Yes I was there...Okuk was long dead by then. Old Sir Iambakey was certainly involved in the whole NZ v Lae debacle earlier in the long running arguments though...but he shuffled off his mortal coil in 86 and the final closure and C47 'dawn strike' was 88.
Twas bloody funny actually. The Defense Farce had arrived from POM at the stroke of dawn in said C47 and set up a defensive perimeter with machine guns etc etc. They were really not happy chappies about losing there HQ with all it's hangars etc and working from tents at NZ instead. .
Wally Bednar and Al Craigie arrived in the middle of the day in the DCA C90, hired a car and drove into Lae to confront said forces and tell them to stop being silly boys or some such
They stomped out onto the airfield and were confronted by camo creme covered, fully armed soldiers who shoved a M16 in Al's face and told him to **** off...so they drove back out to NZ, climbed in C90 and proceded to **** off.
Seem to remember it took several days to convince them to pack up and fly back to Moresby.
At the time it was said Lae was to be turned into industrial parks and housing etc...but last I flew over it in 99 in a F28 it was still there all overgrown. There may have been a few good reasons to move there for PX...Lae was always a bit sporting in the wet season for F28s but Lae should have been allowed to continue, if only for GA...no way the Govt would have done that though as no passengers would have travelled to NZ to get on PX, they'd have got on Talair Dash 8 instead....no way was Dennis going to agree to Nz for the Dash 8, Bandits only while the rest of us in the bush operation stayed at Lae.
Many fond memories of Lae.