Rabaul is a township in East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea. The town was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash of a volcanic eruption. After the eruption the capital was moved to Kokopo, about away. Rabaul is continually threatened by volcanic activity due to being built on the edge of Rabaul caldera, a flooded caldera of a large volcano.

Rabaul was the headquarters of German New Guinea and then the Australian mandatory Territory of New Guinea from 1910 until 1937. During World War II it was the base for Japanese activity in the South Pacific. Settlements around the edge of the caldera are often collectively referred to as Rabaul despite the town of Rabaul itself being reduced to almost insignificance by the eruption in 1994.

As a tourist destination Rabaul is popular for SCUBA diving and for snorkelling sites and a spectacular harbour; it had been the premier commercial and travel destination in Papua New Guinea and indeed in the wider South Pacific during much of the 20th century until the 1994 volcanic eruptions. There are still several diving operators based there.

History

Rabaul's proximity to its volcanoes has always been a source of concern. In 1878 before being established as a town an eruption caused the formation of Vulcan in the harbour.

Colonial period and aftermath

In 1910 the German colonial government during the administration of Governor Albert Hahl relocated offices, the district court, a hospital, and customs and postal facilities from Herbertshöhe (today’s Kokopo) to Simpsonhafen. That settlement was thus substantially enlarged with official buildings and housing and renamed Rabaul, meaning mangrove in Kuanua (the local language) as the new town was partially built on a reclaimed mangrove swamp.

At the outset of the First World War, at the behest of Great Britain, Australia occupied German New Guinea with the volunteer Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. Following Germany's defeat at the end of the war, the occupied territory was handed in 1920 to Australia as a League of Nations Mandate (Class C). Rabaul became the capital of the Territory of New Guinea.

1937 eruption

Under the Australian administration, Rabaul developed into a regional base. Then in 1937 a catastrophic volcanic eruptions destroyed the town after the two volcanos, Tavurvur and Vulcan, exploded killing 507 people and causing enormous damage.

Following this the Australian administration for the Territory of New Guinea decided to move the territorial headquarters to the safer location of Lae. The Australian administration had determined not to re-establish the territorial headquarters at Rabaul in the long term. World War II, however, intervened before further steps could be taken.

World War II

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour it was apparent that Rabaul would come under attack. By December 1941 all women and children were evacuated. In January 1942 Rabaul was heavily bombed, and on January 23 the Battle of Rabaul began with the landing of thousands of Japanese marines.

During their occupation the Japanese developed Rabaul into a much more powerful base than the Australians had planned after the 1937 volcanic eruptions, with long term consequences for the town in the post-War period. The Japanese army dug many kilometres of tunnels as shelter from the Allied air forces. By 1943 there were about 110,000 Japanese troops based in Rabaul. The Japanese army also set up brothels in Rabaul where "... perhaps 2000 or more women were deceived and forced into prostitution of a most demanding kind ...", according to Emeritus Professor Hank Nelson from the Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.

On April 18 1943, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was shot down and killed by U.S. fighter planes over South Bougainville, between Buin (on its then-coastal location) and Kahili after taking off from Rabaul. Japanese communications describing Yamamoto's flight itinerary were decrypted by United States Navy cryptographers. Eighteen specially-fitted USAAF P-38 Lightning fighters took off from Guadalcanal and destroyed the Yamamoto plane and escorts.

Instead of capturing Rabaul, the Allied forces bypassed it by establishing a ring of airfields on islands around it. Cut off from re-supply and under constant air attack, the base became useless. The Japanese held Rabaul until they surrendered at the end of the war in August 1945.

The war made a lasting impression on Rabaul. There is still much military debris in the harbor, on the land and buried in the hills.

1994 eruption

In 1983 and 1984 the town was ready for evacuation when the volcanoes started to heat up. Nothing happened until 19 September 1994, when again Tavurvur and Vulcan erupted, destroying the airport and covering most of the town with heavy ashfall. There was only 19 hours of warning before the eruption and the city's inhabitants self-evacuated before the eruption. Only a handful of people were killed - several of them by lightning from the eruptive column. The advance planning and evacuation drills helped keep the death toll low. Most of the buildings in the southeastern half of Rabaul collapsed due to the weight of ash on their roofs.

The last eruption prompted the relocation of the provincial capital to Kokopo, the former German Herbertshöhe. Nonetheless, Rabaul is slowing rebuilding in the danger zone.

As of 2008, Tavurvur continues to mildly erupt intermittently while Vulcan has been dormant. A government volcano observatory is maintained in the northern portion of Rabaul. It also has responsibility for monitoring the other volcanoes on New Britain and nearby islands in addition to the Rabaul caldera.

Transport

Rabaul Airport was completely destroyed in the 1994 eruption. The airport was in direct path of the falling ash from the nearby vents. The airport was later rebuilt at Tokua, farther away outside the caldera to the southeast. It has occasionally been closed by ashfall from the continuing volcanic activity in the Rabaul caldera.

References

External links

• East New Britain Tourism & Trade Directory
• Tavurvur, Rabaul Caldera
• PNG National Game Fishing Titles Rabaul 2008