operations across the border
Many interesting flights were undertaken in 71?? to cart bitumen up to Wamena from Djaiapura.
My first time was with "Corney Russle". We arrived at the run down Sentani airport and got out of the empty aircraft (Part of the numerous requirements in being allowed into the fabulous Republic.
Some little guy with a learners moustache and wearing a faded Khaki uniform with maroon trimmings arrived in a sort of apologetic way on a Vespa motor scooter and informed us that "The Chief of Police" wished to see us in his office in the terminal... NOW
We thought, "****!". Corney carried the swag of paperwork as he reckoned it might be a Captain's duty here ... I tagged along wondering what would happen next.
Our uniformed mate followed us on his smoke belching, transport to see we didn't break any laws.
Mate we didn't know what laws we might have already broken and couldn't understand the Indonesian signs we saw, so we walked straight ahead with our eyes cast downwards.
We found the Chief of Police / Airport Manager in an office which had a six foot wide sign on the door. His title had about a hundred letters in it many being the repeated combination of ... ingangan from memory.
He was a fat uniformed Indonesian wearing a bloody great Colt 45 on his hip as he sat behind a huge paper covered desk which had a glass of weak black tea with a lid on it (to keep the flies out???) beside a very full ashtray that had a combination of cigar and cigarette buts overflowing onto some of the papers.
We were very curtly COMMANDED to, "Sit down please!" We reckoned we were really in for it. Thoughts of torture and prison floating round in my mind
It soon became clear to us that we were in for a friendly chat and learned that Djaiapura was the place they'd bung the pipe if the Republic required an enema and that the poor Chief of Police couldn't procure his much loved cigars here, but Vanimo.....????
We got the message and had our paper work stamped with gusto a couple of hundred times and were sent off with the good wishes of our new "best friend".
We had a bit of a loiter round the terminal and took in the smells of the clovey fags every one smoked, the delicious aromas of the cooking from the various food vendors, the ripe dunneys... before our agent came.
He was also a fat Indonesian of definite Chinese origin named Sugito.
His younger brother shadowed him everywhere learning the ropes. He still had his Chinese name as he'd been a kid in Oz at boarding school when Sukharno had purged the Chinese of their names and made them take on Indonesian ones if they wanted to remain in the country.
I have since realized that fat Indonesians are RICH Indonesians.
Senior Policemen there have plenty of beef on them...poor things have to receive SO many presents from adoring fans.
We were carted off back to the 3 in a marvellous old warrior of a VW beetle and introduced to our loaders and load.
Indonesian army personnel and severely bashed in drums of bitumen.
The Latnan (Lieutenant) at Sentani was a bit of a cloths horse and didn't touch the load. The privates got dirty and sweaty doing that along with Corney and me as we ensured we got the drums tied down properly.
Army personnel above privates all got to wear a beaut Colt 45s and this bloke who got known as" That mean little bastard of a Latnan at Sentani" looked like he was itching to jam HIS against us and pull the trigger.
We soon got up a great repartee with all the other personnel at Sentani and Wamena over the next couple of months and had a ball with them.
Corney and I got along with them famously and would try anything they had to offer. Many other crews did the same. There were a couple of stand offish blokes who remained aloof but interestingly Karma got them.
Many of us went to the officers mess at Wamena (Now that was a real outpost) to join Latnan Ginting and his mates for lunch. They made molten steel appear quite innocuous.... looked like vegies and sauce, but the first mouthful was followed by a silence, eyes popping, face going crimson and a almighty gasp.
The host enquired, "Do you need a drink?
Victim was unable to speak as the vocal cords had been seared and just nodded while the tears coursed down his cheeks.
The understanding local then poured a glass of extremely watered down, warm condensed milk to soothe the hurt.
Bloody hell, we were game buggers coming back for more, but it seemed to be better than the packed lunch we brought with us in paper bags from the pub in Vanimo.
The publican, a rustic sort of cove, got up at four and prepared our lunches for us.
There was nothing genteel about those sangers. Four, three quarter inch slices of bread, quarter inch of roast meat, lubricated with a pint of mustard pickles and a banana for desert.
We used to fly out of Vanimo at six AM, do a couple of seventy five minute deliveries of bitumen from Sentani to Wamena and find our way back to Vanimo in the mid arvo for our overnights.
We'd stay for a number of days shuttling back and forth before returning home.
MORE TO COME .........later
Last edited by sixtiesrelic; 3rd Mar 2005 at 04:35.