Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit

{{About||the ANGAU Hospital in [[Lae]]|ANGAU General Hospital}}

{{no footnotes|date=March 2013}} {{Use Australian English|date=March 2018}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}

[[File:Yarawa of the Royal Papuan Constabulary.jpg|thumb|A member of the Papuan Constabulary with Brigadier [[Ivan Dougherty]] and an ANGAU warrant officer]] {{History of Papua New Guinea}}

The '''Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit''' (ANGAU) was the Australian military government administering the civil affairs of the [[Territory of Papua]] and the Mandated [[Territory of New Guinea]] during [[World War II]], and operated from its formation on 21 March 1942 until the end of the war.

Civil officers from both Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea were posted to ANGAU based in [[Port Moresby]]. ANGAU undertook civil tasks of maintaining law and medical services in areas not occupied by the [[Imperial Japanese]] and was responsible to the [[New Guinea Force]] (NGF). The major responsibility of the unit was to organize the resources of land and labour for the war effort. ANGAU was also responsible for recruiting, organising and supervising local labour for the Australian and American [[armed forces]] in New Guinea included rehabilitation of the local inhabitants in reoccupied areas. It was also responsible for the administration of the [[Pacific Islands Regiment]].

The ANGAU officers and their native carriers, labourers, scouts, guides and police were highly regarded by the American and Australian military. After the end of World War II, ANGAU was abolished and replaced under the ''Papua New Guinea Provisional Administration Act (1945–46)'' by the combined civil government of [[Papua and New Guinea]] (PNG).

==Further reading== *{{cite book|last=Huxley|first=Jim|title=New Guinea Experience: Gold, War and Peace|year=2007|publisher=Australian Military History Publications|location=Loftus, New South Wales|isbn= 978-0-9803204-5-9}} *{{cite book|last=James|first=Clarrie|title=ANGAU: One Man Law|year=1999|publisher=Australian Military History Publications|location=Loftus, New South Wales|isbn=978-1-876439-66-8}} *{{cite book|last=Powell|first=Alan|author-link=Alan Powell (historian) |title=The Third Force: ANGAU's New Guinea War, 1942–46|year=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=South Melbourne, Victoria |isbn=0-19-551639-7}}

==External links== {{Commons category|Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit}} *[http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/ajrp/remember.nsf/pages/NT000021FA Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit] *[http://www.jje.info/lostlives/places/terradmin.html Territorial Administrations] * [https://sites.google.com/site/rpngchome/ The Royal Papua and New Guinea Constabulary: A Pictorial History Web Page 1885-1975]

[[Category:Australia–Papua New Guinea relations]] [[Category:Government of Papua New Guinea]] [[Category:Territory of Papua]] [[Category:Territory of New Guinea]] [[Category:Papua New Guinea in World War II]] [[Category:Military units and formations established in 1942]] [[Category:Military units and formations disestablished in 1946]] [[Category:1942 in Papua New Guinea]] [[Category:1948 in Papua New Guinea]]