Invasion Rabaul (33 page)

Soon after, an officer named Kishida arranged for the Australians to provide the music for the gala event. Several instruments were available, including the Regent theater’s piano, and the two Australians picked some of the former battalion bandsmen to play them. With great cunning, Fraser also arranged to have some of the sick men attend rehearsals. By pretending to play different instruments, they received extra food. During the grand ceremony at the Regent, the Japanese drank so heavily they never realized half the orchestra was phony.

The real musicians made up for it by playing their hearts out. The evening affair, as described by Hutchinson-Smith, was a triumph for the Australians:

The sake flowed freely, and many were the unorthodox dances to the prisoners’ music. The only occurrences which marred the proceedings were the thrashing of a Japanese belle by her escort who was mad with liquor, and the unexpected arrival of a decrepit truck which was driven into the theater by an intoxicated officer in the middle of the dance.

The band, however, had an extra meal with what was given them and what they could lift unseen, and they voted the function a success at which a good time was had by all. The Japs failed to realize that much of the music was a jazzed-up version of such songs as the National Anthem, “Advance Australia Fair,” “Rule Britannia,” “Waltzing Matilda” and similar numbers. A great hit was
“Auld Lang Syne,” our knowledge of which surprised the Japanese, who stated that it was a Japanese melody. We never found out what their words were, but every time they heard the piece they became sentimental and wistful.

As a reward for their performance, the musicians were allowed to take the instruments—even the piano—back to the stockade. For a few pleasant days, the Fibro huts echoed with the strains of popular music, mostly played for the benefit of sick prisoners. The effect on the POWs’ morale was profound, and when the Japanese realized how much the captives were benefiting from the music, they took the instruments away.

A
S THE WEEKS STRETCHED INTO MONTHS AT
M
ALAGUNA
C
AMP, THE
POWs suffered continuously from the compounding effects of heavy labor, malnutrition, and neglect. In addition to hunger and sickness, the majority of prisoners also endured personal indignities. Harold Page was singled out because of his former government position. While he struggled to unload cargo, the guards cajoled and sometimes physically mistreated him. Many other Australians were similarly abused, though the civilians generally endured less than the soldiers.
“The Japanese never lost an opportunity to ridicule and humiliate prisoners, particularly officers,” recalled Hutchinson-Smith. “Beatings and invective in the presence of Kanakas and Japanese troops were designed to lower the prestige of the white men.”

Despite all the persecution, the vast majority of POWs remained indomitable in spirit if not in body. There was nothing the Japanese could do to completely crush their resolve or their natural sense of humor, in part because the Australians took pleasure in stealing whatever they could carry off and sabotaging what they couldn’t.

Best of all, for those few memorable days in March, the prisoners at Rabaul enjoyed an unexpected lift from Lex Fraser, Arthur Gullidge, and the other musicians who played their favorite anthems and popular songs right under the noses of the Japanese.

*
Hutchinson-Smith had miscounted slightly. The Air Echelon Combat Log of the 4th
Kokutai
shows that the the 1st Chutai, normally a nine-plane division, was short one bomber.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CRUEL FATES

“They marched out with cheerful grins and banter…”

—Captain David Hutchinson-Smith, 17th Antitank Battery

A
t dawn on February 23, 1942, exactly one month after the Japanese invaded Rabaul, American bombers attacked the harbor for the first time. The mission had started before midnight, when six B-17E Flying Fortresses of the 14th Reconnaissance Squadron (RS) took off from Garbutt Field outside Townsville and flew north toward Rabaul. One bomber became lost in a heavy squall and turned back. The remaining five, led by Hollywood-handsome Major Richard H. Carmichael, reached Simpson Harbor in two separated groups and dropped their bombs from thirty thousand feet. Due to an almost solid cloud cover, made worse by large quantities of steam from Tavurvur, the bombardiers had a difficult time picking out targets. Thus, the
raid did no material damage.

The Fortresses were intercepted by several Zeros that zoomed up from Lakunai, and although both sides claimed aerial victories, no planes were actually shot down. One B-17, low on fuel, crash-landed in a swamp near the New Guinea coast. The crew survived and spent five torturous weeks in the jungle before they reached Port Moresby on foot. The other bombers returned safely to Australia, but within a matter of days more than half the squadron’s aircrews were grounded by an outbreak of dengue fever. Weeks passed before another attempt to hit Rabaul was made.

In the interim, the RAAF continued their haphazard night raids. The next occurred before dawn on February 24, as noted by Private Hisaeda of
the 1st Field Hospital:
“3 enemy planes dropped two bombs in the sea and one on the Sakigawa unit; there was no damage and one enemy aircraft was shot down.” His information matches RAAF records exactly. On that night, three Catalinas attacked Rabaul at 0500, and the aircraft piloted by Flight Lieutenant Ernest V. Beaumont failed to return.

By the middle of March, the fortunes of Carmichael’s B-17 squadron had not changed. An attempt by five Fortresses to raid Simpson Harbor on Friday the 13th was a dismal failure, with only one aircraft reaching the target because of foul weather. The next day, the outfit was redesignated the 40th RS and transferred into the 19th Bomb Group, which was being re-formed at Townsville. The squadron’s luck finally began to improve during the second half of March. Two B-17s picked up General Douglas MacArthur, along with his family and important staff members, at Del Monte Field on Mindanao and delivered them safely to Australia on the 17th.

The day after MacArthur’s arrival in Australia, the 40th RS flew its next mission to Rabaul. Led once again by Carmichael, four B-17s took off from Port Moresby at dawn to attack shipping in Simpson Harbor. All four aircraft dropped their bombs over the target area and returned safely to Port Moresby, but the plane piloted by First Lieutenant James R. DuBose was grounded, its number four engine having disintegrated in flight.
^*
Carmichael led the other three B-17s to Townsville, where he reported that they had sunk a Japanese cruiser. The lead bombardier initially argued against the claim, but Carmichael refused to back down, and credit was duly given. (The Japanese suffered no such loss that day. The simple truth was that many a bombardier was fooled by the formation of rocks called “the Beehives” that jutted from the middle of Simpson Harbor. From five miles up they looked just like a ship, particularly when the wind and tides created the illusion of a wake.)

B-17s conducted three more raids during March and finally got the attention of the POWs, whose reactions were considerably different from those of the Japanese. Alice Bowman recalled,
“[In] March, giant planes appeared in the sky over Rabaul and caused a great deal of frenzied activity among the Japs. We had never seen anything like them before; previous
raids were with Catalinas. From the excitement created among the Japs these planes were quite definitely something new to them as well. They were the magnificent American Flying Fortresses and this was the greatest air raid on Rabaul since the invasion. It was a wonderful boost to our morale …”

The women at Vunapope needed all the psychological advantages they could get. Despite the army’s edict, they still endured physical and verbal harassment from the Japanese. A favorite punishment among the guards was slapping, but this actually gave the women something to laugh about—at least in private. One of the officers was so short that in order to get eye-to-eye with Kay Parker, he had to climb onto a stool before slapping her. Whenever the Japanese were out of earshot, the women jeered them as
“little monkeys.”

At both Vunapope and the Malaguna Road stockade, the guards and prison staff continued to be unpredictable. During the last week of March, the POWs were pleasantly surprised when they received permission to write letters home. They became skeptical when an officer told them the letters would be dropped over Port Moresby
“instead of a bomb,” but the
prisoners were eager to let their families know they were alive.

Not surprisingly, the Japanese told them what to write. Virtually every letter began with a phrase such as, “I am a prisoner-of-war … and am very well treated.” Most of the men added very little else, because any additional information had to pass strict censorship. Arthur Gullidge, however, wrote about his loneliness and included a poignant message about his faith journey: “We must trust in the Heavenly Father … I am confident in Him now more than ever and am experiencing an inward peace that amazes me … I am so happy to be able to write at last and hope that soon letter-writing will be needless…”

Several bags of letters, dated between March 22 and 24, were dropped as promised over Port Moresby a month later. One bag allegedly fell into the sea, but approximately four hundred letters were delivered to grateful families in Australia.

Two weeks after the POWs wrote home, their safety was again threatened, this time by American medium bombers. On April 6, aircraft of the 22nd Bomb Group attacked Simpson Harbor in what proved to be the combat debut of the Martin B-26 Marauder. The attackers claimed a transport as
sunk, but no corresponding loss was recorded by the Japanese. One B-26, badly damaged by antiaircraft fire, crash-landed in the water near the Trobriands, killing the flight engineer and wounding the bombardier. An RAAF Catalina picked up the survivors in one of the first documented air-sea rescues of the Pacific war.

A week and a half later, a POW work party was sent to the Government Wharf to begin the long task of unloading the
Komaki Maru
, an 8,500-ton navy transport that had arrived from Bali on April 16 with a mixed cargo of bombs and aircraft parts. The ship also carried the Zero pilots and ground personnel of the Tainan
Kokutai
, transferred from the Netherlands East Indies to Rabaul as part of a major reorganization of naval air groups.

The day after the
Komaki Maru s
arrival, eight olive-drab Marauders took off from Townsville and flew to Port Moresby. Armed and refueled, six of them launched early the next morning for the group’s second strike on Simpson Harbor. Although half of the bombers turned back for various reasons, two of the B-26s that reached the target made straight for the
Komaki Maru
.

By a stroke of luck, the POWs unloading the ship had been ordered off the Government Wharf only five minutes earlier. They were seated on the ground for lunch when the two B-26s swept in low over Tunnel Hill Road at 1059 and released their bombs. Some landed forward and aft of the ship, but three 500-pounders hit the
Komaki Maru
squarely, starting fires that soon reached the volatile cargo of munitions. Explosions ripped open the hull, sending a river of burning fuel onto the harbor’s surface. Soon the ship was fully ablaze, and the shrieks of Japanese sailors trapped inside could be heard over the roar of the inferno. Eleven crewmen died, yet by some miracle not a single POW was hurt.

The attackers did not get away unscathed. A pair of Zeros briefly pursued one Marauder as it pulled away over the harbor; then the fighters shifted their attention to the B-26 flown by Captain William A. Garnett, commanding officer of the 33rd Bomb Squadron. Chased almost fifteen miles, the bomber took fatal hits in one engine and crashed in the water off Cape Gazelle. Only two crewmen managed to bail out. Both were taken prisoner, as recorded by a Kempeitai officer in his diary:
“An enemy plane was shot down near Higashisaki [East Point]. No. 9 Company captured a
signal sergeant and engineer corporal who had parachuted from their plane … Sent the two captured airmen to Rabaul.”

The unnamed officer’s information regarding the crewmen was accurate. The flight engineer/tail-gunner, Corporal Sanger E. Reed, and the radio operator, Technical Sergeant Theron K. Lutz, became the first American airmen captured at Rabaul. They were later sent to Japan for thorough interrogation, presumably because they possessed significant knowledge of the B-26. At war’s end Reed was one of approximately two hundred Americans liberated from Camp 5-B in the city of Niigata, but Lutz’s ultimate fate remains a mystery.

The POWs, meanwhile, had a ringside view from Malaguna Road as the
Komaki Maru
burned uncontrollably throughout the night. The massive fire was visible from as far away as Vunapope, remembered Alice Bowman, and
“looked to be out of control, threatening Rabaul.” Flaming debris rained down on nearby structures, igniting a warehouse and consuming additional war material. Some of the prisoners cheered, prompting one indignant Japanese to write:
“They must all be very happy after seeing today’s bombing. Among them were some who clapped their hands. All the members of my unit who heard this agreed that it was better to kill them off one after another.”

No prisoners were executed, but two Australians were punished severely for laughing in front of the guards.
“That night at muster,” wrote Hutchinson-Smith, “we witnessed the most brutal bashing we had seen to date.” The entire population of the camp was assembled on the parade ground to watch as Lieutenant Jack L. Burns and an antitank gunner were “beaten for half an hour by five or six guards armed with pick handles and battens.”

Several days after the destruction of the
Komaki Maru
, the brutalities endured by the POWs at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army finally came to an end. First, all male prisoners were consolidated at the Malaguna Road stockade. The patients from Vunapope, along with John May, Sandy Robertson, and other men being held there, were moved to Rabaul on April 27. Two days later the administration of the stockade was handed over to the Imperial Japanese Navy. It also happened that April 29 was the 41st birthday of Emperor Hirohito. Everywhere across his empire, the Japanese people made a great ceremony of honoring the occasion of
Tencho-setsu
for His Majesty. They gathered to pay homage in the direction of Nippon and shout “Banzai!” The prisoners also benefited, each receiving a small loaf of bread.