Rabaul: Fortress or Sinkhole

[oldpop2000]

Rabaul; Fortress or Sinkhole

As I've studied in depth, the South Pacific strategic campaigns by the Japanese, i've always wonder if this town in eastern New Britain, Papua New Guinea was really a great fortress and major Japanese naval and air installation or just a big sinkhole. It cost the Japanese more prisoners than Okinawa and they lost most of their most experienced carrier pilots over it. They also lost large number of aviation maintenance personnel trying to evacuate them or they were trapped there. The two and major bases were never invaded or occupied by the Allies, just bombed to the point where the Allied pilots used it as a live-fire exercise.

This is why I started this thread, to present some information about its role in the South Pacific operations by both sides. We must keep an open mind because it has been over eighty-one years since it was invaded and occupied by the Japanese. We can investigate their reasoning but remember "hindsight is the greatest vision in world".

[oldpop2000]

The first question is why the IJN and IJA go all the way south, to take Rabaul and use it as main base. It is over 2851 miles from Kagoshima which was the IJN's main naval base on Kyushu and that is how the crow flies. It is 2300 miles from Melbourne, Australia. It is 3332 miles from Singapore and 2493 miles from Manila, Philippines. However, it is only 802 miles from the Truk Islands and the lagoon. This latter location was a major Japanese Naval Base in the South Pacific. That is why Rabaul was invaded and developed into a major naval base with four major airfields.

Singpore was a base for the IJN because it was close to the Royal Dutch oil fields in Sumatra and Borneo. As the war progressed, the IJN could not protect the oil tankers carrying the oil to Japan. So they just moved the fleet to Singapore. The whole of the South Pacific was a source of raw materials such as oil, copper, rubber and other necessary materials. The second phase of the southern operation was to move south east to cut off supplies and forces moving from the US to Australia. This is why Guadalcanal was occupied along with Tulagi on Florida Island. Rabaul sits in the middle and was very good location for bombers, fighters and IJN surface ships. However, it was a long way from Japan and as such, needed a lot of supplies such as food, aircraft parts etc. It was, IMO, a double-edged sword.

Overall, my estimation is that the Japanese were attempting to develop a shield from the Mariannas, Truk to Rabaul to protect their gains in the South Pacific for the necessary raw materials. They would use these bases to defend against  any operations by the US in regards to Plan Orange. They wanted to force a major decisive battle like Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War, in the  Pacific. This would force the US to come to terms and the war would end. They understood they could not win a long war.

Rabaul was a centerpiece of the this overall strategy. This is my assessment.

[oldpop2000]

As one book states: "Geography and terrain define the nature of the battlefield and are major factors in shaping the outcome and duration of hostilities. climate is included with geography. These factors played a big part in the success or failure of combat operations in the South Pacific. Historians try to minimize the effects of the geography of the area because the operations were almost exclusively air operations with only a limited amount of naval operations. They try to compare it with Europe which is almost meaningless. Europe had a very extensive infrastructure of roads, trains, airports and cities. The South Pacific had none of these. It was islands, equatorial climate, jungles and soft ground. You had to build everything from scratch, and keep it supplied generally by ships and aircraft. It wasn't easy and the Japanese had many problems. Possibly their failure to expedite reinforcement and building of the air bases along with supporting facilities was really a matter of their desire and hope that a decisive battle would end the war and that those facilities had time to be built. Maybe this was the reason.

Now, we know they attempted to take Port Moresby and failed at Coral Sea. The IJA then attempted to use the Kokoda Trail and this failed. Immediately after this, the Doolittle Raid occurred and spurred the Japanese to execute the Midway operation. As we know, this ended in a decisive defeat for the Japanese and they were on the defensive. So it was then, they had to start reinforcing Rabaul. But on August 7th, 1942 we invaded and occupied Tulagi and Guadalcanal. Within two weeks Henderson Field was finished, equipped with aircraft and a radar set. Now Rabaul was really in trouble. Also Port Moresby was being reinforced with more aircraft and ground forces. This put Rabaul in a vice and here is where I believe they made their cardinal mistake.

Now here is my concept of operations as I believe the IJN and IJA should have pursued. First, the IJA was deeply involved in China and Manchuria. It was eating up all their resources. They were also conducting combat operations in Burma to occupy India. So,  they did not have the resources to deal with Port Moresby and Rabaul any more. The IJN had now lost four fleet carriers, their aircraft, experienced pilots and maintenance crews. They had also lost a light carrier and almost all of one fleet carriers air group at Coral Sea. Their whole idea of creating a defensive perimeter and winning a decisive battle had been ended. They were now on the defensive and there were more important islands to build defenses to protect Japan. Those would be Truk, Mariana's, the Philippines and possibly Singapore. Rabaul and surrounding islands like Bouganville were just sinkholes for their limited resources.

I will research this in more depth to find Japanese views on this idea.

[oldpop2000]

I found a good source for more Japanese information on Truk and Rabaul. It is a series of pieces written by Masatake Chihaya of the IJN. The pieces were written in 1947 and published in The Pacific War Papers: Japanese documents.

Chihaya states after the occupation of Truk after WW1, the IJN knew of the importance of Truk with its excellent lagoon. However, they did almost nothing afterward to establish a naval base there.They never installed any underground oil storage, no repair facilities. There was only one half-completed small airstrip. He goes on to say that even after the outbreak of the war, the Japanese were "lazy in strengthening the Truk Naval Base" It wasn't until the US occupied Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 that Truk began to become the center of Japanese naval operations. Almost all Japanese naval vessels sortied from Truk to fight around The Solomon Islands. But there were no repair facilities at Truk and damaged ships had to sail back to Japan for service and repair. It wasn't until the summer of 1943 that three more air strips were built at Truk, two on the Harushim and one on Kaede-shima. In february 1945 the IJN began to withdraw to Singapore, the Carolina's and the homeland. Truk was no longer a worthy naval base.

He states that even after its occupation, Rabaul was quiet until May 1942 and the Coral Sea. Then after the occupation of Guadalcanal, Japan's attention began to be focused on the Solomon's and New Britain. This meant that they finally realized its importance. This prompted them to reinforce the town and bases with " great amounts ofweapons, ammunition and planes". However, they finally realized in February 1944, that they should be withdrawing air forces from Rabaul. This occurred and the forces were withdrawn to Truk and the Marianas. They apparently never understood the importance of Rabaul or they would never have started reinforcing it.

So, the base that Rabaul was supposed to protect, Truk, was essentially useless. Men and material were finally poured into the Rabaul and all that was lost because the base they were protecting was almost non-existent. They should have never put all those aircraft, men and material in Rabaul. They should have reinforced Singapore, the Marianas, the Philippines and/or the Japanese home islands.

Masatake Chihaya was an officer in the IJN for 18 years. One of his assignments was as a staff officer in the 11th Squadron on Truk and the Solomon's.

[oldpop2000]

Ok, so how would I have conducted my strategic naval operations.

1. I would not have based my strategy on Alfred Thayer Mahan's decisive naval battle concept. History shows us that decisive battles on the sea don't generally win wars. Lepanto didn't and neither did Tsushima.

2. In the 1930's, economics permitting, I would have built underground oil storage like the US did at Red Hill on Oahu.

3. I would have built an extensive port with naval repair facilities and storage for necessary parts along with barracks and other areas for occupation by the men.

4. I would have built at least five major air fields with repair facilities and storage for parts and spare aircraft. I would also setup a system to detect enemy forces without radar.

5. Once the war started and the Southern Operation was begun, I would have moved the IJN to Truk. Then I would have moved part of it to Rabaul when occupied.

6. I would have built the same facilities as at Truk on Rabaul.

Now, would this have allowed us to take Port Moresby? I think it would have easily. We would not focus on the decisive battle concept so Midway was no longer important. If we have taken Port Moresby, this would have made Darwin unuseable to the Allies and then I could have taken Bougainville, reinforced it, and then occupied Tulagi and Guadalcanal. On that island I could have quickly built a series of bases, with long range patrol aircraft, fighters and put IJA or IJN ground soldiers. The reinforcement of Rabaul and the use of Guadalcanal might have prevented Coral Sea and prevented any simple occupation by the 1st Marine Division of Guadalcanal.

So what is the answer to my initial question? Rabaul was a fortress but it was also a sinkhole. It was a preventable sinkhole.

However, I have the advantage of hindsight, the greatest sight in the world.

[oldpop2000]

As an additional bit of information, here is a statement by the German Naval Attache during the war to Japan, Admiral Paul Wenneker

"Early in the war I made a trip through the South Sea Islands to see conditions with my own eyes. I was astounded in the South Seas. The Japanese were thoroughly enjoying the lush life. They had parties continually and were drinking all the liquor they had captured. I asked them why they did not prepare fortifications and do something to make these places stronger, but they said that the Americans would never come, that they could not fight in the jungle and that they were not the kind of people who stand warfare in the south. As far as I know all those people in those places, both Army and Navy, once they got into a place where there was no fighting, would do nothing more about the war. Obviously in such time the war effort must be the maximum of the country, but here in Japan it was very difficult because of the corruption on every hand and the continual fighting for position. Anything would be done to get power during the war. Sometimes very good men were kept at their work only a few weeks or months because someone else would get the job through corruption. You cannot be efficient with key positions constantly changing."

Eric M Bergerud. Fire In The Sky: The Air War In The South Pacific (Kindle Locations 409-413). Kindle Edition.

This, I believe reinforces my opinion that the Japanese did not take the necessary precautions by reinforcing Rabaul in January 1942 as soon as they had occupied it. This was a perfect time to do so. It might have made a big difference to the US about how it was going to take the offense eventually.