Invasion Rabaul (25 page)

Rather than waiting for a reply,
Ogama sent several landing craft filled with troops to Lassul Bay and nearby beaches over the next two days, taking numerous Australians by surprise. Captain David C. Hutchinson-Smith of the 17th Antitank Battery, whose small party fled from Harvey’s plantation into the jungle, later described the struggle the Australians faced.

The Japanese had covered the distance between the beach and the plantation in a remarkably short time and opened up with mortar, light machine gun and small arms fire. My small group was soon sheltering in a donga and derived the maximum psychological and minimum physical protection from the leafy branches of a diminutive coffee tree.

At about dusk, contact was made with another small party and it was decided to have a scratch meal and camp till morning …

We had not been seated in a tiny clearing for more than 20 minutes when a surly, insolent Kanaka “boy” came through the gloom and handed me a note.
^*
It was
to the effect that he had been instructed to state that if we gave ourselves up our lives would be guaranteed, that the Japanese knew where we were, and that if we did not surrender, all troops in the area would be killed. That they did know our whereabouts was evidenced by the fact that the “boy” had delivered the note, and we were thus faced with a problem which was one for individual decision.

Hutchinson-Smith pondered his choices only briefly. His group possessed just enough food for one or two “very scanty” meals, and none of his men had the strength to walk more than a few miles. Thus, he and two enlisted men followed the native back toward the plantation. They were taken prisoner and escorted to the main house, where approximately sixty other captured Australians were already sitting on the lawn. The prisoners were somewhat surprised to be served a meal of steamed rice, bully beef, and canned beets—more food than they’d seen in weeks.

But their gratification, recalled Hutchinson-Smith, was tempered by the sight of a local half-German individual who was helping the Japanese.
“[Joseph] Rokker was ingratiating himself with the Japs and was overbearing and insolent in his attitude to us. He had always been surly when he held the contract for the supply of firewood to Malaguna Camp before the attack, and from his frequent visits to the camp he was probably in a position to give quite a deal of information to the Japanese on local military matters.”

That night, the captives were ferried out to the
Duranbah
, a large copra vessel. The next day it moved slowly toward Rabaul, stopping at several points along the way to pick up more prisoners. Ogama’s dragnet had captured approximately 160 soldiers, including four officers of the 17th Antitank Battery and four from the 2/22nd Battalion. Delivered to Rabaul in the
Duranbah
, they found themselves back in their former camp on Malaguna Road. “And so,” added Hutchinson-Smith, “the prodigal sons returned to the fold.”

Evidently satisfied with bagging such a large number of prisoners, Ogama discontinued the pursuit and sent his troops back to their encampment near
the Keravat. However, with a little more effort they could have captured twice as many Australians. Trapped between the mountains and the sea, Pip Appel and nearly two hundred others were critically low on food. They were separated into several groups, each of which faced conditions that grew ever more intolerable.

A
T
P
ONDO
, K
EITH
M
C
C
ARTHY LEARNED THAT MORE
A
USTRALIANS WERE IN
hiding than he’d originally thought. In addition to the men still holding out on the north shore, there were hundreds of Lark Force soldiers scattered among several plantations on the south coast. Eager to rescue as many as possible, he approached Frank Holland, a local timber merchant, and asked him to hike across the island to Wide Bay. He was to contact any soldiers he could find there, then guide them back to Pondo. A superbly fit individual of many talents, Holland immediately accepted the challenge.

With six armed police boys and several native carriers, Holland started out from Open Bay on February 20. If it seemed a large party for such a short journey—it was only twenty miles to Wide Bay on the opposite coast—there was good reason. The mountainous terrain was the domain of the Mokolkol tribe, a mysterious band of warriors feared for their exceptional ferocity and stealth. The precautions were justified. On the third day out, Holland’s party was attacked by axe-wielding warriors, and one of the police boys was badly cut on the arm. The warriors struck again the next day, but two of them were killed and three others wounded. The Mokolkols attempted no more attacks during the rest of the journey.

Just north of Wide Bay, near the Mavelo River, Holland came upon Alf Robinson, still scrounging on his own while waiting for his mangled hands to heal. Holland learned that Lieutenant Colonel Carr and Police Commissioner Ball were camped only six miles down the trail at Ril plantation, so he pressed ahead with two of the police boys and left the others to care for Robinson. During the next several days, Holland tried to catch Carr’s party but was unable to gain ground. The soldiers kept moving south, always staying a day or two ahead. Holland sent a runner with a message, but the attempt failed because the recipients thought the native was trying to deceive them. To Holland, it began to appear as though his trek across the island had been in vain.

I
RONICALLY
, C
ARR’S GROUP HAD PICKED UP THEIR PACE SHORTLY BEFORE
Holland approached the south coast. Previously, they had moved down the island with slow deliberation. As Peter Figgis later put it,
“We weren’t racing down the coast like the rest of them, who were unfortunately in a bit of a panic.” Indeed, they spent a whole week at Riat before an advance party consisting of Figgis, Bill Harry, and Ivan Smith departed for Lemingi. Arriving on the morning of January 31, they found Father Meierhofer caring for a few men in bad health; otherwise, dozens of soldiers had already passed through the mission and were gone. The remainder of Carr’s party reached Lemingi a day later, and once they discovered the luxuries of hot food and solid roofs over their heads, they decided to linger for several more days. Figgis and Hugh Mackenzie moved on, anxious to find the two-way radio that was allegedly at Tol plantation.

Accompanied by Rifleman K. C. J. “Ken” Stone, a former AWA telegraph operator who had enlisted in the NGVR and was later seconded to naval intelligence, they reached Tol on February 14. There was no radio, of course. Instead, they found only the terrible detritus of the slaughter that had occurred ten days earlier. As they searched through the plantation they uncovered more grisly evidence of the atrocities, and Figgis found Norm Walkley. Remarkably, the twenty-two-year-old private was still alive but in dreadful shape, his wounds having become infected. The newcomers thought he was the only survivor, and were dismayed that he was beyond saving.

By this time, the conditions among the coconut groves at Tol and Waitavalo were appalling. The bodies strewn on the ground had been decomposing for ten days in the tropical heat, and though they still held a human shape, they were too bloated and blackened for identification. Handling the corpses for burial was out of the question. Whatever was left after being scavenged by birds, insects, and small animals was swarming with maggots; and if such corruption wasn’t repugnant enough by itself, the very atmosphere was polluted with the stench of hydrogen sulfide and methane gases.
“It wasn’t very nice,” admitted Figgis with typical understatement. He, Mackenzie, and Stone collected several “meat tickets,” as they called the metal identification tags, but there was nothing else the living could do for the dead. Within a few weeks, nature would reduce the corpses to clean skeletons.

Next, while searching the buildings at Waitavalo, Mackenzie and Figgis made another gruesome discovery: inside one charred structure was the body of a soldier, and the evidence clearly showed that he had been alive when the building was torched.
“We lifted out several sheets of iron and found a corpse that had been burned,” Mackenzie told an investigating committee later. “The corpse was within a few feet of the back entrance of the house and was on its hands and knees with one arm flung around a watering can. The attitude was that of a man attempting to crawl out of the house. There was a smell as if there was another corpse in the house but I did not see it.”

The search party was unaware that several Australians had survived the massacres. In due time, the full extent of the Japanese atrocities would be revealed to the world.

H
IGH IN THE MOUNTAINS, MEANWHILE, THERE HAD BEEN A CHANGE OF
leadership among the Australians at Lemingi. Howard Carr, officially the ranking officer, gradually assumed a secondary position. “The Bodger” had already lost the respect of his men before the war started, then behaved irrationally during the invasion. In the jungle, he was just another lost soldier on the run. Fortunately for the rest of the party, a few capable individuals were prepared to step forward when their talents were needed.

One notable example was Chief Yeoman Stephen Lamont. Born near Belfast in 1898 and said to be
“as Irish as Paddy’s pig,” he was a veteran of the Royal Navy during World War I. Later he became a coastwatcher in the mandated territory, and by coincidence had retired from that duty only a few days before Rabaul fell. He was awaiting transportation to Australia when the Japanese spoiled his plans.

Bruce Ball, the police commissioner, had served in the British Army during World War I, and was likewise more than competent in the jungle. And there was Richard E. P. “Larry” Dwyer, a rifleman in the NGVR who had worked in the New Guinea Department of Agriculture before the war. The others relied on his expertise regarding “
all matters edible.”

Between them, the three men had accumulated dozens of years of practical experience in the islands. They were familiar with the local customs and, most importantly, could converse with the natives in Pidgin English. Over the past twenty years, missionaries and territorial administrators had
promoted its use to the point that Pidgin English bridged many of the innumerable dialects spoken by different tribes. The sing-song language had a surprisingly large vocabulary, and the soldiers of Lark Force benefited from learning basic
words for day-to-day survival.
Kaikai
(food),
wara
(water),
haus
(hut), and
balus
(airplane) were among the most vital.

Ball, a no-nonsense character and tough policeman, gradually became the leader of the Australians at Lemingi. They remained with Father Alfons Meierhofer until February 7, then walked to Adler Bay. By that time only one small party remained nearby at Sum Sum plantation, and Bill Harry hiked there with Ivan Smith on February 12. They found Colin N. M. Stirling, a lieutenant from R Company, living with several other soldiers in relative comfort. They had plenty of rice and livestock available, and therefore declined Smith’s offer to join the southbound group. Stirling and his party would later regret their decision.

Smith and Harry rejoined Ball’s party, which resumed the journey south. A day or two later, Harry was scouting ahead with Larry Dwyer when they came upon a quiet freshwater stream. After washing the remnants of their uniforms, they bathed in the cool water while their clothing dried in the sun. Howard Carr suddenly appeared at the edge of the stream, and without preamble inquired, “Well, Larry, have you found any
kaikai
around?”

Momentarily befuddled by Carr’s abrupt question,
Dwyer recovered quickly. He rose slowly until he stood naked in the stream, then extended his arm and pointed at the canopy of a massive tree high above. “There is a fungus up there,” he said deadpan, “which the natives sometimes eat. Good food, too—chock full of carbohydrates and protein.” Carr simply ambled off without saying another word.

Back on the move again, Ball’s group was just north of Tol plantation on February 14 when they met Scanlan’s party walking in the opposite direction. The colonel was sullen and withdrawn, so John Mollard did most of the talking. After first explaining that their party was headed back to Rabaul to surrender, he tried to persuade Ball’s group to join them.
“Mollard stressed that there was no hope of evacuation from the island,” recalled Harry, “and by surrendering to the Japanese there was a chance they would live.” No one from either party changed their minds, and the groups went their separate ways.

Next, Ball’s party stopped at Ril plantation, halfway between Tol and Kalai. They found the emaciated Alf Robinson, who declined an invitation to join their group. Until the telltale wounds on his wrists healed, he was fearful of leaving the relative safety of the plantation.

While the party rested at Ril, one of the young naval ratings died from malaria. The death of Signalman Arthur E. Francis on February 24 seemed to echo Mollard’s warning. As a result, the men decided to continue southward at a faster pace than before, unaware that Holland was trying to catch up with them. Near Kalai, they came upon six warrant officers living in an old copra shed. All were former policemen from Ball’s jurisdiction in the New Guinea constabulary. Although they knew each other well and were invited to join Ball’s party, they preferred to remain at Kalai for the time being rather than head south.

Moving on without delay, Ball’s group arrived at the village of Milim, approximately fifteen miles south of Kalai, on February 26. The villagers had fled after a gang of laborers from a nearby plantation took over their huts. Such changes were not unusual after the invasion, as most white plantation owners had abandoned their properties, leaving the native workers with no supervision. Islanders from the Admiralties and other “outside” areas frequently formed into gangs, some of which were influenced by Japanese bribes and rewards. In exchange, the gangs reported on local activities and pressured other natives into turning pro-Japanese.