by Bruce Gamble
Within days of their arrest, the Harveys were handed over to the 81st Naval Garrison Unit. They were confined in a small compound in Chinatown while Vice Admiral Inoue convened a court-martial to try them for espionage. He appointed Captain Mizusaki as the senior member of the tribunal, and named three other officers to the prosecuting panel. The accused received no legal representation for their defense.
During the three-day trial the Harveys underwent intense questioning. An interpreter was provided to assist them with presenting a defense, but the verdict was already decided. The entire family was found guilty of espionage, and the prosecuting panel recommended the death penalty. Their statements were forwarded to Inoue, who approved the findings and issued an order for execution. Lieutenant Yoshio Endo, adjutant of the 81st Naval Garrison Unit, was directed to “dispose of them by shooting.”
On June 5, a truck carrying several sailors armed with rifles pulled up in front of the compound. The Harveys were placed aboard, and the truck drove east out of Rabaul, following the road that led around Simpson Harbor to the base of Tavurvur. A short distance from the volcano, near the town dump known as the Malay Hole, the Japanese had established a crematorium and “war cemetery.” The volcanic earth was soft and easily excavated, an ideal location for disposing of bodies.
A number of officers, including Mizusaki and Endo, were already waiting at the site. They watched as the family was lined up in front of the armed sailors, and when all was ready, the master-at-arms barked commands to the firing squad. A volley of shots rang out. Later, during a postwar interrogation, a member of Mizusaki’s unit testified: “I remember hearing some seamen say it was a really miserable scene, and the parents had clasped hands with the young boy standing between them. I thought at that time it was not possible a young boy could be guilty of any crime.”
At the time, neither Mizusaki nor Endo could have known that Richard Harvey would be the youngest Australian executed during World War II. If they had any objections, they did not make them public; they simply followed orders. Indeed, there were many more executions yet to come over the next few years, and the three bodies buried at the foot of Tavurvur would have plenty of company.
JUNE 5 WAS A DAY OF IMPORTANT EVENTS AT OTHER LOCATIONS AS WELL. Three thousand miles away, in Fremantle Harbor on the west coast of Australia, the crew of an American submarine prepared for their fourth war patrol. The submariners were hoping for some good luck. During the previous three sorties, the USS Sturgeon had fired torpedoes at several targets but had sunk only one merchantman. The problem was with the “fish.” The torpedoes either ran too deep or simply failed to explode—shortcomings that were chronic throughout the fleet. However, the Sturgeon’s fresh reload of twenty-four torpedoes held promise: they were fitted with new Mark-15 or -16 warheads, each packed with hundreds of pounds of high explosive called “torpex.”
In addition to stowing the long torpedoes aboard, the Sturgeon’s crew provisioned the boat with ninety-six thousand gallons of fuel oil, more than three thousand gallons of lubricating oil, ammunition for the topside machine guns and 3-inch deck gun, and an assortment of foodstuffs. Under the watchful eye of the supply officer, the crew filled the escape trunk in the forward torpedo room with potatoes, and hundreds of pounds of Australian beef went into the refrigerators. The cook even stowed enough fresh lettuce to last more than a month.
By noon, the 308-foot submarine was almost ready. The commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander William L. “Bull” Wright, was likely wondering if his professional career was riding on this patrol. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1925, he was under some pressure to make up for the mediocre results of the previous three patrols. Furthermore, his torpedo data computer officer was none other than Lieutenant Chester W. Nimitz Jr., the son of the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC).
AT THAT VERY MOMENT, CINCPAC HIMSELF WAS DEEPLY INVOLVED IN THE defining moment of his own career. Seven thousand miles east of Fremantle, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was in a command center at Pearl Harbor, where for the past several hours he had been tracking a major battle between three of his Pacific Fleet carriers and four big Japanese flattops. The decisive engagement that his counterpart, Admiral Yamamoto, had been seeking for months was still unfolding near a pair of tiny islands named Sand and Eastern, otherwise known as Midway. Because of the nineteen-hour time difference between Fremantle and Midway, it was just 1700 hours on June 4 at Midway, and Yamamoto’s dream of annihilating the Pacific Fleet was going up in smoke. Three of his prized carriers were already engulfed in flames, and the fourth was destined for a similar fate.
Twelve hours later, Admiral Nimitz was greatly pleased with the outcome of the battle. All four Japanese carriers had been sunk, and despite the loss of the Yorktown, it was obvious that he and his carrier commanders had won a great victory. Under the circumstances, he was probably unaware that his twenty-seven-year-old namesake had just departed Fremantle on a hazardous war patrol.
THE STURGEON GOT UNDERWAY AT 2230 ON JUNE 5. WITHIN AN HOUR SHE was in the teeth of a force five wind that churned the ocean, making heavy work for her four Hoover, Owens & Rentschler diesel engines. The weather grew even worse the following day, and by late afternoon the sea state became so rough that Bull Wright was forced to reduce speed to ten knots. Even so, a rogue wave washed over the bridge, sending tons of seawater down into the control room. An electrical flashover in the pump room knocked out all power, and for nearly an hour the sub lay dead in the water, her round hull rolling perversely. One engine was restarted shortly before 1900, allowing the sub to make headway at five knots, and by morning the remaining three diesels were back on line.
During the next several days, with the exception of training dives, the Sturgeon ran on the surface at fifteen knots. Because of a solid gray overcast and frequent rain showers, there was little risk of detection from the air, and she made rapid progress to the South China Sea. Anticipating plenty of targets, Wright began to hunt off the western coast of Luzon. He knew the Japanese were transporting men and supplies to their newly acquired territories in convoys of merchant ships, which then returned to the home islands with loads of raw materials.
Surprisingly, however, the first two weeks yielded nothing. The first convoy was not sighted until the night of June 24, when nine merchantmen escorted by a pair of destroyers approached from the south, possibly out of Manila. Taking advantage of the conditions—the night was moonless and the sea as smooth as glass—Wright raced north to get well ahead of the convoy. Once in position, he picked out the largest target. Eight of the cargo ships were fairly small, but the third vessel in line stood out clearly: a big transport estimated at seven thousand tons.
Wright ordered the crew to take the sub to periscope depth and set up his first shot in the early hours of June 25. He passed the order to rig for depth charging, and then ordered the outer bow tube doors opened. One remained stuck in the closed position, so he elected to fire a three-torpedo spread at the target, identified from the profile books as the Toyohasi Maru “or a very similar type.”
The sky was beginning to lighten when the first torpedo sped from its tube at 0529; the second was launched six seconds later, and the third followed after another eight-second delay. Distance to the target was 3,600 yards, or roughly two miles. Immediately after the third torpedo was fired, one of the Japanese warships hoisted a signal flag, increased speed, and then turned toward the Sturgeon. The Japanese had detected the submarine, or more accurately, its periscope.
Wright took the Sturgeon deep and altered course. He could no longer observe the course of the torpedoes through the periscope, but several people in the control room had their stopwatches running. The torpedoes, which sped through the water at forty-six knots, would take more than two minutes to cover the calculated distance to the target—a long time for the anxious crew to wait. At two and a half minutes, an explosion was heard, seemingly a confirmed hit. “As these were 700# heads,” Wright noted in the Sturgeon’s lo
g, “I feel reasonably sure that the target was sunk.”
Two minutes after the explosion, splashes were heard as depth charges from the warship hit the surface. Now it was the submariners’ turn to sweat. Twenty-one detonations were felt, some of them strong enough to crack the glass in a few gauges, but otherwise the submarine sustained no damage. Sonar operators listened as the two destroyers searched in vain for thirty minutes. One of the warships then departed, evidently to shepherd the convoy, and two hours later the other destroyer gave up the hunt.
Wright kept the boat submerged for the rest of the day, heading westward on the electric motors until after dark. When the sub finally surfaced, the crew opened hatches to allow fresh air into the hull, and they stood down from the attack. The whole evolution—from stalking the convoy and firing the torpedoes to avoiding the angry escorts—had lasted eighteen hours. All in all, it had been a fairly typical day.
Wright decided to hunt next in the waters off the northern tip of Luzon, and patrolled west of Cape Bojeador. An old stone lighthouse, though no longer functional, made an excellent landmark. For several days in a row, the sub dived at dawn and hunted at periscope depth, and then surfaced at dusk to recharge the batteries and patrol throughout the night. The routine of silent hunting became all too familiar to both submarine and crew, who waited impatiently for another target to come along.
AT RABAUL, THE SIZE AND INTENSITY OF ALLIED BOMBING RAIDS HAD BEEN gradually gaining strength. Several missions specifically targeted the wharves and “military camp,” an indication that the planners were unaware the former home of Lark Force was now a POW stockade. From the air it resembled an active military compound—which of course it had once been. Even when the camp was not identified as a target, it was dangerously close to the wharves and warehouses that were being hit with increasing frequency. By some miracle the bombs did not harm the POWs, but there were several close calls.
One day, as a large group of prisoners worked in a copra shed alongside the Toboi Wharf, an Allied plane roared over at low level and strafed the building. A few men were “slightly wounded and scorched” by incendiary bullets, but no one was seriously hurt. Stray bullets hit the POW stockade on other occasions, and during one bombing raid several small bombs landed in the compound. The only damage was caused by a piece of shrapnel that pierced the cookhouse roof and knocked the handle off a large stewpot containing the next morning’s rice.
The Japanese were not blind to the hazards faced by the prisoners. Their own personnel also worked in the stockade, and the risk to all hands became greater as more prisoners were brought in. Colin Stirling and his party, having dodged the Japanese for more than four months, were finally captured near Sum Sum plantation on June 2. Their arrival at Rabaul added six more prisoners to an already overcrowded population. In all, some twelve hundred POWs and civilian internees were crammed into one corner of the camp, originally built to accommodate nine hundred men.
The work parties assigned to dig benjo holes eventually used up every available space, including the parade ground. Heavy rains flooded the shallow latrines, causing the entire camp to become “foul in the extreme,” and it wasn’t long before dysentery was added to the list of afflictions bothering the prisoners. “The weakened men were now suffering from recurring gastric malaria,” wrote Hutchinson-Smith, “and tropical ulcers and wet beriberi were becoming common as the Japanese became more vigilant in safeguarding [their] food stocks.” The occurrence of beriberi among the prisoners was of particular concern. It indicated a serious deficiency of thiamine, thanks to the prison diet that consisted almost entirely of rice.
But the prisoners weren’t the only ones suffering a food shortage. As early as May 16, the stockpiles reserved for the Japanese were running low. Army signaler Jiro Takamura observed, “There is no food left to requisition and there is nothing good to eat nowadays.” His complaint raises a critical question: Why, when Simpson Harbor was crowded with cargo ships, were the Japanese running out of food?
The answer lies in the Imperial Japanese Navy’s planning. With the Southern Offensive well underway, the great majority of merchantmen were dedicated to providing the arsenal necessary to defend the empire’s rapidly expanding territory. Rabaul was a prime example. In the months following the invasion, the Japanese placed nearly one hundred 75mm antiaircraft guns around the caldera, as well as almost two dozen 120mm and 127mm dual-purpose guns. And that was only the heavy stuff. The navy installed about one hundred Type 96 25mm multi-barrel cannons, while the army added another 120 automatic cannons and heavy machine guns. Eventually, the Gazelle Peninsula was covered by almost 370 antiaircraft guns, most of which were arranged in a ring starting at the tip of Crater Peninsula and extending around the caldera all the way to Kokopo.
Even more impressive was the assortment of ground and coastal defenses. The Japanese divided the northern end of New Britain into areas of military responsibility, with the navy controlling the defense of the harbor and township while the army handled the outer regions of the Gazelle Peninsula. The navy alone placed thirty-eight heavy coastal defense rifles around Blanche Bay and the northern coast of Crater Peninsula—all but one with a bore of 120mm or larger—and the emplacements were augmented by at least fifty concrete pillboxes housing large-caliber machine guns. The army added dozens of 150mm howitzers, 75mm infantry guns, mortars, and antitank guns to their area of coastal defense, and also built a system of inland bunkers. The latter were armed with an astounding array of weapons: almost 240 heavy cannon and howitzers, approximately the same number of antitank guns, twenty-three heavy mortars, and nearly six thousand machine guns and grenade launchers. The defenses required hundreds of shiploads of weapons, spare parts, and ammunition.
In addition to the defensive weapons and other material being sent to Rabaul, troops were being shipped southward by the tens of thousands. Prior to the commencement of the Southern Offensive, the General Shipping Transport Headquarters had been placed under the control of the Southern Army. It is well worth noting that of the 1.75 million shipping tons allotted to the offensive, 1.45 million tons were designated for troop movement. The balance was set aside “for the transportation of supplies to rehabilitate the natural resources of the southern area.” Simply put, the Japanese concentrated nearly all their shipping on the transportation of troops and weapons, and failed to provide enough ships to maintain an adequate food supply.
Another factor affecting the availability of food at Rabaul was its distance from Japan. The supply line exceeded three thousand miles, virtually all of it over water. At least eighty merchantmen were sunk fleet-wide during the first six months of the war, including a significant number by American submarines. Some of those losses had a direct impact on the shortages at Rabaul.
To alleviate the food problem, the Japanese decided to relocate the Australian POWs and civilians. Rumors began to circulate that they would be shipped to Japan, but most people discounted the talk as “so much empty camp chatter.” In the wee hours of June 22, however, the prisoners were surprised by a sudden development.
David Hutchinson-Smith later related the details:
At about 4:30 a.m. we were awakened by unusual activity on the part of the guards. There was shouting and stomping and we could hear the men and civilians moving about and talking. Many of us rose, but when we went to leave the hut we found light machine guns [trained] on the doorway at each end, and the Japanese made it unmistakably clear that we were to remain inside. We could see the men and civilians collecting their miseable possessions and discussing the movement. Then they were formed into parties of about fifty men, the sick having to be supported or half-carried, and several transported on improvised stretchers or old doors.
The actual movement out of the compound did not commence until about 9 a.m. and it was in the interim that Stewart Nottage asked that [the officers] be permitted to go with the men, or that, if we had to stay, the men be allowed to remain with us. This request the authorities refused.
John May led prayers through the open side of our hut and read the Psalm for the day, which was singularly appropriate, and Vic Turner spoke encouragingly to the members of his flock. We shook hands with the men and a large number of acquaintances, and learned from them in whispers that they expected to go to Hainan.
The Bible passage read by John May from the officers’ hut that morning was Psalm 107. Whether or not he followed a standard lectionary, the selection was not only fitting but an uncanny precursor of events to come. Verses 23 and 24 were the clinchers: “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.”
While the commissioned officers remained inside their barrack, Warrant Officer McClellan got the prisoners into formation on the parade ground. The guards attempted a roll call and had the usual difficult time getting a valid count. The accuracy of their last nominal roll is somewhat questionable, but it is widely accepted that between 1,053 and 1,057 individuals stood in ranks on the dusty parade ground. Eight hundred and fifty were soldiers, all between the rank of warrant officer and private. Included were 706 members of Lark Force and 133 commandos from the 1st Independent Company, the remainder consisting of men from the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles. About 90 percent of the total number hailed from Victoria, with more than four hundred from the 2/22nd Battalion alone.
Among them, none enjoyed closer bonds than Arthur Gullidge, Bert Morgan, Jim Thurst, and the other surviving musicians. Sans instruments, they were bound in friendship by their passion for music and their faith. On a broader scale, the soldiers of the 2/22nd Battalion had been together for two years. There were at least twelve sets of brothers or cousins in the unit, but even beyond brotherhood, the Victorians were uncommonly close. Their commitment was absolute.