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rabaul's forgotten fleet
Monica foster & peter stone
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150 pp - Paperback - Published 1994
Australia = AUD$30 (including postage, packing and GST) PNG and NZ = AUD$45 (including air mail and packing) The World = AUD$50 (including air mail and packing)
Within this magnificent harbour lie over fifty shipwrecks, a legacy to the pain and destruction of a war that was of little concern to the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea. On 23 January 1942, the tranquil town of Rabaul on the Gazelle Peninsula, East New Britain was invaded by Japanese troops, thus establishing a major navy and army base to stage the invasion of Australia and the rest of the south-west Pacific. It was not to be. From the day after Rabaul fell, to the surrender in September 1945, U.S.A. air and sea forces, together with Australian, New Zealand and Indian air forces pummelled the town, its harbour and shipping, and its four airstrips into submission. No attempt was made to reclaim the town. The air and sea blockade was sufficient to render the base ineffective. By 1945, the 97,000 remaining Japanese led a subsistence life, each having no effect on the fate of the war. When Australian troops returned to Rabaul in September 1945, they were greeted by a razed town littered with the debris of war. Stranded ships lined the palm-fringed shores; others lay at depth beneath the waters of the deep harbour. Valuable scrap metal attracted the salvage operators, first the Australian Navy, then the Commonwealth Salvage Board, followed by the commercial operators, including the Japanese intent on recovering some of their lost material. With the development of the "Aqualung" and the popularity of SCUBA diving, the wrecks of Rabaul soon came to the attention of sport divers. The popularity of wreck diving grew during the 1980's and now attracts divers to Rabaul from allover the world. This volume is the result of many years of dedicated research and hundreds of hours on the bottom of the harbour. Australian expatriats Monica and Syd Foster lived in Rabaul for over ten years, logging each dive, and becoming as familiar with each wreck as they would be of their own home. With the assistance of publisher and writer Peter Stone, also a Rabaul enthusiast, they have documented fifteen major shipwrecks and aircraft - and a floating crane. The authors hope that this attempt to record, in brief, the war history of Rabaul and the effective results of allied bombing, will provide the reader with a greater understanding and appreciation of Rabaul's Forgotten Fleet.
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