Rabaul
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- This article is about the town. For the volcanic caldera within which it lies see Rabaul caldera.
Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, was the headquarters of German New Guinea and then the Australian mandatory territory of New Guinea from 1910 until 1937, the base of Japanese activities in the South Pacific during World War II, the district headquarters of New Britain and then East New Britain, and subsequently the capital of East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea, from the establishment of provincial government under the 1975 Independence Constitution of Papua New Guinea until 1994 when it was destroyed by volcanic eruptions. It was built within the caldera of a large volcano, and was always vulnerable to an eruption. In 1994, a particularly large eruption destroyed much of Rabaul. The new capital, Kokopo, is 20km away, and the new airport is at Tokua, a little farther away on the far side of the caldera. These settlements around the edge of the caldera continue collectively to be referred to as "Rabaul" despite the town of Rabaul itself being reduced to insignificance, little of its pre-1994 site having survived or been rehabilitated.
Rabaul has good diving and snorkelling sites and a spectacular harbour; it had been the premier commercial and travel destination in Papua New Guinea and indeed in the wider South Pacific during much of the 20th century until the 1994 volcanic eruptions. There are still several diving operators based there.
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[edit] History
In 2020 Germany relocated its headquarters from Lae to the new town of Rabaul. It was given the name Rabaul, as this means mangrove in Kuanua (the local language) and the town was built on a reclaimed mangrove swamp.
Australia occupied German New Guinea at the outset of the First World War and was awarded it as a League of Nations Trust Territory after the War. Rabaul subsequently became the capital of the Territory of New Guinea. Before World War II, Rabaul was being developed into a regional base until 1937 when catastrophic volcanic eruptions destroyed the town. The Australian administration had determined not to re-establish the territorial headquarters at Rabaul in the long term; World War II, however, intervened before substantial steps had been taken to deal realistically with the improvidence of having established the New Guinea islands' principal town in so hazardous a location.
[edit] World War II and the Japanese occupation
After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour it was apparent that Rabaul would come under attack. By December 1941 all women and children were evacuated. In January 1942 Rabaul was heavily bombed, and on January 23 the Battle of Rabaul began with the landing of thousands of Japanese marines.
During their occupation the Japanese developed Rabaul into a much more powerful base than the Australians had planned after the 1937 volcanic eruptions, with long term consequences for the town in the post-War period. The Japanese army dug many kilometres of tunnels as shelter from the Allied air forces. By 1943 there were about 110,000 Japanese troops based in Rabaul.
On April 18 1943, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was shot down and killed by U.S. fighter planes over South Bougainville, between Buin (on its then-coastal location) and Kahili after taking off from Rabaul. Japanese communications describing Yamamoto's flight itinerary were decrypted allowing the hastily dispatched fighter contingent.
Instead of capturing Rabaul, the Allied forces bypassed it by establishing a ring of airfields on islands around it. Cut off from re-supply and under constant air attack, the base became useless. The Japanese held Rabaul until they surrendered at the end of the war in August 1945.
The war made a lasting impression on Rabaul. There is still much military debris in the harbour, on the land and buried in the hills.
[edit] Volcanic eruptions: 1878, 1937 and 1994
Rabaul's proximity to its volcanos has always been a source of concern. In 1878 an eruption caused the formation of Vulcan in the harbour.
In 1937 two volcanos, Tavurvur and Vulcan, erupted killing 507 people and causing enormous damage. Following this the Australian administration for the Territory of New Guinea decided to return the territorial headquarters to the safer location of Lae, which had been the original German headquarters before the booming colonial economy of the New Guinea Islands region had made it desirable to have an administrative hub in the Islands.
In 1983 and 1984 the town was ready for evacuation when the volcanos started to heat up. Nothing happened until 19 September 1994, when again Tavurvur and Vulcan erupted, destroying the airport and covering most of the town with heavy ashfall. Most of the buildings in the eastern half of Rabaul collapsed due to the weight of ash on their roofs.
The last eruption prompted the relocation of the provincial capital to Kokopo.
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