To Hold Rabaul In 1942

he New Britain Force [?]as Expendable

Troops Were "Never Meant"

The story of the loss of Rabaul and New Britain to the Japanese in 1942 has now been told officially—and the official version won’t put any more minds at ease than have any of the several unofficial accounts already published.

CHE unhappy story is told in The Japanese Thrust, by Lionel Wigmore, volume four in the rmy series of Australia’s official ar history, which covers the events sading up to the war with Japan, le debacle in Malaya, stories of arious Pacific garrisons and a sep rate history of the experience of ar prisoners.

The New Britain story is one of le stories of the small garrisons, hich for the general reader is by the greater tragedy E Singapore.

But the things that went wrong a New Britain are deserving of msure no less than those in Malaya, ossibly more, because there was ss excuse for them to have hap ened.

The official story does not give a new version of how the Japanese got their first foothold in New Guinea, but it fills in many details, and underlines others. Its maih points are: Main Points • Rabaul was considered by the Chiefs-of-Staff to be expendable.

Even before the battle started they were prepared for its loss. • The Americans had offered to provide a mass of equipment, in cluding minefields, nets and anti aircraft equipment and radar for expanding Rabaul as an anchorage for British and American fleets, but the scheme was not implemented. • A Service Corps officer had placed a plan before New Guinea

Area Headquarters for hiding part of the force’s two years’ food supply in the mountains, where it would have been of vital use, but the plan was neglected. (over)

The historian in The Jap anese Thrust has a cryptic comment to make on one in cident involving Australian and American wartime methods.

He tells of how one weary party of nine Australians had escaped from Rabaul and many months later had got as far as Bena Bena, in the New Guinea highlands, where they had been told they would be evacuated.

But at Bena Bena they were informed that only Americans (survivors of a Mitchell bomber which had made a forced landing in the area), were to be flown out, and that the Australians had to keep walking. They did.

The historian remarks, in a footnote: “Evidently a higher estimate was held of the value of these relatively fit Ameri can aircrew than of the weary survivors from New Britain.

Four aircraft two Boston A-24’s, a DH-86, and a Spartan Moth —were lost attempting to rescue the Americans from Bena Bena”.

• When word came that a Jap anese naval force was on its way to Rabaul, troops were ordered to prepare for movement “as an exer cise only”, with the result that some w ent to battle stations lacking rations, quinine and other essentials they needed later. • The number of men who eventu ally escaped from Rabaul, despite all the handicaps and lack of organ isation, was “an indication of what might have been done had an organ ised withdrawal and evacuation scheme been planned before the in vasion”, says the history. • A group of armed natives from the NG Constabulary had got ahead of troops retreating down the coast, had plundered the villages, stirred up the natives and was responsible “for much of the desolation en countered by the Australians on their journey”.

Small Force The history records that the strength of the Rabaul Army force when the Japanese attacked in January, 1942, was 1,396. Of these, 400 escaped and 800 became prison ers. In addition, about 120 mem bers of the air force were taken off in flying boats.

The military prisoners, together with about 200 civilians, were em barked by the Japanese on the Montevideo Maru within a few months, but the ship was torpedoed and sunk by an American submarine

off Luzon, on July 1, and all prison ers were lost—including many of the men who had been responsible for the development of New Guinea in the last two decades.

The history takes another look at the opportunities that had been available to evacuate these civilians before it was too late.

It records that on January 16, the

Acting Administrator, having learned invasion was believed im minent, sent an urgent cable to the Commonwealth Government asking for action to evacuate the civil population.

On the 21st, the Prime Minister’s Department in Canberra replied asking the Administration at Lae to supply the numbers and whereabouts

of unessential civilians “so the ques tion could be considered”.

“It was then too late”, says the history. “Attempts by the Admin istration at Lae to gain wireless touch with Rabaul on the 22nd failed; Rabaul had been attacked that morning, and the Herstein, in which [Acting Administrator] Page hoped all civilians might be em barked lay burning in the harbour”.

A Mystery

The war history gives no further information on the vexed question )f just who in Canberra had been •esponsible for that fatal delay.

However, the historian says it

vould have been doubtful whether, wen if given the opportunity for his last moment escape, all fcivilians vould have taken it. Many were re actant to abandon their life’s work m the plantations, he says, others vere swayed by responsibility to heir native labourers; some under estimated the dangers of remaining; ome were elderly; some of the Ad ninistration officials felt it their luty to stay.

Dealing more fully with the /hiefs-of-Staff view on the im tortance of the Rabaul garrison, the listory has this to say: “The Australian Chiefs-of-Staff eported in December, after the iutbreak of war, that the pro ect [the American offer to irovide equipment, made a few

months earlier] was unlikely to be implemented. They said it was im portant to maintain the garrison at Rabaul as an ‘advance observation line’, but its reinforcement was not possible because of the hazard of transporting a force from the main land and of maintaining it; account should be taken of the psycho logical effect which a voluntary withdrawal would have on the minds of the Dutch in the Nether lands.

Astonishing

“The Chiefs-of-Staff concluded that though the scale of attack which could be brought against Rabaul from bases in the Japanese mandated islands was beyond the capacity of the small garrison to repel, the enemy should be made to fight for the island, rather than it

should be abandoned at the first threat.”

In view of that attitude, it is all the more astonishing why no organ ised withdrawal plan had not been prepared. t Some press excitement was caused in New Zealand early December when a group of Japanese vessels was sighted close off-shore in the Cook Strait area and were believed to be tuna fishing vessels. A Gov ernment announcement disclosed that this was a whaling fleet bound for the Antarctic, and that per mission had been given them by radio to transfer fuel oil and sup plies from a factory ship to the chasers in a sheltered bay. The factory ship was Nisshin Maru, which once aided the German raider which shelled Nauru during the war.