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The intriguing military history of Rabaul during World War II

Published on May 19, 2020

Culture

If you are not familiar with Rabaul, it is a township in East New Britain province in the country of Papua New Guinea.

Located on the New Britain island, the town used to be an important settlement in the province until it was destroyed no thanks to falling ash from a volcanic eruption in 1994.

Looking back to its establishment history, Rabaul was built around the harbor area called as Simpsonhafen under the German New Guinea administration from 1884 until 1919. The British Empire then captured the township during the early days of World War I (WWI).

Life before World War II (WWII)

According to Ian Townsend writing for ABC Radio Nation in 2017, Australia was given a mandate to administer New Guinea as its territory after WWI. For most of the two decades between the wars, Rabaul was its Australian capital of New Guinea.

Townsend stated, “It (Rabaul) looked a lot like a Queensland town, with high-set wooden homes and wide verandahs, red roofs and gardens of frangipani and bougainvillaea.

Australian businessmen, public servants and planters walked the wide, shady streets in white suits and stopped at the pubs to drink Australian beer.”

The town even had a racetrack, picture theaters and an Australian school.

The dawn of WWII

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour on Dec 7, 1941, the country of the Rising Sun started to take control of some of the islands, including Borneo and the Philippines.

It was then expected that Rabaul would be on the list of targets. Hence, by the end of that December, the women and children (except for Chinese migrants and the local indigenous people) were evacuated.

Families were separated during the evacuation as about 2,000 Australian soldiers and male civilians were left behind in Rabaul.

The Japanese called the invasion Operation R and historians later on mostly referred to it as the Battle of Rabaul (1942).

On Jan 4, 1942, the Japanese carrier-based aircraft started its assault on the town particularly on its Vunakanau Airfield situated on a plateau just outside Rabaul.

By Jan 20, a force of over 100 Japanese aircraft comprising bombers, dive bombers and fighter escort, converged on Rabaul.

Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who had controlled the attack on Pearl Harbour, led the Japanese force in the battle.

As the odds stacked up against the Australians, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) commander John Lerew sent a signal to RAAF HQ in Melbourne. He signalled the Latin motto “Nos Morituri Te Salatamus” (“We who are about to die salute you”), a phrase said by gladiators in ancient Rome before entering combat.

Sure enough, the Japanese invasion force quickly overwhelmed the small Australian garrison.

In the days following the invasion of Rabaul, the Japanese began mopping up operations starting on Jan 24.

The Japanese posted up and dropped from planes leaflets in English stating, “You can find neither food nor way of escape in this island and you will only die of hunger unless you surrender.”

Awm P02395.012 — The Adler River, in the Bainings Mountains on the eastern side of the Gazelle Peninsula, an obstacle to the Australian troops retreating from Rabaul after the successful attack by Japanese forces. This is the point where at least two parties of retreating Australian troops crossed the Adler River. The first party of twenty one men from the Anti-aircraft Battery Rabaul and the 17th Anti-tank Battery crossed here on 1942-01-26 securing a lawyer vine rope to cross the river. This image was taken in late January 1942 and shows some of the men of Sergeant L. I. H. (Les) Robbins’ party fording the river as they make their way south toward Palmalmal Plantation and rescue in April 1942. Credit: Public Domain.

Why the Japanese wanted to attack Rabaul?

There are many reasons why the Japanese decided to capture this island town. While Japanese captured towns such as Tarakan and Balikpapan in Indonesia and Miri in Sarawak for their oil and gas, they wanted Rabaul so that they could turn it into a major base.

According to Gordon L. Rottmah in World War II Pacific Island Guide, Rabaul provided an ideal location to base a fleet, air assets and command and control centres for the Japanese.

The site was strategic for them to direct, launch and support the conquest of New Guinea and the South Pacific region.

“It was centrally located, and initially at least, far enough from Allied bases to protect it from air and sea attack. It possesses one of the best anchorages in the region and held abundant sites for airfields,” Rottmah stated.

Besides, its location was significant because of its proximity to the Japanese territory of the Caroline Islands, a site of a major Imperial Japanese Navy base on Truk about 1,800 km northeast of New Guinea.

Under Japanese occupation

Once they had captured the town, the Japanese wasted no time in developing it. Rottmah pointed out that the Japanese airfield program in Rabaul was extensive, with Vunakanau becoming the main Japanese airbase.

They dug many kilometres of tunnels as shelter from Allied air attacks such as the bombing of November 1943.

Additionally, they also expanded the facilities by construction army barracks and support structures.

By the summer of 1943, there were more than 100,000 Japanese troops based in Rabaul.

Operation Cartwheel

1114px New guinea — Map of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, Papua and Bougainville 1942-45 showing sites of various battles and strategic locations. Credit: Public Domain.

With that high number of Japanese troops, how could the Allied forces possibly recapture the town?

Hence, instead of trying to capture Rabaul town, the Allies determined to neutralise Rabaul by isolating it and eliminating its airpower.

The Allied forced decided to bypass it by establishing a ring of airfields and naval bases on the islands around it.

The plan was initiated at the end of April 1943 in the codenamed ‘Operation Cartwheel’.

It called for General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific Areas to approach Rabaul town from the southwest, through New Guinea and the southern Bismarcks.

Meanwhile, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz would advance through the Solomons, forming two pincers that would close in on the Japanese base.

The Allied forces involved were from Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the US and various Pacific islands.

On each island the Allied forces captured, they constructed air bases, allowing them to block any westward movement by the Japanese.

Operation Cartwheel, which stretched from 1943 to 1944, proved the effectiveness of a strategy of avoiding major concentrations of enemy forces and aiming to sever the Japanese lines of supply and communication instead.

The Neutralisation of Rabaul town

US Marine Airstrike on Rabaul — A photo taken from a Marine SBD during an airstrike on Rabaul, 1944. Credit: Public Domain.

Once the Allied forces managed to slowly isolate Rabaul, they began air raid attacks on it. Allied fighters and bombers continue to attack the town through 1944 and 1945.

The Allied forces began to call the attack on Rabaul town ‘milk run’. It is a phrase US Army Air Corps and UK Royal Air Force (RAF) aircrew used to describe any mission where minimal resistance from the enemy was expected.

Eventually, the Allied forces used Rabaul as a live-fire exercise to give aircrew some training and taste of combat before the real deal.

As for the Japanese, they suffered a lot during the campaign. First of all, they no longer had a base which they could threaten the Allied in the Solomons.

Secondly, they lost many of their experienced carrier pilots and aviation maintenance personnel.

The last Allied airstrike took place on Aug 8, 1945, only weeks before the Japanese surrender.

Australian Military Court

After the war from 1945 till 1951, Australian Military Courts convened in Maratoi, Wewak, Labuan, Darwin, Singapore, Hong Kong, Manus Island and Rabaul.

Overall, 300 war crimes trials took place with 190 of them convened in Rabaul.

By the end, 812 mostly Japanese and some Korean as well as Taiwanese alleged war criminals had been tried.

The charges included ill-treatment, murder, massacre, cannibalism and other violations of war laws.

In Rabaul, there were five command responsibility trials. Sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, command responsibility is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes.

It is an omission mode of individual criminal liability and the superior is responsible for crimes committed by his subordinates.

The command responsibility trials that convened in Rabaul were namely against Major General Hirota Akira, Lieutenant General Adachi Hatazo, Lt Gen Kato Rinpei, Gen Imamura Hitoshi and Lt Gen Baba Masao.

A Japanese Manga artist and his military history in Rabaul

Of all the WWII stories which came out from Rabaul town, one of the most interesting accounts must be the story Shigeru Mizuki (1922-2015).

He was a Japanese manga artist and historian, best known for his manga series GeGeGe no Kitaro.

In 1942, he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army and sent to New Britain Island.

There, he contracted malaria and watched his fellow comrades died from battle wounds and disease.

During one of the Allied forces air raid, Mizuki was caught in an explosion and lost his dominant left arm.

Being the only survivor of his unit, Mizuki was instructed to commit suicide, an order he considered ridiculous.

While in a Japanese hospital Rabaul, he made friends with the local Tolai tribe. They even offered him land, a home and an offer to marry a Tolai woman.

At first, Mizuki considered the offer to remain behind in Rabaul. However, after being rebuked by a military doctor for his plan, he eventually returned home to Japan reluctantly.

The aftermath of WWII

After WWII, Rabaul and the whole of eastern New Guinea was returned to pre-war administrator Australia.

At least 1,200 Australian soldiers and civilians died within the six months following the invasion.

While some died during the battles, about 160 were massacred in the jungle on Feb 4, 1942. About 800 soldiers and 200 civilian prisoners of war (most of them Australians) lost their lives on July 1, 1942.

They drowned when the prison ship Montevideo Maru which they boarded heading to Japan from Rabaul was sunk by an American submarine.

The saddest part is that most of the families of the civilians never really knew what happened to their loved ones who were left behind in Rabaul town.

These civilian men were never given the option of leaving in the first place.

Did they die during the battle, did the Japanese massacre them or were they in the sunken prison ship? With no proper records during the Japanese occupation, we will never know and their families will never have closure.

Fast forward to the present day, tourism is a now major industry of the town. It is popular for its volcanoes, flora and fauna and the culture of the Tolai people.

To top it all, its rich WWII history provides the town with plenty of historical sites to visit and shipwrecks to explore for scuba diving.

The trial of Japanese general Masao Baba for the Sandakan Death Marches

Published on May 11, 2020

Culture

The Borneo Campaign of 1945 was the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific Area during World War II (WWII) to liberate Japanese-held British Borneo and Dutch Borneo.

The Allied forces called it Operation Oboe and it was a series of amphibious assaults between May 1 and July 21.

On the Allied forces’ side, the Australian I Corps under Lieutenant-General Leslie Morshead conducted the assault. Meanwhile, the Imperial Japanese forces had Vice-Admiral Michiaki Kamada leading the naval garrison and the 37th Army under Lieutenant-General Masao Baba guarding the island.

Initially, the campaign was planned to involve six stages of landing. Eventually, the landings took place in four; Tarakan, Labuan, Balikpapan and North Borneo (Sabah).

During the campaign, Baba organised anti-guerrilla operations in the interior of Borneo island as an act retaliation against the Allied forces. After a series of attacks, the campaign and the war were finally put to an end after the Japanese surrendered.

On Aug 15, 1945, Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Imperial Japan. He formally signed it on Sept 2 bringing WWII to an end.

Later on, all Japanese forces were instructed to surrender, including Baba.

He turned over his sword to Major General George Wooten of the Australian 9th Division as a sign of surrender on Sept 10, 1945 in Labuan.

The place where Baba surrendered in Labuan near Layang-layang beach is now fittingly known as Surrender Point.

Australian troops land from USS LST 560 at Labuan on 10 June 1945 — Australian troops land from USS LST-560, at Labuan Island in Brunei Bay, 10 June 1945. Credits: Public Domain

The aftermath of Borneo Campaign 1945

After North Borneo was liberated from Japanese forces, the war crimes that took place during the war began to be unveiled.

The most heinous war crime which happened in Sabah during WWII was none other than the Sandakan Death Marches. These were a series of forced marches in Borneo from Sandakan to Ranau.

It resulted in the deaths of 2,434 Allied Prisoners of War (POWs). By the end of the war, of all prisoners who had been incarcerated at Sandakan and Ranau, only six Australians survived.

It is widely considered to be the single worst atrocity suffered by Australian servicemen during WWII.

After the war, Baba was officially discharged from the Imperial Japanese Army in April 1946.

As the head of Japanese forces in Borneo toward the end of the war, Baba was suspected of being involved in Sandakan Death Marches.

Japanese Surrender Labuan OG3495 — Lieutenant-General Masao Baba (centre), at Labuan airstrip on his way to sign the official surrender document on Sept 10, 1945. Credit: Public Domain.

The trial against Masao Baba

Afterward, Baba was arrested in January 1947 and brought to Rabaul, Territory of New Guinea for trial under the charge with command responsibility for the Sandakan Death Marches.

During the war trial which began on May 28, 1947, the official charges against Baba were “while commander of armed forces of Japan… unlawfully disregarded and failed to discharge his duty as a commander to control the conduct of the members of his command whereby they committed brutal atrocities and other high crimes.”

Even though the first order for the march (which took place in January 1945) had been given before Baba took over the command of the 37th Army, he admitted that he was fully aware of the condition of the POWS.

He even ordered a reconnaissance of the jungle route which the prisoners were to travel.

However, Baba failed to alter the orders for the march after this reconnaissance.

The court report stated, “The accused received a report of this march early in 1945, in spite of which report he ordered the evacuation of the remaining 540 prisoners over the same route in May, 1945.

“This second march proved even more disastrous than the first. Only 183 prisoners reached Ranau and of these another 150 died there shortly after their arrival.”

Unfortunately by the end of July, only 33 of the POWs survived. Then, the worst thing happened. The officers-in-charge executed the remaining 33 prisoners on Aug 1, 1945.

Basically, he was accused of not preventing the Sandakan Death Marches from happening and failed to control his subordinates from killing the remaining 33 POWs.

Masao Baba’s defense

Awm 120461 sandakan — October 24, 1945. Sandakan prisoner of war camp, Sandakan, North Borneo. A few months after it was vacated and demolished by retreating Japanese troops, little remains of the burnt-out camp. In an area of No. 1 compound (pictured) the bodies of 300 prisoners of war were discovered. They were believed to have been those men left in the camp after the Sandakan death marches to Ranau. Each grave contained several bodies, in some cases as many as 10. Australian and British personnel were murdered and buried here. Australian War Memorial ID Number: 120461 Photographer: Burke, Frank Albert Charles.Credits: Public Domain.

Baba pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. With regard to the marches, Baba pleaded that the evacuation of the POWs camp at Sandakan to Ranau was of operational necessity.

As the camp was near the seashore, hence an allied landing was to be anticipated. In fact, the Allied troops did land there a few months too late. They landed in July 1945 after the camp had been evacuated.

Additionally, Baba during the trial defended that the Japanese army were themselves short of food and medical supplies. Furthermore, many of the guards also died during the marches.

The trial record also stated, “The accused gave evidence of the measure he had taken to secure provisions and medical supplies for the second march and said that he had done his best to provide for the prisoners.

“With regard to the killing of the 33 survivors at Ranau on 1st Aug, he claimed that by that time Ranau was cut off from his headquarters as a result of the allied landings and that he, therefore, could no longer exercise any effective control over the officers there who had previously been under his command.”

On top of that, Baba gave evidence that he did not hear of the murders until after the cessation of hostilities. This fact was proven to be true and the order to kill the remaining 33 POWs did not come from Baba.

The verdict on Masao Baba

Meanwhile, prosecutor Major Dick pointed out that under international law that a commander of armed forces at war has a duty to control the conduct of the members of his command.

He continued, “And that if he deliberately, of through culpable negligence, fails to discharge that duty, and as a result of such failure members of his command commit war crimes, he is guilty of a violation of the laws and usages of war.”

Summing up the trial, the judge said, “It can be argued that the killings were the result of the marches. Indeed, they could not have occurred without the movement of the prisoners but they were not, I feel, a natural result of these marches. It is, therefore, the court to consider whether they were due to failure of the accused in his duties as a commander.”

Eventually, according to the Sydney Morning Herald on June 6, 1947, the court reached its verdict of guilty after deliberation of 12 minutes. The sentence on Baba was announced after a recess of only two minutes.

Baba was sentenced to death and eventually executed by hanging on Aug 7, 1947 in Rabaul.

Masao Baba failing to protect his own soldiers

Looking back at Baba’s military career with the Japanese Army during WWII, he first commanded 53rd Division in Sumatra, Indonesia. He held the post until Sept 25, 1943 when he was appointed commander of the 4th Division also in Sumatra.

He was then transferred to Dec 26, 1944 to Borneo, only less than a year before the war came to an end.

Being unfamiliar to his new working environment, did Baba underestimate the treacherous jungle path of Borneo that he continued with the order of his predecessor? Maybe he thought the 265 kilometres from Sandakan to Ranau was through a flat, thin jungle? Furthermore, is it because he was transferred to a new unit that he failed to control his subordinates?

Regardless, his decision not to cancel the first march and to order the second march resulted in the deaths of not only POWs.

Dick Braithwaite and Lee Yun Lok pointed in a paper called Dark Tourism, Hate and Reconciliation: The Sandakan Experience that many Japanese soldiers died during the marches.

They wrote, “The relocation of military units from one side of Borneo to the other, such as on the death march route, was something that generated much resentment among the Japanese soldiers. This resentment was no doubt taken out on others, including POWs and local people. The remains of Japanese suicides were found hanging in the jungle for many years after the war.”

The casualties number of 2,434 during the Sandakan Death Marches only covered the POWs. Today, we may never know the exact number of Japanese soldiers who died during the marches.

In the end of WWII, of the 25,000 Japanese soldiers based in Sabah, very few returned to Japan.

While the Australian Military Court sentenced Baba to death for failing to protect POWs, he as the commanding officer undeniably failed to protect his own men.

The migration of Indonesian romusha to Malaysian Borneo during WWII

Published on November 6, 2019

Culture

‘Romusha’ is actually a Japanese word for labourer. However during World War II (WWII), it specifically referred to forced labourers during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia.

According to the US Library of Congress, it was estimated in Java between 4 to 10 million romusha were forced to work by the Japanese military.

Indonesia during Japanese occupation

The experience in Indonesia during World War II varied depending on where one lived and one’s social status.

Those who lived in areas considered important to the war effort such as Balikpapan or Tarakan (for their oilfields) experienced torture, sex slavery, execution and war crimes.

Amal Beach Tarakan 3 — Pantai Amal, where the Japanese landed at Tarakan in North Kalimantan.

The romusha’s services were supposed to be voluntary but in reality many were recruited against their will.

Some were taken from their homes while others were even seized in the middle of a movie in theaters.

Most of them were put to work through threats and violence.

If they were lucky, they were put to work on Java island itself. The unfortunate ones were those who werw sent to work outside Java.

These locations included New Guinea, Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Burma, British Borneo (current day Sabah and Sarawak), Indochina and Hong Kong.

Regardless of the locations, these romusha were forced to work under harsh conditions with insufficient food, shelter or medical care.

They were often treated worse than Prisoners of War (POWs) from Allied countries.

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Japanse invasie op Java TMnr 10001990 — Japanese invastion of Java. Credits: Creative commons.

Romusha in British Borneo

There is no exact number on how many romusha were sent to Borneo island during WWII. It is understood that they came here to work on oilfields and build facilities such as airstrips.

Richard Wallace Braithwaite in his book Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy gave one rough number.

“One estimate is that 31,700 Javanese were sent to North Borneo and another 48,700 to South Borneo. This occurred mainly in 1944. They constructed airfields in British Borneo, worked in the oilfields at Miri, and were used elsewhere in Borneo hacking tunnels and storage facilities out of rock.”

It was also reported there were about 3,000 Javanese romusha working in Sandakan airstrip alone during WWII.

Braithwaite further noted,

“Many romusha died in the transport ships before they reached their destination. While the Japanese kept good records, most records were destroyed after capitulation. The mortality rate for those who were sent outside was 74.3 per cent. However, only 5,000 survived of those who went to British Borneo, a much higher mortality rate of 85 per cent.”

Shigeru Sato in War, Nationalism and Peasants: Java Under the Japanese Occupation, 1942-1945 gave a different estimate number for North Borneo.

He wrote,

“Sending of Javanese labourers overseas was done mostly within the 1944 fiscal year. Like other commodities, the supply of labourers from Java fell below the levels set in the initial plan due to shipping difficulties. In the case of North Borneo, for which 17,000 men were approved for the year 1944, the total number of romusha who arrived from Java during the entire occupation period was 9,000 according to one estimate between 12,000 and 13,000 according to another.”

So did the romusha in Borneo return to Java after WWII?

After the end of WWII in September 1945, the Dutch Indies government established the Nederlandsh Bureau voor Documentatie en Repatrieering van Indonesiers (Netherlands Bureau for Documentation and Repatriation of Indonesians, or NEBUDORI).

This was to register, care for, and repatriate displaced Indonesians, most of whom were Javanese romusha.

The Japanese on the other hand did not make much effort to repatriate Indonesian romusha.

According to Shigeru, the repatriation of romusha by the Dutch began in May 1946, and by April 1947, a total of 52,117 Javanese romusha had been repatriated from Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indochina, Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea, the Moluccas and the Lesser Sunda Islands.

However, the repatriation of Indonesian romusha was not an easy job.

According to Braithwaite, when it came to repatriation back to Java, the romusha were the lowest priorities of the Allies.

“Some refused to go on Dutch ships as the Indonesian revolution was well underway and they did not trust the Dutch. Some presumably thought that going into a revolutionary zone in Java was likely to be worse than their situation in Borneo. In the end, only about a thousand returned from British Borneo. It was 1947 before authorities made ships available to them. By then, most had found employment and many were married to local women and had children.”

A thousand reportedly only managed to return home to Java out of the estimated number of 5,000 to 13,000 that were sent here.

This meant many had either decided to call Sabah and Sarawak home after the war or died working as romushas.

Nobody knows the fate of every romusha

There is no way to confirm these. The Japanese did not keep proper records of the romusha system and those who died were often buried in unmarked graves.

Historians believed the brutality of the romusha is one of the main reasons for the mass death rates among Indonesians under the Japanese occupation.

With no proper records documenting their arrivals or departures and no tombstones to mark their graves, the lives and sufferings of romusha outside of Indonesia, particularly in Malaysian Borneo, can be easily lost amongst the current and future generations.

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