by Mark Lardas
As June 1944 passed into July and August, the Allies began drawing down forces, sending squadrons and troops to more active theaters. The Fifth Air Force moved out into northwestern New Guinea and the Philippines. The Thirteenth Air Force moved out of the Solomons area, relocating at the Admiralties. Responsibility for Rabaul gradually shifted to RAAF and RNZAF squadrons left in the Mandate territories.
The United States still flew combat missions over Rabaul, using it as an area for newly formed squadrons to gain combat experience, and as a place to test new weapons. In October 1944 the US Navy used Rabaul to combat-test remotely piloted bombs – drone aircraft in today’s language. The results were underwhelming.
Flying over Rabaul remained dangerous. The Japanese never ran short of ammunition, even by the war’s end. Antiaircraft fire, sudden rain squalls, or mechanical problems could still bring down Allied aircraft up to the last month of the war. As late as January 1945 flak and weather combined to bring down eight Allied aircraft in a single mission.
Having lost control of the sky above and sea around the Gazelle Peninsula the garrison dug in to hold the ground around Rabaul. It had ample means to do so. While Allied bombing destroyed Rabaul’s air facilities and its infrastructure and transportation network, for the most part it left Japanese ground weapons alone. Since the Allies had no intention to occupy the Gazelle Peninsula, destroying a truck was more important than destroying a tank. The truck could help the Japanese restore its airfields; a tank could not.
Between April and September of 1944 US troops swept east on New Britain, taking airfields at Talasea and Gatsama. In November 1944 Allied troops landed at Jacquinot Bay. The Australian 5th Infantry Division then pushed forward to the neck formed by Wide Bay and Open Bay at the entrance to the Gazelle Peninsula. They never pushed beyond that, content to isolate the Japanese there. For the Allies, leaving the Imperial Japanese Army troops penned up in Rabaul was simpler than capturing them. Functionally it was an open-air prisoner of war camp, with the inmates running it, and the jailers not obligated to feed, house, and clothe their charges. The Japanese waited for an invasion which never came.
Illness soared, and food remained short. The Allies never came close to starving Rabaul out, although rations were reduced. But even though few members of the garrison realistically expected relief, morale remained good. The Japanese on Rabaul did not sit by waiting for the war to end. Even after the withdrawal of most of the aircraft from Rabaul a few aircraft, several pilots, and most of the ground staff remained. From the wrecks, the Japanese pieced together enough parts to make a few flying aircraft. Parts were salvaged from unflyable aircraft and added to those which were lightly damaged. When parts were unavailable, new parts were manufactured. In some cases metal from wrecks was melted down and used to cast new parts.
This allowed the Japanese to keep a few aircraft flying. Not many, but enough to keep one or two fighters around to show Allied flyers that Japan was still in the game. In April 1945, a year after the Allies gained air superiority over Rabaul, and when the Admiralties had become a backwater base, two slapped-together B5N torpedo bombers launched a night raid on Seealder Harbor. Both aircraft managed to launch a torpedo. Both torpedoes hit. One of the two B5Ns disappeared after the attack. The other returned to Rabaul, where the pilot reported that an American aircraft carrier had been torpedoed and sunk. In reality the two torpedoes had been fired at a floating drydock, which could easily have been mistaken for an aircraft carrier in the dark. The drydock was only damaged.
That raid and other sorties mounted by Rabaul-based aircraft between May 1944 and August 1945 were just nuisances. They served to remind the Allies that the Japanese were still there. They were a far cry from the massive attacks flown by Rabaul’s rikko only two years previously and only underscored the impotence of Japanese air power.
The Navy tested unmanned drones at Rabaul. This is an Interstate TDR-1 assault drone being prepared for the Rabaul attack. This photograph shows the bomb being hoisted into position and television guidance equipment inside the nose. The tests were unsuccessful. (USNHHC)
AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS
The end finally came on September 6, 1945. The war ended three weeks earlier when Emperor Hirohito read the Imperial Rescript announcing Japan’s surrender. Hostilities ceased on that day, and the Japanese on Rabaul freed the prisoners they held. But the Allied powers had to arrange to send forces to accept the formal surrender of the garrison, including arrangements to manage the expected 30,000 Japanese estimated to be in the garrison. Since New Britain was then part of an Australian mandate, Australian troops were sent to accept the surrender.
Damage from fragmentation bombs or a near miss from a 1,000lb bomb made this Mitsubishi G3M at Rapopo inoperable. Its revetment became overgrown with vegetation between November 1943 and November 1945 when this picture was taken. (AC)
On September 6, the aptly named HMS Vendetta, a World War-I era “V”-class destroyer, steamed into Simpson Harbor to arrange the surrender. It was chosen because it had no further use and, should the Japanese attack, its loss would be relatively unimportant. Vendetta would be paid off in November and scuttled in July 1946. The next day a Royal Navy sloop took General Imamura and Admiral Kusaka to HMS Glory, a Colossus-class light aircraft carrier anchored in Kabanga Bay, a shallow inlet on the Gazelle Peninsula 7 miles southwest of Cape Gazelle. The Australians distrusted the Japanese too much to put an aircraft carrier within range of Japanese shore batteries.
The fight went out of the Japanese after their emperor ordered them to lay down their arms, however. Imamura and Kusaka signed the surrender document on Glory’s deck. Imamura, as senior officer, also surrendered his sword as required by the Australians as a further token of capitulation.
The Japanese, including those on outlying islands, numbered 140,000, nearly five times what the Australians expected. Since this was too many to guard, the Australians disarmed the garrison, and then directed the Japanese to organize and build camps to live in until they could be repatriated to Japan. The Japanese also had to feed themselves, a difficulty somewhat eased by remaining food stores and because no one attacked the crops they raised. Repatriation did not begin until May 1946 and was not complete until October, a year after the surrender was signed. Only then was the siege of Rabaul completely over.
General Imamura presents his sword to Australian General Vernon Sturdee in a surrender ceremony on the deck of HMS Glory. Vice Admiral Kusaka stands next to Imamura. (AC)
Rabaul was the first campaign where air power was successfully used to deliberately isolate and neutralize a major stronghold to the point where occupation by ground forces was neither attempted nor necessary. Air power had already become a critical element to victory during World War II. Prior to the decision to bypass Rabaul there were numerous campaigns where airpower allowed a land army to defeat another land army, including Poland in 1939 and France in 1940.
In some senses the Japanese campaigns in Malaya (including the capture of Singapore) and the Philippines were prototypes for the Allies’ Rabaul campaign. In both cases air power, sometimes assisted by sea power, isolated and immobilized larger enemy land forces. Large enemy armies were trapped by absolute domination of the skies above the army. The difference was that at the end of both campaigns the victor concluded the campaign by land invasion.
This was also the pattern for early Allied offensives in both the European and Pacific theaters. Air power isolated and immobilized an enemy stronghold, allowing ground forces to destroy it. This pattern was followed in the Solomon Islands and especially New Guinea in 1942–43. Rabaul broke from past policy because it was recognized that once a large garrison was isolated and immobilized by airpower it could be ignored thereafter. Physical occupation by ground forces was unnecessary, and cost casualties.
Rabaul was not won through airpower alone. It was an aerial victory, but it was an aerial victory that would have been impossible without appropriate support from naval and land forces. T
he Allies won because they had the military and naval capability to gain the necessary bases for their air forces, as well as the idea to do so. The Japanese by this point in the war lacked the flexibility or reserves to counter these moves.
The key to victory was air superiority. With air superiority everything became easier. Your forces could move faster because they did not have to fear air attack. The enemy was more likely to be observed, which allowed better estimation of its strengths and weaknesses. Your forces were less likely to be observed, which improved the chances of surprising your enemy. Most importantly air superiority allowed one side to isolate its opponent from supply. Without supply a 20th-century army could not move.
The key to achieving air superiority was having high-performance fighters available. In 1943–44 this meant single-engine fighters. There were effective twin-engine fighters; the P-38 was one example. But generally a single-engine fighter could outperform a twin-engine fighter from the same period. That the P-38 held its own against the Zero was more evidence of the impending obsolescence of the Zero than of the P-38’s innate superiority over single-engine designs.
The drawback to single-engine fighters of 1943–44 was that they generally had much shorter range than did multi-engine aircraft. Air superiority could only be achieved within the narrow radius reached by single-engine fighters. The Japanese solution was long-range single-engine fighters, an objective achieved only through sacrificing all defensive capability and a lot of structural strength. The Allied solution was to place airfields close enough to their objective to allow shorter-ranged (but better-protected) single-engine aircraft to reach. Each approach had advantages and drawbacks – illustrated in the Rabaul campaign.
The main advantage of the Japanese approach was to permit concentration of force in a central location, such as Rabaul or Wewak. Japanese Zeroes stationed at Rabaul could escort bombers to Port Moresby or Guadalcanal. Since they were operating on interior lines, the Japanese could concentrate force at one location, while the Allies were forced to divide fighters between individual bases. This approach gave Japan a much smaller logistical footprint. The downside to the Japanese approach was that their fighters were fragile – a fragility which remained when they were forced to defend their bases and range was unimportant.
The advantage to the Allied approach was that it gave them much more capable fighters. Even less-capable early-war fighters like the P-40 or F4F Wildcat could meet Zeroes on relatively even terms due to their ability to absorb punishment. By 1943 the next generation of fighters, which in the Rabaul campaign included the F6F and F4U, dominated the Zero. The drawback to this approach was that superiority did not matter unless they were within range. This required building airfields – lots of airfields. The pattern of the Rabaul campaign was a leapfrog strategy where airfields were built increasingly close to Rabaul. In the Solomons the chain went Henderson Field (Guadalcanal) – Munda (New Georgia) – Bougainville (Torokina and Piva). A similar pattern was executed in New Guinea. Supporting the personnel to capture territory and run and protect the airfields, as well as supplying the material needed to build and maintain airfields, put a lot of strain on logistics.
The Rabaul waterfront at the end of the war was a scene of devastation, with virtually every building destroyed, wharves wrecked, and ships beached. From top to bottom are the RAAF jetty, the Netherlands Line wharf, and the remains of the Burns-Phillips wharf. (AC)
The successful Allied bombing campaign forced the Japanese underground. Some facilities, including this Army radio station at Lat Latm, were contained in elaborate cave facilities. Boards paneled the walls, ceilings, and floor of this room. (AC)
Logistics ultimately proved the key to gaining air superiority and victory in the campaign. It was not just that the Allies had a bigger logistical base to work from, although they did. Rather the Allies made better use of the resources that they had than did the Japanese.
During the period of the Rabaul campaign the Southwest Pacific Theater, which included New Britain and Rabaul, had the lowest priority for manpower and equipment, well behind what was being sent to Europe and Africa, and behind the Central Pacific Theater. Realizing the scarcity of men and supplies and the difficulty in bringing either from the United States’ West Coast, Allied leaders did their best to ensure that both were sent expeditiously, and that sufficient emphasis was placed on construction and maintenance assets.
Space was allocated for bulldozers and graders even if it meant forgoing extra tanks. Adequate numbers of mechanics and spare parts were sent to allow aircraft to be maintained. Maintenance was centralized to improve efficiency. Airfields could be built at a phenomenal pace – in as little as three weeks. The day after the Fifth Air Force launched its October 12 attack 95 percent of the B-25s and 80 percent of the B-24s and P-38s which flew that mission were ready to attack again the next day. They had been repaired (when necessary), serviced, refueled, and rearmed in a few hours’ time. It was a remarkable demonstration of Allied maintenance capabilities, one routinely repeated during the campaign.
By contrast, the Japanese gave logistics a low priority, paying little attention to it, using slave labor wherever possible. At Rabaul most work involved with construction and supply handling was done by POWs, forced to labor without pay while living in shoddy barracks with inadequate food. They had no incentive to work hard. Many were motivated to conduct petty sabotage when they could do so without getting caught.
The day after the battle of Empress Augusta Bay the Fifth Air Force attacked Simpson Harbor. Successful against transports and light warships, they were less successful against larger warships. The heavy cruiser Haguro is shown under attack; it escaped serious damage. (USNHHC)
While Rabaul was stuffed with supplies delivered during 1942 and 1943, there was no organization to its storage. Supplies were dumped ashore where convenient, and left unprotected. Several offensive operations during the period were delayed due to the time it took to find necessary supplies and equipment. Nor was any effort put into dispersing or protecting supplies until November 1943, and dispersal was not complete until March 1944.
This inefficiency was not limited to Rabaul. The entire Japanese logistical, manufacturing, and maintenance chain was unresponsive and inefficient. Zero production was constricted due to difficulties in transporting aircraft from the factory, which required completed aircraft to be moved 20 miles by oxcart. Nor were there ever sufficient mechanics or facilities to service aircraft. Truk was the biggest Japanese base outside the Home Islands. Yet at a critical point during the defense of Rabaul 150 desperately needed Zeroes were sitting at Truk, crated up in packing containers from the factory. The Japanese had an insufficient number of mechanics to assemble the aircraft. Many were still unassembled when the US Navy attacked Truk in February 1944.
Another difference between the two sides was their attitude to technology. The Allies embraced it, while the Japanese often failed to appreciate it. This can most clearly be seen in the way both sides used radar. By mid-1943 the Allies not only had radar, they had assimilated it. Radar was common on naval warships, and used not only for early warning, but for gunnery. Airfields had radar, and both ships and land bases integrated radar into air defense, vectoring fighters to the enemy based on radar observation. Radar served as a force multiplier both in the air and in naval engagements.
Japan had not quite figured out how to use radar. The Japanese committed a large percentage of their naval land-based radar tracking units to New Britain and New Ireland, but the radar was only used to alert airfields to incoming enemy aircraft. Little attempt was made to use radar to vector aircraft to targets.
Japanese radar may have ended up serving the Allies more than the Japanese. During December 1943 and January 1944 Allied fighter sweeps invariably approached at altitudes high enough for radar to detect. This ensured that Japanese fighters – the object of a fighter sweep – would be in the air to meet the intruders. When surprise was desired bombers approached low, sometime
s at wave-top level, to avoid radar detection. Alternatively, when approaching from high altitudes they would change course abruptly and attack from an unexpected direction avoiding the fighters heading to their original position. Since Japanese fighters lacked radios, they received no updates. Both tactics achieved surprise at critical battles.
Rabaul’s Army garrison was largely untouched. Four times the expected number of Japanese troops surrendered at war’s end. Among the material surrendered were nearly 100 Japanese light and medium tanks here photographed in a park near Rabaul. (AC)
This Kittyhawk (the export version of the P-40) was at one time flown by Geoff Fisken, New Zealand’s highest-scoring fighter pilot. (Courtesy of the Tri-State Warbird Museum)
History always seems inevitable in retrospect. The Japanese were close to winning the aerial siege of Rabaul on at least one occasion, however. The Allied victory was predicated on building airfields on Bougainville. There was no other place within single-engine fighter coverage of the advanced Allied airfields in the Solomons (such as Munda) and also within single-engine aircraft range of Rabaul.
The campaign’s turning point came when Halsey committed his only two aircraft carriers to attack Rabaul on November 5. That attack damaged five of six Japanese heavy cruisers in Simpson Harbor. There were only four light cruisers available to protect the Allied invasion fleet. Had the Japanese cruisers sortied on the evening of November 5 the invasion fleet would probably have been destroyed, and the Marines could have been pushed off their beachhead. The loss would have prevented construction of Torokina and Piva airfields and occupation of the Green Islands, and would possibly have discouraged the landings at Arawe and Cape Gloucester.