Port Moresby, New Guinea. "Meet the Padre, the bloke in the HUT! The doors of which are never ...

Port Moresby, New Guinea. "Meet the Padre, the bloke in the HUT! The doors of which are never shut. Recital or concert or cinema show - He pressed the button, the blokes made 'em go!" Portrait of Padre P. Sands, the first RAAF chaplain in war-time New Guinea, who obtained and furnished a Rec[reation] Hut. Once the hut was finished, Padre Sands and Billy Challoner formed a concert group called the Moresby Microbes. This group performed 50 weekly concerts between 8 May 1942 and 28 April 1943, including a "Jubilee Concert" which was the last. Padre Sands wrote the verse which accompanies each photograph in an album given to LAC Frank Lansdowne, a member of the Moresby Microbes, now held in the Private Records collection at the Australian War Memorial. (Donor J. Treseder)