Rabaul 1943–44 Read online

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CHRONOLOGY

  ATTACKERS’ CAPABILITIES

  DEFENDERS’ CAPABILITIES

  CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

  THE CAMPAIGN

  AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS

  FURTHER READING

  INTRODUCTION

  Simpson Harbor has the finest anchorage in the Southwest Pacific. Set on the eastern end of New Britain, it is a marvelous deep-water harbor, 2 miles wide by 4 miles long, with water depths of 8 fathoms literally a stone’s throw from the shore. The depth through much of the harbor exceeds 27 fathoms. Simpson Harbor is protected on three sides by volcanic mountains, with the entrance to the harbor emptying into Blanche Bay. Blanche Bay’s entrance to the ocean lies some 45 degrees from the main axis of Simpson Harbor. This entrance feeds into a channel roughly perpendicular to Blanche Bay, formed by the sheltering ridges of New Britain and New Ireland. The result is an anchorage deep enough for the greatest draft ship ever built, and large enough to accommodate the world’s largest fleet within a sheltered haven.

  Simpson Harbor gave Rabaul one of the finest anchorages in the Pacific. Large, deep, and sheltered, it could anchor a fleet, and the largest ship could anchor close to shore. This picture shows Simpson Harbor in early 1943. (USAAF)

  Since its creation by a violent volcanic explosion in the seventh century AD, Simpson Harbor was largely overlooked by everyone except those native to New Britain or neighboring islands, such as New Ireland. It came to the attention of the outside world in 1872 when the frigate HMS Blanche, commanded by Captain Cortland Simpson, surveyed the waters around New Britain. Simpson named the harbor for himself and the larger bay for his ship. Twelve years later, in 1884, New Britain, New Ireland, the northern Solomon Islands, and the northeastern quarter of New Guinea were annexed by Germany, becoming German New Guinea. Taking advantage of the magnificent harbor, the Germans built the province’s capital on the north end of Simpson Harbor, naming the town Rabaul.

  German rule ended in 1914. After World War I started Australian troops captured Rabaul. Following the war’s end the League of Nations mandated control of German New Guinea to Australia. Australia renamed all of the islands, retaining only the German name for the sea north of New Britain. It remained the Bismarck Sea.

  Rabaul was still the capital of the Mandate territory, but experienced relatively little growth. The town was in an active volcano zone and minor eruptions were frequent. In 1937, Tavurvur and Vulcan, two volcanoes near Rabaul, exploded, killing over 500 and flattening the town. The territorial capital was moved to Lae, on New Guinea. Volcanoes made the town too dangerous for a territorial governor, but the harbor was simply too good to abandon. Rabaul remained the most important town in New Britain.

  Simpson Harbor, despite its excellence, was in the wrong place for Australia to use it much. The port was not on the way to anywhere, on an isolated island far from trade routes. Rabaul would never become a Singapore or a Hong Kong. Between 1918 and 1941 Rabaul remained a backwater; a place for copra planters on New Britain to ship their product to market. Australia committed relatively little to the development or defense of Rabaul. The Australians built an airstrip at Lakunai, on the southeast corner of Rabaul, and a second, larger airstrip at Vunakanau, southwest of Vulcan volcano. Both were primitive airfields with grass runways and hardstands, and no revetments for their aircraft. Communications facilities were built, including a commercial radio station. A constabulary post was established.

  On December 7, 1941, with the start of World War II in the Pacific, Rabaul’s location gained significant strategic importance, especially for the Japanese, as they rampaged across the Pacific. The main Japanese base in the Central Pacific was at Truk, an atoll in the Caroline Islands. Rabaul was within 800 miles of Truk, well within the operational radius of American long-range bombers operating from Rabaul. True, the United States and its Australian allies had no long-range bombers at Rabaul in December 1941. Only ten obsolescent Wirraway fighters, four Hudson bombers, and the incongruously named 1,400-man Lark Force guarded Rabaul. But while Rabaul remained in Allied hands, Truk was threatened.

  Rabaul was also within the operational radius of Japanese bombers based at Truk, and only two days’ steaming for fast transports departing Truk. Japanese aircraft carriers from Truk could reach Rabaul still faster.

  Japan soon moved against Rabaul. Truk-based bombers began bombing Rabaul shortly after New Year’s Day. Two weeks later they were joined by carrier aircraft, starting a week-long campaign which routed the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Wirraways and Hudsons. The Japanese landed on New Britain on January 22, and took Rabaul the next day. Lark Force had been ordered to hold off the Japanese for as long as possible and then run for safety. They slowed the Japanese not an hour and were swallowed whole within a week.

  Rabaul was easily reached by long-range Japanese fighters, such as the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero,” allowing any air garrison at a Japanese-held Rabaul to be quickly reinforced. The port facilities were excellent, and the harbor big enough to hold the entire Imperial Japanese Navy, its fleet train, and enough transports and supply ships to carry and maintain an army corps.

  A Nakajima B5N (Allied code name “Kate”) torpedo bomber takes off from the aircraft carrier Shokaku en route to Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This torpedo-carrying aircraft played a major role in projecting Japanese power. (USNHHC)

  Port Moresby was both a primary Japanese objective and the chief Allied base from which the offensive against Rabaul was launched. While less important by September 1944, it still played an important role in the October air offensive against Rabaul. (USAAF)

  Rabaul became the locus of Japanese expansion in the Southwest Pacific. It was perfectly placed to project power to the seas around northwest Australia. Lae and the Admiralty Islands were within 400 miles of Rabaul’s airfields; Port Moresby only 500 miles away. Guadalcanal, at the southern end of the Solomons chain, was 650 statute miles by air from Rabaul.

  Japan soon moved troops, aircraft, and resources to Rabaul. Not all stayed at Rabaul, passing to New Guinea or into the Solomons. But they staged through Rabaul, following a route from the Japanese homeland through the Marianas to Truk, and then Rabaul.

  The battle of the Coral Sea, fought in May 1942, led the Japanese to call off a planned invasion of Port Moresby on the southern coast of New Guinea. Troops for the landing, at sea when the operation was canceled, had boarded transports in Simpson Harbor, and returned afterwards. By June 1942 Japan had 21,000 soldiers in Rabaul, and another 20,000 on the surrounding islands. Over 150 aircraft of all types operated from the two airfields captured from the Australians.

  For the next six months the Japanese continued building up their forces at Rabaul. They expanded and improved the two airfields they had and began work on three others. They continued moving troops to and through Rabaul. Some went on to occupy the rest of New Britain. The Japanese set up airfields at six widely distributed spots on New Britain, with army garrisons to protect them. Some troops shifted to New Guinea. These forces were intended to push the Australians off the island, capturing Port Moresby by crossing the Owen Stanley Mountains. Many occupied islands around New Britain: the Solomons as far south as Guadalcanal, Kiriwina Island, and the Woodlark Islands.

  Many more stayed, however. By the start of 1943 there were over 100,000 men scattered around the Gazelle Peninsula, where Rabaul was located. There were nearly 90,000 tons of supplies and 2.5 million gallons of gasoline and oil cached in Gazelle Peninsula dumps, most within 10 miles of Rabaul. Rabaul was the logistics center that fed the Japanese military in the Southwest Pacific.

  The Japanese had also moved thousands of POWs and shiploads of “comfort girls” to Rabaul. The POWs ser
ved as laborers to build runways, roads, and buildings. The comfort girls, recruited under the pretense they were to become factory workers, were forced into prostitution serving the garrison.

  The laborers were needed. While the runways on the rest of New Britain were grass strips, the Japanese paved runways on the two existing airports, and the three new ones. In 1942 and 1943 they added miles of paved roads throughout the Gazelle Peninsula. They threw up hangars, warehouses, barracks, radio shacks, control towers, repair facilities, docks, and the other facilities needed to maintain a modern army, navy, and air force. They also built lots of gun positions, both shore and antiaircraft batteries. Rabaul soon became more formidable than Truk, with more men, more guns, and more aircraft.

  What it did not become was the springboard to Australia. The battle of the Coral Sea proved the high-water mark for the Japanese in the Southwest Pacific. They took Guadalcanal, but moved no further south. Nor did they make significant progress in New Guinea. Instead the Japanese were thrown on the defensive. In August 1942, US Marines landed on Guadalcanal, capturing the airfield the Japanese had just completed. A Japanese invasion at Milne Bay in late August 1942 was not only thrown back, but the attacking force was crushed.

  The struggle on Guadalcanal continued until February 9, 1943, with the final six weeks a Japanese withdrawal. Japan lost 24,000 soldiers, 24 warships (including two battleships and an aircraft carrier), and nearly 700 aircraft at Guadalcanal. News from New Guinea was no better. After Milne Bay the Allies had gone on the offensive in New Guinea. Starting in November, Australian and US troops began a drive culminating in January 1943 with the capture of the Japanese base at Buna. By the start of 1943 Japan was on the defensive. Rabaul was the Allies’ ultimate objective.

  The extent to which the tide had shifted became apparent in the first half of 1943. Forces under the overall command of Admiral Bill Halsey began pushing up the Solomons chain, capturing the Russell Islands in February, and landing on New Georgia in July. By September, the pacification of New Georgia was complete, and the Japanese airfield at Munda controlled by the Allies. One of that campaign’s casualties was the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was killed when the bomber he was flying in was shot down over Buin, on April 18, 1943.

  Admiral William “Bill” Halsey commanded the South Pacific Theater. Halsey directed Comairsols which did the heavy lifting in reducing Rabaul. He was the man who made the call to attack Rabaul with Saratoga and Princeton. (USNHHC)

  Things went as badly for the Japanese in New Guinea. Allied forces led by General Douglas MacArthur began pushing north from Buna. In January they repulsed a Japanese thrust against Wau in New Guinea’s interior. The Allies began a long drive to recapture Lae, the territorial capital. The land acquired was used to build new airfields, allowing Allied aircraft to reach Rabaul without flying over the Owen Stanley Mountains.

  The impact of these new airfields was felt in March, during the battle of the Bismarck Sea. The three-day battle saw B-25 Mitchells from the New Guinea-based Fifth Air Force destroy a Japanese convoy carrying reinforcements to New Guinea. All eight transports were sunk, as were four of the eight escorting destroyers. In June MacArthur’s forces took the Woodlark Islands and Kiriwina, giving the Allies airfields close to New Britain. By September Lae and Finschhafen, formerly Japanese strongholds, were in Allied hands, their airfields turned against their previous owners.

  As September drew to a close, Rabaul was the next target. Plans to retake Rabaul had been drawn up as early as July 1942. However by January 1943, land operations against the Japanese in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands demonstrated that Allied soldiers could expect stubborn resistance and heavy casualties against entrenched Japanese soldiers. No place in the Southwest Pacific had more, and more heavily entrenched, Japanese soldiers than did Rabaul and the Gazelle Peninsula. Invading them could prove prohibitively costly. Yet they could not be ignored.

  Prior campaigns had used airpower to isolate and immobilize enemy forces, which were then mopped up by boots on the ground. Germany had done this in Norway and Crete. The Japanese had done it throughout the Pacific, but to greatest effect in the Philippines. The Allies had used this approach in the Solomons and New Guinea.

  An alternative strategy had been developed in March. Instead of invading Rabaul, Rabaul would be neutralized by airpower. The Allies would seize lightly held islands around Rabaul, build airfields on them, and ring Rabaul with Allied aircraft. These aircraft, conducting sustained raids and patrols, would gradually reduce Rabaul to irrelevance as a military base.

  This strategy had never been tried before by either side. If successful, this campaign would rewrite the rulebook. Up through September, the Allies had been preparing to lay siege to Rabaul by air. By October 1943, they were ready to see if airpower alone could neutralize a major enemy base.

  Skip bombing, and the field modification of B-25s to give them strafing capabilities, transformed them into ship-killers. At the battle of the Bismarck Sea eight transports, including this one, and four destroyers were sunk by Fifth Air Force B-25s. (AC)

  THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC: STRATEGIC OVERVIEW

  Allied air bases

  Allied naval ports

  Japanese air bases

  Japanese naval ports

  Allied sea route

  Allied air ferry route

  Japanese sea route

  Japanese air ferry route

  CHRONOLOGY

  1942

  January 23 Japanese capture Rabaul.

  April 1 Japanese Eleventh Air Fleet units arrive at Rabaul.

  July 2 The Joint Chiefs of Staff issue a directive calling for the recapture of Rabaul as Task Three of operations in the Southwest Pacific.

  December 30 Rapopo airfield becomes operational.

  1943

  January 23 Casablanca Conference approves operations against Rabaul.

  February 12 MacArthur develops Elkton, a plan to capture Rabaul.

  February 15 Comairsols formed, unifying command of Allied air assets in the Solomon Islands.

  February 28 MacArthur develops Elkton II, a revision of Elkton.

  March 2–5 Battle of the Bismarck Sea: four Japanese destroyers and eight Japanese transports sunk by Fifth Air Force B-25s making low-level strikes.

  March 28 Joint Chiefs of Staff cancels the July 2, 1942 directive, replacing it with a plan substituting isolation of Rabaul for invasion and occupation.

  April 28 MacArthur approves Elkton III plan to bypass Rabaul.

  June 23 Woodlark Islands captured by Allies.

  June 30 Kiriwina captured by Allies.

  August 5 Munda airfield on New Georgia captured by Allies.

  August 14 Munda airfield becomes operational for Allies.

  August 30 Tobera airfield on Rabaul becomes operational.

  September 30 Construction of Keravat airfield begins, but the airfield never becomes fully operational.

  The Japanese invested a lot of effort and material to upgrade Rabaul into a major operational base. Among the infrastructure improvements added were nearly 400 miles of new, paved road, such as that pictured here. (AC)

  On October 18, 1943 while off Vunapope the Japanese subchaser CH-23 was attacked by a B-25 from the 345rd Bomb Group. Two 1,000lb bombs blew its bow off. CH-23 was run aground and later repaired. (USAAF)

  October 12 Fifth Air Force begins air offensive to neutralize Rabaul. The initial raid involves 339 aircraft attacking Vunakanau, Rapopo, and Tobera airfields.

  October 15 Fifteen Vals accompanied by 39 Zeroes from Rabaul launch airstrike against shipping in Oro Bay, New Guinea intending to interdict supplies going to Dobodura airfield. Fourteen Vals and five Zeroes are shot down.

  October 17 Fifty-six Zeroes conduct a fighter sweep against Dobodura airfield. Eight Zeroes, four P-38s, and one P-40 are shot down. It is the last Rabaul-based attack against New Guinea airfields.

  October 18 Fifth Air Force launches 77 B-24s, 54 B-25s, and
90 P-38s on an airstrike against Rabaul airfields. Bad weather causes all but the B-25s to return without attacking.

  October 20 Aircraft from the 1st Carrier Division ordered from Truk to Rabaul to participate in Operation RO, reinforcing Rabaul with another 300 aircraft.

  October 23–25 The Fifth Air Force launches daily attacks against the four operational Rabaul airfields. Each attack involves at least 100 aircraft.

  October 29 59 B-24s escorted by 81 P-38s from Fifth Air Force sortie for high-altitude attack on Vunakanau.

  November 1 Allies invade Bougainville, taking the middle of the island to provide space for airfields.

  November 1/2 Japanese attempt a counter-invasion at Bougainville, but transports are not ready. A Japanese task force of cruisers and destroyers sent to attack the US invasion fleet is defeated at the battle of Empress Augusta Bay by US Navy light cruisers and destroyers in a night action.

  November 2 Japanese send 100 light bombers and fighters from Rabaul against the Bougainville invasion fleet. The attack causes minimal damage.

  November 2 Seventy-two B-25 bombers and 80 P-38s fighters from the Fifth Air Force attack Simpson Harbor. The airstrike destroys or damages several warships and many of the invasion transports, and prevents follow-up Japanese airstrikes against Bougainville.

  November 3 Seven heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and four destroyers are sent from Truk to Rabaul to reinforce Japanese surface forces there.

  November 5 A carrier strike from Saratoga and Princeton hits Simpson Harbor shortly after Japanese reinforcements arrive at Rabaul. Seven cruisers are damaged, preventing the Japanese from attempting a night surface action against Bougainville.

  November 5 Fifth Air Force launches an airstrike against Rabaul shortly after the Navy completes its airstrike. Based on estimates of Japanese aircraft destroyed, General Kenney declares Rabaul neutralized.