Invasion Rabaul (29 page)

K
OLLMORGEN, A TENOR HORN PLAYER, WAS THE ONLY MEMBER OF THE
2/22nd Battalion band to reach Australia. At least seven other bandsmen managed to avoid capture on the day of the invasion, but one by one their luck ran out. Bert Morgan (tenor horn), the only band member known to have tried evading toward the north coast, was the first to be taken prisoner. Six others headed south with various parties. Stanley R. Parker (E-flat bass) was hobbled by a leg infection which resulted in his capture at an unnamed mission station. Ronald H. Cook (trombone) and Bill Haines (tenor horn) were captured at Tol and murdered on February 4. William E. Edwards (drummer) was taken prisoner with Lieutenant Best’s party at Gasmata six days later. Austin Creed (trombone) avoided the massacres and made it past Wide Bay, but then fell ill with malaria and died in a remote village on February 20.

One additional bandsman almost made it off the island. After traveling for a while with Dick Hamill’s group, Frederick J. Meyer (tenor horn) ended up in Dave Laws’ party as they attempted to find the radio at Awul. The group had almost reached the Catholic mission when word came about the arrival of the
Laurabada
, so they raced back to Palmalmal only to learn from Father Harris that the boat had departed four days earlier. Meyer became despondent, and his health plummeted to the point that he was unable or unwilling to fight off a bout of malaria. He died at Wunung on April 27.

A month later, Laws finally escaped with seven men. They left New Britain aboard a repaired motor launch and landed on the coast of New Guinea, then walked over the rugged peninsula to Port Moresby.

But even that amazing odyssey was eclipsed by Ben Dawson. After departing from Marau plantation on the south coast, Dawson and his party walked across New Britain in mid-March. They reached the north coast only to find that the
Lakatoi
had sailed days earlier. There was no faulting Keith McCarthy, who was unaware that another party was trying to reach him; Dawson’s attempt at crossing the island had been a long shot to begin with.

With the aid of various missionaries and natives, Dawson and his men moved from village to village until they reached Talasea in late March. There they found Lincoln Bell, who had stayed to serve as a coastwatcher rather than evacuate on the
Lakatoi
. He transmitted their names and status to Port Moresby, but there was little that ANGAU could do. By that time, the Japanese had captured Lae, Salamaua, and Finschhafen, expanding their influence over the entire Bismarck Archipelago. They also patrolled the seas and skies, making it extremely hazardous for the Australians to attempt a rescue effort.

Leaving two men to help Bell run his boat and radio, Dawson moved to Iboki, where his party lived off the land for a month. On April 24 they moved out to the Vitu Islands using Bell’s boat. After three weeks at a plantation there, they moved again to Unea Island and were picked up by “Blue” Harris in the schooner
Umboi
. Harris wanted to take them directly to Port Moresby, but in early May a clash between Japanese and American carrier forces in the Coral Sea turned the entire region into a hornet’s nest. Harris therefore pointed the
Umboi
westward and delivered Dawson’s party to the village of Bogadjim on the coast of New Guinea.

The big island presented numerous challenges to Dawson and his men. Lieutenant Reginald H. Boyan of ANGAU led them on a wild excursion along the Ramu River valley and through the rugged Bismarck Mountains. At a tiny airstrip near Kainatu, they found several American crewmen from a crashed B-25 bomber. With them were two U.S. Army dive bomber pilots, one of them badly injured. They and another pilot had been dispatched from Port Moresby to rescue the B-25 crew with three Douglas A-24s, but all three planes cracked up while trying to land
on the rough field. One pilot had been killed and another had both legs broken. For an entire month, the combined group stayed near the remote airstrip while awaiting transportation.

Finally, an odd-looking RAAF De Havilland Dragon Rapide biplane arrived. Out jumped Flight Lieutenant John R. “Jerry” Pentland, who matter-of-factly stated that the runway was too short to lift anyone out. They would have to walk twenty-five miles across the Ramu valley to Bena Bena, he said, where there was a better airstrip. Pentland kept his promise, and when the party reached Bena Bena several days later, he evacuated the injured American pilot along with one of Dawson’s noncoms. Returning for a second trip, he flew out another Australian; but when he came back the third time he stated that only Americans could be airlifted.

Dawson was appalled. According to Pentland, someone at Port Moresby had declared that the RAAF wasn’t responsible for transporting Australian soldiers: that was ANGAU’s job. Dawson was instructed to take his party on foot to Wau, then down to the south coast where an administration vessel would pick them up. Having already endured more than five months of incredible hardships, Dawson and his men were compelled to walk another two hundred miles, much of it across the island’s most rugged mountains. Not only had snobbery and service rivalry sunk to an all-time low, but Dawson and his men had become castaways.

Having no other options, Dawson’s party followed the Ramu and Markham valleys for more than 130 twisting miles, reaching Wau on July 15. There, an administration officer ordered them to continue on foot to Bulldog, a camp thirty torturous miles farther across the steep mountains. Once there, they would have to canoe down the Lakekamu River, known for its hoards of mosquitoes and giant sago swamps.

Hearing this, Dawson refused to push his men any further. He sought out the medical officer of the local NGVR contingent, who agreed that the men were unfit for such a journey. All had malaria, and the doctor stated that they were virtually guaranteed to get blackwater fever if they made it as far as the Lakekamu River.

Eventually, Dawson’s men were airlifted to Port Moresby. Instead of going with them, however, he joined the 2/5th Independent Company and remained in the jungles until late September. At last, illness forced him to leave, but the indefatigable lieutenant walked to the coast of
New Guinea
on foot. Battling dysentery, he crossed mountains that soared to 8,500 feet as he trekked more than seventy-five miles to the mouth of the Lakekamu River. From there, he traveled by boat to Port Moresby, and later was hospitalized in Australia. After recovering, he returned to active duty and even served on New Britain again in 1945.

The stamina exhibited by Dawson was truly unique. Of the 385 soldiers rescued from New Britain and New Ireland in 1942, very few reached safety with their health intact. When the
Lakatoi
docked at Cairns on March 28, only six men aboard were deemed fit; two weeks later the
Laurabada
reached Port Moresby with even fewer able-bodied soldiers. Among the smaller parties, virtually everyone was in bad shape. The great majority of returnees, like Fred Kollmorgen, spent weeks or even months in Heidelberg Military Hospital. Tragically, one of the
Lakatoi’
s soldiers was so sick that he did not make it to the hospital. Colin
Dowse, the enthusiastic honky-tonk pianist, completed an incredibly difficult trek across New Britain while battling malaria and escaped from the north coast, but the rigors of the disease proved too much. He died at the Albury railway station, just hours short of the hospital in Melbourne.

Ultimately, only a few of the soldiers who escaped from New Britain got back in the fight. The rest, although technically not wounded in action, were casualties nonetheless because of prolonged illness and malnutrition. Throughout the entire garrison, therefore, the casualty rate exceeded 96 percent, including those killed or wounded in action, those who were executed by the Japanese, and those who died of various causes while trying to escape. Based on that statistic alone, Lark Force suffered one of the worst defeats of World War II among Australian units of battalion size or larger.

Make no mistake: other units, especially those of the Malay Barrier, likewise suffered heavy casualties. Gull Force lasted only three days after the Japanese invaded Ambon on January 30, and approximately 800 of the 1,100-man garrison became POWs. Some remained on Ambon, but most were eventually shipped to labor camps on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Collectively, the Gull Force prisoners endured such brutal treatment that fewer than 25 percent survived captivity.

Sparrow Force fared only slightly better. After two days of heavy fighting on Timor, Lieutenant Colonel Leggatt surrendered the 2/40th Infantry
Battalion to the Japanese on February 23. The battalion lost 84 dead and 132 wounded, and approximately 160 others died in captivity.

In the Egyptian desert, the 2/28th Infantry Battalion was nearly annihilated on the night of July 26-27, 1942. As the forward element of an attempted breakout through Afrika Korps positions near El Alamein, the 2/28th advanced up a rocky hill called Ruin Ridge and was surrounded by Axis tanks and mechanized infantry. After an intense but hopeless fight, the battalion lost 65 dead and 490 captured.

But those bitter defeats were not nearly as disastrous as the one suffered by Lark Force, and the casualty rate was only part of the equation. The contemptible actions of the top two officers and the indifference shown by the War Cabinet also factor heavily, making the fall of Rabaul arguably the worst defeat ever suffered by Australia in any war.

And, as the POWs at Rabaul would discover, the most terrible event was yet to come.

*
The natives had done more for Jack Hart than anyone realized. Later, in Australia, an x-ray of his leg revealed that the broken bone had been set “spot on” and was healing perfectly.

CHAPTER TWELVE

OUTCRY

“Why were reinforcements and equipment withheld from New Britain?”

—Smith’s Weekly
, May 16, 1942

A
s might be expected, the defeat of Lark Force made headlines across Australia. Little was known about the garrison’s fate after the radios on New Britain were knocked out, and the first information to appear in the papers was misleading. “Militia Holds Out In Rabaul,” boasted the
Sydney Sun
on Wednesday, January 28. Under the subtitle, “RAAF Shocks Japs: New Air Blows Likely,” the article explained that a strike from Port Moresby had left two enemy ships ablaze in Simpson Harbor. In truth, a handful of Catalina flying boats had dropped their bombs haphazardly through the clouds, causing little damage. The scant information known about Lark Force itself was presented with less enthusiasm. “The besieged garrison is still holding out west of Rabaul,” invented the writer, “and is believed to be strongly contesting every attempt by the Japanese to mop up the island.”

The effort to save face was almost laughable. Whether it was a case of propaganda gone wild or something more devious—a deliberate attempt to hide the disaster from the public, for example—the reality was that the garrison had been overwhelmed in a matter of hours. The remnants of Lark Force weren’t contesting anything; they were simply trying to survive.

After the first sketchy articles were published, the Australian press revealed nothing more about Lark Force for several weeks. Even after Botham and Nicholls reached Port Moresby on March 1, the story of what
had happened was kept under wraps for more than a month. Finally, on April 6, a detailed account of the invasion appeared in the
Sydney Morning Herald
under the banner headline: “Terrific Odds Faced at Rabaul.”

Once again the accompanying article was heavily fictionalized. The garrison, it claimed, “fought against odds of more than 10 to one and they did not give in until the Japanese landing force, comprising between 17,000 and 20,000 men, had suffered at least 2,000 casualties.” Details of the battle were similarly distorted. “They were squealing like pigs,” one defender allegedly said of the Japanese. “Hundreds of them had been killed as they tried to get across the wire, and their bodies were slumped there in all sorts of grotesque positions.”

The
Sun
went on to claim that Australian casualties numbered “about 700,” including POWs, which implied that approximately half of the garrison was safe. The paper published vivid details of the “nightmare trek” that Nicholls and Botham endured, but those two groups had escaped relatively quickly. Thus, they did not suffer nearly as much as the men who escaped months later. The real horrors were not revealed until the
Laurabada
and
Lakatoi
delivered another 300 members of Lark Force. When the numbers of rescued soldiers from the other small parties were added up, the total didn’t equal 700, or even 400.

Public outrage followed. One of the strongest national voices belonged to
Smith’s Weekly
, a periodical that billed itself as
“The Public Guardian.” The editors demanded an official investigation into the “New Guinea Affair,” as they dubbed it, and reported “evidence of serious bungling.” They appealed directly to Prime Minister John Curtin, asking him “to discover why, in the year the island has been garrisoned, nothing had been done to give the AIF and [militia] forces even a gambler’s chance against the invading Japs.”

Aside from pressuring the government, however, there was little that
Smith’s
or anyone else could do. It was all too apparent that hundreds of men were unaccounted for, but no official explanation was given. With each passing week, the public’s anxiety grew.

I
N THE WAKE OF THE DEBACLE, MOST OF THE RETURNED SOLDIERS WENT BACK
to some semblance of their former civilian life. David Selby resumed the practice of law and eventually became a prominent judge in Papua New
Guinea. Fred Kollmorgen worked for a vegetable grower and drove a produce truck to the Melbourne market three times a week. Others served as civilians in military groups. After spending more than a year in and out of hospitals, David Bloomfield joined a detachment of the American Small Ships and served on the north coast of New Guinea for the duration of the war.