been different if -
p. 33 · Read in the full issue
The war might have been different if -
For a couple of months prior to the Japanese invasion at Rabaul in 1942, American Fly ing Fortress aircraft used Vuna kanau airfield in New Britain as a staging point on the way to the Philippines and Malaya.
The troop-laden planes would land just on dusk and take off again at dawn. If this ferrying of planes and troops could have been kept up for several more weeks the whole course of the war in S-E Asia might have taken a different turn.
This once top-secret piece of information was given in an address by Lt.-Col. E. S. Appel, MC, of the 2/22 Bn., at a gath ering in Hyde Park, Sydney, to mark the 28th anniversary of the fall of Rabaul to the Japanese on January 23, 1942.
It was attended by former residents of Rabaul and ex-mem bers of the defence forces who resisted the Japanese, in the Aus tralian Army, RAAF, RAN and NGVR. now known as the Lark Force Association.