Bill Ashworth today, 82 years young, and fit as a fiddle
Hello, my name is William (Billy) Ashworth and I was the very first operator (dozer) to start the very first road construction from Kieta to Nairovi Camp -???- onto Panguna, around about 1965 or 1966, not sure now.
There was only a small hotel and a big hall there then, and the managers at the pub were from Charters Towers; can't remember their names now, sorry. The hall was for the missionary or minister, and I remember his broken-down landrover being carried by a hundred legs underneath it, as the Rotokas natives - Rorovana natives??? - brought it back to the hall, all yelling and singing, kids running around everywhere; lovely bedlam at the time.
I operated a Euclid C-6 crawler tractor for a Frenchman from the Solomon Islands. I was there for about six months. The Euclid C-6 ended up burning out in a creek while I was pushing up gravel and then I started operating a Caterpillar D8 for Utah - ??? - for the rest of my time there.
P.S. from Webmaster: Bill phoned me again in late October to say he's sending me a USB-stick full of Bougainville stuff to put up on the web. Stay tuned!
And here's his final write-up, warts and all:
"I'll start here to get my years right, this happened between 1965 to 1967.
I came home from New Zealand in 1965 and went to Mt Isa mines operating machinery in the old open cut.
In 1966 Delta Construction were hiring operators to go to the Highlands in New Guinea. Four of us got the positions and flew to Moresby, Lae to Mt Hagen, where I saw my first sing-sing - very colourful, very primitive and dangerous; we were scared. Went into the Villages of Minj and Banz and did roadworks in the mountains. Delta Construction lost their contract, and we were laid off as the new American company brought in their own personnel.
On my way home I had to stay in the Moresby Hotel a few days waiting for my flight and I met up with the Manager, Matt Martin. He employed me as a helper with accommodation thrown in. The government had just allowed locals to drink in a boi bar, and we would fill the bar floor with lots of sawdust. We had two fire hoses either side the bar. They couldn't hold their liquor, and at closing time 4pm, we'd hose and skid out drunken locals, broken glass, piss, shit, etc. It was dangerous as they threw everything they could pick up back at us, before we could close the big doors. I got plenty of stiches at the hospital. I'm just glad they never had machettes.
While working there a Frenchman saw me (the name Gubbay rings a bell; I only met him once for a short time) and asked if I would operate his new dozer at a new mine on Bougainville Island, and I took the job. There wasn't much at Kieta then. I remember a small hotel and a big hall, plenty of coconut, palm trees, lovely beaches, and the place was full of natives, with villages down the beach.
I was put up in the hotel. The managers of the hotel (his name was John but I can't remember this surname - Williams or Miller - nor his wife's name) came from Charters Towers Qld, not far from where I was born in Home Hill, and we became friends straight away. I was there for about a week before the engineer, Matt, turned up. I'm pretty sure the contracting company was Utah Construction (but I also worked for Utah in NZ so maybe I'm mixed up). The engineer took me to a hill behind Kieta where I could see an old zig-zag road that had been cut some time but was in bad shape. He told me to clean it up to a drivable state so he could get to me with fuel etc.
When I finished, I started on the road that followed an old track. I noticed the natives cleaning up and stacking mortar bombs on the side of the road, I heard later on the army took them away and blew up some of the live ones. I was lucky as I could see where my dozer plates had scored some of them. Lucky they didn't blow up under me. I carried on till I run out of the old road, clearing the jungle and forming a goat track road.
The engineer said, "Keep going until you run into two old thatch huts called Nairobi camp, and wait there for me." I carried on using some of the flagging that was left. Anyway, the locals knew where the huts were.
When I reached there, we went back to Kieta for a few days. A small ship had come in with lots of stuff and a few more personnel.
I got an old truck, and with four locals loaded it up with materials, drums of fuel, oil, a wood stove, bedding, table and chairs and other stuff. We went back to the camp and unloaded all the stuff. The stove, table and chairs went into one hut, bedding in the other. There were locals repairing the roofs, clearing the tall grass from around the huts, and cleaning out all the rubbish from inside.
I was then told to stay here as there was no accommodation in Kieta. I shouted, "You want me to live here with the rats, snakes etc. in these fucking disgusting huts? What about food? Mate, fuck this!" After he had talked me into stayings, he said, "Carry on, mate, until you run into a wide creek and push up as much gravel as you can, as we are going to need tons of it."
So we started to clean up my hut. The beds were old army style with a very hard mattress, one pillow. I only had two pairs of shorts and three black singlets, and two pairs of thongs. I didn't bother shaving, I had a toothbrush but no toothpaste; instead, I used salt. Had no boots or shoes; worked in thongs. With no fridge, most food was in cans and tins, although there were plenty of eggs. The truck would go down to Kieta every second or third day, so bread would be brought back then. It wasn't that cold at times, and after the first couple of nights I had a mosquito net brought up quickly as the fucking insects tried very hard to eat me alive.
I started on the road again, clearing and putting in the goat track until I reached the creek he told me about, and for a couple of days pushed up plenty of gravel, and went back and cleaned up a lot of the road back to camp. I'm not sure now but I was pushing up gravel when the bloody brandnew Euclid C6 Dozer went up in flames. It flared up that quickly, I barely made it out in time. I sat and watched it burn out. I sat on the side of the creek in the middle of the jungle dumbfounded for eight bloody hours, with a banana leaf over my head as the locals boys do to keep the rain off, until the truck came back to pick us up.
Back to Kieta, John the publican tried to call the owner many times for about a week. He said he knew him very well and that he was a good bloke and would pay my wages and everything else, accommodation food etc., but no booze. He would take that out of my wages when the money came in. He gave me a bed in a lean-to just out of the rain and attached to the hotel.
Matt said, "I've got two nearly new Cat D7 Dozers here with no operators. You ain't got no job, so why not start with me, Bill?" So I started with Matt and walked one of the dozers up to the camp and onto the creek, where I looked at the Euclid a lot closer. It had burnt out completely. Worst I had ever seen.
Started clearing and pushing up the mountain again and it was getting very steep and dangerous. I was working on a bench all the time cutting into the side of the mountain, up hill and then galloping back fast when I thought some of it would slip and fall into and on top of me. It was getting bloody dangerous as at times the slip was really big and with big trees and rocks it would envelope my track and push the dozer right to the edge. I could see down into the abyss and it scared me shitless as it skidded closer to the edge. Luckily my local workers were very fleet of foot, with that big betel nut red grin they always seemed to have, and so we went on day after day.
A few weeks later the other dozer turned up with John, an Aussie, and things worked a lot better as he could do the slips and pull me out with his PCU winch when a big slip bogged me in. It save me shitting myself trying to back out. I also now had someone to talk to and have a beer with after work. We kept the beer chilled in a very small creek near the camp. John didn't like it and was ready to quit. He kept saying, "This is too dangerous, Bill. Something is going to happen, mate, trying to push a road uphill in a mountain full of mud. Fuck it, there is plenty of work around. No use living here like a black snake, and scared all the bloody time. Fuck it, mate!"
The very next day it happened: I'd run into a very steep sharp part of the bastard, no way to drive up it let alone side cut into it. I tried this way and that but nowhere to get a track hold. There was one area that was very steep but if I could get on that ledge I could cut downhill. So I talked to john and told him what I was going to do. He said, "It won't work and can't be done; it's to steep for your PCU, Bill, and fucking dangerous, mate."
There was a high corner at right angles about 20 meters from the bottom of the hill and it dropped down to the left on the way down the mountain. John went and waited round the corner watching, shaking his head.
I backed up to it, got the locals to take my wire up the hill and tied it around four or five big trees and started to back up. I got about a quarter of the way up and it dropped away. I waited a bit, thinking one of the trees had pulled out. I thought I should get out of there and started to back up again. Then I felt the hair on my head stand up, my skin tingled, everything stood still, even the air smelt different. I knew I should've listened to my body signals as they had saved me before. Then I heard the noise of the mountain falling in on me. I galloped for the corner. My wire was still attached, so I pushed the PCU into gear, screaming at myself, "You fucking idiot! You're not going to make it!" I had to get around the corner. The noise was deafening. The avalanche was screaming past me a little to my left. Something hit the back of the dozer smashing the PCU and pulling the wire out which straightened me up for a straight run out.
It took me a while to settle down with John, saying "You fucking idiot! I'm finished! I'm taking the dozer back to camp and quitting, mate! You can do what you like but I'm finished!", and walked the dozer back to camp.
I'm sure we had Christmas 1966 at the pub. We went down to Kieta, and I told Matt I'd quit as nobody can push a road up that bloody mountain of mud. I said I didn't mind working for him but I wasn't going to die for him. "I'm finished! Matt said to me, "Bill, don't go quitting on me. I've got a surprise for you: I have 22 choppers on the way here from Australia, called 'Helicopter Utilities', and we're going to dissemble the dozers down here and reassemble them at Panguna, and you can push downhill from there", and with a big smile the bastard roped me in again.
I went back to my lean-to room at the pub, then I went back to the Nairobi camp, thinking I had finished there. Matt called me back and said we are going to Panguna. We flew up there and he showed me where to cut some roads. The dozer was nearly finished.
He said, "I'm sorry, mate, but you will still have to live at the Nairobi Camp as there is no room for you at Kieta, and no accommodation yet at Panguna. A chopper will pick you up in the morning, drop you at your dozer, and pick you up in the afternoon. It will be easy now pushing down hill ha-ha-ha."
Well, I pushed a goat track opening up the road. It was a lot easier now with helipads along the way for safety. The worst part was, if it clouded in, the chopper couldn't fly in to get me out as he couldn't see, and some nights I slept in the dozer and then flew down to camp in the morning for breakfast, and straight back again. Threequarters of the way down, another dozer turned up, so there were three of us then, but those two operators had a truck and drove back to Panguna every day, as they had accommodation up there.
It's all a bit hazy from here in, as I can't remember everything properly, but I do remember finally breaking out to where I'd left off pushing uphill, to where that bastard avalanche had tried to kill me. I helped push the first loaded truck up the goat track, lifting the back end of the trailer up and around some of the sharp corners. I left that very day and flew down to Kieta and finished up with Matt. I think it as around March 1967.
That was my first time on Bougainville. I went back one more time in 1971 on a 3-months contract with MKF. I still feel I'm part of that Bougainville job. I can still see that dreadful bloody mountain vividly in my mind. I left lots of shit running out of my pants on different parts of it. It was the most dangerous job I ever did in my life, even worse than a blow-out on a offshore drilling rig. I have been through an offshore oil rig blow-out, climbed a rig derrick, and cut a boy's arm off with my pocketknife slipping in his blood on the monkey board. I also jumped out of a helicopter to save a boy from drowning in Indonesia, but he was already dead. I got nearly killed being chased by the kooka kooka tribe in the New Guinea Highlands, being shot in the mouth in Nigeria, and a lots more, but I still feel Bougainville was the worst. It tried its best to kill me.
I worked for 20 years in offshore drilling, 28 days on and 28 days off. I came home from Nigeria in 1996 after three years for "Nicotes" as Manager/Co-ordinator, for the Onne Port Vacillates, and then had a year off, spending too much, of course. I then worked all over Australia, mainly mining, living in Brisbane, then on the Gold Coast. Then in Perth for seven years on five acres which caused a marriage breakup. She was a good girl but a town girl and she hated it. She wanted a house built inside a shopping centre as she was there so much, and I lost it. We also lived in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah for three years as a family with three kids. I now call Brisbane home."
