Rabaul, Rabaul - Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, about 5 000 kilometres from Japan, is known as an area of fierce battle during the Pacific War.
Relics left by the Japanese military have lasted for generations in the southern land, where the southeast command of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet, led by Isoroku Yamamoto, was located.
Beyond a coconut grove near the site of the Japanese military airport, a bomber with its nose toward the sky, all rusted and full of holes, has been left out in the open.
The bomber was buried under volcanic ash when a volcano, which was called Hanabukiyama during the Japanese occupation, erupted in Rabaul in 1994, but it was later dug out by local residents.
A 45-year-old man who helped said: “It used to be silver, and you could clearly see the Hinomaru flag. We wanted to preserve it for the Japanese who lost their lives at war.”
The Japanese military, which maintained its strong offensive against the Allied forces following the attack on Pearl Harbour, occupied Rabaul in 1942.
Aircraft including the Zero fleet were based in Rabaul, and it is from there that they sortied toward the Solomon Islands.
Yamamoto, who opposed getting involved in a war with the United States from the beginning because it was more powerful than Japan, would plan the attack on Pearl Harbour. He said to Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe before the war: “We will fight with all our strength for half a year or a year if you say so. But I cannot guarantee we can continue for two or three years.”
He ended up going into war against his own will.
Yamamoto's concern became a reality. Guadalcanal was taken in 1942, and the base in Rabaul also came under attack from US airstrikes around February 1943. About two months later, in order to break the deadlock, the Japanese military gathered all its air units in Rabaul.
Yamamoto disembarked the battleship Musashi to take command on Rabaul, where he would stay for about two weeks.
It is said that, in his stark white uniform, Yamamoto stood on the airfield as often as he could to wave his service cap and see off air missions.
The underground bunker where the Japanese headquarters was set up is called the “Yamamoto bunker” by local residents, who are preserving it. Beyond its underground passage is the area where Yamamoto is said to have exercised command. The cylindrical space, with enough room for only few adults, was so humid that it was hard to breathe.
The Japanese soldiers who were assigned to Rabaul are also engraved in the memories of local residents.
An 83-year-old man who was a teenager during the occupation remembers how a soldier named Nakagawa treated him with ointment when he accidentally cut off his left little toe with a knife while working in a cornfield.
He recalled Nakagawa's kindness, and sang me a children's song in Japanese called “Usagi to Kame (Rabbit and tortoise)” that Nakagawa taught him.
“We've already lost 15 000 people since the start of the war,” Yamamoto wrote in a letter to an acquaintance several months before his stay in Rabaul. He lost his life in an ambush by a US airplane while on his way to inspect the battlefront. The airplane in which Yamamoto died still remains in the jungle in Papua New Guinea.
The monument dedicated to those who died on the islands and in the waters around the South Pacific Ocean is located on a mountainside in Rabaul. It is where Yamamoto spent his last evening.
I wondered how he felt as he gazed at the southern seas, where he lost many men as a result of going to war against his will. I thought about his feelings as I looked at the quiet blue ocean.
The allied forces limited themselves to besieging Rabaul instead of occupying it because of the expected fierce resistance by the Japanese military.
Consequently, the war ended with Japan continuing to control Rabaul, while a surrender document was signed on board a battleship just off its coast.
The wing of a Zero fighter is on display at the Rabaul Museum, which is close to Yamamoto bunker, and quite a number of Japanese people visit to commemorate the war victims.
Last year, two Japanese Overseas Co-operation Volunteers in Rabaul started translating the English explanations for the exhibits, and they aim to finish their work by the end of this year.
Narimitsu Sasaki, 28, one of the volunteers, said: “We found it disappointing that those who came to visit the battle sites returned to Japan without being able to read what was written. We hope the translations will help prevent the memories of the war from fading.”
Although volunteers and local people are supporting the preservation of the battle sites, more can still be done.
Outside the Kokopo War Museum, the Japanese military tanks on display have been neglected and are becoming eroded and rusty. It is said that this is because the state government is not devoting adequate funds for their upkeep.
Rebecca Darius, 49, who works at the museum, said: “We hope Japan will fund the exhibits, since it left them there. We should preserve the battle sites so that we can hand down the memories of the war to young generations.”
Fast facts
Rabaul is located in the north-east of New Britain. It is about 40 minutes by car from Kokopo, the central city of the island. Many visitors take tours of the military sites that are scattered around the island, such as the base for Japanese military submarines and the caves that were used for hiding the “Daihatsu” landing boats. Scuba diving is also popular in Rabaul, and a Japanese military ship still lies at the bottom of Simpson Harbour.
Rabaul was once the capital of East New Britain, but following a volcanic eruption in 1994 that left it buried in ash, the role was assigned to Kokopo.
Japan News/Washington Post