NEW GUINEA

The words came to me over the intercommunication system as I patrolled a zigzag course with my C-60, twin-engined Lockheed Lodestar, at 10,000 feet over the mountainous interior of Netherlands New Guinea. Here and there I could see a hole in the billowing cumulus clouds.

The voice was that of my co-pilot, Maj. Myron J. Grimes. A week before he had located New Guinea's Hidden Valley while probing back and forth, seeking a lower pass through the rugged and towering peaks of the Oranje Mountains (Oranje Gebergte).

The valley's existence had been revealed to the world in 1938 by the Richard Archbold-American Museum of Natural History Expedition.

Now, for a second time, white men were to penetrate this mile-high, walled-in fastness which the Archbold Expedition, we later learned, had named Grand Valley.

Instead of American and Dutch scientists, this time the invaders of this remote "Shangri-la" were American soldiers. Our men were looking for possible landing fields to use against the J@@ps.

When General of the Army Douglas MacArthur began his leapfrog military campaign up the New Guinea coast, our only air route for flying supplies to him lay over the Owen Stanley Range in the southeastern end of the 1,500-mile-long island. When Hollandia was taken, a shorter route became imperative, to keep air transport abreast of MacArthur's advances.

Lt. Gen. (now Gen.) George C. Kenney, commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific, ordered the opening of an air route from the base at Merauke to Hollandia. At least one intermediate landing strip had to be located, built, and put to use.

Major Grimes had been sent to reconnoiter and had charted two tentative routes. He was enthusiastic about Grand Valley and its possibilities as a landing strip. The second route lay through Ifitamin, about 200 miles south-east of the valley. So we started on our tour of inspection.

Grand Valley, a mile high, nestles deep in the Oranje Mountains, a part of the Snow Range explored by Mr. Archbold. Within steep walls of these mountains dwell strange, isolated tribes, sequestered from the world and often cut off from each other.

Two hundred miles of swampland and a cloud-bathed canyon shut off Grand Valley's entrance from the south. Steep cliffs, punctuated with 14,000-foot peaks, wall it in on the east and west. The only practicable entrance is from the north.

At dawn the silver Lodestar took off from Merauke, with fourteen aboard. At 500 feet we ran into solid overcast. Tops of the clouds were at 8,000 feet.

Between Merauke and the foothills of the Oranjes we flew across the 200 miles of swampland, level as a billiard table. The scattered tribesmen who inhabit it are head-hunters. They are as menacing to man as the fierce crocodiles that abound here. It was easy to see why the Netherlands penal colony at Tanahmerah is one of the most effectively guarded in the world.

The only way of escape for a prisoner is down a well-policed river. If he flees into the swamps he has a Hobson's choice of being beheaded or devoured by crocodiles!

Cloud ceilings rose as we neared the Oranjes, but an overhanging bank shrouded most of the range. Above Grand Valley floats a seldom-lifted cover of white, fleecy clouds. We could see an occasional rift, but we knew that peaks lurked in its innocent white walls. Higher peaks extended above the clouds.

We had to flyover the Oranje Mountains to find a way down into the valley from the north. We climbed to 17,000 feet before it seemed safe to level out and fly through or around the gigantic cloud banks. We saw the white-capped peak of 15,584-foot Wilhelmina. What a strange sight-snow close to the Equator!

We flew for 30 minutes and then started letting down. Successive ranges, with peaks diminishing from about 13,000 to 6,000 feet…”