Target: Rabaul: The Allied Siege of Japan's Most Infamous Stronghold, March 1943 - August 1945

by Bruce Gamble

  In June 1942, the coastwatching organization was absorbed into the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). The coastwatching unit became Section C of the bureau, which enabled Feldt to recruit military personnel for commando-style deployment to the islands. One of his volunteers, Lieutenant (specialist) Malcolm H. Wright, RAN, had been a government patrol officer in New Guinea before the war. After joining the navy in late 1941, Wright had trained in antisubmarine warfare, but then jumped at the chance to conduct a one-man reconnaissance mission south of Rabaul. The aging American submarine S-42 dropped him at Adler Bay in July, and Wright spent a week gathering intelligence from several natives and Chinese civilians on the island. Subsequently, when the U.S. Navy requested a coastwatching station on the south coast of New Britain to watch the sea lanes to Rabaul, Feldt already had a team leader in mind.

  Wright’s second-in-command, Lt. Peter E. Figgis, was another easy choice. Born in England, Figgis had joined the Australian army after public school and worked his way up through the ranks, eventually receiving a commission by drilling on weekends with the Melbourne University Rifles. Tall and tanned, and strongly resembling British actor Alec Guinness, he was assigned to the 2/22 Battalion as an intelligence officer in 1941. On the eve of the Pacific war, Figgis deployed to Rabaul with the battalion, and was later promoted to the staff of Col. John J. “Jack” Scanlan, the commander of Lark Force. It was Figgis who sent out the last radio message before Rabaul fell silent in January 1942; he then made his way down the coast and arranged the rescue of more than two hundred soldiers trapped south of Jacquinot Bay. Three months after the fall of Rabaul, the sick and starving Aussies escaped from New Britain aboard the motor yacht Laurabada.

  Despite three months of hardships, Figgis recovered quickly—one of very few Lark Force personnel cleared to return to combat. But where to go, with his former unit wiped out? “I had no unit to rejoin,” he recalled. “So I joined the commandos. I had just finished training when the Allied Intelligence Bureau arranged for me to join them; so I left the commandos and became a member of the AIB.”

  Soon after Figgis arrived in Port Moresby, the prospect of setting up a coastwatching station on New Britain came up. Figgis already knew the perfect site for their camp: a hilltop high above Cape Orford, from which they would have a commanding view of Saint George’s Channel for many miles. A third team member, Cpl. Leslie Williams, was added because of his unique combination of talents. A former district officer, he was already popular among the islanders, and as a former member of the armored corps he knew how to maintain radio equipment and small engines. Both were necessary skills to keep the bulky AWA radio in working order.

  Last but not least, the Aussies recruited several islanders, originally from New Britain but currently in New Guinea, to accompany them. None was coerced; all were strongly anti-Japanese and volunteered to provide muscle during camp moves, fight if needed, and serve as emissaries to native populations along the coast. The man Wright wanted most was right there in Port Moresby, helping train native policemen at the local constabulary. Like most natives he did not have a given name and a surname; he was simply Simogun. Wright described him as “a tall, hawk-faced man of about forty, well-built, extremely strong, and a good marksman with rifle, bow, or spear.”

  With three additional islanders, including two from the village of Baien, adjacent to Cape Orford, the coastwatching team trained in Australia. If for no other reason than secrecy, it wouldn’t do to house the dark-skinned islanders in a big city, but Wright knew a realtor who would rent the team an oceanfront house at Broadbeach, just south of Surfers Paradise. There, after obtaining two Folboats (collapsible kayaks made of wood and rubberized canvas), the team rehearsed beaching through heavy surf. Figgis, as communications officer, set up his AWA-3B radio, which consisted of a separate transmitter, receiver, and amplifier powered by large automobile-type batteries. The set was considered “portable,” but it would take at least ten men to move it. One of the components, a gasoline-powered battery charger, weighed seventy pounds—and naturally it required a supply of fuel that had be transported, too. Figgis was initially frustrated by Feldt’s gentle insistence that the team erect a rhombic aerial, consisting of about two hundred pounds of copper wire and porcelain insulators. But it would prevent direction-finding by the enemy, so Figgis went along with the requirement.

  The weeks on Australia’s Gold Coast at the height of summer were idyllic. Unlike modern Broadbeach, with astronomical land values and a forest of exclusive high-rise hotels and condominiums, in early 1943 it consisted of modest wooden houses on pilings. The seven-man team could train without raising any eyebrows, and the natives were happy to be near the water. At night, recalled Figgis, they would sit under the house and “quietly have a sing-sing.”

  In February, their training complete, the team moved north to Brisbane. Wright met with Rear Adm. Ralph W. Christie, Commander Submarines Pacific, who inquired about the team’s load requirements (two tons) and offered to provide a flat-bottom boat that would be lashed to the sub’s forward deck. He also arranged to supply the team with high-quality binoculars. After a restless wait, the team was notified on February 20 to load its gear aboard USS Greenling, a new Gato-class submarine.

  Greenling’s crew welcomed the newcomers. Simogun and his fellow islanders had been given dungarees to board the sub “as Negro sailors” to maintain the mission’s secrecy. But, recalled Figgis, there was a particular motive behind the crew’s helpfulness:

  It was quite an experience for the natives, I can assure you. The amusing thing aboard the submarine was the heads, the toilets, which are quite a business. If you don’t flush them properly, you get the whole contents of the bowl shot up into the air, and all over the place. This had to be explained to our men—and to our natives in Pidgin English. The American crew thought this was hilarious. They took these natives under their wings and made great pets of them. They looked after them and were very good. But they made sure the natives understood how to work the toilets.

  Greenling got underway from Brisbane on February 21, 1943. Eight days later she glided beneath Saint George’s Channel, the busy enemy approach into Rabaul, and hove to off the south coast of New Britain at Cape Orford. Several hours after sunset on March 1, Greenling quietly surfaced. Several sub crewmen quickly assembled the two Folboats. Wright and Figgis paddled off in the kayaks with Simogun and another native as passenger, not knowing for certain whether the landing site was occupied by the enemy. It wasn’t. Shortly after they reached shore, Simogun established contact with a native catechist, a mission-educated islander who assured the team that there were no enemy garrisons nearby. But the influence of the Japanese, who had occupied New Britain for more than a year, could not be underestimated. Any of the villagers at Baien might betray the team, either for a reward or to curry favor with the Japanese.

  The following night, by prearrangement, two small fires were lit on the opposite headlands that defined the tiny bay. Greenling was to wait for the signal before approaching to unload supplies, but there was no reply from seaward. After a long wait, Figgis set off in one of the kayaks to look for the sub. The risks were enormous—but Wright let Figgis paddle the flimsy collapsible kayak out to sea, in the dark, to search for a vessel that survived by stealth. However, Figgis chose the correct direction to start his search: five miles north of Cape Orford, he found Greenling lying off Crater Point. It was an honest mistake. From seaward, especially at night, Crater Point and Cape Orford were indistinguishable.

  With great relief, the unloading commenced. The flat-bottom dinghy with a small outboard motor proved useful for shuttling heavy goods such as the radio and the rhombic antenna. By daybreak, a mountain of foodstuffs, equipment, trade goods, small arms and ammunition, and all manner of housekeeping necessities—enough for six months if periodic airdrops failed to get through—had been hidden ashore. Even the disturbed beach was carefully smoothed. Soon thereafter, the team located an ideal site for a permanent camp high
above the cape and settled in. No trees were felled. The necessary huts were built between or around the trunks to prevent detection from the air. In one tall tree, a lookout platform was constructed with saplings, offering an unobstructed view over the sea lanes.

  Hooking up the radio on March 4, Figgis pulled in an Australian station just in time to receive some thrilling news: the Allies had just won a tremendous victory in the Bismarck Sea.

  NINE MONTHS LATER, thanks to a native named Golpak, the coastwatchers were still encamped above Cape Orford. At almost any other location on the south coast of New Britain, the threat of native betrayal would have been a constant worry, but Cape Orford was near the home village of Golpak, the paramount headman of a whole region of villages. When he first visited the camp a week after the Australians arrived, he and Figgis shared a happy reunion. Golpak had proved to be a staunch ally when Figgis led a party of escapees down the coast a year earlier, and the old native’s influence had grown even stronger during the interim. No individual held greater sway over local matters than Golpak. About sixty years old, he had been a plantation boss-boy as far back as World War I, was well-educated, and bitterly opposed the Japanese occupation—all of which made him an invaluable asset to the coastwatchers.

  The first several months at Cape Orford had passed quietly. The team reported a large outgoing raid by Japanese aircraft heading toward Milne Bay, and the watchers were pleased to see fewer planes returning. Many showed signs of battle damage, and one crashed just offshore. Otherwise the team’s only concern was the interest expressed by several natives, who were also Kempeitai conscripts, to meet with Simogun and the see the camp. At first Wright and the others worried about betrayal, but each of the “police boys” professed that he had been coerced into aligning with the Japanese. Concern that they would report the coastwatchers to Kempeitai headquarters at Rabaul was unfounded: Golpak, with a snap of his fingers, would have had them eliminated. Knowing this, the conscripts were eager to show their allegiance to Golpak by providing reliable information on Japanese activities. If an enemy patrol approached the lower villages, the coastwatchers were among the first to know.

  In early July 1943 the camp got word of a downed aviator, and a thin, woozy American pilot was brought in by two islanders. On June 20, Capt. Arthur L. Post, a reconnaissance pilot in the 8th Photo Squadron, had taken off from Port Moresby in an F-4 Lightning to photograph Rabaul. Like his squadron mate, Fred Hargesheimer, Post was intent on his work when interceptors got behind him and set his Lightning afire. After bailing out near Wide Bay, he landed unhurt in the jungle. He subsisted on his own for two weeks before walking into a native hamlet, whereupon Golpak arranged to transport him down the coast in the dinghy that Greenling had left behind. Post, described as “ragged, thin, and jittery,” struggled up the steep mountainside to the coastwatchers’ aerie and was happy to accept a cup of coffee.

  The Aussies had been playing three-handed bridge for months. When they learned that Post played bridge, he was heartily welcomed into the camp. But his halo quickly tarnished. With a fighter jock’s arrogance, Post was highly opinionated about the superiority of army pilots over everybody else, including the RAAF and especially the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. This didn’t sit well with the coastwatchers, who had an affinity for the American navy, especially after the Battle of the Coral Sea. Post also bragged about the women he had bedded in Sydney and criticized the British war effort, all of which offended his hosts.

  About a week after Post arrived, a small Japanese merchantman anchored in Baien Bay, directly below the camp. After reporting it to Port Moresby, Figgis realized that they were sitting on a double-edged sword. The coastwatchers had done their duty by reporting the ship, but if nothing happened, the islanders would think the mastas possessed no power. Wright, Figgis, and Williams were greatly relieved when a trio of B-25s appeared and promptly sank the steamer. The natives were ecstatic, and their belief in the coastwatchers’ mojo soared.

  RAAF Catalinas conducted supply drops every full moon, and a major increase in the coastwatching effort was scheduled for September with another submarine delivery. Wright informed Post that he would be evacuated then, but in early August, suddenly unwilling to wait anymore, Post drafted a message for Figgis to send to Port Moresby. In it, Post volunteered that he had vital information to bring out and requested an urgent pickup by PT boat or submarine. Port Moresby sent back a query about the legitimacy of the request, a normal precaution before risking such a dangerous mission. Wright and Figgis decided not to support the request. Wright took Post aside to explain that he was stuck until the resupply mission, a decision Post accepted easily. But the audacity of his request caused some lasting resentment.

  The arrival of USS Grouper on the stormy night of September 28 brought changes to the coastwatching efforts on New Britain. Figgis paddled Post out to the submarine, while inflatable boats landed ten Australian officers—some of them commandos of the 1st Independent Company, others belonging to the year-old ANGAU* organization—along with four sergeants and a dozen natives. A few days later, various parties departed in different directions to establish new coastwatching posts. Major A. Allan Roberts, a former magistrate who lived in Rabaul for twenty years, headed to the Gazelle Peninsula to set up an observation post near Kokopo. Wright and Williams headed for Talasea on the north coast, leaving the camp at Cape Orford in the hands of Figgis and two newcomers, former patrol officer Keith Johnson and Sgt. Arthur D. Bliss of “Z” Special Unit. The camp’s excellent native cook stayed, too.

  Captain Richard Ian Skinner and Leslie John Stokie, both of whom used their middle names, had many years of experience in New Britain—Skinner as a patrol officer, Stokie as a plantation manager. Their party headed for the northwestern Gazelle Peninsula, hoping to establish an observation post near a volcano named The Father.

  Another former patrol officer, Capt. John J. Murphy, headed south for the enemy-occupied area near Gasmata airdrome. With him went a cadre of native helpers and two capable soldiers: Sgt. Lambert T. W. “Bert” Carlson of “M” Special Unit, and Lt. Francis A. “Frank” Barrett. The latter was a veteran of combat in North Africa, the Mediterranean (where he was captured and escaped), and on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea.

  After the parties went their separate ways, the Cape Orford camp settled back to its quiet routine. The peace lasted only a short time, however, before the Allies commenced the daylight bombing campaign against Rabaul on October 12. From then on, the skies above New Britain and Saint George’s Channel became far more active—as did Figgis and all the coastwatchers.

  ACCORDING TO THE latest directive from Port Moresby, Murphy’s party was to be behind Gasmata by November 1, which gave them almost four weeks to reach their destination and set up an observation post. For the first fourteen days his party traveled with Wright’s group as far as Porlo, a village south of Jacquinot Bay. Following the island’s convoluted coast, they had walked more than seventy miles, and Murphy had to cover approximately eighty more to reach the objective. All along the route, from village to village, runners obtained the cooperation of the village headmen. All they needed to do was invoke the name of Golpak, and the officials fell in line with pledges of support. A few days out of Porlo, Murphy decided to abandon the coastal foot trails and “Jap roads” in favor of traveling by night in outrigger canoes. This was faster and easier than humping heavy packs up and down the jungle trails, but unfortunately the party outdistanced their prearranged warning network.

  One evening, a hundred miles from Cape Orford, Murphy’s party waited for moonrise before proceeding around an enemy camp in their canoes. At midnight, the party heard machine-gun fire nearby. A quick recon at daybreak revealed that a PT boat had shot up the enemy camp, destroying a barge and floatplane and killing five Japanese. The local natives, who had not received the “jungle telegraph” regarding Murphy’s arrival, turned hostile and informed the Japanese. Moving quickly down the coast, the would-be coastwatchers were betrayed by anot
her native. On October 24, a Japanese patrol surrounded the Australians’ hiding place and machine-gunned the brush, killing Barrett without a fight; Murphy and Carlson fled with only their weapons and the clothing on their backs.

  Moving inland, knowing that the cordon was closing, Murphy and Carlson evaded the Japanese for nearly a week. From his stint as a patrol officer, Murphy knew Pidgin English better than any white man, and had in fact had published a comprehensive dictionary that year. But his knowledge of the singsong language was of little use now. Hunger forced him and Carlson toward the coast, where they hoped to find native gardens. They met islanders who took them to a nearby village, and this time the headman himself informed the Japanese. The next morning, November 1, Murphy and Carlson had just forded a small river when another enemy patrol surrounded them. Diving into the brush, the two Aussies escaped briefly, but as they tried to recross the river farther upstream, they were caught in the open. Enemy soldiers fired, killing Carlson and wounding Murphy in the right wrist. Knowing the jig was up, he floated downstream to the waiting Japanese.

  The next day, his wound was treated in Gasmata. Then Murphy went to Rabaul by submarine on November 3. There, handed over to the 81st Naval Garrison Unit, he joined an estimated twelve civilian internees, four captured Australian airmen, and five American POWs. Murphy’s days as a coastwatcher were over. His personal struggle had just begun.

  AT HIS CAPE Orford camp, Figgis enjoyed several “kills.” Although there was never any official recognition, the RAAF often acted on his reports of barges tucked away in camouflaged hideouts during the daytime. His reward was the pyre of black smoke rising from the shoreline whenever the Beaufighters torched another barge. Figgis also reported on the daily passage of a Type 0 reconnaissance seaplane (Aichi E13A “Jake”), which overflew the cape every day for months, its timing so predictable that he gave it a nickname: “Chaffcutter Charlie.” The Beaufighters eventually targeted it, too, and Figgis was delighted to watch the twin-pontoon floatplane fall in flames. Next a twin-engine bomber took up the daily reconnaissance route. Figgis called it in for several straight days, until four RAAF Kittyhawks shot it down.