The cathedral is destroyed

By KEVIN PAMBA
THIS is the fourth article on the series about the Maria Helpim sacred site for Catholics in the Archdiocese of Madang.
Maria Helpim, located in the hills inland of Alexishafen, is where the Japanese military held over 90 expatriate missionaries captive to prevent them from contact with the American forces during World War II (WW2).
From the memoir of Sister Siglinde Poboss SSpS, the captive missionaries on Maria Helpim continued to access the mission establishments at Danip plantation and the main St Michael’s Alexishafen mission station. They had to do so with extreme care so as not to be in the way of the American bombs and machine gun fire aimed at the Japanese on the ground.
Sr Siglinde records that some of the captive missionaries did access supplies from Danip and even down at Alexishafen, which is a walk of about 20 minutes from Danip.
They did so with permission from the Japanese soldiers guarding them.
It was during these contacts and from the Japanese military communications that the captive missionaries found out that the Americans would bomb their beloved mission headquarters at Alexishafen and the adjoining coastline of Madang. I shared parts of Sr Siglinde’s recollection of the bombing raids in the last article two weeks ago.
Today, I share Siglinde’s recollection of the bombing of the “magnificent cathedral” in Alexishafen.
The Cathedral in Alexishafen was, in its own right, a glimpse of European architectural masterpiece of its time. It was a magnificent monument of the Gospel of Jesus Christ coming to new lands populated by tribal communities with no knowledge of the world beyond what their eyes could see, their feet could walk on and their indigenous legends good recollect.
The Cathedral was the centerpiece of Catholic mission activity in Alexishafen, a pivotal port from where mission work was carried out into the frontiers of present-day Mamose and Highlands regions. Alexishafen was the gateway for missionary work to these parts of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea in the colonial times with ships from overseas frequenting its port and planes making regular runs in and out of its airfield.
Fr William Ross, the famous pioneer Catholic missionary from the congregation, Society of the Divine Word Missionaries or in Latin Societas Verbi Divini (SVD), who walked deep into the unknown Highlands in what is now Chimbu, Jiwaka and Western Highlands in the 1930s, started out from Alexishafen.
The work of the pioneering Franciscan Capuchin Friars from the USA to my home province of Southern Highlands (and the sister province of Hela) were greatly assisted by the mission plane airlifting cargo from Alexishafen to Mendi, Ialibu and Tari in the mid-1950s. In fact, it was the post-war Archbishop of Madang Adolph Noser who suggested in 1955 that a congregation from the USA be invited to take up the new mission field in the frontier Southern Highlands District (as it was then called). Archbishop Noser’s advise bore fruit when the Capuchins from the St Augustine Province in the Pennsylvania region responded to the call and assigned the first six friars in 1955 to what would later become the Diocese of Mendi.
The greatest irony was that the American bombs, targeted at their Japanese adversaries, were to obliterate a landmark Cathedral and mission station that stood for peace, order and prosperity in humankind.
Sr Siglinde recalled the day the Cathedral at Alexishafen was bombed in the following words:
“On Sept 1, 1943 the magnificent Cathedral at Alexishafen with everything in it were destroyed.
“Nothing was left but a small part of the foundation and the broad concrete steps.
“One Host (a piece of Holy Communion) was still in the Tabernacle (of the destroyed Cathedral).
“Fr Luttmer just happened to be with the brothers on another island (off Alexishafen) that day.
“The Japanese regretted most of all that the beautiful organ was destroyed.
“Often before the (Japanese) soldiers had begged us to remove the large ‘gramophone’ from the church,” recalled Sr Siglinde.
Sr Siglinde continued: “About ten days before the destruction of the Cathedral, Br Arbogast died at Alexishafen and all (from Maria Helpim camp) who wished were allowed to attend the funeral.
“The sisters (at Maria Helpim) went, but I stayed home.
“There was even a solemn Requiem Mass; Br Jason remarked, ‘It was a Requiem not only for Brother (Arbogast) but also for the Cathedral’.”
Sr Siglinde also recalled the destruction at Alexishafen besides the obliteration of the Cathedral:
“The icehouse, pump, and generator had been bombed, three days earlier, and thus one building after another disappeared.
She said the “next in line (of the bombing) were Danip and Gayaba (where Maria Helpim is located).
“Fr Noss once found a whole ring of shells in the jungle,” Sr Siglinde recalled.
After the War ended in 1945 the returning Catholic missionaries from the SVD congregation did not rebuild the magnificent Cathedral. Circumstances changed and even though Alexishafen renewed its role as a major service port for the missionaries into the hinterlands in the late 1940s onwards, it did not fully regain its status of yore. The increased Australian colonial administration activity opened up the territory and Madang town, which the colonial Germans called Wilhelmshafen, became the provincial capital. The Catholic mission headquarters for the province moved there and the Archdiocese of Madang was established. The Holy Spirit Cathedral in Madang town was built afterwards in keeping with Catholic tradition where a cathedral is located in the headquarters of a diocese. Alexishafen is now a modest mission station with a parish church oblivious of its glorious past as the busy port of pioneer Catholic mission activity to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the hundreds of previously unknown tribes of PNG.
Note to readers that what I have been sharing is in the memoir of Sister Siglinde Poboss, one of the surviving captives and member of the Holy Spirit Sisters. The memoir titled “My captivity expriences: Wartime Memoirs of Faith and Perseverance” is sold at the Tanget Book Store of the Archdiocese of Madang for K12.
Next Week: The long march of the captive missionaries to Bogia.

•  Dr Kevin Pamba PhD, is based in Divine Word University, Madang.