Military History of Australia During World War I - German New Guinea

German New Guinea

In 1884, Germany had colonised the north eastern part of New Guinea and several nearby island groups. By the outbreak of the war, the Germans had been using the colony as a wireless radio base, and supporting the German East Asia Squadron which threatened merchant shipping in the region. As a consequence, Britain required the wireless installations to be destroyed. Shortly after the outbreak of war—following a request by the British government on 6 August 1914—the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) began forming. The objectives of the force were the German stations at Yap in the Caroline Islands, Nauru and at Rabaul, New Britain. The AN&MEF comprised one battalion of infantry (1,023 men) enlisted in Sydney, 500 naval reservists and ex-sailors organised into six companies who would serve as infantry and a further 500 men from the Kennedy Regiment, a Queensland militia battalion that had volunteered for overseas service and had been sent to garrison Thursday Island. Together, these forces were placed under the command of Colonel William Holmes, an officer in the militia who was at the time commander of the 6th Brigade and secretary of the Sydney Water and Sewerage Board.

The task force sailed from Sydney on 19 August 1914, and hove to off Port Moresby where they waited for their escorts to arrive. While they were at Port Moresby, Holmes decided to disembark the Queensland militia soldiers due to concerns about their preparedness for action. Escorted by the cruiser Sydney and the battlecruiser Australia, the task force reached Rabaul on 11 September 1914 and found that the port was free of German forces. Sydney and the destroyer HMAS Warrego landed small parties of naval reservists at the settlements of Kabakaul and the German gubernatorial capital Herbertshöhe on Neu-Pommern, south-east of Rabaul. These parties were reinforced first by sailors from HMAS Warrego and HMAS Yarra and later by infantry from the transport HMAS Berrima.

A small 25-man force of naval reservists was subsequently landed at Kabakaul Bay and continued inland to capture the radio station believed to be in operation at Bita Paka, seven kilometres to the south. The Australians were resisted by a mixed force of German reservists and Melanesian native police, who forced them to fight their way to the radio station. By nightfall, the radio station was reached and it was found to have been abandoned, the mast dropped but its instruments and machinery intact. During the Battle of Bita Paka six Australians were killed and five wounded, while the defenders lost one German non-commissioned officer (NCO) and about 30 Melanesians killed, and one German and ten Melanesians wounded. Later it was alleged that the heavy losses among the Melanesian troops was the result of the Australians bayoneting all those they had captured during the fighting. As a result of this engagement, Able Seaman W.G.V. Williams became the first Australian fatality of the war. The first Army fatality was a medical officer, Captain B. C. A. Pockley, who died the same day.

At nightfall on 12 September, the Berrima landed the AN&MEF infantry battalion at Rabaul. The following afternoon, although the governor had not yet surrendered the territory, a ceremony was carried out to signal the British occupation of New Britain. The German administration had withdrawn inland to Toma and at dawn on 14 September, and HMAS Encounter subsequently bombarded a ridge near the town, while half a battalion advanced towards the town supported by a field gun. The show of firepower was sufficient to start negotiations, ending the Siege of Toma following the surrender of the remaining garrison of 40 Germans and 110 native police. The German territory surrendered on 17 September 1914.

Although successful the operation was arguably not well managed, and the Australians had been effectively delayed by a half-trained native force. Regardless the Australians had prevailed not least of all because of their unexpected ability to fight in close terrain, while the outflanking of the German positions had unnerved their opponents. The losses of the AN&MEF were light in the context of later operations but were sufficiently heavy given the relatively modest gain. These losses were further compounded by the unexplained disappearance of the Australian submarine HMAS AE1 during a patrol off Rabaul on 14 September, with 35 men aboard.

Following the capture of German possessions in the region, the AN&MEF provided occupation forces for the duration of the war. On 9 January 1915, Holmes handed over command of the AN&MEF to Brigadier General Sir Samuel Pethebridge, the former Secretary of the Department of Defence. Holmes returned to Australia and re-enlisted in the AIF, as did most of his men. They were replaced by the 3rd Battalion, known as the "Tropical Force" because it had been specially enlisted for service in the tropics. Pethebridge established the administrative structures that remain through the period of military occupation. Although required by International law to follow the German forms of government, the territory gradually acquired the appearance of a British colony.