The second time I was shot 'at' was by off duty police...they weren't actually shooting at me but at our gate guard who had dived for cover in the bushes under my bedroom window just inside the front gate of our compound outside Kundiawa. Lots of yelled demands to open the gate had preceeded the gunfire. When he stoutly insisted for the third or fourth time that he didn't have a key they started shooting...I pushed Joanne off one side of the bed and rolled off the other as bullets thudded into the walls and came through the window thwacking into the wall just above the bedhead...it was pay Friday night and, we discovered later, they were there to rob the Sika Stores warehouse that was in our compound.
Then there was the off duty cop shot and killed by the Chinese Trade store owner during an armed hold up at Koki.
Remember the annual Aeroclub Ball a few weeks after the attack Taildragger? I reckon there were at least 10 handguns and Dennis' sawn off in the club that night...imagine of they'd hit the club that night? You're right...being hit in the crossfire would have been a serious risk
It would have looked like a scene from 'Bad Boys 2'. Was that the same year you urinated in a glass and added ice to find out who was stealing your drinks? God did we laugh when the non reflective chappy slunk over, picked up your 'drink' and took a sip...he turned up his nose and said something to his mate...who took a sip and assured him it was ok...so he finished it
Animal Club 'the shed'...I refuse to call it the new Dero was hit so many times it was just getting rediculous in the late 90s...remember the 'security guard's arrow taped up to the beer fridge? It had blood and hair for the first 6cm from where it was shot into a raskol. I remember standing there having a few beers with 3 or 4 other expats in 98 or 99...we were all armed and all left to drive home before dark.
Twice I was shot at on Bouganville...well I can live with that it was a war zone...the first was doing a charter over there in a C402 early 89..before Kieta was closed and when they still thought the BRA was a minor, short term inconveniance. I took a bunch of tire company fellas (Dunlop or some such) over there and we drove up to the mine site to look at the huge dump trucks etc and speak to various BCL Execs. Someone took a couple of pot shots at us...the first wanged off the huge truck we were standing next to and the others whizzed harmlessly over our heads...I think they were probably a long way off on a nearby hill...the S&W 38 I had at the time was in my hand as we drove back down to the coast....I spent the rest of the day on that little island resort in the harbour where all the remaining expats were living.
The second was while flying a Twotter near where they tried to shoot Gerry Krynen down a few weeks later, in '94....just a stream of tracer past one wing as I flew between bush strips nap of the earth...probably just shooting at the noise...might have even been bored PNG Defense Farce...a few weeks later BRA put 27 bullet holes in one of our Twotters as Gerry got airborne from some strip I can't remember the name of...killed a pax and wounded another. We never flew on Bouganville again.
Landed at Wasu once doing Kabwum Valley shuttles and while standing in the freight shed we watched as raskols hit the coffee company office across the road...Wissang, our agents nubile (and much rooted by one of the Lae based pilots) daughter told me to go so I raced out to the aircraft and as I hopped in her father dumped two large bags of cash on my lap...there was a raskol aiming at me as I started the left engine first, to keep him away, and I shot out of the parking bay starting the other engine...I took off through scores of locals running across the strip and saw the puff of shotgun blasts aimed at me as I went past the parking bay....I called Muddy on HF and told him what had happened and how all the aircraft seats were still on the ground... he actually told me to go back and get them
Pretty sure I did actually go back....after Wisang told me it was all clear, and got the bloody things
There was a rather cute American cruising sailor at the yachty that night in Rabaul. She'd been in town a week...the previous evening I had spent a large chunk of it on my stomache fixing her water pump...all I got was dinner...after the raskols were gone she wondered about the possibility she might have been raped...'never happen' says I...'why?'...I took her hand and put it under my shirt where my pistol was tucked into my shorts in a special holster in the small of my back, said nothng and she just looked up at me...got more than dinner that night
although in hindsight I'm not sure whether she thought I was gonna shoot her or the raskols.
Rocket had raced home to get his .22 pistol, why after they had gone is still a mystery too me...but he was pretty pissed (in both senses of the word) and as he raced back he ran some fella off the road into the big barret just near the yachty...he came in waving his pistol around but quickly put it away when the policeman arrived a few minutes later...all dirty and hacked off after climbing out of his upturned car in the barret
tinpis I stopped encouraging young pilots to go to PNG 10yrs ago...sadly.