"...The medical mission station on the island of Ambrym was situated in one of the beauty spots of the New Hebrides (pre-Independance name of Vanuatu)....the hospital had become a centre of busy life and activity. But little did the staff and patients imagine that underneath the calm and luxuriance of external nature the forge of Vulcan was being set up and they were really living over a slumbering volcano. On the day when the eruptions took place, the wards of the hospital were filled with patients.

In the centre of the island...stood the active volcano, Mt Benbow, named after one of the British men-of-war (ships) which visited the islands....The H.M.S "Benbow" concluded that the (Ash Plain) is the basal wreck of a much loftier volcano which was shattered by an eruption in bygone days and that Ambrym Island...now remains as a memorial to the destroyed volcano.

..But all unknown to the natives, and to the British and French settlers who had their homes in Ambrym, there stretched from east to west a belt of volcanic fracture, which was studded with extinct craters (maars), occasional puffs of steam being the only indication of the pent up fire beneath.

In December 1913, the age long sleep...was broken and the imprisoned giants awoke.

From numerous thunder-throated vents the island was rent and torn by convulsive explosions. The outburst was heralded by a series of earthquake(s)...increasing in frequency and severity until the solid earth reeled and tottered. The hospital buildings rocked like ships at sea. The natives said...that Ambrym danced. Then, from the newly formed vents was seen to rise as the blackest London fog, a dense cloud which shot up like a pillar and spread out in all directions like a mushroom. In a short time ash and cinders began to fall, making a noise like hailstones and smothering Ambrym and the adjacent islands in a thick layer of volcanic ash.

...During the day dense volumes of smoke could be seen hanging over the island...but the natives of Paama (Island,where the missionary was stationed) thought that a bush fire was raging....But ...the approach of darkness removed all doubts, revealing one of the most awful and... magnificent sights that it is possible for they eye of man to behold. Over an area of ten miles the earth seemed to have opened up and out of this huge fissure tongues of living flame were shooting up into the sky. In one place...six volcanoes had burst out within a short distance of each other and out of these six furnaces, pillars of fire were leaping....Rivers of molten lava were flowing from the newly formed craters, and so great was the flood of this liquid that no single channel could carry it...In the darkness, winding among the hills, the track of red hot lava was like the trail of a serpent....When the enormous mass of... lava mingled with the waters of the ocean...An Aurora Borealis of shooting stars - really masses of lava at white heat - could be seen leaping and jumping continuously; and to such a height was the column of steam shot up that it seemed as if a new volcano had burst out at the sea shore.

Outbursts continued during the entire night...masses of molten lava, red, white and glistening were hurled to a great height...forming a display of fireworks such as is given to few mortals to behold....As night wore on it seemed as if the ground of Paama (20 miles away) was about to open.....As soon as our motor boat could be launched we set off to the rescue....We could see crowds of natives assembled...near Pansileo...waving branches to signal us. The people were terror stricken. They had come from the fire zone around Port Vato..their houses and belongings had been buried deep in ash and scoria. Every green leaf was stripped or scorched from the trees...the land was a very desolation to behold. With the promise of return we set off with all possible speed for the hospital district.

The journey down the Ambrym coast was fearsome in the extreme...Ash and cinders were falling all around and the sea was covered with floating debris and pumice stone. Several volcanoes were belching out near the sites of villages. At intervals tremendous explosions occurred, when all nature seemed to reel. The scene resembled pictures... of Judgment Day - heaven and earth in ashes burning. But what a shock of surprise and horror we sustained when on rounding Craig Cove Point we saw a volcano belching out from the hospital grounds!

....(From the survivors some time later) we got the story of their marvelous deliverance. Unaware of the fracture line across the island) the worst that could happen, the doctor imagined, would be a flow of lava down the valley behind the mission station; but, as the (hospital) was encircled with a high ridge of hills, it seemed impossible for such an event to occur..Some of the staff...went over to have a look (at the lava flows)..Like an incandescent avalanche, (the lava) swept everything before it...tossing huge trees into the air. Falling back into the incandescent lava the (trees) bounced like india-rubber balls. This lava stream was 10 miles long, 200 yards broad and was travelling at the rate of 4 miles per hour. A fearful cauldron was formed when the lava reached the sea...it shivered like melted glass, into millions of particles: gigantic blisters were formed, exploding like miniature volcanoes. The sky was darkened and for miles around the sea was covered in dead fish and debris of all sorts.

...After daybreak...terrified natives from the inland village arrived with news that the earth had opened up some distance up the valley and the molten lava had formed a lake of fire...Large numbers of cripples and old people had been left behind to perish...

(Evacuating the hospital) an inferno burst out between the (volcano) they were watching and the sea, within 500 yards of the station....They could see one side of the hill belching fire, not a quarter mile away. Setting their teeth the (doctor and assistant) made their way for the hospital to ascertain the place was clear, they raced back to the boat...while the ground heaved and swayed beneath them. At the boat landing...the sea was boiling and the boat lay a little off the beach. ...Throwing (a box) into the water between them and the boat Mr. Bailey and he sprang from it into the boat. They had gone just a short distance when the earth reeled with a great thunder, and looking back, the doctor saw the fragments of his house and hospital hurled into the air. A volcano had burst out in the middle of the hospital grounds...a column of compressed steam was shot up with such prodigious velocity that in less than a minute it had reached 20,000 ft above the level of the crater, filling the atmosphere with dust and ash and cinders. At this elevation the particles of finely powdered rock were caught by the prevailing winds...A mail steamer, running between Australia and Fiji, several hundred miles away, had her decks covered with volcanic ash....The compressed steam rushing at lightening velocity from the newly formed vent turned the volcano into a gigantic hydro-electrical machine, and generated great quantities of electricity. The atmosphere was charged with it, and every few seconds there issued from the murky clouds flashes of vivid lightening.....it seemed as if they were going to be smothered in the burning cinders...So hopeless did their position seem that they actually discussed whether it would not be preferable to meet death by drowning than to be burned alive by falling cinders.

....Out at sea they met a schooner which had come from the island of Malekula to the rescue. Transferring their refugees (from the launch) into the schooner, those lion hearted fellows went back with the launch into the mouth of hell, in the hope of rescuing some more of the helpless natives. At the Craig Cove boat landing they found a crowd of refugees awaiting a chance rescue. As they were making their way into the boat passage, the eruption, still following the line of volcanic weakness, made a further leap, and reached it's last stage. Out to sea, about a mile from where the hospital stood, a submarine volcano burst and formed an island 330 ft high. The upheaval caused a tidal wave and made the sea so rough that the launch could not approach the boat landing. Signals were made to the natives to go over the hill to a boat landing on the other side. There they crammed the boat full of refugees.....

....I confined our rescue operations to the districts of Ambrym contiguous to Paama...the mission launch was an open boat and great care had to be taken lest it might be rushed and swamped...A heathen man with a naked and painted body, would clamber with his gun in one hand and a screaming child in the other...There was no distinction made between heathen and Christian. All were bundled together in a great tribulation and in the general eagerness to get away, no-one thought of the other but as companions in suffering.

Mid way across the channel, a strange and wondrous sight was seen. From under the clouds a bright streamer suddenly appeared, winding down the mountain side, glowing crimson. It was a lava stream from a fissure eruption on the edge of the ash plain. This fiery stream like a red ribbon, so beautiful withal, continued to glitter and shine far into the night. It lit up the clouds above. and shed a strange, unearthly brilliance over its tortuous path.

...One of the volcanoes threw out great quantities of a material resembling spun glass, called Pele's hair. Heavy showers of those glass filings fell upon the villagers. As the natives have a superstitious dread of this particular kind of discharge the sacred men declared that the spirit of the volcano was angry with them. To appease the wrath of the offended demon a number of young fellows were told...to climb the volcano with bunches of coconuts and throw them into the crater as a peace offering....In spite of the terrible danger..they actually reached the top and looked down into its awful depth....There was sadness in their voices when they reported the state of matters up above..The fire was unquenchable, and they recognized they would have a stiff fight with the coconuts to stop it. When this method proved ineffectual, the heathen natives accused each other of causing the eruption* and began fighting. So that the extraordinary thing happened, that while rivers of molten lava were destroying life and property the heathens were killing each other...!

...An old chief of Paama...who showed great kindness to the refugees told me that when he was a boy he could remember a big volcanic outburst on the (nearby) island of Lopevi when large crowds of natives...sought refuge on Paama. I asked the old man if he was as kind then...with a smile he said, "We ate them."

...(Some days after the eruptions had ceased) Over the place where the hospital stood was a depth of 12 fathoms of water. When the soundings were taken by the H.M.S. "Sealark", the lagoon formed a safe, land locked hurricane harbour for ships of shallow draft (the entrance has since been completely blocked with over 1 km of mud and subsequent lava flows - all that remains is a lake). The first time an attempt was made to enter the lagoon a submarine explosion startled the occupants of the boat, and quenched the desire for further exploration....So complete was the destruction of the hospital and mission buildings that not even a match was left...and large numbers of lives were lost (officially 21, but the total number could only be guessed at).

*One local account states the eruption was caused by the doctor and staff of the Mission Station. Told not to eat certain taboo coconuts and fruit, lest the offense incur the wrath if the volcano Gods, the European doctor ignored the warning as superstitious heathenism. Only a few weeks were to pass before the hospital and station were swallowed by the bowels of the earth.