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Letters
Possible contribution made by a Norman Ferris to the Allied cause in the Solomons Dear Mac, I have just come across your web page and have found it interesting and informative. I am currently researching the possible contribution made by a Norman Ferris to the Allied cause in the Solomons. Pre-war, Ferris had been a Seventh-day Adventist missionary in the Solomons and in the course of his travels around the islands by mission boat, he had made annotations to his nautical charts. Ferris returned to Australia late 1941 and as he cleared customs in Sydney his charts were confiscated. According to his family, sometime during 1942 he was asked by a US naval officer to assist with planning for the Allied invasion. Because he did not confide his war-years experiences with his family, his actual contribution is sketchy. I have been able to establish that he contributed to several Allied Geographical Section terrain studies, including the study pertaining to New Georgia. I have anecdotal evidence that he did more. Norman's son also served as a missionary in the Solomons during the 1980s and on three separate occasions nationals commented that they had seen Norman Ferris in the Solomons during the war. At least one recalled that Norman was in a white naval uniform with three stripes. Also, the family report that a Bill Baines (a naval aviator) recounted that as they were going in to the Solomons, Ferris had provided information that changed the course taken by the invasion fleet. Baines was purported to have flown the message from an Australian ship to the flag ship or ship leading the fleet. I have not been able to contact Bill Baines to verify this or to establish whether he was referring to the initial Tulagi-Guadalcanal invasion or a later invasion such as the capture of Munda on New Georgia. I wish Norman Ferris had told his family more about his involvement, but can appreciate that at the time he may have felt that active participation in the war was somewhat incompatible with his role as a minister-missionary. Any assistance to my research that you or any of your readers may provide would be very much appreciated. Arnold Reye
All very interesting. At this URL: http://adventist.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/26184/Part_4_Journal_Vol_6__1.pdf Look at Page 51 for a reference to Norman, and scroll down further for a photo of the Ferris family. You may well be aware of these. Regards, |
