Invasion Rabaul (10 page)

Clearly, the Japanese considered Rabaul to be a vital objective of the Southern Offensive. Simpson Harbor would be developed into a major fleet headquarters, and there was ample flat terrain south of the caldera for the development of additional airfields. Rabaul was slated to become the hub
of the Southeast Area, a stronghold from which new campaigns would be launched. As the center for both Imperial Army and Navy operations in the Southeast Area, it would eclipse even the great naval base at Truk.

When the Southern Offensive commenced on December 8, Tokyo time, the 5,500 troops of the South Seas Detachment were already en route to Guam, a small island in the Marianas defended by only 153 U.S. Marines and a few hundred Guamanian militiamen. Land-based Imperial Navy bombers from nearby Saipan began to pound the defenses that same day, and were joined by floatplanes from a tender attached to the 4th Fleet the next day. Consequently, when the invasion troops stormed ashore on December 10, the American garrison surrendered within minutes.

T
HE
S
OUTH
S
EAS
D
ETACHMENT, RAISED THE PREVIOUS YEAR ON THE ISLAND
of Shikoku, was led by fifty-one-year-old Major General Tomitaro Horii. A veteran of the war against China, he had fought in Shanghai ten years earlier and more recently commanded the 55th Infantry Group, from which his current forces were drawn. The main combat elements were the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 144th Infantry Regiment supported by the 3rd Company of the 55th Cavalry Regiment, a battalion of the 55th Mountain Artillery Regiment, and a company of the 55th Engineers. Ancillaries included a signals unit, a transportation company, a field hospital, a veterinarian unit (to care for the hundreds of horses used by the detachment), and a battalion of antiaircraft artillery.

The South Seas Detachment also included several hundred members of the Maizuru 2nd Special Naval Landing Force, presently involved in operations at hotly contested Wake. Often referred to as “marines,” a misnomer, the SNLF excelled at amphibious assault tactics and specialized in beachhead defenses, including the rapid deployment of antiaircraft guns. After Wake fell on December 23, the naval infantry rejoined Horii’s forces on Guam.

Back at full strength, the
South Seas Detachment spent the rest of December preparing for the invasion of New Britain and New Ireland. On January 3, 1942, Horii and several other officers boarded a flying boat and flew 630 miles southeast to Truk for an important meeting with Vice Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue, commander of the 4th Fleet. After their plane touched down in the lagoon, the army staff met with their navy counterparts in the wardroom of the light cruiser
Katori
, Inoue’s flagship.

Such cooperation between the Imperial Army and Navy was unusual. Normally the two services shared a fierce rivalry, but they were under specific orders to work together. The directive from General Headquarters called for both services to
“coordinately attack Rabaul” and specified that all defenders in the Bismarck Archipelago were to be “annihilated.” Fond of using Roman letters, the Japanese gave the name R Operation to the invasion of the Bismarcks.

In the
Katori’
s wardroom, the assembled officers exchanged intelligence data, most of it obtained from aerial reconnaissance. The consensus was that Rabaul would be defended by a force of “about 500” soldiers, but allowed that a total of fifteen hundred Australian troops might be present. The Japanese were also aware of a “volunteer defense force,” almost certainly a reference to the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, which strongly indicates that some of their intelligence was provided by spies. It was true that many civilians at Rabaul still had unrestricted access to Australian positions, and members of Lark Force suspected Axis sympathizers of passing information to the enemy. But the Japanese did not interpret everything accurately. Rear Admiral Kiyohide Shima, commander of the warships that would escort the invasion fleet, received intelligence that the defenders might have as many as ten coastal gun emplacements on Crater Peninsula. Possibly because of this erroneous information, the assembled staff decided that the invasion should be made at night.

The next step was to discuss potential beachheads. The Japanese officers considered three landing sites: Kokopo, Talili Bay, and the Rabaul waterfront. They dismissed the first on the flimsy rationale that “the enemy will heavily guard the place as it was a landing point of the British army during the First World War.” Likewise, they arbitrarily rejected Talili Bay on New Britain’s north shore on the grounds “that the enemy must have set up some obstacles; that the enemy may quickly discover us because of lookout posts at Watom Island, and that well-grown coral reefs may hamper our landing.” Compared with those arguments, some of the assembled officers deemed an assault deep inside Simpson Harbor “foolhardy,” but it offered the most expedient means of capturing the two airfields. Therefore, the officers gave approval for a direct assault, albeit with a broadly worded escape clause: “The army plan will be adopted, but if the situation demands, the landing will be made at Kokopo instead.”

Based on the approved invasion plan, the assault on Rabaul was going to be highly unorthodox. Few commanders would have considered making a large-scale amphibious landing into so deep a harbor, especially at night, but Horii and his staff put together a solid tactical plan. By landing in the darkest hour of the night with an overwhelming number of troops, they would use the element of surprise to smash through the Australian defenses.

A
RRIVING BACK AT
G
UAM ON
J
ANUARY 4,
H
ORII RECEIVED ORDERS FROM
Imperial General Headquarters to occupy Rabaul “as quickly as possible after around the middle of January.” This was predicted to be the most appropriate time for a night invasion, as there would be little or no visible moonlight. The timetable also allowed for a period of preliminary bombing attacks to soften up the Australian defenses. For that purpose, two air groups from the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 24th
Koku Sentai
(Air Flotilla) had already shifted about half their strength from the Marshall Islands to Truk. The experienced aircrews, undoubtedly eager to launch their first attack against the Australians, did not have long to wait.

O
N THE MORNING OF THE FOURTH DAY OF 1942, A BRIGHT, CLEAR
S
UNDAY,
a young plantation owner named Cornelius “Con” Page observed a formation of twin-engine bombers flying over his coconut groves. Recruited two years earlier into Lieutenant Commander Feldt’s coastwatching service, Page was an adventurous Australian living on the tiny island of Tabar, just east of New Ireland. Warming up his big Amalgamated Wireless 3B radio, he sent word of the sighting to Port Moresby, which in turn relayed the information to Fortress Signals, the Lark Force communications unit on New Britain:
Japanese bombers were headed directly toward Rabaul.

The air raid sirens began to wail shortly after 1100. Given ample warning, the antiaircraft gunners atop Frisbee Ridge waited almost thirty long minutes for the bombers to appear. Finally they droned into view, high above Watom Island off New Britain’s north shore, a perfect V formation coming directly toward the battery.
“It seemed impossible to believe that they were bent on destruction,” remembered David Selby, “so serene and beautiful did they look.” The youthful gunners were keyed up, talking and even laughing to hide their jitters. Someone asked Selby, “Can we really fire this time?”

“Too right we can,” he said, “but for heaven’s sake shut up. This is a war, not a Sunday school picnic.”

As the planes came within range, the gun director shouted out elevation numbers and fuse settings to the crews, then yelled, “Fire!” Surprised at first by the ear-splitting noise and the heat reflected from those first shots, the gunners quickly settled down. They got off round after round from the two aging weapons, but even with the fuses set for maximum altitude, none of the shells reached the bombers’ height. The only thing worth celebrating was the successful operation of the Number 2 gun’s cracked breech; otherwise, the men watched helplessly as the formation flew over untouched and dropped their bombs in the vicinity of Lakunai airdrome.

According to Japanese records, a total of sixteen Navy Type 96 Land Attack Aircraft participated in the first strike against Rabaul. Known to the Allies as Mitsubishi G3Ms, the twin-engine bombers were part of the Chitóse
Kokutai
(Naval Air Group) and possessed a combat radius the Australians could only dream of. The crews were highly trained, but in this case most of their bombs missed. Only three of the 60-kilo, high-fragmentation devices struck the runway, and another twenty killed fish in Simpson Harbor. Disastrously, the remaining seventeen bombs landed in the Rapindik Native Hospital and labor compound.

Designed for antipersonnel use, the so-called “daisy cutters” created terrible carnage when they exploded within the confined area. Fifteen natives were killed outright and fifteen others wounded, many with parts of limbs severed and other horrific injuries from the spinning shards of shrapnel. However, the loss of the natives did not greatly trouble Lark Force, and the contemporary accounts either glossed over the casualties or neglected to mention them at all. Major Palmer, the senior medical officer, stated in his report that the attack had not caused any casualties. Evidently, thirty dead or wounded natives didn’t count.

T
HE
J
APANESE STRUCK AGAIN AT DUSK
. T
HIS TIME THE FORMATION
consisted of Type 97 Flying Boats (Kawanishi H6Ks) from the Yokohama
Kokutai
. With their long parasol wings and slender fuselages tapering upward toward twin rudders, the four-engine planes resembled enormous dragonflies as they paraded overhead. The antiaircraft gunners counted
eleven aircraft (Japanese records show nine), but none came within range of the battery. Aiming for Vunakanau airdrome, the flying boats dropped an estimated forty bombs, all of which missed by a wide margin in the rapidly fading twilight.

The next raid occurred on the morning of January 6. Several of the huge flying boats returned to hit Vunakanau again, and for some reason Con Page failed to provide an early warning. Serious damage resulted: A direction-finding station and a Wirraway were destroyed by direct hits, a Hudson was damaged, and the runway was pocked with craters. A single Wirraway attempted to intercept the formation and briefly managed to close within firing range, but the bombers took cover in some handy clouds and soon pulled away.

The following morning another formation of attackers flew over Page’s plantation on Tabar. This time he radioed the alarm, having counted eighteen twin-engine bombers on a course for Rabaul at 1030. Two Wirraways immediately took off to intercept the formation, but once again the anemic fighters failed to make contact. At 1108 the Mitsubishis dropped their bombs on Vunakanau airdrome without opposition, demolishing a Hudson, a Wirraway, and some temporary buildings. Two more Hudsons parked near the runway suffered damage.

The Japanese ceased their raiding for the next several days, content to conduct high-altitude reconnaissance flights beyond the reach of the antiaircraft guns. In the meantime, the RAAF organized a unique mission of its own. A specially prepared Mark IV Hudson of 6 Squadron flew from Kavieng to Truk on January 9 and returned with photographic evidence of a major buildup. (The daring flight, which exceeded 1,400 miles, was the longest
combat mission yet undertaken by the RAAF.) The serviceable Wirraways at Rabaul were sent on daily scouting patrols, but their few attempts to intercept Japanese snoopers were negative.

The pre-invasion strikes resumed on January 16. Shortly past noon, a flight of nineteen Mitsubishi bombers destroyed a fuel dump, a bomb dump, and a store of flares at Vunakanau. Several hours later, a formation of five Kawanishi flying boats dropped fragmentation bombs on Lakunai, causing minor damage. Based on the systematic nature of the
attacks, it was obvious that the Japanese were attempting to neutralize the airdromes while avoiding collateral damage to Rabaul. The Australians
correctly interpreted this to mean that an invasion was pending. The only questions yet to be answered were the enemy’s timetable and his current whereabouts.

Ironically, the War Cabinet had already received intelligence reports showing that not one but
two
enemy fleets were headed toward the Bismarck Archipelago. Inexplicably, that vital information was not forwarded to Rabaul, and the Commonwealth’s indifference ultimately led to a chain reaction of unfortunate events.

O
N
J
ANUARY 14, THE
N
ORWEGIAN-REGISTERED FREIGHTER
H
ERSTEIN
arrived from Port Moresby with a mixed cargo that included six Bren gun carriers, three thousand drums of aviation fuel, eighty Thompson submachine guns, and approximately two thousand aerial bombs. The wharves and warehouses were already full, so the bombs were stacked in the open alongside Malaguna Road. Lieutenant Hugh A. Mackenzie, the senior RAN officer at Rabaul, did not want the
Herstein
to be caught dockside by the next Japanese raid, so he cabled his superiors for permission to get the vessel underway as soon as the cargo was unloaded. The request was flatly denied. Instead, the government insisted that the freighter take on a full cargo of copra at the Burns, Philp & Company wharf, and loading began forthwith.

Harold Page tried to intervene on behalf of the Australian civilians, for whom there would be few other opportunities to evacuate. On January 15 he initiated a request to higher authorities for transportation aboard the
Herstein
for himself and the other men in town. Getting no response, he
“continued to pester Canberra for instructions” until finally a terse reply came back several days later: “No one is to take the place of the copra on the
Herstein.”
The response was yet another example of the Commonwealth’s apathy, only in this case it directly affected hundreds of civilians. Lark Force had already been cast aside to fend for itself, and now Canberra ignored an opportunity to evacuate the non-combatants. Furthermore, the
information that two enemy fleets were approaching Rabaul was still withheld. Perhaps the government rationalized that everyone was better off not knowing, the presumption being that a widespread panic might break out if the unvarnished truth were revealed.