No chance to say goodbye

Written By: Loretta Bryce 13th May 2009

Somewhere in an overgrown and vandalised cemetery in Port Moresby lies
the body of an Australian man who died while working for the Australian
Government in 1969.

Point Vernon woman Julie von Schill was only eight years old when her dad's
plane crashed in Papua New Guinea. She never got to say goodbye - she
wasn't allowed to go to his funeral - but now she is calling on the Australian
Government to give her dad a proper resting place.

Oswald Kevin von Schill was chairman of the Lands Department when he
chartered a flight over New Britain to interview applicants for leases in the
West New Britain Oil Palm Scheme.

The plane crashed on take-off from Unea Island and he died, leaving behind
wife Betty and their four children. “I was eight and my sister Margaret was
11 when Dad died,” Julie said. “They said we were too young to go to the funeral.
“He just went out to work one day and never came home. “Mum never got over
his death. She never re-married. “She's now 81 and I would love to take her
there for a memorial service - I think it would give her a lot of peace.”

Oswald, who everyone knew as Kevin, was flown back to Port Moresby and
buried in the Badihagwa Cemetery with other Australians who died before
PNG's independence.

Julie went back once, when she was 15, but since then the cemetery has
been vandalised by locals, littered with weeds and had plaques stolen off
graves to be sold as scrap metal.

“My sisters and I know where his grave is and would be able to find it
but it's a matter of financing the trip up there, locating the actual site,
repairing it and holding a memorial service,” Julie said.

“The government never paid any worker's compensation to our family,
even though dad died while on duty. Dad served in the Navy in WWII and
was injured by shrapnel.

“It would be really nice if the government could pay someone to go in and
restore the cemetery. “There's a lot of Australian history buried there.”