Australian Dictionary of Biography

Malcolm Wright and wife Gracey, 1944

Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 13 August 1944, p 3

Malcolm Hugh Wright (1912–1998), coastwatcher and government official, was born on 21 June 1912 at Bendigo, Victoria, second son of Victorian-born parents Joseph Charles Wright, grocer, and his wife Jean, née Ferguson. The family moved to Toowoomba, Queensland, at the end of World War I. In 1925 Malcolm was awarded a State scholarship to attend Toowoomba Grammar School (1925–30), where he was captain of the swimming team (1929–30) and a senior prefect (1929–30).

After finishing school, Wright received another scholarship and passed the preliminary examination for barristers in 1931. He continued studying for the Bar exams while working for the Toowoomba Permanent Building Society but did not complete his studies. In 1936 he was appointed a cadet patrol officer in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, and after two years of training was promoted to patrol officer on 18 April 1938. On his first lone patrol he reopened a post that had been unoccupied since 1932 at Malutu in central New Britain. At the outbreak of World War II, he sought to join the navy. Upon his release from the New Guinea administration, he was mobilised at Sydney as a sub-lieutenant with the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RANVR) on 10 November 1941. After Rabaul fell to the Japanese in January 1942, he was eager to return to New Guinea to join the fight against the invader. He alerted naval intelligence to his experience of New Guinea but, receiving no response, grew frustrated with his training at the Anti-Submarine School at HMAS Rushcutter, Sydney, and made himself ‘difficult to everyone in authority’ (Wright 1965, 14).

Fortunately for Wright, Eric Feldt, supervising intelligence officer, North-Eastern Area, understood the need for personnel who had experience of New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Wright was selected to undertake a week-long reconnaissance mission in New Britain under the auspices of the Australian coastwatching network. In July he was dropped at Adler Bay, two miles from shore, by the American submarine USS S-42. After making his way to land, he sheltered at Merai village where he gathered intelligence from locals and Chinese residents.

Wright’s success paved the way for future operations. In December 1942 the Allied forces decided to establish a coastwatch post at Cape Orford, New Britain. Promoted to provisional lieutenant, he was to lead a party of three Australians and four New Guineans. Planning to rely on the New Guineans for their knowledge of the country and connections to villagers, he included among his recruits (Sir) Pita Simogun, an experienced police officer and future Legislative Council member who had worked in the region. On 2 March 1943, Wright’s party was taken by another submarine, USS Greenling, to Cape Orford. Coming ashore, they contacted Baien village and set up camp further inland at Wang, where they met with Paramount Luluai Golpak, a key ally.

After six months reporting enemy ship and aircraft movements, in September Wright’s force was joined by around forty reinforcements as part of Operation Ferdinand, a joint operation between the coastwatching network and United States forces. With them they brought orders to establish additional observation posts, and provided news of impending incursions across New Britain by Japanese forces. Wright set out with a patrol of eleven men to cover the Talasea district on the north-western coast of New Britain. On 1 November 1943, after travelling 150 miles (241 km), they arrived at Kupi village, his chosen site for a new coastwatching post, and signalled to headquarters at Milne Bay their readiness to begin operations. He harnessed local support for the Allies, recruiting and arming some three hundred local Nakanai men. The ‘Ferdinand Guerrillas’ proved highly effective in harrying the Japanese and restricting their movements, with Simogun playing a prominent role. However, Wright and his immediate team came under increasing pressure from Japanese search patrols, and in March his superiors advised that he would be relieved. On 11 April 1944 he arrived back in Australia and was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Cross ‘for great and daring enterprise’ (London Gazette 1944, 3040).

On 12 August 1944 Wright married Gracey Graham Ferguson, a clerk, at St Andrew’s Anglican Church, South Brisbane. The couple lived in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea where they had two children, Robyn and Christopher. On 13 November 1945 he was demobilised but remained in the RANVR and resumed employment as a patrol officer with what had become the Territory of Papua and New Guinea Public Service. He was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1950 but left the RANVR the following year when appointed a district commissioner. In June 1952 he resigned from his position, his son’s severe illness necessitating the family’s departure from the Territory. He entered the Australian Public Service as a clerk in the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and was subsequently posted overseas as a security screening officer in Italy and Germany.

Wright returned to Australia in 1955 but, despite his continued interest in Papua and New Guinea, was unable to secure a role in the Department of Territories and so remained with Immigration. He published two books, If I Die (1965), a memoir of his experiences as a coastwatcher, and The Gentle Savage (1966), telling ‘the life of an average New Guinea patrol officer’ (Wright 1966, foreword). In 1972 he retired as a liaison officer with the Department of Immigration. Described as ‘a dark, cheerful young man with a soft voice’ (Sydney Morning Herald 1998, 92), he was a meticulous planner and fluent in Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin). Predeceased by his wife and survived by their children, he died on 27 October 1998 at the War Veterans Nursing Home, Collaroy Plateau, New South Wales, and was cremated.