Remembering the war in New Guinea
Rabaul, 1942 (Photographs)
Module name: Campaign history (All groups perspective)
This page was contributed by Damien Fenton (Australian War Memorial)

AWM P01593.003 (Australian War Memorial) The main street of Rabaul, New Britain, June 1941. Rabaul was the largest town in pre-war New Guinea and the “capital” of the Australian Mandate. Its 5,000-strong population included nearly 1,000 Europeans.
AWM P00001.310 (Australian War Memorial) Rabaul, September 1945. The town itself occupies the flat plain while, from left to right, the heights of North Daughter, The Mother and South Daughter dominate the skyline. Rabaul possessed a large and well-sheltered natural harbour capable of holding up to 300,000 tons of shipping and its strategic value was recognised by both the Australians and the Japanese in the lead up to the Pacific War.
AWM 096875 (Australian War Memorial) A derelict Japanese naval gun mounted in the former Australian gun position at Praed Point, September 1945. Between March and April 1941 the Australians installed a coastal battery of two 6-inch guns at Praed Point, overlooking the entrance to the harbour. However the surrounding anti-aircraft defences were not strong enough to protect the battery from the heavy air attacks launched against it by the Japanese. The battery was knocked out by Japanese dive-bombers on 22 January before it could fire a shot in anger.
AWM P02328.004 (Australian War Memorial) The band of the newly arrived 2/22nd Battalion with the rest of the unit formed up behind them, about to move off during ANZAC Day commemorations in Rabaul, 25 April 1941. The 2/22nd Battalion made up the bulk of the New Britain garrison, known as “Lark Force”. Of the 24 bandsmen seen here only one would survive the war. The Battalion as a whole lost 571 men killed, many of whom drowned as prisoners of war of the Japanese when an unmarked transport ship taking them to Japan to work as slave labourers was sunk by an American submarine in the South China Sea in July 1942.
AWM 000713 (Australian War Memorial) On 21 January 1942 eight Australian Wirraways of No. 24 Squadron RAAF made a valiant but futile attempt to defend Rabaul from Japanese air attack. The Wirraway (like the ones seen here in 1940), an Australian-built 2-seat training aircraft, was no match for powerful Japanese fighters like the Mitsubishi Zero. Hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed, six of the eight Wirraways were lost and the surviving two were ordered to evacuate to Lae later that day.
AWM 127910 (Australian War Memorial) Japanese troops of Major General HORII Tomitaro’s South Seas Force occupy Kavieng, New Ireland, on 22 January 1942. The Japanese invasion fleet with its two aircraft carriers and accompanying warships insured that HORII’s men enjoyed overwhelming air and naval support during their operations to secure New Britain and New Ireland.
AWM 041519 (Australian War Memorial) Rabaul, 1949. A cairn placed after the war marks the Australian defensive position at Vulcan Beach. Here in the early hours of the morning of 23 January 1942, a company-sized group of the 2/22nd Battalion, augmented by a small number of artillerymen, engineers and New Guinea Volunteer Rifles personnel, held off the Japanese until daybreak when their situation became hopeless. This action was the only significant, albeit temporary, setback suffered by the Japanese invasion force.
AWM 069394 (Australian War Memorial) Four officers from Lark Force stand on the jetty in front of HMAS Laurabada, the ship which had evacuated them and 152 other survivors from the south coast of New Britain, April 1942. These men had spent more than two months in the jungle of New Britain evading the Japanese before being rescued.
AWM 128099 (Australian War Memorial) The Australian motor schooner Lakatoi, one of the vessels used by Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) in attempts between March and May 1942 to rescue as many survivors as possible from New Britain. The Lakatoi managed to evacuate a total of 212 soldiers and two women.
AWM 096862 (Australian War Memorial) A group of Roman Catholic nuns, who were interned by the Japanese on New Britain in January 1942, seen here after their liberation in September 1945. The rescue efforts of ANGAU not withstanding, most of the garrison and many civilians fell into the hands of the Japanese.
AWM 096526 (Australian War Memorial) Some of the hundreds of Chinese civilians, interned by the Japanese on Rabaul, freed by Allied troops in September 1945. Most of the local Chinese community were not included in the Australian evacuation plan for New Britain and were forced to endure numerous indignities and atrocities under the Japanese occupation.
AWM 013649 (Australian War Memorial) Three survivors from Lark Force being interviewed by war correspondents after an epic journey to reach Port Moresby, 23 November 1943. They had taken 267 days to reach the safety of Allied lines covering over 1,000 km on foot and more than 2,000 km by small boat, canoes and rafts.
AWM P00240.026 (Australian War Memorial) Japanese shipping fills Simpson Harbour, June 1943. The Japanese quickly set about developing Rabaul as their main base in the New Guinea theatre. One of its many advantages was that while Japanese possession of Rabaul placed all of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands within range of their bombers, it also denied the Allies a base from which Allied bombers could reach and attack the main Japanese naval base at Truk, in the Caroline Islands.
AWM P00240.024 (Australian War Memorial) Allied bombers sweep across Simpson Harbour attacking ships and shore installations during a raid on Rabaul, November 1942. Rabaul was subjected to Allied air raids within a few weeks of being captured by the Japanese, but it was not until late 1943 that the full strength of the United State’s Fifth Air Force and the RAAF were brought to bear upon it: In August that year the Allies decided to bypass the Japanese stronghold and ‘neutralise’ it through air bombardment alone.