WRECKED RABAUL

Grey River Argus, 24 March 1944, Page 2

WRECKED RABAUL

“A PLEASURE RESORT.” STATES TOKIO RADIO. WELLINGTON, March 16. “If a town with three-quarters of its buildings thrown down in shambles of stone, rubble and twisted metal, its streets pockmarked with bomb craters, and the wrecks of several ships poking forlorn spars above the waters of its harbour, is a holiday resort, then, Rabaul is most certainly just that.” That was how- a Squadron Leader of the RN.Z.A.F. who flew over Rabaul, as recently as mid-day last Friday, replied to-day to Tokio’s radio contention concerning the impregnability of the town, and its description of Rabaul as a holiday resort, where Japanese were “spending their time enjoying baseball, piftg pong, lovely graceful tennis, music, reading, and tending to nice little garden plots.” The Squadron Leader was over the town observing the effect of a daylight raid by American bombers. He did not- see any Japanese, and said that if there were any above the ground at mid-day last Friday, the only game they were at all likely to be playing was dodgem. About threequarters of the town had been blotted out by bombs. Wharves were wrecked, and among the damaged areas of the city, there were complete blanks where buildings once stood. He counted five sunken ships

in the. harbour, but there probably were more as some were most likely, completely submerged. No Japanese were visible on the ground, and none wa,s .attending “Nice litttle garden plots.” “There are plenty of things bein°- planted in Rabaul, just now,” he said. “But Japanese are not doing the planting. Fighter opposition there is very weak, and the anti-aircraft fire is decreasing. Rabaul ‘has had it.’ ”