This episode brought the war more or less to our front door. Although the Japanese had not entered the war there was still an air of complacency in New Guinea. But I now thought it time to get Rene, Margaret and Janette back to Australia. Rene did not want to go and it was not until April 1941 that she eventually left on the Burns Philp ship “Macdhui” (Captain Michie). Just before Macdhui pulled out from the wharf, Merrillees the District Officer, told Rene he was the most pleased man in Kavieng to see her and the children getting away as the responsibility for their safety had worried him quite a lot. He was only expressing my own fears and sentiments. A few weeks after departure of Macdhui, the 1st Australian Independent Company commanded by Major Edmonds-Wilson arrived in Kavieng – about May or June 1941. Their Complement consisted of about a dozen officers and about 300 other ranks. Also on the ship were other troops and civilians going on to Darwin.
The Independent Company was a fine body of men. The Officers were made members of the Kavieng Club and we got to know them quite well.
A small force of about 20 soldiers went to Manus Island near Rabaul and the same number to Bougainville Island this troop did very good work during the Japanese occupation and the Manus troop were fortunate enough to escape to Madang and then cross overland to the highlands and were airlifted to Moresby. The remainder of the Independent Company were captured by the Japanese and only the officers survived the war.
I left Kavieng September 1941. I was transferred to Rabaul and my relief was Bill Thomas. When I arrived in Rabaul the 2nd/22nd Battalion was stationed there. They were a fine lot of men but they did not seem to realise there was a war on they just seemed to think they were doing garrison duty. There was certainly no preparations’ being made in case of an invasion, although at this time Japan had not declared war, yet everyone seemed to realise it was only a matter of time before they did so.
Most of the civilians volunteered into the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, but trained independently of the 2/22nd Battalion. The NGVR comprised about 80 civilians, practically the whole of the medically fit young Europeans in Rabaul. The war was still a long way off as far as Rabaul was concerned the war was thousands of miles away.
At this point we had several coast watching stations at various points operating into Rabaul There was Percy Good at Kessa Plantation on Buka Island, Con Page on Tabar Island just off New Ireland and Guy Allen on the Duke of York Islands. There were several other coast watching stations scattered round, but the three I have mentioned were the stations from which we got all our warnings from of Japanese aircraft coming to Rabaul. Rabaul was fitted out with what was called “X” frequency
This “X” frequency receiver was on loud speaker day and night and when the coast watcher had information to convey he called Rabaul and passed the information without further delay. Early in December 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and practically destroyed the whole of the American Pacific Fleet with aircraft alone.
Japan had a very formidable navy based in the Caroline Islands, Truk being their main base; it was from this base that all the Japanese planes came to bomb Rabaul. By the end of 1941 practically all the women and children had been evacuated from Rabaul by ship and aircraft.
For the next couple of weeks Rabaul was being bombed almost daily but the news never appeared in the Australian newspapers. On January 20t there was a big air raid on Rabaul. There were 110 bombers and 10 zeros. Our “X” frequency receiver nearly ran hot; warnings were coming in from all directions. Apart from the usual warnings from Tabar, Kavieng and Emirau, we had reports from Good at Kessa on Buka, Alan on the Duke of York Islands and other coast watchers down the coast of New Britain.
The fact that planes were seen by so many coast watchers at so widely scattered places and especially seeing zeros convinced the authorities that there must have been aircraft carriers in close vicinity. When these bombers and fighters came over, our six and only Wirraways which had been forewarned were waiting at about 10,000 feet to intercept the bombers. When the bombers arrived the Wirraways swooped down on them. Then the Zeros swooped on the Wirraways and within 5 minutes, more or less, we saw all our Wirraways shot out of the sky. The bombers were flying so low we could see the Japanese.
They were only a couple of hundred feet high. The dive bombers were attacking all the shipping in the harbour. There was a big 6’000 ton Norwegian freighter next bombs hit her amidships and the next lot hit her aft. By this time she was a blazing inferno and through it all was a gunner on the main bridge blasting away at the dive bombers until the bridge collapsed. All Tuesday night this ship which had broken away from the wharf, drifted about the harbour her plates red hot? She was still drifting about the harbour when we decided to try to escape from Rabaul on the Thursday. There were two 6inch guns mounted on Praed Point near the Matupi crater. These were destroyed during this raid and the casualties among those manning these guns were high. Those killed and wounded were taken to Namanula hospital.
On Wednesday 21st January all civilians were ordered out of Rabaul. Chinese Europeans and natives deserted Rabaul and most of them went into the hills round Namanula. We of Amalgamated Wireless were the only people in Rabaul now.
During Wednesday we busied ourselves tearing up all our records etc. and stuffing them into unused receivers. We had two 44 gallon drums of petrol with the bungs out ready to be pushed over when we were ready to leave, also a few 4 gallon tins which we were to scatter around before leaving. We were still in communication with Sydney and the Navy at Port Moresby.
On Wednesday night we were sitting around in the radio office when Ken stone came to me and said he was leaving and we decided also. We had not gone more than a mile when we ran out of petrol; fortunately we had a four gallon tin of petrol in the car. We then went on to Kokopo but by the time we got to Ralum we could see the “Iboki” about a mile out. We waved towels and singlets to attract attention of Luke and Mrs Boles and to our great delight they sighted us and turned in towards Ralum. When they got to within a few hundred yards of us they turned out to sea again. We waved and shouted to them again and to our relief they came back and picked us up. Bill Luke told us that when they got near us the first time, they thought we may have been Japanese and that was why they turned out to sea again.
We left the car on the road and all piled into the “Iboki.” On our way towards Cape Gazelle we passed Jack Gilmore’s pinnace the “Gaua” and spoke to the native captain, who said he was going back to Kokopo to pick up Jack Gilmore. We continued on our way and about half an hour later after passing Cape Gazelle we noticed the Burns Philp inter Island ship “Matafili”150tons following us. The “Iboki was a 12ton schooner so we decided to cut across Matafili’s course and ask them to pick us up and take us to Samarai, where they seemed to be heading, it was just dusk when the Matafili came up to us. We hailed the Captain {Taffy Williams} and he asked us who we were?
We told him we belonged to AWA. He could distinctly see us and Mrs Boles as we were only about 50yards from him. The next thing we heard the clang clang order down to the engine room and the Matafili continued on her way, after telling us not to go to Rabaul.
When we found the Matafili had no intention of picking us up we altered course for the south coast of New Britain, making for Wide Bay and we arrived there on Friday morning 23rd January 1942. We anchored of Tol Plantation which was operated by an old friend of Manus days of 1920 George Naess. George made us very welcome. The Government schooner Leander, was already anchored at Tol when we arrived, a little later the Poseidon arrived with the chief collector of customs, MajorTom McAdam Frank Burke, Joe Morris, the chief auditor and also some soldiers and air force personnel aboard. I understand they left Rabaul a couple of days before our party on the Iboki did. The Kabakul was also anchored at Tol. I think Vic Pennyfather and Mick Thomas and her owner Oscar Rondahl were on board. The Gaua arrived a little later than us and I think Jack Gilmore was the only one on her. The captain of the “Leander Eric Howitt came to us about noon and asked us to join him on the Leander as all his boat’s crew had deserted him. She was a much bigger craft than the Iboki (about 40 tons) and Ernie Vidor was the engineer. We all transferred to the Leander and left that afternoon for Waterfall Bay, where Mrs Boles had her sawmill.
I tried hard to prevail upon George Naess to come with us, but after putting a crate of fowls and some rice on board, he decided to stay. He told me he started Tol Plantation from virgin bush and it was just coming into bearing and after about 15 years of hard work, he could not leave it. Poor George was later killed by the Japanese who made him and another chap named Levien dig their own graves and then shot them.
About 5.30 that afternoon we noticed two Japanese seaplanes headed towards us flying very low about 50feet above the water. We decided to turn the ship towards the shore and take to the bush, fortunately the planes veered off and proceeded to Wide Bay and we proceeded onto Waterfall Bay and due to weather conditions made for Palmalal plantation for the night, Bill Battis plantation manager decided to come with us. We left at daylight continued on our way and picked up Frank Cutler at Caturp plantation, Captain Tom McAdam came with us from Tol. While anchored at Caturp Luke Watson he did not know where he was going and was rather apprehensive as what would happen to him we went to the house and opened a bottle of whisky and both had a few strong nips we finished half the bottle and Ken had to leave.
We met an army officer with four soldiers in a lorry who asked us who we were; we told him and our intentions. He said we had better get away as there were 11 Japanese transports anchored off Watum Island about 3 miles over the hills from Rabaul and the Japanese were coming ashore. Hooper was sending the last message out to Sydney and I was sending the last message to the Navy in Port Moresby. I told them there were 11 Japanese transports landing troops at Watum Island. He gave me OK for the message and wished us luck.
During the morning Mrs Boles arrived who had a sawmill at Waterfall Bay she arrived in Rabaul with her schooner “Iboki” loaded with timber. Bill Luke of the wireless staff, who was very friendly with her went on board and eventually convinced her to get out of Rabaul as quickly as possible. Bill and Mrs Boles left Rabaul on the Iboki about 2pm About 2.30 the rest of the wireless staff consisting of Farnsworth, Bishton, Hooper, Brown, Eldridge, Watson, James and Groom left by car I was the only one who knew the country past Kokopo. I had been stationed at Bita Paka where the wireless station was situated before it was transferred to Rabaul. The rest of the party had never been to Bita Paka, so I was appointed to lead the party.
When we left Rabaul we could see the “Iboki” sailing down Simpson Harbor and I thought if we could get around to Cape Gazelle, which was about 30 miles from Rabaul, we might get there before the “Iboki” which would have to pass within a couple of hundred yards of the Cape and they could take us on board.
We had only gone about3 miles along the road to Kokopo and were just passing the schooner Kwong Chow which was anchored right inshore under a large Calaphilium tree when we were almost blown out of the car by a terrific explosion. Farnsworth who was driving the car turned it into the bush and we all scrambled out and took cover. We thought at the time that it was a Japanese plane trying to bomb the Kwan Chow, but learned later it was the military destroying a big bomb dump. It did not take us long to get the car back on the road and on our way again.
Groom and Mrs Boles went across the Bay to Mrs Boles sawmill to collect bedding and all available foodstuffs also her sawyer Mr. A Schacht. While they were at the mill the “Kabakul arrived there with an air force officer and a patrol officer who took over Mrs Boles’ Teleradio set to try and contact Moresby. They also asked us to send a message to Moresby to the RAAF telling them there were about 90 air orce personnel at Wide Bay needing assistance. This we did with the wireless set we had aboard “Leander”. We learned later in Moresby that our message had got through and the air force personnel were eventually picked up. While anchored at Caturp, we noticed the Gaua and the Posiden passing, steering down the south coast. We left Caturp plantation at 5.30pm the following day with the following on board – Captain Howitt, Engineer Vidor, Mrs Boles, Farnsworth, Bishton, Hooper, Brown, Eldridge, Watson, James, Luke, Groom, Schacht, Cutler, Battis, McAdam, and three natives. Just after leaving Caturp we decided to steer due south as we had no charts and reckoned we should hit the Trobriand Islands.
We had not gone more than about 4 miles when we sighted what appeared to be the Posiden with all sails set, travelling on a parallel course to ours, it was just getting dark and visibility was not good. To our dismay we found that it was not the Posiden but two Japanese destroyers closing in on us. We turned off our course and went flat out to get back inside the reef we had just left with the Japanese after us. For some unknown reason, they stopped, possibly on account of getting too close to land, or a rain squall which then just blew up or the approaching darkness. The rain squall completely obliterated everything, so we decided to turn around again on our original course for the Trobriands. By the time the squall had passed it was completely dark. We travelled all that night and all the next day, which was very dull and cloudy and arrived at Katava in the Trobriands on Sunday evening 25th January, after a pretty rough trip. We learned that the Japanese bombers had been over that morning and bombed the island. At Katava the old wreck of the Admiral Wylie is still visible and possibly the Japanese were trying to bomb her, not knowing she was a wreck, we learned later over the wireless from Tokyo that they had bombed a troopship in “this vicinity.” We cruised around the Trobriands all day and anchored the next day. Monday26th between Kiriwana and Vakuta Islands, while we were anchored there we noticed a small launch approaching
When they arrived they heaved a sigh of relief as they thought we may have been Japanese. When they saw us in the distance they threw their Teleradio set overboard also their rifles guns and ammunition. They were very pleased to abandon their launch and come with us. We were delighted to have them as they were locals and knew the waters well, whereas we knew nothing of these waters and would almost certainly have hit on a reef somewhere. On this launch were Mr.Brewer a resident magistrate, the Reverend Kieth Gordon and Mr Cameron of Katava Plantation. They were on there way to Samarai when they encountered us. We left this anchorage at 5pm on 26th January and eventually arrived at Samarai, it was practically deserted.
The Burns Philp store was wide open and had been looted. We helped ourselves to things we needed. We left Samarai at 9am Wednesday 28th with 30 souls on board, the extra seven being miners from Misima Island. We struck very rough weather on the way to Port Moresby, big seas and strong head winds and arrived at 3pm. Friday 30th January
While at Moresby we all remained on board the Leander and were provisioned by the authorities who supplied us with plenty of fresh meat. Butter and vegetables.
On Monday 2nd February the navy commandeered the “Leander for their own use. We were then quartered at the Moresby Wireless Station. The next thing we were all told to report for medical examination. We were attested and inducted into the Army.