Allan Henrey Skiller, Australian Army Medic & Collector By Michael Hamson
Allan Henrey Skiller was an Australian Army medic who travelled extensively within New Guinea during World War II, and who stayed on after the war until 1956 operating a copra plantation in Milne Bay Province. During his stay in New Guinea, Skiller collected tribal artifacts from the Papuan Gulf and Massim region. As a member of Australia’s 39th Battalion, Skiller saw combat in 1942 in the defense of Port Moresby against Japanese forces—mostly along the infamous Kakoda Track, that treacherous mountain path cutting across the Owen Stanly Range from New Guinea’s north coast to Port Moresby in the south. Once Skiller’s superior officer found out that he could type, he was taken away from general combat to become the officer’s assistant. Later, in the madness of war, it was Skiller’s prior employment as a pharmaceutical salesman that steered him into a six-week medic’s course. The first artifacts he collected were given in appreciation for the medical treatment he freely administered. His son Phil remembers hearing his father’s tale of amputating a local’s gangrene-infected leg while reading up on the procedure in his medical handbook by the light of a kerosene lantern. After the war Skiller decided to stay on in New Guinea. Initially he managed a trade store on Samarai Island for two years. Later he took over the land lease from the London Missionary Society of a copra plantation in Lawes Bay on the very south coast of Milne Bay Province. Excepting a return to Melbourne just long enough to get married in 1949, Skiller stayed another seven years. His son Phil said his father remained in New Guinea because he loved the people. Yes, he collected artifacts and ran a successful business, but it was the New Guinea people that drew Allan Skiller to the country. I think the accompanying photographs attest to that ease, comfort, and well-being he seemed to feel there.
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Michael Hamson Oceanic Art
