It was five minutes prior to noon on Wednesday the 21st of January 1942, and Kevin Parer, the owner and pilot of an air freighting business, was sitting in the cockpit of his aircraft on the ‘drome just outside the busy coastal township of Salamaua in what was then known as the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. Without warning, a force of approximately 24 Japanese fighters and bombers appeared from over the Huon Gulf and raked first the nearby township and then the vicinity of the aerodrome with machine-gun and cannon fire.
One man, L. Ross, was about to land a large Junkers aircraft on the Salamaua strip when he noticed bombs being dropped on buildings around it, and managed to slip away into the clouds and head inland. Kevin Parer was not so lucky and was killed by a cannon shell, the only fatality that day in the sudden attack from the skies on not only Salamaua, but also Lae, Bulolo and Wau aerodromes and townships.
The very first casualty of the Japanese on the mainland of New Guinea and Papua – Port Moresby had not yet been subjected to aerial bombings and Rabaul on New Britain had not yet been invaded – lies buried in a lonely corner of the pre-war civilian cemetery on the north south of the Salamaua peninsula. Other graves further up the slope have been claimed by landslips over the years, but for the time being, Parer lays undisturbed, gazing through the foliage at the waters of the now tranquil Huon Gulf and skies in which he once flew.
# Thanks and acknowledgements to John Winterbotham for permission to access the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles war diary as featured on his website http://australian-pow-ww2.com
