January 23 Ceremonies
p. 18 · Read in the full issue
In Australia
MEMBERS of the New Guinea Women’s Club of Sydney and the Ex-Servicemen’s Club and friends will meet in Martin Place, Sydney, at 8 a.m. on January 23, to place wreaths on the Cenotaph.
This is an annual ceremony in re membrance of the men who lost their lives as a result of the in vasion of Rabaul, New Guinea, by the Japanese on January 23, 1942.
Arrangements are in the hands of the Ex-Servicemen’s Club whose headquarters are at the Hunter Club, George Street.
Melbourne Ceremony
Members of the New Guinea Women’s Association of Melbourne will join, on January 24, with mem bers of the 2/22nd Battalion, AIF in a service at the Shrine of Re membrance, Melbourne, in memory of New Guinea fallen.
The 22nd Battalion, which was the garrison battalion in Rabaul at the time of the invasion, lost heavily of its men on January 23, 1942, and subsequently.
The well-known 6,000 tons liner Merkur was taken over by a Japanese crew in Singapore in De cember. She goes to Japan to be broken up. She was built by the Germans in 1924, bought by Burns Philp in 1935 and—except for war service in 1941-45—she has been mostly on the Australia-Malaya run.