4 January 1942. Rabaul.
Brigadier Stanley Savage was furious at the damage done by the Japanese bombers. Sixteen Navy G3M Type 96 bombers had scored three hits on the runway of Lakunai airfield, while the other 17 bombs landed on the Rapindik Native Hospital and the labour compound, killing 15 civilians and horrifically wounding 15 others with shrapnel.
17 Brigade had been on the island since the end of November and Savage had been trying to improve the defences that ‘Lark Force’, based on 2/22 Infantry Battalion (CO Lt Col Howard Carr), had being doing before the other two Battalions arrived. Since their arrival in April 1941, Lt Col John Scanlan’s force (HQ New Guinea Area) had been constructing defences and training for operations in the tropical environment. His force over time had been reinforced by a coastal defence battery with two 6-inch guns, two out-dated 3-inch anti-aircraft guns, and the 17th Anti-Tank Battery (12 x 2-pdrs). With the arrival of Savage and his 2/5 and 2/7 Battalions, Scanlan had been happy to hand over command of Rabaul to him, remaining Savage’s Chief of Staff.
The planned evacuation of women and children, and other Europeans of a population of about one thousand, who wanted to leave had been carried out when war had been declared. Also interred and shipped to Australia were all the Japanese on the island. The Chinese population (almost a thousand people) had been unable to persuade the Australian Administrator (Brigadier-General Sir Walter McNicoll) to also evacuate Asian women and children, causing some resentment.
Originally Lark Force had been sent to “maintain a forward air observation line as long as possible and to make the enemy fight for this line rather than abandon it at the first threat”. Now there was a full brigade of troops, reinforced with artillery, including anti-aircraft and anti-tank forces. These units had been taken from what had been 6 Division’s resources: 2/1 Field Regiment RAA (24 x 25-pdrs), B Company 2/1 MG Regiment, a battery of 2/1 Anti-tank Regiment (12 x 2-pdrs), 3rd Battery 2/1 LAA Regiment (12 x 40mm Bofors AA)), a troop of carriers and three armoured cars from the Divisional Carrier Regiment. The extra engineers and pioneers, signallers and medical personnel were all assigned roles to expand the ability to defend the island effectively. The other elements of 6 Division had been sent to Ambon and Timor.
When Savage had arrived, he had spent some time with the RAN escorting destroyer’s Captain and Navigation Officer to look over the area from the point of view of where landings might take place. With the experience of Greece in mind, he also looked at how an evacuation could take place if required. Scanlan had already tried to imagine how the Japanese would attack, and therefore, how the island and its airfields would be defended. With 1400 men Scanlan had always known that the chances were he would only be able to offer token resistance. His forces had been disposed covering the harbour area, with an improvised company at Praed Point (where the two 6-inch guns were sited), an infantry company in beach positions at Talili Bay, westward across the narrow neck of the peninsula; another Company at Lakunai; and others along the ridge around the bay, at Four Ways and defending Vunakanau airfield. He hadn’t however, given much thought to the evacuation of his force if everything went wrong.
Savage met with the senior RAAF officer, Wing Commander Lerew, whose four Hudson bombers and ten Wirraway trainers turned fighters, were a large part of the reason for the Australian force to be present. Lerew was in no doubt that his feeble force was little more than a bump in the road for a Japanese steamroller. His bomber crews were primarily doing reconnaissance, after a couple of inconclusive attacks on Japanese shipping. Savage was concerned that his men were placed in harm’s way for a very weak ‘forward air observation line’. Lerew wasn’t sure whether reinforcements were going to arrive. There were feelers out to the Americans whose reinforcements for the Philippines were being rerouted to Australia. There were P40Es arriving directly from the United States and being assembled at Amberley near Brisbane.
The two Wirraways that had attempted to intercept the Japanese bombers failed to do so. While there was a direction finding station at the airfields, it was used primarily to guide aircraft in. It wasn’t the kind of RDF that an early warning system relied on. Coastwatchers were in various places, and early warning of an incoming air raid depended on these men giving timely intelligence, and that had been sadly lacking that morning. The two 3-inch AA guns had engaged the Japanese planes which were estimated to have bombed from 18000 feet, but their shells failed to reach the height of the bombers. The light AA battery didn’t engage, as per standing orders. Not only would the Japanese aircraft be completely out of their range, but they would also lose the element of surprise that Savage hoped to achieve when the time came.
The Australian Chiefs of Staff wanted their forward air observation line spread in an arc from east of Australia's Cape York to the Admiralty Islands, north of New Guinea, a distance of about 1,600 miles. Sections of 1st Independent Company were disposed for the protection of forward Air Operational Bases (AOB) at Kavieng (New Ireland), Vila (New Hebrides), Tulagi (Guadalcanal), Buka Passage (Bougainville), and Lorengau (Manus Island). Major Wilson (OC 1st Independent Company) had sent one unit of one officer and 18 ORs with a Wireless Transmitter to Lorengau, and Buka. The flying boat base at Vila had received 2 officers and 28 OR, the RAAF had wireless communications there already. Likewise, the RAAF flying boat base at Tulagi had only needed 1 officer and 8 OR, as the role there was to train the native police force for the role of assisting the RAAF in protecting the AOB. Both Tulagi and Vila had similar Direction Finding systems to the one in Rabaul. Savage wanted to know if the Independent Company could report sighting of enemy aircrafts’ direction, height and speed to the RAAF at Lakunai. This would perhaps give the pilots on immediate standby some warning to get in the air and where to expect the enemy to be coming from.
Scanlan agreed to look into it and Lerew also noted that each of the AOBs had a detachment of RAAF personnel manning the landing grounds. As an idea it was fairly simple to put into practice, but might take some exercises to fine tune it.
Examining the damage done by the air raid, three bombs had hit the runway of Lukunai, damage that was being repaired quickly. The questions of dispersal of aircraft, having protected revetments for them, fuel and ammunition dumps being camouflaged and protected were all discussed. In fairness to the RAAF, all these matters had been attended to, but in response to the first attack, more work would be done to improve matters further.
Savage then had a meeting with the Army Service Corps’ Quartermaster. The Brigade had two years’ worth of food on hand. Savage wanted the stores to be dispersed and hidden in the mountains. Should the Japanese invade, it could well be necessary to fight an extended guerrilla campaign, and having such stores squirrelled away would enable that to happen. One of the problems they faced was that there were almost no roads on New Britain and a mountain ridge covered in jungle between the Gazelle Peninsula (the area around Rabaul) and the main part of the island.
Savage had considered various ideas for withdrawing his force if vastly outnumbered by the enemy. Unlike Greece, there wasn’t anything like the Mediterranean Fleet ready and able to pick up men from the beaches of New Britain. Having spoken to the District Commissioner and a few plantation owners, Savage had ordered work to begin on what he called a ‘backdoor path’. Above the Kokopo Ridge the country was flat and covered in thick jungle, but around Vunakanau airfield was a large undulating area of high kunai grass. Narrow native pads or tracks on the Gazelle Peninsula linked village to village, but there were also a few tracks towards plantations that would provide his men with reasonable going. He wanted to get across the Warangoi River and back onto the coast at Wide Bay.
The fear of the men of 2/22 Infantry Battalion, who’d been on the island for more than six months was that they would be simply sacrificial lambs to the slaughter. The arrival of the rest of the Brigade had raised their hopes, but against a determined and strong enemy, the ability to hold out was always going to be limited. When Savage’s idea of an escape route became known, the men realised that they had a Commanding Officer who wasn’t prepared to simply throw away their lives in a hopeless gesture. Although it had been hard work to expand the track past Ralabang Plantation to the river, and put together a ferry crossing, the men working on it knew it was for their own benefit and so only grumbled a lot about the jungle and terrain. Once they were across the river the problems wouldn’t be over, but at least they have a few advantages.
One of these advantages was a detachment of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, comprising some eighty men, raised by Lieut-Colonel Walstab, the Police Superintendent and his native police. New Britain’s Melanesian population were an easy-going people who preferred to lead their own lives. The Australians had proved tolerant overlords on the whole, furnishing agreeable employment for a few on plantations and in the native constabulary, and leaving the others pretty much alone. The presents given and payments made to Lululais and Tul Tuls (village chiefs) for a little work to improve the tracks between villages were well received. While the Australian soldiers were pretty dismissive of these efforts, a definite route began to take shape. By placing some supplies along the route, the Australian troops and natives together had prepared for a ‘just in case’ scenario.
The bombing had brought home to the Australian forces that this was a place that the Japanese would want. Its natural harbour would of great benefit, as would the airfields. Savage and his men knew that time was running out, and this was confirmed that evening when another Japanese air raid, this time on Vunakanau airfield, was carried out. About eleven flying-boats made two runs over the airfield; one pattern of bombs straddled the end of the strip, but the others fell wide of it, killing one native. Once more the anti-aircraft fire was ineffective and no Wirraways were able to intercept the Japanese flying-boats.
