Royal Papua and New Guinea Constabulary
Australian military control
1914 - 1921, Previous German New Guinea. ANMEF
(The Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force
1921 - 1942, New Guinea Police Force,
The German Polizeitruppe was taken over by The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) from the German Administration in 1914 with the defeat on the Germans at the Battle of Bita Paka on New Britain known in the German as Neu-Pommern as part Kaiser-Wilhelm land
The first known Military Police officer in WW1, was a CAPT Ravenscroft, who sailed with the ANMEF as the force APM. Upon successful completion of the operation and capture of German New Guinea, Colonel Holmes, the force commander, selected from amongst the ranks of his contingent, a military police body to replace the local constabulary in Rabaul, New Guinea. CAPT Ravenscroft was in charge of the military police chosen to perform the duties of MP as required by Colonel Holmes.
Members of the Native Police with 1319 Acting CSM Warrant Officer 2 Sergeant Louis Georges Gouday, of Bordeaux, France, in charge and 1326 Private Charles Byers Coates, of Ennis England,
The Great War, 1914 - 1918 the War to end all Wars was over. In a small part of the world the Australian Navy and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) did battle on the Island, of Neu Pommern (now called New Britain) the battle at Bita Paka was at Herbertshöhe (now called Kokopo). At the time of the German surrender, the government has a well-organised police force, Up till September 1914 all the police were known as Native Constabulary .The Natives in strength of about 1000 men and was spread over Rabaul and Districts area. The Police Native Constabulary came under the Command of Australian Military administration.
CAPT Ravenscroft seated with German Polizeitruppe, now under the command of the AM&NEF
Members of the 3rd Battalion Naval and Military Forces, Military Police Rabaul 1914
Roll call of local constabulary, once under German command now under Australian command 1915
A detachment of military police of the Australian Navy and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF),
On 16 March 1915 Mackenzie, who had a knowledge of German, was commissioned with the rank of major in the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force to relieve the assistant judge advocate general in German New Guinea. On 3 April he took up duty at Rabaul as deputy judge advocate general and legal adviser to the administrator, Colonel S. A. Pethebridge. Mackenzie lost no time in translating into English the German ordinances, which continued in force. As civil judge he was also registrar-general, registrar of land titles and registrar of births, deaths and marriages. He had no trained counsel in court. Moreover the district officers, who functioned as magistrates, were without legal training. Mackenzie had no legal assistance until a crown law officer was appointed at the end of 1915 and took over the Department of Justice.He took the terms of capitulation to their logical conclusion when he recommended the granting of freehold land titles to which the German administration had been committed. Pethebridge would not agree. Mackenzie also drew up a scheme to grant freehold land to Australian settlers as a means of establishing British interests before the end of the war. Pethebridge again dissented, contending that this was beyond the rights of the occupying power. Mackenzie was promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel on 1 July 1916; his rank was made substantive on 1 January 1918. He had made a success of his appointment; German businessmen had no hesitation in taking their litigation to the Central Court.When the ailing Pethebridge left Rabaul, he named the judge as his successor and in January 1918 Mackenzie was appointed acting administrator. He instituted a Department of Agriculture and appointed its first director. To encourage the villagers to make copra, he tried to prevent purchase of their coconuts. Trading regulations to the Gazelle Peninsula and the Duke of York Islands were reapplied. In a submission to Melbourne he made another unsuccessful attempt to provide for Australian settlers on small freehold plantations. Otherwise he conformed to Pethebridge's established policies. When the new administrator Brigadier General G. J. Johnston arrived at Rabaul on 21 April 1918, Mackenzie resumed his duties as legal adviser and was appointed judge of appeal.In January 1921 he returned to the Attorney-General's Department, Melbourne, as legal assistant and in June 1922 was appointed principal registrar of the High Court of Australia. From 1921 he worked also on volume X of the official war history, The Australians at Rabaul (1927). Charles Bean had difficulty in extracting his drafts, but the eventual volume was a substantial study.(MacKenzie, Seaforth Simpson (1883–1955)by Ronald McNicoll)
Colonel Seaforth McKenzie with a party of four police man and one servant. The building in the background is Government House.
The Germans had been defeated at Bita Paka on the Island of New Britain, the German Polizeitruppe were inducted into the ranks of the New Guinea native Constabulary
Australian military ruled New Guinea ruled from 1914 to 1921. (Historian Derick Sca) says they “were able to flog freely” and did not hesitate to “shoot pretty much at random when whites were killed by New Guineans”. After 1921, the Mandated Territory Administration took a liberal view of hangings. Some 61 executions had taken place by the time Japanese troops arrived in 1942
Johnston introduced the pillory as the favored replacement for flogging. He had two models to choose from. In one, the offender with legs stretched apart was strapped onto a seat; in the other, he had to stand on a public platform where his hands and head were tied. The Administrator decided in favor of the public platform. This type of punishment seems to have been used from as early as mid-March 1919, but did not become legal until the issuing of Administration Order No. 636 on 3 December 1919.161 It became known as Field Punishment No. 1 for Natives. In New Guinea, however, this punishment, as it was applied in practice, did not comply, in one detail, with the British military penal code on which it was based. The Melanesian fastened to an iron bar with outstretched arms did not have full foot contact with the ground. In a complete perversion of an already perverted punishment, offenders were attached to the bar in such a way that their full body weight was taken by the wrists. A special procedure was used to ensure that only the tips of their toes could touch the ground. In this way, unfortunate Melanesians were exposed to the tropical heat for up to three days at a time. Because of their loud cries, the victims were called “birds” by their tormentors
Hermann Joseph Hiery The Neglected War Chapter 2 page 83/84
Table 8.
The Death Sentence in the Criminal Justice Administered to the Indigenous Population of New Guinea by the Australian Military Government (September 1914–8 May 1921)
Year
Number of Death Sentences Imposed Number of These Pardoned
1914 ?
1915 5
1916 1 1
1917 ?
1918 9 (?) 9(?)
1919 13 8
1920 28 16
1921 (to 8 May) 5
Totals 61 (?) 34(?)
Plus a Chinese; Namanula Times, no. 2, 1 January 1916,
Hermann Joseph Hiery The Neglected War Chapter 2 page 94
Public hanging of a Chinese by the Australian Military Administration in Rabaul. 1 January 1916
(Thomas J. Denham, New Guinea Notebook)