Errol FlynnEarly Adventurer & Sailor
Papua New Guinea at the time of Flynn
Errol Flynn Early Days
In October 1927, the 18-year-old Errol Flynn arrived in New Guinea to make his fortune on the newly discovered goldfields at Edie Creek. In his four-and-a-half years on the island he had a number of adventurous jobs. He was a cadet patrol officer, gold prospector, slave recruiter, dynamiter of fish, trapper of birds, manager of coconut and tobacco plantations, air cargo clerk, copra trader, charter boat captain, pearl diver and diamond smuggler. In 1931-32 he also contributed to The Bulletin. [The Bulletin]
Flynn later observed that, "If you spend more than five years in New Guinea you were done for, you'd never be able to get out, your energy would be gone, and you'd rot there like an aged palm", In April 1933, he sold his property and suddenly left the island with some smuggled diamonds and a case of malaria that would plague him for the rest of his life. [The Bulletin]
...this was cannibal country and not far from his plantation a particularly vicious tribe had gone on a rampage. Pregnant women had been impaled on large spikes. Children had been decapitated and their brains removed - a much sought after delicacy in those parts, he discovered ... his "boys" brought back a dozen of the cannibals and entertained soemthing like 2,000 of the local populace to the spectacle of a public hanging...
If anyone doubts that Errol Flynn's Hollywood life may have paled in comparison to his early life adventures, we offer these period era images of life in Papua New Guinea and at a time when the area was reported to still engage in cannibalism. There are some wild stories that we will be adding about these days in the next little while. It is known that malaria plaqued him his entire life. [Anyone with photo's of Flynn during this time is encouraged to email them for addition (with photo credit) to this gallery to give a more complete picture.] These early days which most likely formed his personality and need for adventure may also explain why later in life when he was no longer the 'poster boy' women became the ultimate adventure! How many of us could live a life like we see below and settle for La La Land?
Click on images to enlarge
In 1928, with money from his work on a coconut plantation and a loan from a shipping company in Sydney, Flynn bought a schooner and took an American film company to make a documentary about headhunters on the Sepik River.[PNG Forum] Accounts vary on this. In another source it is said the his father bought him the 1st Sirocco from Halversen.
He recalls: “The last place in the world I wanted to go was the Sepik River, a human graveyard…I cruised to the north – east coast, where the red, muddy Sepik River flowed into the sea. “We moved into the broad stream, running against a strong current. “The Sepik is a monster waterway 600 miles long. “No white man has been up the river more than 200 or 300 miles and the nature of the river or the land beyond that was practically unknown – and remains little known to this very day. “The waterway was heavily populated with mosquitoes, kanakas, and pukpuks (crocodiles). “As we traveled the garamuts, tomtoms made of crocodile skins, kept up a steady communication: ‘Outsiders, big magic on the water, beware’. “When we came in close to shore and tried to get film of the natives, we got arrows instead, real ones, and poisoned.” [Flynn- My Wicked, Wicked Ways]
In 1929, Flynn sailed from the offshore islands to Salamaua, to fulfill his original ambition.
He hired eight men, bought marching gear and gold-digging equipment, and set out for the goldfields at Edie Creek.
The tough march along the Black Cat Trail from Salamaua to Wau - through a region filled with typhoid, blackwater fever, and poisoned arrows – tested mens’ limitations.
The rigorous walk between Salamaua and Wau took up to a week, Flynn writing of how the gold fields had to be approached from Salamaua by 10 days’ march through leech – infested jungle, in constant fear of ambush, and at night wondering “whether that crawly sound you heard a few feet away might be a snake, a cassowary or maybe only a wild boar razorback…I have seen Central Africa, but it was never anything like the jungle of New Guinea”.
At Edie Creek, temperatures were high during the day and fell steeply at night.
There was an epidemic of dysentery and malaria, with no trained doctors to attend to the sick. His men left, and Flynn quickly realised that, "I had neither the provisions, nor the money, nor the necessary men to work a claim properly. The competition with other prospectors who were better set up was too much".
He lost everything he owned and was forced to take a job as manager of a tobacco plantation in Laloki, near Port Moresby.
Six months later, Jack Hides, a flamboyant patrol officer and old Papua hand, turned up at Flynn's place and noted in his diary that Flynn was doing a creditable job.[PNG Forum]
In 1930, Dr. Hermann F. Erben, a medical researcher in tropical diseases and an adventurer, hired Flynn to sail up the Sepik River in order to make a documentary film about those parts of the interior of New Guinea that were still largely unexplored by Europeans. As the captain of the Sirocco, Flynn appeared occasionally in the film. [glbtq, Inc.,] During his time in New Guinea he acquired a ravenous appetite for books too, reading Russian literature, Greek philosophy, and French poetry. He was determined to make up for his past avoidance of learning, and to make something of himself in the world.