Bert at one of the narrow beaches |
Troop uniform of the day |
In sea going parlance, a map is to inform one about the land, a chart about coastlines, sea bottoms, tides, shoals, etc. We had a real problem with charts as we worked around the New Guinea coasts. The Australians basically used the British charts, which were sloppy. In one instance the chart we had missed a light house by several miles.
None of the British charts were reliable. Far better were the Dutch, also the German. Germany had done considerable work in those waters, and their charts were right on.
That is, if we could read the languages. Names around New Guinea were in Dutch, German, some English, and many in Papuan. The Aussies and English we worked with pronounced these names in almost any way they pleased, so that a verbal identification of a place usually left one just as puzzled as before. Wakde was typically called “Wad – key.” Moresby usually came out “Mores,” and some I just asked to be marked as “X” on the chart. I could get there. Fair enough.
Yes, names in the Philippines weren’t much better, some worse. But the U.S. had had forty years to chart that area, and the navigational words were those I’d learned since I could read. Now, when shoals turned up exactly where they were indicated, I enjoyed missing them. I also began to enjoy words like Tutuila, Tagalog, and Mindoro because I knew they wouldn’t eat me one dark night. And I felt real smug learning the correct pronunciation of Bataan, Tagalog, and Panay; but I never understood why Filipinos nearly all call their own country the “Pee - lee - feens.”
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