Wartime Rabaul

17 September 2011

Rabaul lays claim to the finest natural harbor in the Pacific. Perhaps because of this natural asset it also saw fierce action in both the First and Second world wars. 

Rabaul Harbour

Prior to the First World War, Germany occupied the northern coast of Papua and the eastern islands. Australia's early contribution to the Allied cause in the First World War involved the capture of German possessions in the Pacific. At dawn 11 September 1914 forces landed near Kokopo to capture an inland German radio station. After fierce fighting the Germans surrendered on 17 September 1914….97 years ago to this very day.

Japan entered the Second World War in December 1941 and very soon afterwards claimed Rabaul as a strategic base for its plan to capture Port Moresby. By early April 1944 Allied Forces had encircled Rabaul. Japanese naval and air force units had already abandoned the base leaving some 90,000 Japanese soldiers to withdraw overland. Mopping up and containing the remaining Japanese forces was left to the Australian Army, a task that involved much hard marching and fighting. Royal Australian and New Zealand navies and air forces also played a major part in operations which ended with the Japanese surrender

War Cemetery

Commonwealth dead in these campaigns number some 7,000. Their names are commemorated on headstones or memorials in the war cemeteries in Lae, Port Moresby, Rabaul, Fiji and New Caledonia. Exceptionally navel burials at sea are commemorated on memorials, at home ports for the Royal Navy, at Plymouth in England for the Royal Australian Navy, and at Auckland for the Royal New Zealand Navy.

Our visit to the well maintained Rabaul War Cemetery was a very moving experience. This cemetery contains 1,111 burials of the Second World War and commemorates 1,215 others who have no known grave. Nationalities include Indians, Fijians, Papuans and one New Zealander. The cemetery also contains 28 burials of the First World War. 

"Least we forget the cost of freedom"