Invasion Rabaul

by Bruce Gamble

  The escorts motioned for the column to resume marching. Soon thereafter, Robinson spotted a sharp bend in the trail up ahead. Heavy vegetation temporarily hid the captives at the front of the line, and when Robinson reached the bend he made a split-second decision. Jumping sideways off the path, he ducked into the undergrowth. The man behind him whispered, “Lower, Sport,” letting Robinson know that he needed to crawl deeper into the bushes. The other captives kept silent, and the guards passed by without noticing his absence.

  Although he was safe for the time being, Robinson discovered that he could not loosen the bindings on his fast-swelling thumbs. Thus, a whole new ordeal began. The jungle was inhospitable enough for an able-bodied man, but now he was alone in the wilds with his hands tied behind his back.

  AMBULANCE DRIVER BILL COLLINS WAS THE LAST MAN IN ANOTHER COLUMN of prisoners being marched into the coconut groves. The Japanese officer leading the way called a halt, and the Australians were directed to sit on the ground. Unsheathing his sword, the officer sliced the rope connecting the first captive in line with the others, but it was not for freedom’s sake. The Australian was motioned to his feet, then a soldier with a fixed bayonet guided him into the underbrush. Collins heard a scream, and a few moments later the Japanese soldier reappeared, wiping his bayonet. One by one, the other prisoners were led away and executed. Finally, only Collins and two other Australians remained. The next captive in line suddenly jumped up and attempted to flee, but he ran awkwardly with his hands tied behind his back. The officer swiftly closed the distance, slashed the Australian with his sword, then drew his sidearm and shot the prisoner in the back.

  At this, Private Thomas B. Clissold, an orderly with the 2/10 Field Ambulance, tried to protest by pointing to the Red Cross brassards he and Collins wore. The officer ripped them from their uniforms. Defiantly, Clissold indicated with his hands that he’d rather be shot than bayoneted. The officer complied, shooting Clissold where he sat.

  Collins was now alone with the officer. “He put away his sword and took a rifle and motioned me to get up and walk,” Collins later stated. “I took a few paces and he shot me through the shoulder. I fell to the ground and kept still. He fired again and hit me through both wrists and in the back. He decided he had finished me and went away.”

  After playing dead for as long as he could, Collins began to stir. He discovered that his hands were free. Miraculously, the second bullet had cut the cord binding his wrists. Although he was bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds, he managed to get on his feet and stagger away from the terrible killing grounds.

  CLIFFORD MARSHALL, A THIRTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD LANCE CORPORAL FROM Prahran, Victoria, was in another group of prisoners taken deep into the coconut groves for execution. Like the others, his column was halted at a quiet spot, and then the killing began. One at a time the captives were led into the jungle by a Japanese soldier, and those left behind could hear the victims cry out. It was obvious the Japanese were using bayonets.

  According to Marshall’s later testimony, they were sloppy about finishing the job.

  When my turn came I was motioned to move off into the bush. There was a Japanese soldier walking behind me. I sort of turned, my hands being tied behind my back, to see what he was doing. I saw that he was making a rush at me with the bayonet. I received three wounds: one in the back just under the shoulder blades, not very deep, another through the arm and into the side, and another into the side lower down.

  It came to me naturally to lie still and sham dead. I could hear cries from the other men for a while and then a lot of shooting.

  Bleeding profusely, Marshall was able to squirm into the underbrush. He eventually freed his hands, then began moving through the plantation at dusk. After finding the bodies of several friends, he wandered among the coconut groves in a state of shock, lost and alone.

  THE PREVIOUS NIGHT HAD BEEN A LONG AND TROUBLING ONE FOR SCANLAN, Selby, and the others in their party. Warned in the nick of time about the Japanese landing craft, they had debated late into the night about whether or not to surrender. The realists argued that even if they got away from Tol, the Japanese would simply set another trap along the coast. Also, their families were anxious for any news, having heard nothing from Lark Force in weeks; if nothing else, they would be relieved to learn that the men were still alive, even as prisoners of war.

  Selby refused to give up, but he almost changed his mind the next morning. While sitting alongside a stream to think about his options, he pulled out his wallet to look at snapshots of his family and discovered the photos were missing. Most likely they had washed away during one of the many river crossings. Totally dejected, he considered the loss of the photos “an evil and terrible omen.”

  Later that morning, he rejoined the party and was searching through some old huts when he heard gunfire from the direction of Tol. “An excited native rushed into the village,” he explained, “and said that the Japanese were killing all the pigs they could find, whereupon, to our great disgust, they drove into the jungle the two pigs which had been rooting around the village. (We had been casting greedy eyes at the fatter of the two.) The firing which continued sporadically throughout the morning seemed to be unduly heavy for a pig hunt, but that explanation sounded as plausible as any other and we did not give the matter further thought.”

  Selby’s intuition was correct. The Japanese were not shooting pigs at Tol; they were murdering dozens of Australian prisoners.

  THE KILLING WAS ALSO GOING ON AT WAITAVALO. IN ONE CASE, ELEVEN captured Australians were led into the undergrowth and lined up in front of a firing squad. The Japanese volley knocked them all down, but two young privates from D Company survived. One was Hugh J. “Nipper” Webster (no known relation to Norm Webster, the roughrider), from North Melbourne. Shot in the arm and side, he immediately lost consciousness, which probably saved his life. When he came to, the Japanese were gone. Nine of the men lying around him were dead, but Norman W. Walkley, shot in the arm, chest, and buttocks, was still breathing.

  Webster stumbled away into the jungle. By the time he emerged from hiding, he could not find Walkley, who had evidently crawled some distance despite his grievous wounds. After searching in vain, Webster set off on his own to find help.

  THE MORNING BEGAN WELL ENOUGH FOR GUNNER MAXWELL “SMACKER” Hazelgrove, a nineteen-year-old built like a fireplug. Traveling with a small group of six antiaircraft men, he arrived at the eastern boundary of Tol and came upon another party that had just killed a wild pig. The gunners received a portion of meat, then crossed the Balus River into Tol and built a fire, happily anticipating a feast. But while they were waiting for the meat to cook, a Japanese patrol took them by surprise. The captured group was marched to the Tol plantation house, where a white man addressed them. “All right, boys,” he said, “you can put your hands down now.” He looked and sounded Australian, but to this day his identity remains a mystery.

  The prisoners were searched. One Australian carried a copy of Horii’s leaflet, which supposedly guaranteed the lives of those who surrendered. The Japanese soldier who found it simply smiled and waved it in front of the captive’s face.

  The Japanese tied the prisoners’ hands behind their backs, roped them together, led them away from the house for about a quarter of a mile, and without warning shot them in the back. All fell dead or mortally wounded except Hazelgrove, who was pulled down by the others. Hit in the left arm and shoulder, he managed to lie still while the Japanese covered the bodies with palm fronds. Hours later, after freeing his hands and untangling himself from the corpses of his friends, he stumbled to the beach.

  PRIVATE WILLIAM COOK, AN ORDERLY IN THE 2/10 FIELD AMBULANCE, would never forget the brief conversation he had with one of his fellow medics that morning. As their party of eight approached the eastern boundary of Tol, Staff Sergeant Stewart C. Caston said he’d like to turn the calendar ahead two weeks to see “what had happened.”

  Cook replied, “You might be sorry.”

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p; A short distance along the trail they met another staff sergeant, Frank B. “Mick” Bauer, of the battalion Headquarters Company. He warned them that Japanese soldiers had been seen at Tol, and told the orderlies to hold their position while he scouted ahead. A native of London, Bauer was subsequently captured and executed; yet the orderlies waited dutifully for his return. After a while they decided to move off the trail and prepare some rice. Cook sat down to play cards with three of his friends, but their game was interrupted when one of the medics ran past yelling, “The bastards are here!”

  Glancing up the path, Cook saw a Japanese soldier looking his way. Instinctively he fled into the jungle. “My shock must have been the greatest as I ran farther than the others and hid behind a fallen tree,” he remembered. “I could see my mates walk out after a while with their hands up, so I followed.”

  While the Japanese were searching the orderlies, another Australian stumbled into their group. He was weak from fatigue, hardly able to walk, so two of the orderlies supported him as they marched under guard toward the plantation house. The sick man’s progress was too slow for the Japanese, however, and they signaled for him to be left behind. One enemy soldier held back while the rest of the group kept moving, and a short while later he caught back up with them. The Australians had no doubt that the soldier had killed the ailing captive.

  At the plantation house, the Japanese ransacked the prisoners’ packs. They discarded all the medical equipment while looking for personal items to pilfer, thus ruining thousands of quinine tablets and other supplies. Next, recalled Cook, the Japanese searched the captives again:

  It took all our self control to stand and allow these yellow monkeys to dive their hands into our pockets and inside our shirts, but the worst was yet to come. Some [Australians] had rings dragged from their fingers, [and] some, myself included, had their wrist watches taken. Next they collected our identity discs. The peculiar part was that some of the troops had religious tokens on their discs, but the Japs gave these back. I had been given a “Lucky Charm” on which was a cat descending in a parachute. Evidently the Nip thought this was holy, as I was given it back, and no other Nip would touch it.

  While the searching was going on, I noticed two Japs grinning, and one gave the impression of shooting the other. They looked at us and laughed …

  In what had become a familiar pattern, the Japanese lashed the captives’ thumbs tightly behind their backs and roped all of the prisoners together. More prisoners arrived, swelling the group to about twenty-five men. The Japanese had to scrounge for belts and even native loin cloths to tie them all together. Finally, an officer signaled them to begin marching toward the coconut groves. “Well, fellows,” said a prisoner, “this looks like it.”

  During the march an orderly tried to work his thumbs free, but an escorting soldier saw this and jerked hard on the rope. Several minutes later, in a clearing atop a small hill, the captives were ordered to halt. Cook could see Henry Reid Bay just four hundred feet away. The officer motioned for the captives to sit with their backs to the sea and forbade them from looking around. One prisoner tested the officer’s sincerity and was promptly bashed in the face with a rifle butt.

  At another signal from the officer, the first captive in line was ordered to his feet. He walked down the hill, followed by a soldier with his bayonet at the ready. Again, one of the prisoners pointed out the Red Cross brassards worn by the orderlies, and again the officer in charge tore them off. He then spoke a single, chilling word in English: “Next.”

  With remarkable calmness, two or three Australians stood and said, “Cheerio, fellows,” then walked down the hill to their death. Sitting beside Cook, Private Trevor W. G. “Bill” Haines, one of the original Salvation Army bandsmen, “showed not a trace of fear.” Cook was deeply moved. His mates were fatigued and hungry and helpless, yet in their final minutes they not only kept their composure, but gave each other the strength to face death calmly.

  When the number of captives dwindled to five, the officer pointed from his sidearm to a nearby soldier’s bayonet, as if to ask the Australians their preference. All of them indicated that they’d rather be shot than stabbed, but the officer was merely toying with them. Cook’s turn came next. He stood with Bill Haines and another man from Victoria. “Well, Cookie,” said Haines, “now we will know what the next world is like.”

  The three Australians walked resolutely down the slope. As they neared the bottom, three enemy soldiers converged from the left and fell in behind them. Fifty yards from the water’s edge, the Japanese lunged, knocking Cook and his friends to the ground with their bayonets.

  One of the soldiers stood over Cook, thrusting again and again with his fifteen-inch bayonet, each stab accompanied by snarls and grunts. Twice his bayonet pierced Cook’s lower back, barely missing the spine; two more stabs broke ribs; another jab entered beneath Cook’s shoulder blade; and the sixth blow was a slashing cut that bit deeply into his shoulder muscle.

  Bill Haines and the third man went down without a sound. “I think that one of them must have died very quickly,” Cook recalled, “and the other lingered a short time because, when the Japs started to leave us, he groaned a little.” Hearing the sound, one of the Japanese returned and killed the victim with another stab.

  Cook held his breath, feigning death, but he finally had to draw some air. In doing so, he either moved or made a sound, and the Japanese returned to finish him off. The unseen enemy plunged his bayonet into Cook’s neck five more times. Thus far, Cook had seemingly been anesthetized due to shock, but the final stab was excruciating. The bayonet pierced his ear, entered his face near the temple, punched through his cheek, and then grated across his cheekbone. When the soldier pulled the bayonet out, Cook’s head jerked backward. Blood from a nicked temporal artery gushed into his mouth. Feeling palm fronds being thrown on his body, he gave himself up for dead.

  Somehow, after being stabbed eleven times, Cook did not lose consciousness. He desperately wanted to pass out, knowing it would relieve his agony, but the blackness did not come. “I just lay there waiting to die,” he remembered, “and I heard two distinct shots followed by a scattered volley of rifle shots, which meant that the last two had been shot.”

  Cook remained under the fronds for an indeterminate time. Eventually the buzzing of flies began to bother him, and he also heard someone calling his name. “Although it was a voice in my imagination,” he stated, “this saved my life and I decided that I would die trying to get away rather than stay as I was.”

  Cook freed himself from the native lap-lap that tied him to his dead companions, but could not undo the bindings on his thumbs. Rising unsteadily with his arms still lashed behind him, he stumbled toward the beach. He fell several times and did pass out briefly, but felt strong enough afterward to contort his body and stretch his hands past his legs. Once his hands were in front, he could chew through the bindings. However, all of the stretching had started his wounds bleeding again, and he suffered another blackout.

  When he revived, Cook staggered to the beach. He walked into the water until it was waist deep, then did the almost unthinkable and immersed himself in the salt water. “This caused a lot of pain,” he explained with amazing understatement, “but it just had to be done.”

  The agony of the dunking renewed Cook’s energy. He stumbled northward through the shallows until he reached some rocks where he could move without leaving a bloody trail, then paused to sleep. When he awoke again he moved on, wanting to put some distance between himself and the Japanese. He also searched for a stream or river where he could slake his powerful thirst. As darkness fell he grew delirious. The stumps of trees began to resemble Japanese sentries, causing anxious moments as he fought against panic. Finally he found a river, and for a long time he “just lay there drinking.” Soon, smoke from a distant campfire attracted his attention, but before he could reach it, exhaustion sent him to ground. Somehow, he had walked three miles from the scene of the massacre.

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bsp; GLENN GARRARD’S BRUTAL TORTURE WAS NOT QUITE OVER. SURROUNDED by enemy soldiers on the front lawn of the plantation house, he was forced to dig his own grave. The former furniture designer scratched out a shallow hole, then was clubbed on the head and stabbed with a bayonet. The Japanese threw some dirt on the body, only half covering it.

  WHEN THE LONG DAY OF KILLING FINALLY ENDED, NODA’S MEN HAD massacred 160 Australians. All were tied up, rendering them completely defenseless, before they were bayoneted or shot. The mass execution, sanctioned by Colonel Kusunose at Rabaul, almost certainly had the approval of Major General Horii. Afterward, the Japanese tacked a chilling message to the front door of the Waitavalo plantation house: “To Commander Scanlan—Now that this Island is took and tightly surrounded by our Air Forces and Navy you have no means of escape. If your religion does not allow you to commit suicide it is up to you to surrender yourself and to beg mercy for your troops. You will be responsible for the death of your men.”

  Leaving the bodies to rot in the sun, Noda and his troops boarded their landing craft and headed back to Rabaul, taking with them the twenty-two prisoners that had first surrendered on the beach. The 8th Company stopped at Adler Bay and picked up dozens of soldiers waiting there under a white flag, and also stopped at the Warangoi River for more prisoners, including Harold Page and Harry Townsend. All were delivered to Malaguna Camp, part of which had been wired off to form a prison compound.

  WITHIN TWO DAYS OF THE MASSACRE, DAVID SELBY FOUND THE NOTE PINNED to the door at Waitavalo. Although he had not come across any corpses, he understood the message. Furthermore, a second note had been added directly below the first: “To Officers and Australian troops – Surrender yourselves. You will die of hunger or be killed by wild savages as there is no means of escape. You will be treated as prisoners of war and when the war is over you will be returned to your Motherland. Today we caught many prisoners but killed only those that attacked us.”