Free Invasion Rabaul by Bruce Gamble Page A

defenses. Oddly, the proposal failed to address the need for aircraft. Without planes, especially fighters, no amount of coastal weapons or antiaircraft guns would provide Rabaul with adequate air defense. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the Battle of Britain had proven the importance of aerial superiority, the Allies largely ignored the concept.
    The Japanese, on the other hand, placed great emphasis on control of the skies. Reconnaissance planes of the Imperial Navy appeared over Rabaul as early as June 1941, as noted by Lieutenant Peter E. Figgis, the 2/22nd’s senior intelligence officer. The first aircraft he sighted, a twin-engine Type 96 naval bomber, almost certainly came from Truk, seven hundred miles to the north. Since then, several other reconnaissance aircraft, including floatplanes from Japanese warships, had been observed overhead.
    The sightings put Figgis in the spotlight. Born in England, he had soldiering in his blood. His father, a British mining engineer, was wounded while serving in France with the Royal Engineers and received a Military Cross for gallantry. After the war the family moved to Australia, where Peter earned a lieutenant’s commission by drilling on weekends with the Melbourne University Rifles. Tall and tanned, he strongly resembledBritish actor Alec Guinness. Sporting a clipped moustache that accentuated his mischievous grin, Figgis established a reputation as“a very capable fellow” and was transferred to Colonel Scanlan’s NGA staff. November 16, which happened to be Figgis’ twenty-sixth birthday, was highlighted by a spectacular blast from Tavurvur, the biggest eruption yet of the on-going disturbance. Figgis was unimpressed. He was tired of“the stink of bad eggs” and the corrosive effects of the ash, which caused chronic problems with the telephone lines and made his job of communicating between observation posts difficult.
    A S THE YEAR 1941 DREW TO A CLOSE, F IGGIS WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE disenchanted with the situation facing Lark Force. Others knew instinctively that their position was weak, and they looked ahead to the promised Lend-Lease support from the United States. Some were no doubt pleased to hear General MacArthur claim publicly that the Japanese were overextended in China and would not attempt any aggression prior to the spring of 1942. When Sir Earle Page visited the Philippines in early October, McArthur told him that Japan was incapable of launching a Pacific war without a lengthy recuperative period. Page heard similar assessments in Washington, D.C. during the extended fact-finding trip, and later, his younger brother at Rabaul was among those who“collected the spray from this wave of optimism.”
    Despite such reassurances, Tokyo’s militant actions had become a tangible threat, and by the first of December the Australians at Rabaul had good reason to be concerned. They were reasonably well informed, thanks to Amalgamated Wireless of Australasia (AWA), which had a station capable of pulling in broadcasts from around the world. In addition, the Rabaul Times provided timely articles about current events. On December 2, for example, the newspaper reported that the War Cabinet had conducted an emergency meeting the previous day in Melbourne and cancelled all military leave. It was portentous news, but Australians everywhere clung to the hope that the Japanese would be intimidated into pulling back from the brink—an illusion that was shattered when the Japanese blasted Pearl Harbor and several other Allied bases on December 8, Tokyo time. Even then, many people tried to rationalize what had happened, speculating that some“madness had overtaken Japan to challenge so great an enemy with so spectacular an insult.”
    Of course, the Japanese had done much more than hurl an insult, and there was little greatness apparent among the various Allied forces involved. Not only did the carrier planes of the Imperial Japanese Navy make a complete shambles of Pearl