History forgotten

Weekender

By MAX UECHTRITZ and amended by SUSAN McGRADE
IT was the first Australian town ever to be attacked.
Japanese aircraft carriers and bombers were involved, the end result was devastation and many hundreds of Australian civilians and soldiers killed.
You’re probably thinking of the Bombing of Darwin right? , which happened 75 years ago?
You may have seen comprehensive media coverage, including a live broadcast of commemorations in Darwin, led by Australia’s Governor-General and Prime Minister.
Some of you will have shaken your heads in astonishment at the old newsreel film showing Darwin in ruins and news reporters telling you that 243 Australians were killed in these raids.
However, If I told you that the first attack on an Australian town was followed by the heinous massacre of 160 Australians who had surrendered to the Japanese, and the internment of another THOUSAND, who would all die in one night in the biggest single loss of Australian lives in one incident in WW2… would you be confused?
Because the Japanese never actually landed at Darwin. Or did they?
No. Because I’m not talking about Darwin.
The first Australian town to be attacked in war was Rabaul.
Rabaul – was the capital of an Australian Territory – The Territory of New Guinea.
New Guinea – not the PNG we know today – was governed and administered by Australia, after being mandated to Australia by the League of Nations post WW1.
In fact, the first battle, casualties and medals by Australian troops – WELL BEFORE Gallipoli – was when Australia seized German New Guinea in September 1914. But that’s another story and some of you might be confused enough already!
So, back to Rabaul 1942.
Administered by government departments – answering to Canberra, populated largely by Australians in the public service and an Australian garrison of soldiers and airmen.
Its acting Administrator was the brother of an Australian Prime Minister (Earle Page – you may have driven this street “PAGE STREET” just up the road from here?) and among the civilians were the uncle of former Australian opposition leader Kim Beazley and grandfather of the rock band Midnight Oils singer-turned politician-turned singer Peter Garrett.
The deaths of those three, of course, were no more tragic than the other 1400 Australians who died as a result of the Fall of Rabaul, but are mentioned to simply reinforce the fact that – yes – Rabaul was an Australian town and New Guinea then, was Australian ‘soil’.
That’s a fact – not an endorsement of colonialism.
The Japanese on January 23, 1942 invaded and occupied Rabaul with a massive fleet fresh from Pearl Harbour. They made it a Pacific fortress, from which they launched the Kokoda and Buna campaigns, among many others and the Battles of Midway and Coral Sea.
Up to 300,000 Japanese were garrisoned here from 1942-45 and five airfields hosted 300 bombers and fighters.
Rabaul, the Australian town – previously called the Pearl of the Pacific – was to be reduced to rubble or completely nothing, by war.
Most – and I repeat MOST – of its inhabitants never survived the war and those left to defend Rabaul some fourteen hundred died. YES 1400.
So, in January 2017 it was the 75th anniversary of the Fall of Rabaul.
You are confused, right?
You didn’t see it on the Australian news or read about in the Australian media, correct?
Surely, even though we might not personally have known of all the details, the Australian media and Australian authorities would have ensured that the tragic events and victims of this milestone were remembered.
Right? Wrong!
Rabaul is Australia’s national blind spot. It’s collective myopia.
Australia rightly commemorates the Bombing of Darwin.
Australia rightly remembers the 75th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore.
Australians recoil at the horrors of both Darwin and the Singapore aftermath. And so they should – Lest We Forget.
But why has Australia forgotten Rabaul? Why is it not in Australia’s school curricula – like Gallipoli and Kokoda and Singapore and Darwin?
With some remarkable exceptions, why is Rabaul such a mystery to most Australian journalists?
Why is it that most Australians have never heard of our biggest maritime disaster – when 1053 Australians from Rabaul – soldiers and civilians, boys and granddads – perished in the sinking of the prison ship the Montevideo Maru?
This is 15% of the total of Australian Prisoners of Wars who died in captivity. It’s double the number of Australians killed in the Vietnam War and many more than died in the sinking of the HMAS Sydney (645) and the hospital ship the Centaur (268).
The number of Australians who died as a result of the Fall of Rabaul is nearly five times the number of victims in the first bombing raid of Darwin 75 years ago. Though an estimated 900 were killed in all Darwin raids over months.
None of those of us who do know the story of Rabaul and New Britain can really put a finger on the answers to all the rhetorical questions posed here.
Perhaps – initially, in the decades after the war – it was multiple shades of shame. Shame, that the town and its people had been abandoned and infamous official cables showed the government of the day, had described the men of Rabaul as “hostages to fortune”.
That they ordered the pitiful garrison to “stand and fight” – with a couple of WW1 vintage anti-aircraft guns and handful of Wirraway trainer fighters – against the might of the multiple aircraft carriers, destroyers, submarines, hundreds of bombers and fighters and 5000 Japanese marines in landing craft. Shame, that they ignored requests to establish escape routes and hide munitions and food in the hills.
Shame – and this perhaps is the most galling – that they expressly forbade Australian civilians from escaping on a massive Norwegian freighter in Simpson Harbour, the week before the invasion.
That potential evacuation ship, the Herstein, was ordered to continue loading a cargo of copra –rather than a cargo of humans. It could have taken hundreds of Australian civilians let alone Chinese women and children and loyal New Guinea workers employed by the Australian administration in Australia’s ‘protectorate’.
Hundreds perhaps thousands of the latter groups were executed, starved and imprisoned.
It still rankles those communities today – and should.
And mixed in there perhaps, the shame of the order “every man for himself” as shocked Australian commanders finally realised what a ridiculous, shambolic and shabby affair it really was.
Perhaps it was the decades of obfuscation around the fate of the 1053 men on the Montevideo Maru, which led to decades of misery and heartache for their families.
Perhaps, too, it was the shame of the indirect result of the bumbling of Rabaul and the Tol Massacre 75 years ago:
Maybe it was too easy to ignore, and too hard to talk about, in a post-war period when so many had suffered in so many theatres.
But there’s no excuse today, not to right the wrongs of the past.
The war is long gone but the pain and anger of descendants of victims will not fade away.
The anger part could be eased – by giving the events of Rabaul 1942 due respect and recognition.
RABAUL HAS NOT FORGOTTEN – lest we forget.

  • This article was read by Susan McGrade of the Rabaul Historical Society at the ANZAC Dawn Service on Tuesday, 25 April 2017. The text by Max Uechtritz was slightly amended by Susan for the purpose of the Rabaul Anzac Dawn Service.
  • Max Uechtritz is a well-known Australian freelance journalist. He received awards when he worked at ABC, Al Jazeerah and Channel 7. He calls himself KUNDU PRODUCTIONS and is a great supporter of Rabaul and the Rabaul Historical Society. Max is the great, great grandson of Queen Emma’s sister Phoebe Parkinson.