“As children we used to go to Granny and Granddad’s and dress up in his flying helmet,” she said. “He was very big in our imaginations.”
Following Jack’s death, Eivers’ father set up a charitable trust in his name — the J N Williams Memorial Trust. The trust spurred Eivers and her brother Marcus to first visit Bougainville in early 2014.
The pair were co-ordinating charity work through the trust and figured they might be able to find their uncle’s crash site on the same trip.
Aided by official NZRAF information about Jack’s crash, the pair knew roughly what they were looking for — a site in the jungle, about 60km southeast of Torokina.
Torokina wasn’t accessible by road, so they took a boat around the coastline. They travelled four hours only to be told by a chief in Torokina they couldn’t get further south.
The pair were running out of time before they had to leave Papua New Guinea, and were at a loss regarding their next move.
But before they left, Anthony MacIntosh, a local policeman who’d heard about the crash, stepped in to help.
MacIntosh was based on the southern-most tip of Bougainville. He pledged to make it his mission to travel the island from bottom to top, looking for the plane wreckage as he went. It wasn’t until last June that MacIntosh contacted Eivers and Williams. MacIntosh had tracked down Jack’s burial site and the wreckage of the plane in a small town called Haisi.
“He took photos and sent them back — many photos of numbers on the plane so that we might be able to identify it as Jack’s,” Eivers recalled.
“We said, ‘this looks really, really likely — let’s go back and see if we can walk in and see the plane site’. We can lay a wreath, say some prayers and say goodbye to Jack — bring his spirit home.”
Eivers and Williams got their three siblings on board as well as one of their in-laws.
They flew back to Bougainville, then jumped into a pair of open-air boats, organised for them by MacIntosh.
From there, they set off along the coast towards the crash site. Once again their approach was thwarted, this time by rough seas.
“There were waves completely rolling over us, it was very dangerous,” Eivers said.
After the traumatic boating experience, the family drove to Haisi the next day, where locals then helped them on the next leg of their mission.
Eivers said the locals had cut away the pathway for them, had laid bamboo shoots on top of the mud to prevent them muddying their shoes, The connection with Jack and where he died, it was always unfinished business. and had constructed a handrail.
It seemed the community had gone to all the effort because of the culture’s respect for the dead, and their high regard for New Zealanders.
“It was completely overwhelming,” Eivers said. When arriving at the crash site, they found locals had created a clearing around what was left of Jack’s plane.
“They’d chopped all the bush down and had made gardens, made a wee hangar.
“They had picked up all the plane debris and put it all in a pile under this hangar with seating around, so that we could sit and talk.”
The family, who were accompanied by a local policeman, gave speeches and thanked the locals, before placing plaques and laying a wreath that Eivers had made.
Local women then sang before encouraging the family to ask Jack’s spirit to go back home with them.
Williams said he felt it was a case of “mission accomplished”.
“The connection with Jack and where he died, it was always unfinished business.”
Williams said the family would likely return to PNG.
“We still feel a very strong attachment to the people at Bougainville and we’re very keen to help that community develop.”