January 23 Rabaul's Tragic

Anniversary

ON Sunday, January 23, two years will have elapsed since the fall of Rabaul to the Japanese.

At Sydney Cenotaph, in Martin Place, at 10 a.m. on that day, Territorians will pay homage to the men of the NGVR and the AIF regiments who gave their lives in the defence of the town. Wreaths will be laid by representatives of the Administration, the New Guinea Branch of the RSSAILA, the Pacific Territories Association, the New Guinea Women’s Club, the 22nd Battalion AIF, Australian Militia Forces, AIF Anti-tank Regiment and Anti-aircraft Battery, Island com mercial enterprises, the various units of the now disbanded NGVR, and by rela tives and friends of individual men who, in the dawn of that dark day, fought their unequal battle on the shores of Blanche Bay.

On that occasion, 72 members of the NGVR, and a couple of companies of the 22nd Battalion AIF, took up their posi tions between Vulcan and Raluana Point, and, waiting until the Jap barges carry ing thousands of soldiers were within point-blank range, poured into them a stream of machine-gun lead and mortar fire, killing at least 1,500 of the enemy before they themselves were forced back into the jungles of New Britain.

Since January 23, 1943, the tide of war in the Pacific has turned, but its waters still wash New Guinea shores and much of what happened in Rabaul then is still shrouded in mystery. Many civilians were trapped there and are “missing”; and. of the 72 men of the NGVR who fought the invader, seven came out—the rest are killed or are prisoners of war.

The NGVR has since been disbanded, but its exploits live on, for of such things is bom tradition.

Territorians are asked to remember their fighting men on this day: the men who paid the supreme sacrifice and are gone, and those who yet fight on for a freedom that is even dearer, perhaps, to

those who have 1 known the fullness and breadth of life in the Pacific Territories, than to their kinsfolk who know only life in Australia. Arrangements for the placing of wreaths on Sydney Cenotaph are in the hands of the New Guinea Branch of the RSSAILA, which can be reached through their secretary, Mr. C.

W. Thomas, telephone BW 1776.