Events 1 July 2025

On 1 July 2025 there will be services to acknowledge the Montevideo Maru and the fall of the New Guinea islands at the Last Post Ceremony, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, and also in the morning, at the Brisbane Cenotaph. Further information will be in the June issue of PNG Kundu.

‘The Battle for Australia has commenced’

Australia’s Acting Prime Minister and Minister for the Army, Frank Forde, made an emergency broadcast on the day following the Japanese invasion of Rabaul (23 January 1942). Forde said:

Anniversary Day 1942 is a solemn day for Australia. For the first time in her history, an attack has been launched against her territory; for the first time her soil has been violated and the militia has probably seen battle. The Battle for Australia has commenced.

These significant words are now ignored in Australia.

Note: A link to the recording of those words is included in an interview by Ian Townsend at: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/earshot/the-war-we-forgot/9083624

New Display in the Second World War Galleries at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra

So the first Australian owned soil has been bombed.

In mid-January 2025 we were advised that new objects from the Research Centre’s collections have been placed on display in the Second World War Galleries. These original items include a letter from Thomas Walsh in Rabaul, who became a prisoner of the Japanese as a civilian internee, and who died with other civilians and soldiers in the sinking of the Montevideo Maru.

The explanation with the letter in the AWM includes that Thomas Walsh was a telephone technician with the Postmaster General’s Department in Rabaul.

Air raids on Rabaul had started on 4 January 1942. ‘Enemy planes have paid us daily visits & some are twice daily, girls’, Walsh wrote to his mother Catherine in January 1942, ‘It’s a very eerie sight and feeling to see them approach at great heights.’

Catherine Walsh did not receive formal confirmation of her son’s death until October 1945. 

The Japanese attacks on New Britain pre-dated those on the Australian mainland.

The letter displayed by the Australian War Memorial contains one important line from Thomas Walsh’s notes: ‘So the first Australian owned soil has been bombed.’

This is a significant sentence in the letter and yet ignored … and not explained by the Australian War Memorial. 

One can imagine their feelings as the softening up continued for three weeks. Hope, courage, bravery, vulnerability, concern and, for some, even fear. The men protecting their homes, and the soldiers who joined up to save their country, believed they were on Australian soil. Yet, no-one acknowledges this in Australia now. 

Not only is there a fair share of misinformation and hard to find information, Rabaul does not get the credit it deserves for being a bombed Australian town.

Whilst PNG is now an independent country, how sad for those Australians of Lark Force and the Australian and other civilians then under Australia’s protection in an Australian town, that their sacrifice is often brushed over because the country does not now exist as an Australian territory. 

Curtin had more details about the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 than he did about Rabaul. When he made a similar statement after the fall of Singapore, it was three weeks after Rabaul.

This year is the 50th anniversary of PNG independence from Australia. The men were fighting for their Australian territory. It was very much the start of the ‘Battle for Australia’.

One wonders how those men would feel if they knew that what they went through for their country would be ignored.

This display influences Australian history and the Rabaul & Montevideo Maru Group has asked that the sentence, and an explanation, be publicly noted.

A reply from the Curator of Private Records in the Research Centre at the AWM states:

Thomas Walsh’s letter offers some really fascinating insights into the experiences in Rabaul at the time, though I believe his letter refers to rail rather than soil (that is, ‘So the first Australian owned rail has been bombed’). And: there is limited scope … to explore the significance of the bombing of Rabaul in the collection highlights article. I am pleased to say, however, that the greater significance of the attacks on Australia (including its external territories, like Papua and New Guinea) are covered in much greater depth in the Second World War Gallery, where Walsh’s letter is now on display.

It’s interesting that Walsh would consider the ‘rail’ more important than the ‘soil’ being defended, and that the AWM appear to have ‘limited scope’ to explore and highlight this important historical statement.

Maxwell ‘Smacker’ Hazelgrove—Survivor of the Tol Massacre

Maxwell ‘Smacker’ Hazelgrove N109824, one of the Australian POWs who survived the Tol Plantation Massacre, will have his war service commemorated with a commemorative plaque in the NSW Garden of Remembrance. The commemorative plaque for Max Hazelgrove is being provided by the Office of Australian War Graves. 

All Australian Ex-POWs are eligible for commemorations from the Office of Australian War Graves, which is a section of the Commonwealth Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

With thanks to Patrick Bourke

Lark Force Trek by Australian Army Awardees

Each year, the Chief of the Australian Army announces recipients of the Jonathan Church Good Soldiering Award on the Army’s birthday. The award serves to ‘recognise those soldiers whose actions embody all that we aspire to be in our Army,’ Lieutenant General Stuart said.

The award is given to junior leaders in the Australian Army and recognises the courage and dedication of our soldiers.

The 2024 recipients of the Jonathan Church Good Soldiering award were Lance Corporal Lachlan Goulding, Private Caleb Walker, Sergeant L, Lieutenant Lachlan Maill and Corporal Jordan Neal (pictured below).

In November 2024, the Jonathan Church Good Soldiering Award recipients followed the Lark Force withdrawal route in New Britain.

These modern soldiers did not face the malnutrition, malaria, or desperate isolation that plagued World War II diggers, but experienced firsthand the dense, unforgiving landscape.

At Tol, they honoured the 2/22nd Battalion soldiers, New Guinea Volunteer Riflemen, and other Australians killed on 4 February 1942, in a commemorative service. 

Award recipient Lance Corporal Lachlan Goulding, a medic awarded for his work re-establishing a hospital ward at Moem Barracks in Wewak, read a closing prayer at the memorial. 

It was such an intimate and opportune setting but also confronting to be standing on the same ground where so many lives were lost in such barbaric ways. 

The contingent also honoured the 1,053 lives lost on the MS Montevideo Maru, Australia’s worst maritime disaster. Prisoners, including men of the 2/22nd Battalion, drowned when the unmarked ship was torpedoed by an American submarine in the South China Sea. 

Earlier that day, the contingent trekked from Marunga Village to Tol, the same jungle path the Lark Force used in their desperate attempt to evade the Japanese.

The soldiers later visited 2/22nd Battalion St Paul’s Tol High School, named in tribute to the battalion’s service and sacrifice. The soldiers shared stories of their journey and chatted about home and military life. Award recipient Sergeant L said:

The students were shy at first, but when I spoke about jungle bushcraft and how camouflage can conceal someone right in front of a tree, they were eager to learn more.

https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2024-11-06/contingent-commemorates-lives-lost-tol-massacre

Remembrance Day Second World War Plaque Unveiling

On the afternoon of Remembrance Day 2024 over 200 people gathered at the St Peters Heroes Memorial in St Peters, South Australia, for the unveiling by the Governor of South Australia, Her Excellency Frances Adamson AC, of a new bronze plaque.

The plaque records the names of 89 men from the former town of St Peters who died as a result of their service in the Second World War, and was funded by a grant to SPRA from the SA Government’s Anzac Day Commemoration Fund.

The names included three men who perished with the sinking of the Montevideo Maru:

HOSKING, Herbert Champion

MATTHEWS, Gordon Frederick

SEARCY, Maurice Roffe

The reading of the names of those on the memorial by the School Captains of Prince Alfred College and St Peters College was particularly poignant, as many of those who died were their age, or not much older.

Led by the St Peters Residents’ Association, under the guidance of local heritage consultant and historian, Denise Schumann, the team of volunteers explored resources including the Australian War Memorial, local council minutes, school records, honour rolls, newspapers and genealogy records to identify local names to be commemorated.

President of the St Peters Residents’ Association David Cree said the memorial underscores the significance of preserving historical information that is important to the local community.

Dr Herbert Champion Hosking was one of the civilians aboard the Montevideo Maru, although he had also enlisted in the 2nd AIF and had been allocated a service number.

Hosking had also served in the Great War as a lieutenant in the 10th Infantry Battalion, enlisting on 19 August 1914, a few days after the declaration of war, and served at Gallipoli, leading his platoon ashore on the early morning of 25 April 1915.

Correction for December 2024 Memorial News

In the article about the Coastwatchers Memorial, on page 62 Bruce Collins is mentioned as a member of the Volunteer Rifles. This is incorrect as the name should have been Bob Collins, who is the present Vice-president of the NGVR/PNGVR Association.

The NGVR/PNGVR Museum

The NGVR/PNGVR Museum is open on the first Saturday of each month from 10 am to 1 pm. Visitors all welcome! Entry is from Nashos Place, Wacol (street address is 907 Boundary Road, Brisbane). $5 entry helps the volunteers with their work in displaying/maintaining items. For those interested in PNG—go visit and be surprised!

The museum (below) is also available to be opened for special group visits.

Contact Paul on 0402 644 181 or email: paulbrown475@gmail.com