Fifth Anniversary

Of Fall Of Rabaul

Sydney Ceremony at Martin Place

ON January 23, 1947, five years will have passed since Rabaul fell to the Japanese. Of the many who were in the town on that grim morning, only a few survived and live to-day.

Some perished in the jungles of New Britain, trying to escape; many were murdered by the Japanese; many more were lost when the ill-fated “Montevideo Maru” was taking them, as prisoners of war, to Japan.

Since January 23, 1942, much has happened. After the long years spent driving back our yellow enemy, came peace and the re-occupation of Rabaul by our own troops. Rabaul now has had many months of restored civil adminis tration, and the uneasy, dragging process of rehabilitation; even yet the fate of the town is undecided —or at least unknown by the general public.

But the men who died on the morning of January 23, 1942, fighting a desperate battle on Blanche Bay beaches against overwhelming odds, or perished subse quently as a result of our loss then to the enemy, are stil.l missed and are not forgotten.

To commemorate Rabaul’s most tragic day, and to pay tribute to the men who paid with their lives as a result of it, the Sydney representative of the New Guinea Branch of the RSSAILA, is ar ranging a simple ceremony at the Cenotaph in Martin Place. Sydney, on January 23, 1947, at 8.15 a.m. This com memorative ceremony of placing wreaths on the Cenotaph has been observed since 1943, and all Territorians in Sydney on that date are invited to be present.

Members of the New Guinea Women’s Club and other Territorians are asked to attend this Anniversarv ceremony as they have attended previous ones.