Battle for Rabaul (1942)

Battle for Rabaul (1942)

Part of: Pacific War

The location of Rabaul on the northeast tip of New Britain

date	January 23 to February 1942
place	Rabaul in New Britain
output	Japanese victory
Territorial changes	Fall of Rabaul to Japan

Parties to the conflict
Australia	Japan
Commander
John Scanlan	Inoue Shigeyoshi Horii Tomitarō
Troop strength
approx. 1,400	approx. 5,000
losses
approx. 300 dead, 833 prisoners	16 dead according to official statistics

The Battle of Rabaul ( "Operation R" or "Bismarck Operation" ) took place from January 23 to February 1942 as part of the Pacific War in Southeast Asia on the northeastern tip of New Britain , New Guinea .

prehistory

The basic strategy of the Japanese Navy to take a defensive position and then the US fleet in an ambush to lure and a defeat in the battle near Japanese waters, had been formulating the idea in the Meiji period not changed. The waters near mainland Japan were originally intended to be the site of this crucial battle.

However, advances in military technology and the changing strategic situation led to a re-evaluation in 1936. The location west of the Mariana Islands , with an additional reconnaissance line at the Marshall Islands , was selected and until 1940 the seas east of the Mariana Islands and north of the Marshall Islands were the planned location.

The Truk Atoll in the Caroline Islands had therefore become the most important base for the Japanese combined fleet . Rabaul is located around 2,800 kilometers south in the Bismarck Archipelago , an area administered by Australia as part of the British Commonwealth . In the event of war with Great Britain and the United States , particularly with the development of the B-17 , the Japanese Imperial Headquarters feared that Truk could be endangered by attacks from Allied aircraft stationed in Rabaul . The capture of Rabaul was therefore necessary to prevent this type of attack and to ensure the security of the fleet base in Truk.

The natural harbor of the city of Rabaul in northeast New Britain had also been selected by the Japanese as the base for their further operations in the direction of New Guinea, specifically Port Moresby , the Solomon Islands and Australia . Therefore, Rabaul was originally supposed to be captured at the beginning of the fighting in Southeast Asia.

The Australians in Rabaul

The defense of New Guinea, including New Britain and Ireland , the Bismarck Archipelago and, further east, the Solomon Islands, had been left to the Australians prior to the outbreak of war, as the League of Nations had assigned them this area as a mandate . From March 1941, the Australians moved smaller troop units, which were supported by local soldiers, to these areas. Rabaul was only manned by a small Australian unit, the "Lark Force" under the command of Colonel John Scanlan , with around 1,400 soldiers. In addition, there were the crews and maintenance units of the ten Wirraway combat aircraft of the Royal Australian Air Force stationed there . Two cannons aimed at sea and three anti-aircraft cannons were available for defense. In addition, there were the Allied coastal patrols in the New Guinea area, to which the Japanese paid relatively little attention, but which provided valuable information on Japanese ship movements, mines and special events for the Allied defense.

The Japanese armed forces

Despite the very poor defensive strength of Rabaul, the Japanese gathered a huge force. In the run-up to the operation, they flew reconnaissance flights from Truk in order to inspect the Australian troop strength and the defenses. The first attacks on Rabaul began in December 1941. First with bombing from great heights and towards the middle of the month also with low-flying attacks . One of the heaviest attacks was carried out by 45 Japanese planes on December 22nd. They primarily attacked the Vunakanau airfield and the defensive positions of the Australians there. Some low-flying pilots chased the road to Praed Point through the jungle, at the end of which there was an artillery position for the defenders of Rabaul. The battery was completely destroyed. Eleven Australians were killed in this attack on Praed Point.

The original plan, which was to attack and capture Rabaul after the conquest of the priority resources in Southeast Asia was completed, was withdrawn on January 4th as previous operations, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor , the invasion of the Malay Peninsula and the advance against The Dutch East Indies went more smoothly and faster than planned. A conquest of Port Moresby thus seemed to be in the foreseeable future. Port Moresby, north of Australia and west of the Solomon Islands, was a highlighted strategic destination for the Japanese and Rabaul was an important starting point. In order to cover Rabaul again, Kavieng should also be taken on New Ireland in the same operation . The order was issued to the Army and Navy on January 5th.

In the early morning of January 14th, under the command of Rear Admiral Shima Kiyohide, three mine-layers, two destroyers, three gunboats and transporters left Guam with the 144th Regiment of the Japanese South Sea Command of the 8th Regional Army and united at sea with those approaching from Truk Units under Rear Admiral Kajioka Sadamichi , which consisted of a cruiser, two destroyer divisions, a seaplane tender and two transports with units of the Maizuru Marine Landing Group . As security for "Operation R" Vice Admiral Nagumo offered the four aircraft carriers Akagi , Kaga , Shōkaku and Zuikaku , the two battleships Hiei and Kirishima , as well as the cruiser Chikuma and eight destroyers, which were positioned north of New Ireland. Shortly afterwards, on January 18, the 6th cruiser squadron under Rear Admiral Aritomo Goto joined the cover fleet with four cruisers. Two days later, the 18th cruiser squadron followed under Rear Admiral Matsuyama Mitsuharu , which consisted of two cruisers and three destroyers. They were followed by transporters with the remaining units of the Maizuru Marine Landing Group and the Kashima Marine Landing Force, which were scheduled for a landing near Kavieng in New Ireland .

The invasion

Carrier aircraft heavily bombed Rabaul on January 20, in order to largely shut down the Australian coastal batteries. Then the porters Shokaku and Zuikaku took the Chikuma and three destroyers course for the Bismarck Sea . Furthermore, seven submarines were posted in front of the Saint George's Canal to secure the following landing company .

The Japanese on the transporters began preparations for the actual landings at 8:15 p.m. on January 22nd. Although the China Maru , which had the main troop contingent on board, had not yet arrived, the infantrymen from the other transports got into the landing craft and drove to the designated landing points from 10:35 p.m. About an hour later, the Japanese army went ashore and were able to secure the sparsely guarded beach and the road that ran there. The units intended to land at Praed Point had slight difficulties in switching off the coastal battery set up there, as they were directly threatened by this, but a relatively punctual landing succeeded there too. The coastal artillery was switched off shortly afterwards by Japanese fighter planes. However, the Australian team had already retreated.

The soldiers, who had meanwhile landed from the arrived China-maru , advanced to Tawui Point at around 6:20 a.m. and tried to locate the Australian coastal battery stationed there, but they did not succeed. More Japanese landing craft missed their landing marks that morning and so the infantrymen scattered over areas that had never been selected for landing purposes. With great difficulty they found their units in the hours that followed and began the advance on the Allied airfields. A total of about 5,000 Japanese soldiers under the command of Major General Tomitarō Horii went ashore during the day. The Australians had gathered in specially designed bases and offered as much resistance as possible, but the Japanese superior force managed to break through to the Vunakanau airfield at 1:15 p.m., the runway of which had previously been destroyed by the Australians with more than a hundred bombs .

The Australians were quickly forced to retreat into the jungle due to the Japanese superiority on land and in the air. The Japanese tried to stop the retreat with landed cavalry units , which they did not succeed in doing. Scanlan moved his headquarters to Tomavatur at 4:45 a.m. the next morning . Just an hour and a half later, the Japanese disrupted telephone connections from the rest of the Australian units in Rabaul to Scanlan's new base of operations. A further organized defense of the city was no longer possible. Since the Australian soldiers were not prepared for a guerrilla war in the jungle, most of them surrendered in the weeks that followed.

For the Japanese, Rabaul was subsequently the most important outpost in Southeast Asia. They repaired the airfields as quickly as possible and turned the city into a fortress with a gigantic, partly underground supply base.

Web links

• Australian War Memorial - Rabaul, 1942 - Campaign history ( Memento of September 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
• Australia in the war of 1939-1945, Series 1 Army, Volume IV - The Japanese Thrust, Chapter 18 - Rabaul and the forward observation line (First published in 1957) (English; PDF file; 2.11 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bullard, Steven: Japanese army operations in the South Pacific area: NewBritain and Papua campaigns, 1942–43 . Ed .: Australian War Memorial. 2007, ISBN 978-0-9751904-8-7 , pp. 3 (English).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Australia-Japan Research Project - Offensive against Rabaul and key surrounding areas at: ajrp.awm.gov.au
3. ^ L. Klemen: The capture of Rabaul and Kavieng, January 1942 . In: The Netherlands East Indies 1941-1942 . Retrieved February 10, 2011.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Inoue is the family name, Shigeyoshi the first name.