The Story Of Rabaul

Thirty-five Years a South Seas Storm Centre

BY 1930 Rabaul had become quite a social and settled community. There were sporting bodies responsible for baseball, cricket and tennis; schools for the children; three churches going at full pressure; a cinema; hire cars; and an occasional race meeting. New bungalows were being built and every year or so the BP passenger-cum-cargo vessels were growing larger and larger. The days of the old “Marsina” and “Melusia” were changing for the “Mataram” and “Mon toro,” and eventually the “Macdhui” came. These were all signs of progress.

Over in the Morobe district gold was being exported in huge quantities. The XPB properties had been all sold, and the private planter was once again a fami liar figure on the Rabaul streets and in the clubs that most of these gentry were under heavy obligations to the big firms was not a matter of great moment.

A planters’ association was formed, and the Returned Soldiers established a branch of the League. If the local world did not function as it should, then meet ings were held of these bodies and long letters of protest forwarded to Canberra, or disgruntled people gave vitriolic inter views in the Australian press when they stepped off the steamer in Sydney.

But it never got anyone anywhere in particular. They were all lone voices cry ing in the wilderness to deaf bureaucrats In Canberra.

The years passed more or less unevent fully. Baseball season followed cricket season. Old-timers in the clubs bewailed the present times—as they always do and have done, and always will do. They longed for the “good old days” again as they squinted through their frosty glass of pink gin or whisky and soda. But they managed to drive around in their own cars, and take a trip to Sydney every other year or so.

Came the establishment of a Legisla tive Council in 1933. Rabaul preened itself of its importance. Tourist boats came, filled with perspiring tourists from Australia, who wandered round the town, attended race meetings or drove out in cars through native villages, then went their way again. Men-of-war dropped anchor in the harbour for a day or so, and Rabaul entertained them in royal style.

The years 1936 and the beginning of 1937 were probably the peak years in Rabaul’s town life. The roads had bitu men on them now, and hundreds of cars speeded here and there; even natives were running hire cars. Over 200 motor vehicles took part in a decorated car procession during the Coronation cele brations in May, 1937.

And then one Saturday morning to wards the end of May, ’37, a series of earth tremors started. Rabaul has al ways been earthquake-minded; gurias, as we called them, were seldom taken seri ously. But the shakes continued and be came more regular as the day wore on.

“It’s nothing,” said the man-in-the street in the morning.

“It’s funny,” he remarked at lunch time when there was no cessation. “Very funny. I wonder ...”

Eruption

WHILST Rabaul was watching a base ball match that Saturday afternoon there was an explosion down the harbour which shook the whole town.

There was a roar and a cloud of steam and water erupted thousands of feet into the air from a point near Vulcan Island

—that same island on which George Brown had landed in 1878 after it had come up in a night.

Inquisitive people rushed down to the waterfront to see the great white cloud rising higher and higher, and then the white cloud became a spewed out mass of volcanic rock and dust which floated over the harbour, creating a blackout wherever it travelled.

People were no longer inquisitive; they became fearful for their safety. Cars rushed out to the north coast and to the hospital at Namanula. There was a tidal wave about nightfall, and dark ness seemed to accentuate the ferocity of the continuing eruption.

It had all the appearance of hell opening up. There was a roar like a train tearing through a tunnel; huge red hot molten rocks were being hurled through the air; electrical storms were cleaving the sky . . .

The next morning there was a general evacuation to Kokopo and the mission at Vunapope. At noon, while some of the people were still waiting on the beach at Nordup, the Tavurvur volcano erupted near Matupi and spewed out slime and

By Gordon Thomas

The Third (and Concluding) Article

mud which fell over Rabaul. it took months to clean that out of the town, and during the process most of the women were evacuated to Australia.

Rabaul was not a pleasant place in which to five for the remainder of 1937.

It was a constant job of cleaning up and making drains to carry away the water which the ground could not absorb be cause of the thick, cement-like coating from the Matupi crater. Actually the damage to ouilaings was not excessive.

But it cost the Government £40,000 to clean the place and bring the town back to normal. Geologists made tours of inspec tion and wrote reports; seismographs were ordered; temperatures of the ground were taken and carefully recorded; observation posts installed. But the town was doomed. “It might happen again,” said the man-in-the-street.

Canberra suddenly become eruption conscious. “Well select a new site for the capital,” said Cabinet, and forthwith appointed a Committee, which travelled the Territory looking for likely spots, with good anchorages, central locations, and fair climate.

There was the usual bickering and heckling over the matter in political circles, while in Rabaul a peculiar situa tion arose for. whereas the public ser vants who had no other interest in Rabaul than a place to work, were anxious to leave, many of the business people and the Big Companies who had material interests in the town and imme diate vicinity were content, and even anxious, many of them, to remain. Some of them said: “It makes no difference to us where the capital is, we remain here.”

Time passed, the eruption bogey was gradually fading into the dim mists of the past. The only reminder was the sinister 700-ft. mountain sentinel at the harbour entrance, built in a night.

Two other Commissions had their begin ning around about this period, too. One delved into the question of amalgamating the Papua and New Guinea Territories; the other revised the Native Labour Ordin ance. Concerning the first question it

was recommended that the merger should not take place; what happened to the NLO revisions, I cannot say. The find ings of neither Committee have had any influence on present-day policy, for Papua and New Guinea are now ’ tem porarily amalgamated and Fuzzy-wuzzies and boongs have come into being!

The years 1938 and early 1939 were un eventful for Rabaul. The town had lost its punch. Officially it was to be aban doned as the capital. There was a new atmosphere: a don’t-care-what’s-the-use there’s-no-future-to-look-forward-to at mosphere. Houses that required re-paint ing became drab and shabby; gardens, so well-kept before, now took on a neglected appearance.

The Second World War

AND then World War II broke out.

Attention was centred on Europe, and the work of interning local enemy nationals. The military spirit was made manifest; a local Volunteer Rifle unit was established; enlistments of young men for overseas service took place.

There were German raiders in the Pacific and shelters were erected in the mountain gullies against possible naval bombard ment. History was repeating itself.

Rabaul had, temporarily, put aside its fears of eruptions and volcanoes. Tem perature recordings in one locality were daily mounting to abnormal heights; but no great alarm was manifested. It really didn’t matter. What was an eruption or two when the world was threatened with extermination by the Nazi machine?

There was much activity amongst the patriotic workers. The women were em ployed knitting and holding raffles and making money for the Red Cross and the Comforts Fund. Local lads were leaving for overseas. And then there was the very secret arrival of troops from Aus tralia as a defence force for Rabaul.

In June, 1941, Matupi crater decided to go on the air again and blew out thou sands of tons of dust and ash, and made the day and night hideous with unearthly, loud roarings. This minor eruption con tinued month after month with scarcely one day’s cessation. The Administrator departed for Lae and 10, the sixth capital of the Territory had been established!

One or two Government Departments accompanied the Administrator. Other Departments were to follow in the near future. But they never did—the Japan ese bombed Pearl Harbour and the daily eruptions from Matupi ceased.

Rabaul Falls to the Enemy

WAR in the Pacific! But here in Rabaul we were safe, said the wish ful thinkers. Not so safe, however, but that the European women and children had not to be evacuated to Aus tralia just a few steps before the Japan ese hordes sailed southward. Even before they left unidentified aircraft had sailed over the town several times.

Troops were now busy digging gun-em placements and strongpoints along the tree-lined avenues. Rabaul had gone back to the days of 1914, when militarism ruled; practically no women remained in the town.

The first Sunday in 1942 saw the first enemy bombers come flying over Tunnel Hill on their way to drop the first bombs on the lower ’drome at Lakunai. The war had come to our own front door at last. That which was supposed to have been the impossible by the wishful thinkers had come to pass. We were no longer a Mandated Territory, -immune from attack, we were the front line of Australia’s defence!

What plans were in the making? what could be done with a handful of troops

against tens of thousands of Japanese, flushed with the victories of Guam, Manila and Hong Kong? There must be some deep-laid plan to allow the Japs to capture Rab'aul and then for our troops to counter-attack and entrap them.

As civilians we knew nothing. We were trusting in our own strategists in Aus tralia.

As the days passed, aerial bombings became more frequent, but, unfortunately for the civilians, raids were restricted to the local ’dromes, and the town proper had escaped bombs.

Then came January 20, and with it, a full-scale air attack by Jap bombers and Zeros. This was the day when half a dozen Wirraways took off and did battle with 140 Jap machines. Impossible odds —Rabaul’s “few” in antiquated training crates against Japan’s modern fighters and bombers. A grand display of Austra lian courage, but, unfortunately, unrecog nised and unsung.

The following afternoon a report from the Army was received by the Chief Warden, Mr. R. L. Clark, that an inva sion force was approaching from the north-west. That night most of the civil population slept in Refuge Gully on the slopes of the Namanula Hill.

There was no invasion that night, and at daylight the Chief Warden, who did a marvellous job of work throughout, con tacted the military.

“What’s the drill?” he inquired.

“Resume normal duties,” came the reply.

Resume normal duties! And the Japs at our door-step. The full seriousness of the situation came to me that morning as I watched wave after wave of Jap planes approach the town, knowing, too, that just over the hills somewhere were warships and transports laden with troops also headed towards the town.

Hundreds of Asiatic women and children still remained in Rabaul; the whole nurs ing staff —brave, fearless women who re fused to leave their posts—were in the Namanula Hospital. And nothing was done. There was no organised plan of evacuation.

Events moved rapidly on January 22, The invading ships were approaching. In the afternoon civilians once again made for the Gully. The hospital patients and staff were evacuated to Kokopo. By 3.30 p.m., the town was practically empty.

During the night and the early hours of the following morning, the landing of the Japanese troops was effected. A handful of our men met the invaders along the slopes of Vulcan—once again the volcano was making history, but man with his destructive machines was staging this upheaval. By daylight the Japs were in possession of the town and shortly after wards three of us: the Chief Warden, Mr.

Hector Robinson, of the Treasury, and the most senior Government officer present, and myself, under a white flag, had sur rendered the civilians in order to obviate any mopping-up complications. Rabaul was in Japanese occupation.

Another phase in the town’s history had been reached. Local residents were now captives at the mercy of victory flushed Nipponese. But this is not a war history—merely the story of Rabaifl. How our troops and some civilians floundered through the jungle of New Britain for weeks in effecting their escape is well known. We know also of the Tol mas sacre, of the sinking of the “Montevideo Maru” with the loss of over 1,000 Aus tralian lives. Hundreds of them had been part and parcel of the town for over 20 years; many of them were “key” men, who had served well and truly that diffi cult tropical apprenticeship and come through with flying colours.

Once again Rabaul streets were re

sounding to the march of troops, the roll of hundreds of mechanised vehicles. But the saddest of all was the looting, the vandalism, the destruction of those pic turesque homes. Furniture was thrown into the streets for fear of booby-traps; valuable books and records were ruth lessly heaped up and burned.

The harbour was filled with ships of every size and description. A hundred thousand troops bedded themselves in bungalows, shops, tents or newly-erected huts. Ack-ack guns surrounded the town; a score of searchlights pierced the darkness at night. Three thousand little ladies of the Amenities Section gave a splash of colour in their gay kimonos amongst the drabness of the grey-green uniforms of the troops.

Rabaul had become the strongest base in the South Pacific.

It had, also, become the most unlovely, highly-smelling, fly-infested, unhygienic centre imaginable. Like a tropical ulcer the town grew and spread in every direc tion. Wooden huts sprang up on every vacant allotment; the hills of Rabaul's Pott’s Point Namanula became de faced with clusters of ugly huts.

A year passed . . . Troops came and went.

It was the jumping-off place for Buna and the Solomons. Then their numbers began to decrease. Local Chinese were evacuated from their homes in Chinatown and sent out to the North Coast to dig themselves in. Preparations for heavy bombing were in hand. The little ladies of the bright kimonos were put on trans ports and started on their journey home, but Allied bombers sank the ships a day or so out of Rabaul.

The Allies Take Over

rEN we were at the end of 1943. Early in 1944 full-scale Allied raids went on over the town. Old landmarks disappeared. Store after store, house after house became a heap of rubble and splintered timbers. By May, ’44 there was little left of Rabaul.

One of the last landmarks to go was the Administrator’s residence on Naman ula Hill.

The Jap Army and Navy had gone to earth on an elaborate scale beneath the hills surrounding Rabaul. No ships had arrived in the town since November, 1943.

Only an occasional submarine sneaked in to land medicines and high officers. The Jap Air Force was a thing of the past too. The Allies had by-passed Rabaul and left stranded there some 80,000 troops, policed by a handful of Allied planes.

Superb strategy! They had been MacArthured!

Rabaul was no longer anything but a name on the map, the floor of its harbour filled with sunken ships. By the middle of 1945 the township the one-time Garden City of the Pacific with its avenue of tropical trees, its hedges of gaily-coloured crotons and hibiscus, its gardens with flowering frangipanni and clusters of orchids—was nothing but a huge vegetable garden of sweet potatoes, beans, and tapioca, overgrown with weeds; with unwieldly humps and hol lows where dug-outs had been made by Japanese, or where craters had been made by Allied bombs.

IN September, ’45, I stood on a ridge at Namanula and gazed down over what used to be Rabaul. I felt very sick at heart for I had cultivated a great affection for the town which fate had treated so harshly.

Isolated as it was, it had, nevertheless, in its 35 years’ life seen two military invasions, a major volcanic eruption, dis turbing political and economical changes, and from days of social gaiety and econo

mic prosperity, Was now merely an area of overgrown weeds, with an Australian Army once again pitching its tents amongst the kunai grass. Rabaul’s cycle had been completed.

From the swampy flats of 1905, through the years of building and progress it had now gone back to devastated wilderness.

In May, 1911, I had steamed slowly up the harbour in an old German NDL steamer, and had seen Rabaul unfold before me, filled with promise. In Sep tember, 1945, I climbed aboard a Catalina flying-boat and, as we made height to proceed southwards, I looked down upon the rusty wrecks of bombed ships along the foreshores, and the wilderness that once was Rabaul.

Has Rabaul fallen never to rise again?

Or will a new cycle commence on some fine, sunny, day and enable it to stage a come-back in a bright and peaceful world?

Time alone will tell.