Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 485
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[Page 485]
(27)
fruit for our mess dinner.
All around the outer and inner Rabaul coast the Japs had very skilfully emplaced a score of the British six-inch guns they had captured at Singapore. They were well hidden and protected; able to fire out to sea or enfilade the nearby beach. Rabaul would have been a very formidable fortress to attack, and bore out the wisdom of General McArthur's decision to by-pass it. In the final reckoning the Japanese had about a quarter of a million tons of ammunition of all sizes stored there; much of it discovered later in secret tunnels in distant hills.
During the first two months at Rabaul, we engineers were under constant pressure from the commanding officers of the various services and combatant units to construct buildings for them, with nothing much more than bamboo poles and palm matting and thatching. Everyone seemed to want something immediately. The medical and food-supply units got first priority for wards and stores, respectively, but even the padres of five different denominations were clamouring to have their own particular bush chapel built before too many Sundays had passed. For most of this work we used Japanese labour, and it was of a high quality and very useful indeed. In due course the demands for our services grew less and we got down to routine maintenance of roads, airstrips, water-supply points and buildings, and the production of all things that are necessary to shelter, feed, train, equip and hospitalise soldiers. Unfortunately, there was hardly any millable timber in the Rabaul area, and sawn boards and scantlings had to be shipped from our sawmills at Jacquinot Bay.
Just before Christmas the first movement of soldiers back to Australia began. Priority for repatriation was based on the number of points earned for length of service, size of family and age. I had high priority and embarked with the first shipment back to Brisbane, on the transport "Westralia". As the most senior officer I was "O.C. Troops" for the four days of the voyage, in very calm weather, and led the motorcade of returning