The Story:      

The small Australian garrison at Rabaul was overwhelmed by the Japanese on January 23, 1942.

Rabaul was converted into a veritable fortress, and major supply base for the planned expansion into mainland New Guinea, Papua, the Solomons, and Australia. Major actions including the Kokoda Trail, Milne Bay, Coral Sea Battle, Lae, Guadalcanal, Bougainville etc were all launched and supplied from Rabaul.

The pumice hills of Rabaul were honeycombed with over 500Km of tunnels, including 15 hospitals (one such being 4Km in length, and having capacity for 2,500 patients). Indian P.O.W's captured at Singapore, and local inhabitants were used as labour for digging the tunnels - extreme hardships and many deaths resulted.

At it's peak the fortress of Rabaul included 5 airstrips, a float plane base, a submarine base, huge numbers of naval vessels, and up to 200,000 Japanese armed forces personnel.

Rabaul is located on the Gazelle Peninsula at the Northern tip of the island of New Britain. New Britain now forms a part of the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. The non WWII history of this region is a fascinating story of it's own.

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