'L' Anti-Aircraft Battery - Rabaul

Discussion in 'War Against Japan' started by spider, Sep 20, 2010.

  1. spider

    spider Very Senior Member

    'L' Anti-Aircraft Battery at Rabaul, New Britain.

    On 4 January 1942 it was the first militia unit to fire on the Japanese and the first Australian troops to fire at the enemy on Australian territory.

    The Battery was a militia unit and consisted of 2 officers and 52 O/R's and armed with 2 obsolete 3 inch AA guns.

    Selby writes in Hell and High Fever page 4-6:-
    "A.A. Bty., Rabaul" was the flattering title of the two officers and fifty-two other ranks with their two 3-inch guns and obsolete ring-sight telescope, but officially it had been known earler by the quaint name "A.A. & A/M.L.C. Defence Force, Rabaul". It took considerable research to discover the letters A/M.L.C. stood for Anti-Military Landing Craft, and it was this aspect of the title which led to or rather dictated the choice of this unpromising gun position [Frisbee Ridge], silhouetted as it was against both northern and southern skylines. For Rabaul ... lay in what was virtually a gigantic crater; only from this ridge could the guns command anything like the requisite 360 degrees angle of traverse.
    The position was everything an A.A. battery position should not be. Painfully conspicuous from land, sea and air, the site was so cramped and narrow that it was all the gunners could do to avoid stumbling over one another as they ran to man the guns on the sounding of the alarm. The drill book lays down the salutary rule that the position should be set up in the form of an equilateral triangle with a minimum of twenty yards between gun and gun and twenty yards from gun to command post. The guns on Frisbee Ridge were a bare fifteen yards apart along the line of the ridge, whilst the triangle was so flattened at its apex that the command post, hanging precariously on the edge of a six hundred feet drop, was just five yards from the grim muzzle of No. 1 gun. Experience justified the two considerations in favour of the site. The first consideration was that this was the only accessible position in the locality from which the guns could do their job efficiently. The second was that nothing but a direct hit could harm the battery, so narrow was the ridge. A near miss would fall harmlessly into the gully on either side.
    The personnel of the battery deserves special mention. Never had a keener set of boys gone into action against a ruthless and efficient enemy. Like all soldiers they had a grievance but in their case the grievance was fully justified. The great majority were boys under nineteen years of age who during the recruiting rally of early 1941 had volunteered for service in the A.I.F. They had been told that, being under nineteen, they were ineligible for the A.I.F., but were advised to join the Coast Defence Command which was also crying aloud for recruits, on the ground that on reaching nineteen they could transfer to the A.I.F., not as raw recruits but as trained soldiers. They were not told that once in the Coast Defence Command they would be held there as firmly as though chained by leg irons. They were drafted to 1 A.A. Bde. and early in July, 1941, there was a call for volunteers to form a small anti-aircraft force to go "overseas".
    ... A couple of hundred volunteered but the chosen few were not informed until their return from pre-embarkation leave that their destination was Rabaul. Hopes still ran high that the unit would be an A.I.F. one but these hopes, too, were dashed.
    All requests, petitions and representations met either with a discreet silence or the reminder that as Rabaul was in Australian Mandated Territory the force could have been sent there under the provisions of the Defence Act, volunteers or not.
    ... It was therefore, as a Militia unit we sailed on 6 August 1941, and as a Militia unit we went into action in January, 1942.
     
  2. spider

    spider Very Senior Member

    14 January 2011

    Rabaul defender Bill Harry dies at 94

    BY KEITH JACKSON

    CUTHBERT OSWALD (Bill) Harry AM OBE (VX24800), who escaped from the Japanese invasion of Rabaul and became a leading figure in the Returned Services League, died in Victoria on 4 January at the age of 94.
    Bill was a quiet man with a wonderfully dry sense of humour. He was a committed Christian and churchman, and a devoted family man.
    After joining 2/22nd Battalion on 10 June 1940, Bill was sent to defend Rabaul in 1941. After Rabaul fell on 23 January 1942, he was one of the comparatively few who escaped, spending some time in the jungle before being rescued. During this time he coordinated escaping stragglers into larger groups.
    Bill was subsequently posted to ANGAU, being discharged with the rank of Warrant Officer (2nd Class) in March 1946. After the war, as a passionate believer in the people of PNG, he made around 20 return visits - including the Return to Rabaul 50th anniversary commemoration in 1992.
    Bill was State Honorary Treasurer of the Victorian State Branch of the RSL for 38 years from 1956-94 as well as a member of the State Council from 1951-94 and the State Executive from 1954-94. He was one of the longest serving office bearers in the RSL’s history.
    He had joined the RSL in September 1947 and was on the staff of the Victorian Soldier Settlement Commission. He held the position of Deputy Chairman until 1981.
    His central role in the 1956 appeal ‘Operation Gratitude’ raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for the building of hostels and independent living units for war veterans and war widows. At the same time the RSL War Veterans’ Homes Trust and the RSL Widows’ and Widowed Mothers’ Trust were formed with Bill as the Honorary Treasurer of both until 1994.
    He also performed considerable voluntary work with the Salvation Army Red Shield Citizen Committee, the Corps of Commissionaires, Anti-Cancer Council Appeal, Springvale Necropolis Trust, Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and the Mlebourne Lord Mayor’s Fund.
    Bill was awarded RSL Life Membership with Gold Badge in 1963 and the RSL’s highest honour, the Meritorious Service Medal, in 1983.
     
  3. Oldman

    Oldman Very Senior Member

    Spider
    Interesting post adding flesh to the bones of what I know and furthering my Pacific knowledge.

    Bill sounds as if he was a man of the people nothing to much trouble, the world is a poorer place with their passing (RIP Bill)
     
  4. spider

    spider Very Senior Member

    [​IMG]
    The photo shows (L to R) Cliff Marshall, Charles Perkins, Bert Smith and Bill Harry.

    In 1987 a group of survivors of the 2/22 Battalion, along with 21 then current members of the 3rd Brigade Australian Army, based at Lavarack Barracks in Townsville, conducted an exercise called “Rabaul Walkabout”. It was in part a training exercise, following the escape route taken by many of the soldiers who eventually made it to Tol (and beyond if lucky). At Tol, a new Memorial Cairn was erected, beside the airstrip, with a bronze plaque honouring those killed.

    Bill Harry, who escaped the Japanese, and came across the aftermath of the Tol Massacre several days after it occurred, was an organiser of this exercise (and I might add, at the age of 70, trekked for 9 days through the jungle with the youngsters!). The three other members of the 2/22 Battalion who made the trip were Bert Smith, Bruce Perkins and Cliff Marshall.

    PNGAA Library
     

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