Invasion Rabaul

by Bruce Gamble

  The big island presented numerous challenges to Dawson and his men. Lieutenant Reginald H. Boyan of ANGAU led them on a wild excursion along the Ramu River valley and through the rugged Bismarck Mountains. At a tiny airstrip near Kainatu, they found several American crewmen from a crashed B-25 bomber. With them were two U.S. Army dive bomber pilots, one of them badly injured. They and another pilot had been dispatched from Port Moresby to rescue the B-25 crew with three Douglas A-24s, but all three planes cracked up while trying to land on the rough field. One pilot had been killed and another had both legs broken. For an entire month, the combined group stayed near the remote airstrip while awaiting transportation.

  Finally, an odd-looking RAAF De Havilland Dragon Rapide biplane arrived. Out jumped Flight Lieutenant John R. “Jerry” Pentland, who matter-of-factly stated that the runway was too short to lift anyone out. They would have to walk twenty-five miles across the Ramu valley to Bena Bena, he said, where there was a better airstrip. Pentland kept his promise, and when the party reached Bena Bena several days later, he evacuated the injured American pilot along with one of Dawson’s noncoms. Returning for a second trip, he flew out another Australian; but when he came back the third time he stated that only Americans could be airlifted.

  Dawson was appalled. According to Pentland, someone at Port Moresby had declared that the RAAF wasn’t responsible for transporting Australian soldiers: that was ANGAU’s job. Dawson was instructed to take his party on foot to Wau, then down to the south coast where an administration vessel would pick them up. Having already endured more than five months of incredible hardships, Dawson and his men were compelled to walk another two hundred miles, much of it across the island’s most rugged mountains. Not only had snobbery and service rivalry sunk to an all-time low, but Dawson and his men had become castaways.

  Having no other options, Dawson’s party followed the Ramu and Markham valleys for more than 130 twisting miles, reaching Wau on July 15. There, an administration officer ordered them to continue on foot to Bulldog, a camp thirty torturous miles farther across the steep mountains. Once there, they would have to canoe down the Lakekamu River, known for its hoards of mosquitoes and giant sago swamps.

  Hearing this, Dawson refused to push his men any further. He sought out the medical officer of the local NGVR contingent, who agreed that the men were unfit for such a journey. All had malaria, and the doctor stated that they were virtually guaranteed to get blackwater fever if they made it as far as the Lakekamu River.

  Eventually, Dawson’s men were airlifted to Port Moresby. Instead of going with them, however, he joined the 2/5th Independent Company and remained in the jungles until late September. At last, illness forced him to leave, but the indefatigable lieutenant walked to the coast of New Guinea on foot. Battling dysentery, he crossed mountains that soared to 8,500 feet as he trekked more than seventy-five miles to the mouth of the Lakekamu River. From there, he traveled by boat to Port Moresby, and later was hospitalized in Australia. After recovering, he returned to active duty and even served on New Britain again in 1945.

  The stamina exhibited by Dawson was truly unique. Of the 385 soldiers rescued from New Britain and New Ireland in 1942, very few reached safety with their health intact. When the Lakatoi docked at Cairns on March 28, only six men aboard were deemed fit; two weeks later the Laurabada reached Port Moresby with even fewer able-bodied soldiers. Among the smaller parties, virtually everyone was in bad shape. The great majority of returnees, like Fred Kollmorgen, spent weeks or even months in Heidelberg Military Hospital. Tragically, one of the Lakatoi’s soldiers was so sick that he did not make it to the hospital. Colin Dowse, the enthusiastic honky-tonk pianist, completed an incredibly difficult trek across New Britain while battling malaria and escaped from the north coast, but the rigors of the disease proved too much. He died at the Albury railway station, just hours short of the hospital in Melbourne.

  Ultimately, only a few of the soldiers who escaped from New Britain got back in the fight. The rest, although technically not wounded in action, were casualties nonetheless because of prolonged illness and malnutrition. Throughout the entire garrison, therefore, the casualty rate exceeded 96 percent, including those killed or wounded in action, those who were executed by the Japanese, and those who died of various causes while trying to escape. Based on that statistic alone, Lark Force suffered one of the worst defeats of World War II among Australian units of battalion size or larger.

  Make no mistake: other units, especially those of the Malay Barrier, likewise suffered heavy casualties. Gull Force lasted only three days after the Japanese invaded Ambon on January 30, and approximately 800 of the 1,100-man garrison became POWs. Some remained on Ambon, but most were eventually shipped to labor camps on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Collectively, the Gull Force prisoners endured such brutal treatment that fewer than 25 percent survived captivity.

  Sparrow Force fared only slightly better. After two days of heavy fighting on Timor, Lieutenant Colonel Leggatt surrendered the 2/40th Infantry Battalion to the Japanese on February 23. The battalion lost 84 dead and 132 wounded, and approximately 160 others died in captivity.

  In the Egyptian desert, the 2/28th Infantry Battalion was nearly annihilated on the night of July 26-27, 1942. As the forward element of an attempted breakout through Afrika Korps positions near El Alamein, the 2/28th advanced up a rocky hill called Ruin Ridge and was surrounded by Axis tanks and mechanized infantry. After an intense but hopeless fight, the battalion lost 65 dead and 490 captured.

  But those bitter defeats were not nearly as disastrous as the one suffered by Lark Force, and the casualty rate was only part of the equation. The contemptible actions of the top two officers and the indifference shown by the War Cabinet also factor heavily, making the fall of Rabaul arguably the worst defeat ever suffered by Australia in any war.

  And, as the POWs at Rabaul would discover, the most terrible event was yet to come.

  * The natives had done more for Jack Hart than anyone realized. Later, in Australia, an x-ray of his leg revealed that the broken bone had been set “spot on” and was healing perfectly.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  OUTCRY

  “Why were reinforcements and equipment withheld from New Britain?”

  —Smith’s Weekly, May 16, 1942

  As might be expected, the defeat of Lark Force made headlines across Australia. Little was known about the garrison’s fate after the radios on New Britain were knocked out, and the first information to appear in the papers was misleading. “Militia Holds Out In Rabaul,” boasted the Sydney Sun on Wednesday, January 28. Under the subtitle, “RAAF Shocks Japs: New Air Blows Likely,” the article explained that a strike from Port Moresby had left two enemy ships ablaze in Simpson Harbor. In truth, a handful of Catalina flying boats had dropped their bombs haphazardly through the clouds, causing little damage. The scant information known about Lark Force itself was presented with less enthusiasm. “The besieged garrison is still holding out west of Rabaul,” invented the writer, “and is believed to be strongly contesting every attempt by the Japanese to mop up the island.”

  The effort to save face was almost laughable. Whether it was a case of propaganda gone wild or something more devious—a deliberate attempt to hide the disaster from the public, for example—the reality was that the garrison had been overwhelmed in a matter of hours. The remnants of Lark Force weren’t contesting anything; they were simply trying to survive.

  After the first sketchy articles were published, the Australian press revealed nothing more about Lark Force for several weeks. Even after Botham and Nicholls reached Port Moresby on March 1, the story of what had happened was kept under wraps for more than a month. Finally, on April 6, a detailed account of the invasion appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald under the banner headline: “Terrific Odds Faced at Rabaul.”

  Once again the accompanying article was heavily fictionalized. The garrison, it claimed, “fought against odds of more than 10 to one and t
hey did not give in until the Japanese landing force, comprising between 17,000 and 20,000 men, had suffered at least 2,000 casualties.” Details of the battle were similarly distorted. “They were squealing like pigs,” one defender allegedly said of the Japanese. “Hundreds of them had been killed as they tried to get across the wire, and their bodies were slumped there in all sorts of grotesque positions.”

  The Sun went on to claim that Australian casualties numbered “about 700,” including POWs, which implied that approximately half of the garrison was safe. The paper published vivid details of the “nightmare trek” that Nicholls and Botham endured, but those two groups had escaped relatively quickly. Thus, they did not suffer nearly as much as the men who escaped months later. The real horrors were not revealed until the Laurabada and Lakatoi delivered another 300 members of Lark Force. When the numbers of rescued soldiers from the other small parties were added up, the total didn’t equal 700, or even 400.

  Public outrage followed. One of the strongest national voices belonged to Smith’s Weekly, a periodical that billed itself as “The Public Guardian.” The editors demanded an official investigation into the “New Guinea Affair,” as they dubbed it, and reported “evidence of serious bungling.” They appealed directly to Prime Minister John Curtin, asking him “to discover why, in the year the island has been garrisoned, nothing had been done to give the AIF and [militia] forces even a gambler’s chance against the invading Japs.”

  Aside from pressuring the government, however, there was little that Smith’s or anyone else could do. It was all too apparent that hundreds of men were unaccounted for, but no official explanation was given. With each passing week, the public’s anxiety grew.

  IN THE WAKE OF THE DEBACLE, MOST OF THE RETURNED SOLDIERS WENT BACK to some semblance of their former civilian life. David Selby resumed the practice of law and eventually became a prominent judge in Papua New Guinea. Fred Kollmorgen worked for a vegetable grower and drove a produce truck to the Melbourne market three times a week. Others served as civilians in military groups. After spending more than a year in and out of hospitals, David Bloomfield joined a detachment of the American Small Ships and served on the north coast of New Guinea for the duration of the war.

  Of the few who were healthy enough to return to active duty, most eagerly accepted combat assignments. Bill Owen was promoted to lieutenant colonel and fought in the brutal campaign to hold the Papuan Peninsula against the Japanese. In late July 1942, just three months after escaping from New Britain, he was killed during a firefight on the Kokoda Track. “Jungle Ted” Palmer, something of a legend for his battlefield medicine, was likewise promoted to lieutenant colonel. He commanded a field ambulance unit for the rest of the war and was awarded an Order of the British Empire. Dave Laws joined ANGAU and was attached to the Allied Intelligence Bureau as a commando. During service in New Guinea, he was killed in action on May 5, 1943. Bill Harry was more fortunate: he served with the ANGAU intelligence section at Port Moresby and later worked with American forces in the Admiralty Islands. Peter Figgis was promoted to major and became a commando, after which he joined the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). In March of 1943, a year after escaping from New Britain, he returned to the island aboard an American submarine and spent the next twelve months in various jungle camps as a coastwatcher.

  Three other members of Lark Force also returned to New Britain during the war. Arch Taylor, now a sergeant, was back in action against the Japanese with the 1st New Guinea Infantry Battalion. So was Sergeant Bruce L. Perkins, who had come off the south coast with Taylor in the Laurabada. The two men helped to flush Japanese troops from Tol plantation in 1945. In a remarkable reunion, they met up with one of the survivors of the 1942 massacre, “Nipper” Webster, now serving with a transportation unit. Together they posed for a photograph, but none felt like smiling for the camera. Instead, their faces relected the horrors of what had happened to so many of their mates.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  INSIDE THE FORTRESS

  “I am a prisoner-of-war in New Britain…”

  —Sergeant W. Arthur Gullidge, 2/22nd Battalion

  Rabaul had never been so busy, or its streets so crowded. By mid-afternoon on the day of the invasion, troops of the South Seas Detachment offloaded from various transports jammed against the wharves and jetties in Simpson Harbor. The streets of Rabaul were chaotic, as described by historian Peter Stone: “Japanese soldiers fanned out to inspect their prize. Battalions branded their names on the doors of buildings as they forced them open and claimed what was inside. Tinned food was not touched for fear of being poisoned but it was later issued to prisoners … Cars, trucks, machinery and other useful equipment were stockpiled, while houses and buildings were ransacked. Furniture was thrown into the streets for fear of booby-traps, and valuable books and records were burnt. Natives found looting were shot on sight.”

  Order was soon established by the 81st Naval Garrison Unit, but there was still plenty of plunder for the conquerors to indulge in. Rabaul’s department stores were filled with dry goods, the cold storage warehouse held plenty of meat, and the pubs in Chinatown yielded all sorts of alcoholic beverages. Once the pickings were gone, however, the Japanese were left to cope with severe overcrowding, which only worsened as additional personnel came ashore.

  Support units of the South Seas Detachment included the 1st Field Hospital, the 55th Division’s Medical Corps, the 55th’s Veterinary Depot (to care for approximately forty-five hundred army horses), a water supply and purification unit, and the 47th Field Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. Conditions ashore became so crowded that many personnel were forced to live aboard the transports. “I was left to work on board the ship,” noted Private Akiyoshi Hisaeda, a member of the field hospital. He remained aboard the Venice Maru for an entire week before making his first visit to Rabaul.

  At the time of the invasion, Rabaul consisted of approximately 330 structures of all types, including warehouses and commercial buildings. The Japanese would eventually triple that figure, constructing more than six hundred wooden structures for an aggregate floor space of 2.8 million square feet. The demand for lumber was so great that both the army and navy put local sawmills back into operation and constructed new mills. Ultimately, twenty-nine sawmills were in operation on the Gazelle Peninsula under Japanese supervision, with a combined monthly output of more than seven hundred thousand board feet of lumber.

  Initially, however, the Japanese had to use whatever materials were available, and even tore down old copra sheds to obtain wood. As a consequence, most of the new structures were crudely built. It pained longtime resident Gordon Thomas to see the Japanese turn his once-lovely town into an unsightly mess. “On every vacant piece of land within the township portable huts were erected,” he remembered, “and into the sides of the hills, surrounding the town, air-raid shelters were dug; and these later were enlarged to cave-like dimensions.”

  Taken prisoner at Refuge Gully, Thomas was among the many Australians forced to work for the Japanese. The captors refused to recognize the 1929 Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land, better known as the Geneva Convention, and sidestepped the article prohibiting the use of prisoners as slaves by “paying” the POWs a few yen each month. Not that the captives received any money—the Japanese simply alleged the payments with falsified documents.

  At Rabaul, most of the Australian POWs and civilian internees served as stevedores. “The days … were filled with working on the wharves, unloading some of the many transports that had arrived with the invasion convoy,” wrote Thomas. “Each day our numbers grew as more and more civilians and soldiers were brought in from outlying areas, until the accommodation in Chinatown was inadequate, and both civilians and military prisoners were moved to the camp previously occupied by the AIF on the Malaguna Road.”

  The Japanese no doubt appreciated the irony of imprisoning the Australians in the same barracks with the asbestos siding they had occupied before the invasion.
Instead of gathering on the parade ground for marching drills or other familiar activities, the prisoners hurried outside twice each day, spurred by the raucous shouts of Japanese guards, and lined up for roll call.

  Hardly a day passed without the Kempeitai (the military police and counterespionage branch of the Imperial Army) or naval guards bringing in more prisoners. Most were captured at one of the outposts that cordoned off the Gazelle Peninsula, but large groups were occasionally brought in by ship. On February 3, for example, a destroyer arrived with approximately 130 captured commandos of the 1st Independent Company.

  Their adventure had begun eleven days earlier on New Ireland, when the Maizuru 2nd Special Naval Landing Force went ashore at Kavieng. The defenders were quickly overrun, and Major James Edmonds-Wilson withdrew with his company down the southern coast of New Ireland. At a village called Kaut, where the Induna Star had been hidden, the Australians began working on the ketch’s damaged hull. Ready to sail in a week, she carried the survivors down the coast to Kalili Harbor on the night of January 30. There, a local planter informed Edmonds-Wilson about the fall of Rabaul, so he decided to sail straight for the Woodlark Islands, 350 miles due south.

  The perfect opportunity to sneak down St. George’s Channel past the Japanese came two nights later, when a storm lashed the archipelago. By daybreak on February 2, the Induna Star was already more than seventy miles south of Rabaul, seemingly in safe waters, but a Japanese patrol plane came along and attacked with bombs and machine guns. One bomb struck amidships, killing three men and destroying the only lifeboat. More enemy aircraft began to circle overhead, and the Star, her hull leaking badly, turned toward New Britain. All available hands were needed to man the pumps just to keep her afloat. Later that morning, a Japanese destroyer took her in tow. The commandos were transferred over to the warship which delivered them to Rabaul.