Articles

CRITIQUE of Voices from a Lost World by Jan Roberts
Millennium Books 1996.

The following article was originally sent to Una Voce (magazine of the then Retired Officers Association of Papua New Guinea [ROAPNG] ) in 1996.
It was not published.

May I as a poet and historian ‘Beforer’, and a ROAPNG member, be allowed to speak on behalf of some of your members, their friends, and the children of Beforers’.

Jan Roberts in spite of having my work pointed out to her by the Librarian of one of Australia’s senior University libraries, chose not to mention any of my books in the Bibliography of her book Voices from a Lost World. If she had bothered to contact me, some of the many mistakes in this book could have been rectified before publication

I take 7 points from this curiously misleading book. My work refers, as always, mainly to the Bismarck Archipelago within the Mandated Territory of New Guinea,

1. R.L. Clark, M.L.A. was the Chief Civilian Warden who surrendered the civilian population to the Japanese in Rabaul 23rd January 1942. He had remained steadfast, while all around him those with authority to act, disappeared. Roberts writes, ‘He, (Gordon Thomas) the Chief Warden, and Senior Government Officer H.E. Robinson. carried the white flag. (p.275)

2. Dick Forsyth was a successful public accountant, not a clerk’, (p.178,) A close friend of my fathers, and Nobby Clark, from 1925 - in New Guinea. As Roberts says rightly, men went to New Guinea to avoid the Depression, what does her sentence ‘he (Forsyth) had a hard time during the Depression’ (p. 175) mean? Roberts interviewed both Mrs Gladys Forsyth and her daughter Beatrice. How could these mistakes have been made?

3. Lil Evensen after evacuation from Rabaul in January 1942, travelled to her home state, Western Australia, by train. What then is the meaning of the words ‘Canberra station’. (p.282) Has Canberra ever been on a main railway line?

4. I cannot accept the following statement taken from Roberts book. ‘A group of Rabaul ladies on the upstairs verandah were sitting on cane chairs and having drinks brought to them, and on reaching the stage of complete immobilisation, simply urinated through the cane chairs and sat there with the spreading puddles on the floor beneath them, It seemed an habitual rite’. (p. 166. )

Roberts gives no precise reference for this statement that is, of course, by inference, such a slur on all the European residents of pre WWII Rabaul. The Cosmopolition Hotel was used by families on a regular basis. My great-aunt Nance Scott, recently retired as Matron of Townsville Hospital, a nursing sister throughout WWI in Egypt, India, the Western Front, stayed at times at this Hotel during the years that seem to be suggested. It is preposterous to imagine that a) Nance Scott would not have found out about such behaviour and b) not brought it to a swift and decisive stop.

5. What of that paragraph of Jan Roberts that contains the statement: the Rabaul women ‘enjoyed feeling secure within their boundaries and were pleased to know there was a strong, benevolent, Government Number One living above them on Namanula Hill’. (p. 176)

Marjorie McCosker in one of her letters recorded that the McNicolls had ‘got the wind up’ when their limousine was stuck in the mud near the Warangoi River. The McNicolls had decided on an afternoon’s outing to see the Warangoi in flood. It took nearly half the population of the Gazelle Peninsula to get them back to Rabaul. And doubtless the whole Gazelle Peninsula shared in the amusement this caused. Not much deference or sense of security from Namanula there.
Marjorie McCosker was neither ‘in or out’ of Government House society as Roberts declares every woman was. Surely this was not solely because of her many aristocratic and gentry links.

6. The one mention of my work by Roberts is treated incorrectly. It appears as if Roberts thinks there is some connection between Tiger Lil driving a car called the ‘silver bullet’ and being rich. No such inference can be drawn from my words in Reflections. In fact at the time referred to by me, Tiger Lil was living in Rabaul, or to be more precise Kokopo. not‘down from the gold fields’. (p. 170)

(The part of the NOTE for this that refers to my work is wrong. The book published was NEW GUINEA WAITS. Reflections, was one article in this publication.)

7. Roberts bemoans the fact - as have others engaged in recent studies of New Guinea - that ‘so few glimpses of Melanesian women and children of Papua New Guinea emerge from the interview and research material. (p. xviii) Why then do all these same people continue to ignore me and all my work on New Guinea?

My elder sister and I had a New Guinean nanny who was the wife of the war hero, Rombin. My sister’s childhood playmate of many years was the adopted daughter of our nanny. I have much material on many aspects of these relationships.

Is it not therefore extraordinary that those believed to be engaged in colonial New Guinea scholarship cannot even put my works in their Bibliographies? Jan Roberts says she wants to ‘recover as much social history as possible’
(p. xvii). Why then ignore the woman poet and historian who a quarter of a century ago began to collect material, particularly written material, of colonial New Guinea, thus building on her personal experience of that country.

© Anne McCosker 1996

The dead about my childhood
Wait still.
They cannot be dismissed,
Live in my art –
Twice now expendable.

Any one interested can study my book Masked Eden and A Very Long War. They can judge for themselves the quality and quantity of the original, written material published in both books. They can see the amount of first hand material I have from the period under discussion - always of course the most valuable to a historian. For example there is first published in Masked Eden original material from three people who lived in Rabaul during the Japanese occupation. None of this is, of course, in A Very Long War. MUP have stated, September, 2000, they were previously unaware of the ‘existence ’of Masked Eden. Do they feel no responsibility towards their readers?

Those concerned to find out the truth about the Fall of Rabaul and subsequent events may also be interested to study the way Reeson and I have handled our material, in particular documents from state archives, for example, the facsimile on page 279, Masked Eden. This document is not mentioned in A Very Long War.

In her book Mrs Reeson gives a list of names, mine included, of people she has decided have researched the Fall of Rabaul and its tragic consequence. Page 110. One wonders what value there is in presenting a list of names such as that with no yardstick as to why they have been selected.

In the paragraph below this list she writes ‘each has assumed that they were the only ones interested in the subject’, This statement could apply to the writers of books published in the 1990s. Most of these people appeared to see the Mandated Territory of New Guinea as a means whereby they could achieve further academic or financial gain. (Could one perhaps include Margaret Reeson among these.) However none of these books were from the core pre WWII New Guinea families.

Reeson continues, ‘It also appears that families tend to be more likely to have read Scharmach or Mary Murray than historians Wigmore, Sweeting, Hasluck and Nelson.’ Who exactly did she have in mind when she makes that statement? If I was one of that number I suggest she read the NOTES in Masked Eden, all 35 pages of them, my SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY and RECOMMENDED READING. However I hazard a guess that many pre WWII residents have read her named historians.

Many ‘beforers’ knowing facts from personal experience and private information knew and know the inaccuracy of much academic work on the subject. So often mistakes are just repeated in the next book. Until academia finds the generosity to accept I do have valuable original material and am a historian and poet in my own right, they will continue regurgitating inaccuracies over and over again. Margaret Reeson’s and MUP’s ignoring of my work confirms ‘beforers’ suspicions.

I write this article well aware of what some readers might say. They may tell me I have missed the point of A Very Long War. Perhaps I have. But I do not believe anything of value; spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, can be achieved without basing it on facts. One has to understand the Fall of Rabaul before one can understand the controversy of the ‘Montevideo Maru’. Only then can one began to make sense of, and heal, traumas of a life time. Margaret Reeson’s book is continuing that trauma.

I give three examples from A Very Long War.

Page 17. In one paragraph Reeson has used material from both the Navy Dept. and the Managing Director of Burns Philp. The Burns Philp letter was sent to the Prime Minister’s office. It was eventually forwarded to the Navy Dept. Reeson quotes from the Navy Dept. reply of the 14th February [to the Dept. of Defence Co-Ordination ] and misquotes from Burns Philp. The Navy Dept. reply she includes states ‘as no one knew where any escapees might be located’. She does not quote the Burns Philp words, ‘it seems reasonable to suppose that they [escapees] would make their way to the South Coast of New Britain in the general direction of Wide Bay.’ See Masked Eden pp.209, 210. This was exactly what happened. There was much first hand knowledge available to would-be rescue forces. During this same period an unknown number of civilians and soldiers were murdered by the Japanese while waiting for rescue - in the Wide Bay area. See Masked Eden. Chapters 10. 11.

Readers may like to compare the two sets of NOTES. Masked Eden pp. 332,333. Chapter 11 Part 1. Note ll and A Very Long War p. 173. Note 14. Reeson gives the date of the Burns Philp letter as the Navy Dept. letter date. She gives no details for the Burns Philp letter. I used the documents to show just how out of touch and uninterested the authorities were, in regard to New Guinea, in early 1942. It apparently took over two weeks for any response to that most important of New Guinea companies, Burns Philp. Reeson has mishandled this material, brushing away one of the most contentious aspects of the Rabaul debacle.

Page 28. Reeson writes, ‘military intelligence collected information from each survivor as he arrived.’ [ in Australia after escaping from New Britain.] They did not. See Masked Eden. Chapters 10. 11.

Page 95. Reason writes ‘If the government had granted an inquiry into the events of Rabaul 1942, they would have been obliged to offer the same courtesy to the relatives of Australian victims of Timor, Ambon, --- Singapore, Malaya and other places’---. There is no comparison between the Fall of Rabaul and the loss of Australians in places such as Timor, or Singapore. Rabaul was under Australian administration, governed from Canberra. The other countries were governed by different nations from different capital cities. It would have been pointless having an inquiry about them in Canberra. These countries were not Canberra’s responsibility! Rabaul though was.
.
In the mid 1940s men such as Stan McCosker, John Gilmore, Keith McCarthy, Rombin, would have gladly testified. Gordon Thomas and John Murphy would have been questioned in open court. It was, and still is, a monstrous scandal there was no official inquiry into the Fall of Rabaul.

A Very Long War is based on a M.A. thesis supervised at ANU, Canberra. In this thesis/ book Margaret Reeson has ignored my published work and manipulated the material I personally sent to her. Was she trying to discredit me and destroy my reputation as a serious historian? See Masked Eden.

I suggest that the Canberra establishment to which Mrs Reeson belongs, is continuing to behave to those most involved in the Fall of Rabaul much as it has ever since 23rd January 1942. A Very Long War has not offered us anything. Words must have Truth to have any power or meaning. We may be a ‘wounded people’ but we will not be mocked and patronized by others, who, fearing facts, play with our history.

John Leeuwin-Clark has ended his Foreword to Masked Eden with the words. Anne McCosker has most fittingly dedicated Masked Eden to ‘All who have loved New Guinea’ and in their hearts and minds there will always be a memorial.

I suggest too that Australia will only face the facts of the Fall of Rabaul when it is understood what actually happened. In this respect the following poem may help.

NAMANULA HILL

Two WW1 veterans, and friends of many years, met for the last time on Namanula Hill the afternoon before the Japanese invaded Rabaul, capital of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, in 1942.

R.L. (Nobby) Clark, M.L.C., Chief Civil Warden, hoping to protect civilians left behind, formally surrendered them to the Japanese in Rabaul, 23rd January 1942. The manner of his death remains a mystery. Stan McCosker escaped to Australia. He, and many facts regarding the Fall of Rabaul, were for long ignored by the Australian nation.

I’ll stand and guard Australia’s soul,
You, Mac get away.
We’re surrounded by stupidity,
Australians should be told.

Years of work destroyed.
Our plans for Rabaul
Killed now by a few
Men who have no vision.

The army’s gone, the airforce too
Much of Administration.
Mac, you must leave,
Record all this confusion.

I’ll stand and guard our nation
In the dreadful hour before me
Some one must face these Japanese,
With pride and dignity.

Go, Mac, get away,
Remember what you see
Word this into the future,
Keep faith in Memory.

Were two men with one will,
Moulding history
For country and kin
On Namanula Hill.

Note.
1. In a letter to Anne McCosker.
Poems in this article taken from Witch Doctor published 2003.

COMMENTS: NOEL BARRY AND THE SHORT NOTE ON HIS WORK IN THE NEW TRANSLATION OF PARKINSON'S THIRTY YEARS IN THE SOUTH SEAS
PUBLISHED BY CRAWFORD HOUSE PUBLISHING, 1999.

Noel Barry was an Englishman. He was a graduate of Cambridge University. Studied also in France and Germany. An officer in WWI in the British army. In 1927 he went to Rabaul to work as translator of German documents.

He was translator/intelligence officer in WWII, working among other places in the Middle East. One of very few European men of Rabaul to survive WWII he returned there after the war. Member of the Legislative Council, a street was named after him in Rabaul. He died in Rabaul 1960.

Noel Barry was well loved and respected by all races of the Rabaul community both pre and post WWII. He was a man of substance, integrity and scholarship who had influence on the intellectual/cultural environment.

This information and more of his background and the milieu in which he lived and worked, can be found in my book Masked Eden, A History of the Australians in New Guinea, ISBN 0 646 35289 X.

Masked Eden was published in Australia, June 1998. By September 1998, the book was selling to public libraries, was in the National Library, Canberra, was known about by amongst other interested people, the PMB, Hank Nelson ANU, the Pacific Book House.

As regards the various questions and statements that are made in 'The second edition and the Barry translation', I make the following points:

1. As is obvious from the above information, Barry made the translation (a) because he was a translator of German documents, and (b) because he was a Cambridge scholar.

2. Surely caution should be shown nowadays regarding Margaret Mead. How can one assume she, with her short time in Rabaul, or anyone else, was privy to much actual information regarding Barry's future plans? It is most unlikely Barry did not know about the original edition of Parkinson's book. He probably read it before he ever went to New Guinea, in Germany. As an official translator, he would have had access to ALL the German records etc which would have made mention of the original edition.

He was also known to have for use a battered but complete copy which probably belonged to Effie Kaumann. This was almost certainly a 1907 copy.

3. Barry and Phoebe Parkinson had hoped to get the book published. As to why he gave it to Phoebe Parkinson. Noel Barry would hardly start carrying this translation around with him when he went to war! Who more appropriate for Barry to give his translation to than Phoebe Parkinson?
Phoebe gave the typescript to the Archbold expedition just before the Japanese invasion. This should show yet again what a remarkable woman she was. In a fast changing desperate world, she was able to choose one man who would care for the translation she and Barry had worked on for so long.

Phoebe Parkinson would have been known to Noel Barry for many years and would have discussed the book with him. She may even have been hoping to improve on the original in some respects. She after all had worked closely with her husband, had catalogued much of his material, and was the interpreter between him and the subjects he wrote about. A man of Barry's sensitivity would have listened to Phoebe. (There was therefore no need to give it to her 'to check and correct the translation' in 1940.)

Much of this information could have been gathered from Masked Eden.

As regards the various statements made regarding Barry's translation:

There is no recognition given to the possibility that Barry actually chose the 1926 edition to translate for a variety of reasons. One of them being that he was working in a pioneer environment. It also was possible that Barry working in a period so close to that of Parkinson, and with Phoebe's help was aware of some of the irrelevancies and mistakes in the original. This may have outweighed the disadvantages of the second edition.

To make such a point about the difference between 1873 and 1878 is surely quite unnecessary. Anyone who has worked on old typewriters knows very well that 3 and 8 could easily be mistaken. It needs only a dirty, smudged print character. Barry did not have the advantage of modern word processors or computers! It is also unnecessary to mention another probable typing error regarding numbers as if it were Barry's stupidity. Especially when the same essay makes it plain that there is uncertainty regarding what copy is what and how many times it had been retyped!

I wonder if this would have been given such prominence if Barry's background had been known. I wonder too what John Dennison would have done if he had known of Barry's qualifications. Obviously Dennison has read Barry's translation. How much use did he in fact make of it? Noel Barry had no other English translation to work with.

I would hazard a guess that no matter how good the new translation of Parkinson is, that of Noel Barry even if it is not from the complete copy, will prove in the long run closer to the spirit and truth of the times, the people involved and the facts.

It is also unfortunate that without knowledge of Barry's education, the possibility that he was planning more than a mere translation is not even apparently imagined. It is just assumed he was exerting 'little editorial control of his translation'. Could no-one consider he was intending to write more, a long introduction etc, build on what Parkinson had done? He had completed only the core of his work. Barry's papers, with the exception of the translation he gave Phoebe Parkinson, were lost, as were, of course, most other written records of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. Could no mention have been made of this fact?

There is no mention in the essay of the great sadness Barry must have felt when after the war he returned to Rabaul to find Phoebe dead, most of his friends murdered, and much of his life's work destroyed. To state in the New Title Information that 'remarkable…. never been fully translated into English and published' shows a lack of any knowledge of the tragedy that happened in Rabaul in 1942. It belittles Noel Barry and all he, and others, were trying to achieve.

Did anyone involved in this translation bother to try and find out about Noel Barry? Was it just assumed, as is invariably the case in academic work over the last 20 or so years that the European men of Rabaul were uneducated ruffians, and the European women pathetic creatures who behaved at times like animals?

Surely as Barry's translation was, if nothing else, a guide to the present translation/book and use has been made of his intellectual property, some action could and should have been made to find anyone concerned/connected with Noel Barry. One of the chief characteristics of the European pioneers of Rabaul was their generosity of spirit. Today this characteristic is not apparent in most academic circles concerned with research into the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, and such a characteristic is denied those they research.

It should have been easy for anyone to discover my connection with Noel Barry. Although Masked Eden was published only last year, I have been in contact with any number of academics/publishers since the late 1970s and warning these people that it was irresponsible folly to ignore me and my work. The translation of the Parkinson book is just one more in the long line of those with inaccurate/misleading information, that any reading of my work could have rectified in a scholar of integrity.

Apart from everything else, my booklet New Guinea Waits, ISBN 0 950287652, was published in 1993. It was available in several of the main Australian libraries. It was eventually, December 1995, given some prominence in 'Una Voce' the magazine of the ROAPNG. Barry's connection with my family and Parkinson was mentioned in this. It was, should still be, available in the Mitchell Library, among others. This booklet also gives some background information regarding Masked Eden.

Publishing any book is an achievement and from the information I have regarding this one, it has taken much time and effort. I congratulate everyone involved. However, how much more could have been achieved if credit had been given to others such as Noel Barry. No one could gather at all the man of substance Barry was from the rather condescending few words in Specht's essay.

I - again - received no recognition. Masked Eden, which has received much praise from the few still alive who really know about its subject matter, and is of such obvious importance to any background understanding of the era Noel Barry worked in, has been ignored. I hope that this will be rectified in any future publication, and some Note that reflects more closely the real Noel Barry be written. Is it really too much to hope for that some of those involved in modern day research into colonial Papua New Guinea will bother to read my work, and make sure copies remain or are placed in key libraries for future scholars?

Anne McCosker 1999.

Anne in MASKED EDEN was the first to publish any of
Thirty Years in the South Seas in English.
The following is an extract from Noel Barry's translation

MASKED EDEN pages 99 to 100

'A little north of Cape Palliser there is a small bay, protected by a coral reef and two little islands, forming a good harbour, but only for small ships. The natives name the place Mutlar and come there occasionally to catch turtles…

A little further north there is the small, concealed harbour of Rugenhafen (the native Put Put), which I discovered in 1884. The entrance is narrow and only one ship can enter at a time; the branches of the huge forest trees which stretch out over both sides of the passage brush the ship's sides in paces. Thirteen metres is the minimum depth in the passage and once in the basin there is room for a great number of ships to anchor at a depth of 11 or 12 metres: and as Rugenhafen and Mutlar are the only safe harbours on the east coast of the Gazelle Peninsula, they are sure to become of considerable importance in the course of time when the hinterland is opened up for plantations. About four kilometers north of Rugenhafen, where a deep wide valley cuts into the land for a great distanced one of the biggest rivers in the Peninsula flows into the sea, the Warangoi.

In the dry season not a great quantity of water flows down it; but in the rainy season it changes into a roaring mountain torrent and can only be navigated with great difficulty.

Some years ago I went up it in company of Bishop Coupp, and a surveyor, from the mouth to a point just south of Vunakokor .It took us four days to do this stretch, and that not without very strenuous efforts; in places the canoe had to be carried over mudflats, or fallen trees that barred the way from bank to bank and over which the dammed up water rushed like a roaring cataract; now and again we would come across open stretches with deep water in which paddles could be used, but even here progress was slow on account of the strength of the current.

As the scenery was one of extreme grandeur and changed cm each of the many turns, the four days we took to rake our way up sleeps seemed soon to pass. .But the return journey passed quicker still for the stretch which had taken us four days of the most strenuous work to negotiated we covered in four hours downstream.

Our three boats raced down the river in the wildest haste, driven only by the stream which had swollen considerably from the torrent rains which had overtaken us at our last camp. The paddlers sat idle, the whole of the work falling on the steersman who required a sharp eye and a strong arm to dodge the boulders and tree stumps and skirt the projecting cliffs. We were all very relieved to hear the booming of the surf which told us that the mouth of the Warangoi was near and our wild journey at an ended'

COMMENTS on A Very Long War by Margaret Reeson.

Melbourne University Press, 2000.

This book is offered on behalf of those whose lives were shaped by events in the islands of New Guinea in 1942-45 and who feared that those losses and their aftermath in the lives of their families would be devalued and forgotten.

Thus writes Margaret Reeson in her Preface to the above book.

Masked Eden, A History of the Australians in New Guinea by Anne McCosker, was published, June 1998. The Foreword was written by John Leeuwin-Clark. Anyone with knowledge of the history of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea will know the above two surnames have some importance in that history.

Masked Eden was, as legally required, given to the National Library, Canberra, at the time of its publication. Soon afterwards copies were acquired and people aware of this book’s publication in libraries such as ANU, Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Australian War Memorial - all in Canberra where Mrs Reeson lives. By the following year, 1999, there would have been few pre WWII Australian residents of New Guinea who were not aware of Masked Eden’s publication.

However Margaret Reeson stated September, 2000, she had not ‘sighted’ Masked Eden.¹ Considering the claim she and Melbourne University Press (MUP) have made, offering their book to those whose lives were shaped by events in New Guinea during WWII, many might think this an unsatisfactory acknowledgement.

In A Very Long War, Mrs Reeson, discusses and dismisses my work in one paragraph, page 167. As she has chosen to do this in a published work I will now respond.

She first quotes one line from a letter I wrote to her while in Canberra, March 1995, telling her the [name]‘Montevideo Maru’ had ‘echoed throughout my childhood and ever since’ She has acknowledged receiving my letter of the above date in her NOTES. In this letter I also said that New Guinea Waits was in the National Library, Canberra, having seen it that day myself. She had previously implied in a letter, February, 1995, it was not there.

I suggested again – in this Canberra letter - she read this booklet. My first letter to her, February, 1995, also suggested she read New Guinea Waits. However in September, 2000, she stated she had not ‘sighted’ New Guinea Waits. There is obviously some confusion here as she quoted from it in her February, 1995, letter to me. She was interested in my comments about the ‘tragic consequences for the Australian women caused by the death of so many of the men of Rabaul.’ This was taken from my review of Chilla Bulbeck’s book, Australian Women in Papua New Guinea in the magazine ‘Una Voce’. AT BIRTH I HEARD THE DRUMS, the review in question, was from New Guinea Waits. A fuller extract of this article was later printed in ‘Una Voce.’ (Mrs Reeson and I were then members of the Retired Officers Association of Papua New Guinea whose magazine is ‘Una Voce.’)

After quoting the lines ‘echoed throughout my childhood ’ Reeson then writes the following, ‘as a young child she heard her father’s account, told with pain and passion’ This information she has taken from my poem THE TRACK TO MATALA. I enclosed a copy of that poem with a letter to her, September, 1995. Why could she not acknowledge this poem, called by Hank Nelson‘ timely’? I quote some lines from it.

[Stan McCosker ]
In Queensland he recorded facts
And passionately told
The anguish of that day.
I - a small child – heard.------

And I, heir to my father.-----

I hear the silence of those men
Bear the burden of their voices
Shouting in a void.

Margaret Reeson claims to be offering A Very Long War to people such as myself. She has given space to other lines of poetry. Why not to any of mine?

She has also ignored the prose material at the beginning of THE TRACK TO MATALA.

In 1976 John Gilmore wrote to the poet

Officialdom will never admit they refused to let these people leave Rabaul and virtually gave them to the Japs. They were non combatants and largely ancient… I suppose it was better for all of them to go at once than…(the families find out) they were whittled away over a long period.

Did she not think Gilmore’s words of any interest? John Gilmore is an important figure in any discussion on the Fall of Rabaul and the ‘Montevideo Maru’ controversy. If she had responded to that material I could have given her details of the quotation from John Gilmore. See Masked Eden. NOTES page 338. Chapter 13. Part 1. Note 3. She might also, if she had responded, kept in touch, and known of Masked Eden’s publication.

I return to Mrs Reeson’s muddled discussion of my work in A Very Long War. page 167.

She next gives a vague, inaccurate description of Masked Eden. Some of the information is taken from my two letters, mentioned above. Surely also some is from material printed in ‘Una Voce.’

The poem MEN OF RABAUL was first published in New Guinea Waits.

On the fiftieth anniversary of this [Rabaul] invasion, the poet placed flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey.

Fifty years fade into stone
That crafted arch by arch
Lead to an altar.
Time is silenced, distance inched
Spheres meet in vaulted order. -------

A sea of blue is red
I kneel now beside poppies
That guard a grave.
‘Unknown Soldier’.
Yet my parents knew those men betrayed.

Did Margaret Reeson read this poem? She certainly had the opportunity to do so. Or did she brush it aside as of no value?

Towards the end of her paragraph regarding me, page 167, she writes: Anne McCosker believes that the perpetuation of the story of the ship is ‘a sick fairy tale’----. This is quoted from my unpublished letter to Quadrant (also enclosed in the letter to her, September, 1995). The words ‘a sick fairy tale’, taken out of context, give a very distorted picture of what I actually wrote. I quote now from this letter.

I agree with Carl Bridge when he writes ----. I would add that honesty about WWII is needed not only between Australians and Japanese but between Australians and Australians.

On the 1st July a plaque commemorating the men of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles was unveiled in Anzac Square, Brisbane . This plaque states, amongst other things , that the men’s final resting place is the hull of the Japanese ship ‘ Montevideo Maru’. It is not. ------

Throughout the 1970s I collected written and oral evidence from survivors of the Japanese occupation, liberators of Rabaul and New Guinea residents who returned there immediately after the war. Records in state archives also suggest clearly the men were not on that ship [the ‘Montevideo Maru’] For the first six months of this year [1995] I again tried ---[to have] my evidence at least recognised by interested organizations and persons.----

To write out of hand, ignoring all the evidence to the contrary----

Whilst pleased ‘something’ has at last been done to recognise this, perhaps, greatest disaster in purely Australian history—that ‘something’ is only continuing the betrayal.----

No small group of people has any right to manufacture history to their own design. The leaflet distributed during that service has an element of a sick fairy tale about it. [Underline now added]

I said the LEAFLET had an element of a sick fairy tale about it. This leaflet credited the NGVR with such grandiose achievements (Few families connected with Rabaul knew beforehand of the service.) Can one not have a little more scholarly attention shown to written words, especially when dealing with such sensitive matters.

It is establishment figures – not private persons such as myself - that are dogmatic on the whole subject of the ‘Montevideo Maru’. It knows many of the men were certainly not on that ship when it was sunk. Why can it not say “we do not know what happened to most of these men. Let us place on our memorial plaques words such as ‘The manner of their death remains a mystery.’ ”

My short letter to Margaret Reeson that September, 1995, included the following words ‘ As you are doing a thesis on the subject and have been badly mislead in the past I think you should at least be given the chance to decide where you stand on the subject.’ Having written thus and enclosed several documents of interest, I find now she has misused them. She has also ignored my efforts to help her. One naturally wonders how much material in A Very Long War has been inaccurately recorded and information from knowledgeable people rejected if it did not fit into her designed thesis.

After her sick fairy tale Margaret Reeson then dismissed me from her thoughts and A Very Long War. None of my published work appears in her Bibliography. And in spite of telling me, September, 2000, that New Guinea Waits is mentioned in A Very Long War, I cannot find it. However she thanks me in her Preface! In view of the way she has treated my published work, information and material sent to her, I find this unfortunate . (I did not fill in her Questionnaire.)

I drafted a poem in Canberra during the days I was there in 1995.

EXPENDABLE

In the 1990s academia allowed a little study on the Fall of Rabaul, 1942, and its ‘hostages to fortune’ inhabitants. The poet’s work of over 20 years continued to be ignored.

So all that suffering is to be
Tidied away in some degree.
It has been decided
Betrayal is fit for study –
But not by me.

Theses may be written
Books printed, published,
Tragedy whitewashed.
Facts brushed aside –
Forgotten.

On 23rd January 1942 the Japanese easily captured Rabaul, in Australian administered New Guinea. The Australian garrison, of ill equipped, badly trained, almost leaderless men, was sent bush without even their ‘hard tack’ rations. The civilians were left to fend for themselves.

‘Australia would never stand our men being deserted’ ¹ said Sir Earle Page to the War Cabinet assembled in London, 21st January 1942. He was expressing his opinion of Churchill’s hypothetical suggestion that the British evacuate Singapore.

Did Earle Page not know that the Australian Chief of Naval Staff had sent a cablegram on 12th December 1941 to the Australian Minister in Washington, Rt. Hon. R.G. Casey. This stated ‘it is considered better to maintain Rabaul only as an advanced air operational base, its present small garrison being regarded as hostages to fortune.’ ²

This small garrison, so summary dismissed, consisted of about 1400 military personnel. Rabaul and the surrounding islands were home also to many hundreds of Australian families. Over Christmas 1941 European women and children were evacuated, leaving as part of the ‘hostages to fortune’ about 500 European men, mostly over military age.

Any one looking at a map of the Pacific can see the strategic importance of Rabaul. The town had a magnificent harbour and excellent port, reasonably easy to defend. In 1939 it had two airfields and good wireless communications. Having been the centre of Germany’s southern Pacific interests pre WWl, and retained as capital by the Australians, by WWII it had symbolic as well as strategic importance.

Many of the resident male Europeans were WWl veterans, some with over 20 year’s experience of Island life. These men continued the pioneering work begun by the Germans, building up plantations, missions, mines, ports, trade. Many had excellent relationships with the New Guineans.

At the outbreak of WWll these men assumed that the importance of Rabaul would be recognized. They knew Germany was still interested in her former colony and had excellent knowledge of the Islands, including the Territory’s various safe anchorages useful for German navy operations. They knew too that Japan, given the mandate of the Caroline Islands after WWI, had built bases there which placed New Guinea within reach. And they were aware that Japanese had been spying around the Islands for years. So the energetic core of resident Europeans acted. The New Guinea Voluntary Rifles was formed, defence work begun, Coast Watchers recruited. The Australian government and Chiefs of Staff however were not much interested.

Earle Page during September and October 1941, on the way to his appointment as Australian envoy in London, had visited the Netherlands East Indies, Singapore, the Philippines, Canada, USA. In London he would tell the British there were not enough fighter aircraft in Singapore. Rabaul at that time had none.

At the same time the Australian government agreed to spend £666,500 on behalf of the United States for further development of New Caledonia as an operational base and the 3rd Independent company was sent to Noumea as a gesture to the Free French.

On that day, 21st January 1942, that Earle Page in London was busy lecturing the British regarding their responsibilities in Singapore, the military commanders in Rabaul were busy preparing - or not preparing, it was a rout - to abandon Rabaul and the civilians.

Who was the senior Australian representative in Rabaul? Harold Page, Earle Page’s brother. Harold Page, Acting Administrator since September 1941 (the Administrator, Sir W. McNicholl left Rabaul then to reside in Lae) had been the Mandated Territory’s Government Secretary since 1923.

On 22nd January, Harold Page left Rabaul for an outlying plantation. The Assistant District Officer wrote in his dairy ‘visited Raniola Plantation interviewed Mr H.H. Page, Government Secretary.’ ³Page left behind him hundreds of civilians, having done nothing to facilitate their escape on the many small ships available.

On 23rd January, in Rabaul, the civilian population was surrendered to the Japanese by the Chief Civil Warden N. L. Clark, Rabaul Times editor, Gordon Thomas, and perhaps two other Australians.

What exactly Harold Page was told by the Australian Government has never been satisfactorily explained. He was to say when a POW 'as late as the morning of the 20th Jan he received a reply to an earlier cable saying that the situation was in hand and to carry on as usual!’ ⁴. Had Page ever been informed that he, and those he was supposed to be protecting, had been considered ‘hostages to fortune’ since 12th December 1941, or was he told only of 15th December decision?

On 15th December 1941, the Chiefs of Defence Staff considered it essential ‘ to maintain a forward air observation line as long as possible and to make the enemy fight for this line rather than abandon it at the first threat.’ ⁵

Harold Page on 15th January 1942 telegraphed Canberra, ‘It now appears that the defence policy for the territory is to be limited to demonstrations of force rather than any serious attempt to hold the territory against any enemy attack in force and there are indications that such an attack will take place in the very near future. For these reasons it is considered urgent that consideration should be given to the position of civil population of the territory and if necessary their evacuation.’ ⁶Events on the ground were following the plan outlined in 12th December cablegram to Washington.

The Acting Administrator’s brother, Earle Page left London over Christmas 1941, for a six-day holiday with relations in Belfast. It seemed Earle Page, in spite of such important personal connections with New Guinea, treated the Mandated Territory as a child treats an unwanted toy - as did most Australian politicians in 1941.

Australia had been an independent nation since 1901 and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea was her responsibility. Rabaul was of vital importance to the allies from the onset of WWII. The Australian Government with up to date information and backed by a patriotic, highly motivated and experienced core of British subjects, well supported by the majority of the New Guineans, could have given mature advice to the British. Instead the Australian cabinet and Chiefs of Staff became fixated on Singapore.

It could be argued that if the Japanese wanted to invade Eastern Australia they could have done so without Singapore. However it is hard to visualise such an undertaking proceeding without controlling Rabaul. The Japanese captured Rabaul before Singapore. It was from Rabaul their fleet sailed, with transports, to the battle of the Coral Sea. From Rabaul their planes bombed Moresby, their troops left for the Owen Stanley Range.

The capture of Rabaul not only placed the Japanese much closer to Port Moresby and Australia, it also gave them the vast untapped wealth of New Guinea. And there they dug in. Rabaul became a labyrinth of tunnels as did other strategic outlying areas in New Britain. It is said they could have remained unconquered there for years, harassing Australia at will.

As early as June 1942 General MacArthur and his staff made plans to recapture Rabaul in 2 weeks. This was then increased to 18 days. Thousands of lives were to be lost trying to recapture or neutralise it. Soldiers, sailors, airmen were to die fighting on the Kokoda Trail, Milne Bay, Buna, Guadalcanal. Australians, Papuan New Guineans, Americans fought in Papua, New Guinea, the Solomons, through 1942, 1943, 1944.

By 1943, the Americans had become so interested in New Britain, the Australian General Blamey believed that the operations there would be undertaken by American forces ‘to strengthen a claim to retain New Britain in the post-war settlement’. ⁷MacArthur however took little interest in Singapore.

Back to Earle Page and the Australian government of 1942. On the very day Rabaul fell, 23rd January, the Australian War Cabinet received a cablegram from Earle Page stating the

British government had considered the evacuation of Singapore. Another paragraph was inserted into the communiqué about to be sent to London. ‘ Page has reported the Defence Committee has been considering evacuation of Malaya and Singapore. After all the assurances we have been given, the evacuation of Singapore would be regarded here and elsewhere as an inexcusable betrayal. Singapore is a central fortress in the system of Empire and local defence’. ⁸

Were Churchill and his advisers aware of what had happened that day in Rabaul? Churchill was angered by the Australian attitude to his hypothetical suggestions regarding Singapore. If he had known the full extent of the debacle in Rabaul he might have been even angrier!

Lt. Col. Rowell is quoted as saying after the fall of Rabaul, ‘its not the first time a few thousand men have been thrown away and it won’t be the last’. Later in conversation with the historian, D.M. Horner he said ‘they [the Chiefs of Staff] had the scale of attack all wrong. The Japanese employed a division against a battalion. It was bad luck for the battalion that the Japanese intended making Rabaul their main base.^{’ 9}

Where exactly did the Chiefs of Staff think the Japanese main base would be? Any reasonably intelligent person with up to date knowledge of Rabaul would have expected it to be there.

The Chiefs of Staff also showed their lack of knowledge and responsibility when in their report of 15th December 1941 they stated that the withdrawal of the garrison and abandonment of Rabaul was not possible because of the effect it ‘would have on the minds of the Dutch in NEI.’ ¹⁰Apparently they did not worry about abandoning Australian civilians, the Chinese community or the New Guineans, Australia was supposed to be protecting under the mandate. And they had, of course, no concern for the small Australian garrison.

Paul Hasluck, later Governor General of Australia wrote ‘The most charitable view, namely that Canberra was out of touch with what was happening in New Guinea, is itself a criticism only less damning than the alternative view that Canberra did know but did not care enough. - - - -

Government policy in the ensuing weeks [after the fall of Rabaul ] was to water down the news of disasters lest Australians should get scared.’ ¹¹

Sixty years on, the establishment is not just watering down the fall of Rabaul and the subsequent loss of life, but washing it away.

In 2002, it is still the fall of Singapore that most Australian historians are discussing. They pick over every detail in ever more conferences, discussion papers, articles. And the fall of Rabaul? The Australian War Memorial, Remembering 1942 history conference had no paper on the subject. The Menzies Centre in London convened in Cambridge a conference on Churchill and Australia. Amongst the topics discussed were the fall of Singapore and the latter stages of the Pacific war. There were no major articles or programmes in the Australian media on Rabaul. Singapore though was well covered.

Establishment humbug can perhaps be illustrated by the AUSTRALIANS REMEMBERED MAP, published in early 2002, with the help of the AWM and the Australian government. This map lists Australian war losses since Federation. It claims to show ‘significant actions and events’.

What then of the fall of Rabaul? An arrow pointing to Rabaul states ‘23/1/42 Japanese forces land at Rabaul.’ It then notes ‘4/3/42 160 AIF POWs murdered by their captors at Tol & Waitavola plantations.’ ¹² Nothing else!

It also names ships sunk with loss of Australian life during this period. One however is certainly missing - the Montevideo Maru.

It is officially said that over 1000 men, civilian and military - including Harold Page - captured after the fall of Rabaul, drown when this ship was sunk by USA submarine off the Philippines in July 1942. If so this was almost certainly the biggest maritime disaster in Australian history. Yet the AUSTRALIANS REMEMBERED MAP does not mention it.

No other allies were involved in the fall of Rabaul, it is purely an Australian tragedy. Is that why now sixty years on it can still be ignored? Well over a thousand Australians ‘hostages to fortune’, are still hostages to incompetence and betrayal.

‘Singapore’ before and after it fell, was used in some Australian quarters to foment hostility towards the British. It still is. One example is the use made of it by present day members of the republican movement. The loss of Australian lives at Singapore, seen as a betrayal of Australia by the British, is reason enough, they think, to attack the Crown and Australian ties with the United Kingdom. They do not mention the betrayal of Rabaul by the Australian Government.

Neither did they question the United States’ role in the fall of Rabaul. This republic, a model for many in the republican movement, had no vision in WWII for either the south-west Pacific or Australia.

That infamous cablegram of 12th December 1941, sent - to Washington - shows the USA played a part in the tragic debacle at Rabaul.

‘In view of the present situation,’ it stated, ‘Naval Board have reviewed proposals for development of Rabaul as defended base. Formerly it was not intended to develop Rabaul beyond the requirements of an advanced air operational base. ------- U.S.A. request was acceded to and offer of assistance accepted on the implied understanding that U.S.A. forces would at least occasionally operate in the area and possibly in the ‘shaded area’. It would appear under present circumstances that the proposed plan would be greatly delayed or even impossible to fulfill.-------

Under the foregoing circumstances and as the reinforcements and subsequent supply would be hazardous without United States co-operation, it is better to maintain Rabaul only as an advanced air operational base, its present small garrison being regarded as hostages to fortune.’ ¹³

The USA confused the position of Rabaul not only for the Australian government and Chiefs of Staff, but perhaps more importantly, for the European residents of the Mandated Territory.

Paul Hasluck wrote concerning the aftermath of the fall of Rabaul ‘In the escape of survivors, both soldiers and civilians, there were suffering, endurance, dangers and adventures that should make a nation’s legends for years.’ ¹⁴

The whole Australian nation is entitled to know the facts surrounding the fall of Rabaul. It can then have a better perspective of its WWII history and be able to give recognition to the sacrifices and achievements of many individual Australians.

CAB 69/4, DC (42) 4 PRO. ; D.M. Horner, High Command. Allen & Unwin, 1982. p 150.

2. Cablegram, Australian Archives Documents series A2671/1, File 333/41, War Cabinet Agenda files.

3. Anne McCosker, Masked Eden, A History of the Australians in New Guinea. Matala Press, 1998. p. 184.

4. Anne McCosker, op cit. p. 179. See Chapters 10, 11, 12, 13. for further details.

6. Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People, 1942 – 45. AWM, 1970. (Appendix 2. by AJ. Sweeting.) p. 673.

12. AUSTRALIANS REMEMBERED MAP, published 2002, Hemma Maps PTY. Ltd, Australia.

13. Cablegram, Australian Archives Documents series A2671/l, File 333/41, War Cabinet Agenda files.

Following Jim Toner's paragraph about New Guineans who helped the allies during WW11. (News from the Northern Territory. Una Voce, December 2004,) 1 would like to draw your readers' attention to ROMB1N.

Rombin rescued Gordon Manuel, USAF, and hid him for 7 months on my parents' plantation, Matala, New Britain - with a large Japanese camp just across the harbour at Put Put. Rombin then led Manuel down New Britain to an A1B camp. On the way another USAF airman joined them. Before this Rombin and Manuel had reconnoitred the area between Matala and Rabaul, Manuel passing on information to the Allies after his escape. Rombin remained with the A1B parties until the end of the war giving valuable assistance to men such as Charlie Bates, Alan Roberts and John Gilmore. My father Stan McCosker who had been Rombin's mentor for almost 20 years had of course taught Rombin much about the ways of the white man. Their strong friendship playing its part in Rombin's fine war record.

A book Seventy Thousand to One based on Manuel's story was written by the famous American war correspondent Quentin Reynolds, published 1947. Rombin is named in The Final Campaigns by Gavin Long and Manuel is mentioned in the Coast Watchers by Eric Feldt. Peter Stone writes of Rombin in his book. However for some reason Stone has cut out the end of the sentence about Rombin's background, '----- and later [Rombin] had been cook boy and then boss boy for the Australian Stanley McCosker -----'. Nowhere in his book does Stone link Rombin and McCosker. The full story of Rombin and Manuel can be read in my book Masked Eden pp. 223-232; see particularly the unabridged text from State archives, in facsimile at the top of page 231. There is much valuable material regarding Rombin in Masked Eden, a fact commented on by Hank Nelson.

The Americans after WWII, in spite of all their protestations during the war, never rewarded Rombin. My father after a vigorous fight managed to get him some recognition from the Australian government

Manuel was killed in a car crash in 1945; otherwise Rombin may have received much more recognition, recognition he surely deserves. Rombin's picture is on the front and back cover of Masked Eden. [This can also be seen here on the Masked Eden page].