Invasion Rabaul (17 page)

Appel, a former pharmacist from St. Kilda, Victoria, thought the two companies should consolidate northeast of Vunakanau in an attempt to close the breach in the Australian defenses. Such a position, he argued, would give them a “good front with good depth” and force the Japanese “to come out into the kunai grass country.” Mollard would have none of it, and repeated his original order: Appel was to cover B Company’s withdrawal from Three Ways, then move C Company to Malabunga Junction.

It was the correct thing to do. Appel’s desire to slug it out with the Japanese was commendable, but from his distant location at Vunakanau he lacked an accurate picture of the
situation at Three Ways. Mollard, on the other hand, could clearly see that the Japanese were surrounding the intersection. Furthermore, even if Appel’s recommendation had been accepted, it would not have changed the outcome. General Horii had already arrived in Chinatown and learned of the delay at
Three Ways, whereupon he ordered an additional battalion to assist with the capture of Vunakanau. Soon, the Australians would be facing twice as many Japanese.

W
HILE THE ENEMY ADVANCED ONTO THE PLATEAU,
L
IEUTENANT
C
OLONEL
Carr decided to follow Scanlan’s example by moving his headquarters.
First, he conferred with Scanlan using one of the few field telephones still in operation. He then left Noah’s Mission and moved the battalion headquarters to Malabunga Junction. Thus, Carr was preoccupied during critical periods of the invasion, much like Scanlan had been a few hours earlier. Unaware of many of the events unfolding around him, he relied on dispatch riders to send and receive messages. Later he attempted to rationalize the situation:
“Owing to the difficult country, the long distances to
HQ, and the fact that most of these were moving, very few messages and orders got through and it was then felt that the companies would have to fight practically independent actions.”

Carr made it sound as though he initially possessed some control over the widely scattered elements of his battalion. To the contrary, the companies fought independently from the moment the Japanese landed, with little or no input from Carr.

O
UT IN
S
IMPSON
H
ARBOR,
L
IEUTENANT
C
OLONEL
T
OSHIHARU
S
AKIGAWA
waited his turn to disembark from the transport
Mito Maru
. The commanding officer of the 2nd Company, 55th Transportation Regiment, he was awed by the sights and sounds of battle.
“The mountain air filled with smoke from the summit of the active volcano Nakamisaki weighed upon us,” he noted. “The flotilla moved into Rabaul Bay, and from then, we understood the magnificence of the battlefield with the roaring noise of the [machine guns] and the sweeping fire of our planes as they flew in formation seeking out the enemy.”

After the assault troops secured the landing areas, Sakigawa led several Daihatsu craft loaded with light reconnaissance vehicles to the beachhead south of Vulcan Crater. He investigated the surrounding terrain on foot, walking about fifty yards through the jungle before he found a road, then returned to the beach and supervised the unloading of the landing craft. He was concerned that the scout cars and motorcycles would bog down in the volcanic soil, but the crews offloaded the vehicles onto bamboo mats without difficulty. By mid-morning, Sakigawa’s high-speed
butai
(squad) was ready to scout ahead.

Soon after the mechanized column started off toward Rabaul, incoming mortar rounds and gunfire forced the Japanese to take cover. They advanced on foot into a coconut grove and spotted a camouflaged truck,
which they sprayed with bullets before cautiously approaching. The truck was empty, but the littered ground around it revealed useful information.
“At intervals in the grass in this area,” wrote Sakigawa, “large quantities of guns, MG bullets, rifle bullets, and shells had been left behind. In vehicles were abandoned clothes and utensils enough for about one
butai
. Traces of a hurried flight were clearly evident.”

The amount of discarded
equipment was indeed an indication that the Australians were pulling back under considerable duress. The Japanese needed only to increase the pressure slightly, and the withdrawal would turn into a rout.

C
APTAIN
A
PPEL’S PLEA TO HOLD
T
HREE
W
AYS OPEN HAD NOT FALLEN ON
deaf ears. At 0900, Mollard personally risked the Zeros and went by car to Noah’s Mission. He ordered R Company and the remaining personnel from the Headquarters Company to evacuate immediately, and vehicles of every description were rounded up for transportation, including a taxi from the Rabaul Carrying Company. Soldiers piled aboard regardless of rank and were sent off with instructions to get through Three Ways as quickly as possible. When they were safely away, Mollard rejoined McInnes and ordered him to withdraw his company.

The Australians pulled back from Three Ways in an orderly fashion, though not everyone had the luxury of a ride.
“McInnes gave the order to retire by way of Malabunga Junction,” remembered Captain Selby, “and most of the company moved off in whatever transport was available. The majority of my men went with them, but rounding up stragglers I found four of my men who had not succeeded in boarding any of the trucks. We set off on foot under heavy fire from the enemy who were now coming through in great numbers, but their shooting continued to be very wild and erratic.”

Gunner Bloomfield, a member of Selby’s small party, had no ammunition and felt
“completely helpless with only an empty rifle and a bayonet” as he advanced cautiously along the Bamboo Road. The five men soon came across a mortar crew who cautioned them “not to stick around.” It proved to be good advice. Moments later three Zeros roared over and strafed the mortar position. Selby’s party dived into the bushes and waited for a few minutes, but heard no further sound from the direction of the shot-up mortar team.

Rattled by their close call, the antiaircraft men started off again toward Malabunga Junction. It was a harrowing journey, as Selby later described:

I wondered what a good company commander would do in the circumstances—run, crawl or walk. Running seemed both pointless and provocative, and the silly thought crossed my mind that the surest way of being chased by a fierce dog is to run away from him.

Crawling was too slow, so we walked at a brisk pace, only taking cover when diving planes roared down on us. Eventually a truck dashed by, then pulled up in answer to our hail and we climbed aboard. At frequent intervals planes would dive on us, their machine guns blazing, and we would leap off the truck and take cover at the roadside.

The truck, from the 17th Antitank Battery, also stopped a few times for the benefit of other stragglers. During the entire trip, two men rode out on the running boards and kept a constant lookout for enemy planes. They were able to provide ample warning before each strafing attack, which undoubtedly saved lives. One flight of Zeros made three separate strafing runs, according to Bloomfield, but for all their shooting they scored only a single bullet hole in the truck and caused no injuries.

A
FTER THE
A
USTRALIANS WITHDREW FROM
F
OUR
W
AYS AND
T
HREE
W
AYS
, truckloads of evacuating troops raced toward Toma with an increasing sense of urgency. Those that made it past the gauntlet of Zeros on the Bamboo Road just kept going when they reached Malabunga Junction, the drivers refusing to stop even though battalion officers tried to flag them down. Watching as the trucks sped past his headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Carr heard the occupants shout various warnings and gathered the impression that the Japanese had broken through by the thousands.

The atmosphere of alarm and the disturbing rumors were more than he could handle.
“Carr rushed off telling anyone he met that the Japs were coming close behind—when in fact they were busy settling things down in Rabaul,” attested one officer. Carr’s adjutant, Captain Ivan L. Smith, and the brigade major, Captain McLeod, both attempted to halt some of the
speeding trucks, but Carr told them to let the vehicles go. He feared that a traffic jam would block the intersection and prevent everyone from escaping.

At Tomavatur, Colonel Scanlan could also see the stream of trucks that sped along the Glade Road toward Toma. Thus, when Carr phoned him to report on the rapidly deteriorating situation, he decided that it was
“useless to prolong the action” and told Carr to withdraw the 2/22nd Battalion to the Keravat River. The order made no sense. Scanlan knew—or should have known—that Carr had no telephone communications with his scattered companies and could no longer direct their movements.

Carr suggested that the companies withdraw beyond one of three landmarks, whichever was closest: the Keravat River for soldiers in the northern area of the plateau, the Warangoi River for those in the south, and the Baining Mountains via Malabunga Mission for everyone in the middle. Agreeing to this, Scanlan voiced his opinion that it was now a case of “every man for himself.”

In hindsight, Scanlan’s comment was nothing short of astounding. Clearly he was frustrated by his inability to stop the Japanese. It is equally apparent that he never anticipated the profound effect his words would have on virtually every soul in Lark Force. For one thing, the unimaginative Carr interpreted Scanlan’s phrase as an instruction. He passed it verbatim to the signalers
“for transmission to all companies,” and also sent dispatch riders to make certain the scattered companies were informed of the latest development.

One of the riders, Private Creed, found a number of stragglers at Noah’s Mission. Not everyone had gotten the word about the withdrawal, and the new arrivals were milling about in confusion, as though waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Among them, Private Fred Kollmorgen was surprised to see his Salvation Army friend pull up near the old church on a motorcycle.

Austin Creed rode up and said, “I have a direct order from the colonel in charge of the whole area: It is now a matter of every man for himself. Get out of this pickle if you can.”

If it had been anybody else, I would have thought that maybe he’d gotten things mixed up, and it wasn’t really
intended to be “every man for himself,” but to come from a chap that I knew well and believed, he certainly passed that message along to us. There must have been forty or fifty men by this time around Noah’s Mission.

Some of the older fellows, and those who were not terribly well, decided to surrender. But I was young and very active and strong at that
stage. I said, “No, I’m not giving up, I’m going into the bush.”

All across the plateau, as the word of Scanlan’s “orders” trickled from one scattered group to the next, Australians began to withdraw into the jungle. Some decided to not make any attempt to evade the Japanese, as Kollmorgen indicated, but self-preservation was a powerful motivator among the majority of Lark Force.

This included Carr.
“In view of doubt regarding Colonel Scanlan’s future actions,” he later explained, “I had to give serious consideration to my own.” He rationalized that he “would become commander of the guerilla force” if Scanlan surrendered, but there was no way to organize a resistance movement at this late stage. Nevertheless, he was convinced that his only recourse was to head toward the mountains. His first goal was to find Lieutenant Mackenzie, who was
“known to be attempting to go bush with a wireless set from the vicinity of Malabunga.” Carr must have realized that as soon as he left headquarters, all control of his battalion would be lost—but that’s exactly what he did.

At Tomavatur, Captain Selby requested a meeting with Scanlan to discuss options. The NGA adjutant entered Scanlan’s tent, then emerged a few minutes later and said,
“The colonel’s orders are that each man is to fend for himself.” Shelby was stunned, not only by the message but by Scanlan’s refusal to see him in person.

News of the encounter spread quickly among the troops gathered nearby, and many felt a sense of bewilderment.
“Were it not for the seriousness of our situation, one could have been excused for thinking that this was some sort of a joke,” recalled Gunner Bloomfield. “Here was the CO only a few days ago issuing the orders, ‘EVERY MAN WILL FIGHT TO THE LAST’ and ‘THERE SHALL BE NO WITHDRAWAL,’ telling us now that it was ‘EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF.’”

At approximately 1100, Scanlan and a party of five left Tomavatur and began walking toward the Baining Mountains. Carrying the colonel’s large kitbag was Tovakina, a Tolai native who had waited on tables at the officers’ mess before serving as his personal houseboy. The adjutant and a few other members of Scanlan’s staff, including his regular batman, Private Eric A. Angwin, were also in the entourage. Scanlan even invited Bill Harry to accompany them, but the latter declined. Believing the colonel’s departure was
“somewhat premature,” Harry decided to wait for friends.

The battle for Rabaul was not yet over when Scanlan quit the field and left his troops to fend for themselves. Weeks earlier he had called some of his subordinates “defeatist” because they wanted to hide caches of food in the jungle. More recently he had deliberately misled his men, telling them they were going on an exercise and preventing them from being adequately prepared to face the enemy. And now, mere hours after the invasion commenced, Scanlan abandoned his headquarters and walked into the jungle. For a veteran commander who had earned a DSO for gallantry in combat more than twenty years earlier, it was a spectacular capitulation.

Was Scanlan a coward? Probably not. His actions, however wrong, were preordained from the day he arrived at Rabaul. He was doomed to fail, thanks mainly to the War Cabinet’s disregard for Lark Force and the other outlying garrisons. The unavoidable truth was that none of them could withstand the overwhelming power of the Southern Offensive.