Remembrance Day

Dedication of Rabaul War Cemetery But What Does "Peace"

Mean to New Guinea?

(A Letter to the Editor) TO-DAY there is great activity at Bita paka. Bitapaka was the site of the main German Radio communication system in the Pacific in 1914, and many will recall the landing of the AIF at Kabakaul, in September of that year, and the subsequent surrender of the Germans at Rabaul.

Bitapaka is approximately 32 miles by road from Rabaul and 5 miles from Kaba kaul. It was on the road between Kaba kaul and Bitapaka that Australia suffered her first casualties in 1914 and, by the German capitulation, acquired the Man dated Territory of New Guinea. New Guinea commemorated those heroic men of 1914 with a Memorial erected on the roadway where the first casualty of 1914 occcurred, and each year Australians in the Islands attended memorial services there. - To-day, on the eve of the anniversary of the cessation of hostilities 28 years ago, Bitapaka was dedicated as a last resting place for many of those who fell fighting the Japs in this and surrounding areas.

The Roman Catholic community held a dedication service this morning and a combined service was held at 3 p.m. His Grace, Bishop Wade, was the principal speaker at the morning service and the Church of England army chaplain was the speaker at the combined service.

TO many of us who have experienced two world wars and two post-war periods, the pious and optimistic hopes expressed at the dedication services to-day seemed strikingly similar to those of 1918. If peace is a state of being free from war, then we are experiencing a post-war situation very similar to that after World War I—but with the problems of Europe greater. The conviction is forced upon us here that peace can be almost more intolerably evil than war.

Almost every action of the Australian Administration in New Guinea is hasten ing the decline of our prestige and creat ing a deplorable situation. Through out New Guinea officialdom is apologising for its presence and that of other Aus tralians. If we are without faith in our selves, what hope is there for peace?

Instead of Australians in New Guinea being backed by the people of their home land, they are being cruelly sacrificed.

The total disregard of Australians in New Guinea will ultimately have its pain ful effects on Australians in Australia. If we are to have peace we must be secure.

During World War II the USA stoutly defended Australia, per medium of New Guinea, as did thousands of worthy sons of Australia and our gallant allies, the Dutch. On the cessation of hostilities, Australian promptly helped the Indone sians against the Dutch; and the USA gave China some 300 naval vessels and supplied them with 100 naval officers to teach them how to conduct naval warfare.

Australia should wake up—or Bitapaka will be a mere milestone on the way to repeated and vain sacrifices.

I am, etc.,

Rabaul Resident

Rabaul, November 10, 1946.