Evening star., 1943-03-14
Snug Harbor
Rabaul Serves Japs Well
AS 2.Way Base
Bv Paul J. t.. Fyiedinnder.

BY Paul j. t.. Eriediander.
Fourteen hundred Australian soldiers
and five weary training planes consti-
tuted the defenses of Rabaul a year ago
last January when the Japs attacked
New Britain
Today the mountains and heights that
shelter Blanche Bay and its two towns
Rabaul and Kokopo-and the deep water
harbors within its embrace bristle with
anti-aircraft guns. But they are Jap
anese guns.
Heavy coastal batteries are believed
to be emplaced around the 2-mile OPEN
ing from Blanche Bay to st. Georges
Channel and open water. The harbor
mouth probably is mined to protect the
Japanese warships and supply vessels
that make Rabaul one of the busiest of
the Pacifc's war ports.
* X
The smashing defeat of the New
Guinea-bound japanese convoy in the
Bismarck Sea in which % ships and
$4,000 men were destroyed by Allied air
men, points up the Importance of Rabaul
as a japanese base and an Allied target
For the convoy was organized at
Rabaul, steaming out of Blanche Bay
under cover of bad weather in an attempt
to reinforce Jap troops at Lac and
Salamaua
Rabaul is the distributing terminal of
the Tokio-Truk- -Rabaul supply line which
is the backbone of Japanese offensive
activity in this section of the Southwest
Pacific. From Rabaul conveys strike out
to supply Jap spearheads in the Solomon
Islands and New Guinea.
X X X
Rabaul is naturally fitted for such
military purposes. Biologists believe
that in prehistoric times THE harbors
were volcanic craters and that the violent
earth movements to which New Britain
is still subject finally shook them down
deep into the sea.
They make fine deepwater berths for
ocean going vessels which can move close
inland for quick refueling
High mountains, some smoking vol
canoes and extinct craters flank the Jap
military concentrations in the Rabaul
sector and heights to the south and west
permit excellent ant4-aircraft installa-
tions.
In Blanche Bay reconnaissance photo
vessels have congregated at one time,
refueling, taking on fresh water and pre-
pairing to run the Allied airpower gantlet
to southern japanese outposts.
Nor were they cramped for room for
the sheltered anchorage stretches six
miles north and south and more than
four miles east and west
The Japs have built up great stocks OF
war material and fleet supplies at the
innermost shore around Rabaul whose
piers jut into the north end of Simpson
Harbor.
In peacetime these piers were worked
by natives loading copra into ocean,
going ships of British trading companies.
Lakunai Airfield, just south of the
town of Rabaul, probably is supple
mented now by landing strips the Japs
easily could fashion on the many level
stretches around the harbor.
The Rabaul and Kokopo Cricket Club
fields and the Kinigunan race track near
Kopopo where New Britain's 1000 white
population used to gather could easily
have been converted to war purposes.
Rabaul was pleasant little South
Seas town of 500 white people before the
Japs moved in, where trading and ship
ping company representatives attended
the cinema, enjoyed swimming meets,
cricket and tennis matches.
Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and
Seventh Day Adventist missions scat
tered throughout the Blanche Bay area
attempted to bring Christianity and
some degree of civilization to New Bri-
tain's 100000 natives.
A German colony since 1848, New
Britain was seized by the British in 1914.
Some land fighting was involved and
trenches in which native troops fought
in the brief engagement are landmarks
north Of Kokopo on the road to Rabaul.
Britain received the territory under a
League of Nations mandate and under
its provisions was not permitted to for
tify the island.
So when the Jap invasion got under
way from the many inundated islands
the Japanese had fortified, despite the
Leagues covenant, there was virtually
nothing with which to resist them.