Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 481
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[Page 481]
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often wet. But one awakened in the mornings feeling very refreshed, and I thoroughly enjoyed my early shower bath when the air was quite the right temperature and the humidity was minimal.
Sunday was the regular rest day for all the troops and if perchance it was sunny, the gay scene on the shores and waters of the lagoon was reminiscent of Manly or Bondi in Summer. Bathers in colourful costumes, including many women of the nursing and womens army services, lay in the sun or swam in the remarkably clear water. Farthr out, a score or more of small craft, dugouts, improvised catamarans and sailing dinghies dodged about aimlessly.
Late in August, the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by United States aircraft led by Colonel Dolittle (hardly a fitting name) and precipitated immediate and unconditional surrender by Japan. They were beaten anyhow, and could have continued to fight for only a few more months, I think.
I went up, as Divisional C.R.E., with the advance party of troops transported by the ship "Manoora" from Jacquinot Bay to Rabaul in September, to formally accept the surrender of the Japanese there. The voyage along the coast took less than twelve hours, latterly sighting a weird low hinterland on which there were several small extinct volcanic cones. As we passed up Simpson Bay towards Rabaul, on the farther shore, an amazing sight met our eyes; a dozen or so of small ships of all types beached on the strand, here and there, and a few other bigger merchant vessels sunk upright offshore, with only the upper parts of their funnels, or masts, visible.
The first duty of the Army engineers was to survey the existing water supply facilities, and if necessary to establish urgently any extra water points that might be reqired by the main body of our occupying force as soon as it arrived. The next priority was to repair sufficiently the least damaged of the big wharves or jetties, to enable ships as big as theU.S. Liberty vessel to berth and unload. And at the same time to