Line of Fire Read online

  NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955 Part 15, Report on interrogation of Yamakawa Kioji dated 3 February 1950.

  ‘Captain Mizusaki lied to interrogator . . .’: ibid.

  ‘a very stiff and heavy sentence will be meted out . . .’: NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 15. Full translation of statement by Takebe Ken dated 31 January 1950.

  ‘dispose of them by shooting . . .’: NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 3. Sworn statements of Mizusaki Shojiro.

  NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 15. The report of the interrogation of Matsunaga Keisuke (17 to 28 October 1949), who denied having signed or even seen the order.

  ‘it was true . . .’: NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 15. Report on Interrogation of Sekiguchi Kozo, dated 24 October 1949.

  The death certificates say the family went missing on 31 May 1942 and are presumed dead. The date of their deaths was two weeks earlier. Their court martial had to be wound up by 13 May, the day Inoue’s flagship, Kashima, left Rabaul. (One of the trial judges had to leave on the Kashima and Inoue signed the order before he left.) The trial could not have started until after the Kashima arrived, on 4 May, but Inoue’s battle fleet left that day and the battle of the Coral Sea wasn’t over until 8 May. The trial took three days and probably finished on 13 May. The execution, according to the trial president Mizusaki, was carried out ‘four or five days later’ and, if that’s the case, the execution must have happened before 18 May. Brother Johannes Lembeck of the Catholic Mission at Mandres (AWM54, 1010/9/127 in a statement dated 7 December 1945) says that on Wednesday 27 May 1942, the day he was interred, he heard Joseph Roca ask a Kempeitai policemen named ‘Futchioko’ what had happened to Ted Harvey and Bill Parker. ‘The policemen said that the two men were shot “last week” in Rabaul.’ (He asked about Marjorie and Dickie, but Futchioko didn’t know.) ‘Last week’ was the week starting Monday 18 May, and, taking all the evidence together, this was the likely day the family was executed.

  NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 15. Sworn statement of Hamada Diazo.

  AWM127, 13 ‘Rabaul — Report on civilians and prisoners of war’. Includes details of an interview with Gordon Thomas, 8 October 1945, in which he remembered seeing Ted Harvey and his wife and son, and Parker and Manson of Lassul Plantation, passing the Freezer in a utility on several occasions, and hearing later that they’d been killed. ‘Later still natives said Mrs Harvey not executed but put in a brothel.’ (There is no evidence for this.)

  Gordon Thomas also quoted in ‘Comments on Missing Civilians in New Britain’, ex Don Green. ‘About May, 1942, I saw the Harvey party pass the Freezer where I was working on several occasions. I afterwards heard from natives that they had been executed for refusing to surrender when called upon, and also for having a transmitting wireless set in their possession.’

  NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 15. Sworn statement of Yoshimura Minoru, who witnessed Fujisaki climb aboard.

  NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 15. Report of interrogation of Nakabayashi.

  NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 15. Sworn statement of Yoshimura Minoru.

  ‘my mind is now at ease . . .’: NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 15. Sworn statement of Mizusaki Shojiro dated 19 October 1949.

  CHAPTER 31

  ‘Japan has not been beaten . . . ’: ‘Denial of Defeat’, The Age (Melbourne), 14 September 1945, p.1.

  ‘the Mantaungan Association . . .’: Don Woolford, Papua New Guinea: Initiation and Independence, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Queensland, 1976.

  Jim Eames, The Searchers: And their Endless Quest for Lost Aircrew in the Southwest Pacific, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Queensland, 1999.

  NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1955, Part 3, ‘Statement by Taman [sic] of Kikila Village on 3 December 1946’.

  ‘On 22 March 1943 . . .’: James T. Murphy and A.B. Feuer, Skip Bombing, Praeger Westport, Connecticut, 1993, p.130.

  ‘He dropped those directly into the Rabatana Crater . . .’: ibid.

  NAA: MP76/1, 7287. W.D. Weston — Causing volcano by bombs.

  NAA: MP76/1, 4067. F. Babbage — Bomb dropping into volcano.

  NAA: MP76/1, 8456. J.B. Simpson — Bombing the volcano at Rabaul.

  NAA: MP76/1, 10749. J.G. Shepherd — Provoking volcano eruption by dropping soap-mixture bombs.

  ‘tickling a giant’s throat with a feather . . .’: ‘Bombing of Rabaul Volcano Rejected’, The Advertiser (Adelaide), 9 July 1943, p.4.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book was written with the help of a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts.

  Many people have contributed to the book and provided encouragement and guidance, especially Clare Forster from Curtis Brown, Catherine Milne, Belinda Yuille and Shona Martyn from HarperCollins, and editor Julia Stiles. I’m also grateful for the generosity of Steven Bullard from the Australian War Memorial, Australian volcanologist Wally Johnson, Steve Saunders and Ima Itikarai from the Rabaul Volcano Observatory, and Melbourne fashion historian Nicole Jenkins.

  I’d like to make a special mention of Sakaguchi Harumi in Tokyo, who generously shared his knowledge and advice, and doggedly pursued evidence in Japan. World War Two researcher Don Green let me trawl through his collection and provided valuable documents on the family’s capture and trial.

  I’m especially grateful to the wonderful Manson family, particularly Graham and Jackie Manson, Bev McLean and Lisa Snodgrass.

  Thanks, too, to the extended family of Winifred Harvey, including Bill Hornby, Beverley Hornby and Julie Harris for the eureka moment with the Lassul photographs; to the Coote family, especially Diana Martell and Andrea Williams; to Linda Sanderson-Burr from the Gasmier family; to Bill Parker’s niece, Jillian Pye; and to James Hunter-Tod and Caroline Lever, relatives of Ted Harvey’s first wife, Victoria Eugenie.

  Also thanks to author Patrick Lindsay, Gilbert Moutu in Port Moresby, Kylie Moloney from the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau at the Australian National University, Tom Reynolds from the State Records Office of Western Australia, Kerri Klumpp from the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland, as well as the staff of the National Archives of Australia, the State Records of South Australia, the State Library of Queensland and the National Library of Australia.

  One of the most valuable resources in researching this book has been the National Library of Australia’s TROVE online newspaper database. I also found ancestry.com a valuable tool in finding family connections.

  I’m grateful for the research help of David Kilner and Neil Rossiter from the Prospect Local History Group, Diana Stockdale from the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society, and Sharon Guy in Ballarat.

  Thanks as well to Pat Boys in New Zealand for the enormous package of valuable material, including her wonderful book Coconuts and Tearooms, and to Bob Collins for sharing his knowledge of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, as well as copies of Norman Fisher’s diary notes.

  Taking care of me in Rabaul were Susie McGrade and Rory Stewart, and the staff at the Rabaul Hotel and the Rabaul Historical Society, as well as Albert Koni, Damien Kereku, George Taman, Gideon Kakabin, and Slingshot.

  I enjoyed reading the military history books of Bruce Gamble, particularly Darkest Hour and Fortress Rabaul. David Selby’s Hell and High Fever was one of the books that led me to Rabaul. I’d also recommend Peter Stone’s Hostages to Freedom, Patrick Lindsay’s The Coast Watchers, Wally Johnson and Neville Threlfall’s Volcano Town, Neville Threlfall’s Mangroves, Coconuts and Frangipani, Pat Boys’s Coconuts and Tearooms, Bob Wurth’s 1942, Ian Downs’s The New Guinea Volunteer Rifles NGVR 1939–1943: A history, and Lindsay Cox’s Brave and True.

  And thanks again to my lovely wife, Kirsten, and my gorgeous daughters, Charlotte, Josephine and Gabrielle. Without their patience, this book could not have been written.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  IAN TOWNSEND is a journalist who worked for many years with ABC Radio National. He has won four national Eureka Prizes for science and medical journalism, as well as an Australian Human Ri
ghts Award for journalism. His first novel, Affection, based on the 1900 plague outbreak, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, the Colin Roderick Award, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction and the National Year of Reading and was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC award. His second novel, The Devil’s Eye, was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award. He lives in Brisbane with his wife, Kirsten, and their three daughters.

  COPYRIGHT

  This book was written with the help of a grant

  from the Australia Council for the Arts.

  Fourth Estate

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in Australia in 2017

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Ian Townsend 2017

  The right of Ian Townsend to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India

  1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF, United Kingdom

  2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada

  195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA

  ISBN: 978 1 4607 5092 6 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978 1 4607 0552 0 (ebook)

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing–in–Publication data:

  Townsend, Ian, author.

  Line of fire / Ian Townsend.

  Subjects: Manson, Richard Manson, Richard – Family.

  World War, 1939–1945 – Papua New Guinea.

  World War, 1939–1945 – Children – Papua New Guinea – Biography.

  World War, 1939–1945 – Papua New Guinea – Rabaul – Atrocities.

  Children and war – Papua New Guinea – History.

  Australians – Papua New Guinea – History.

  Papua New Guinea – History – Japanese occupation, 1942–1945.

  Cover design by HarperCollins Design Studio

  Cover images: Japanese troops attacking by Roger Viollet/Getty Images; map

  by David Rumsey Map Collection, www.davidrumsey.com; all other images by shutterstock.com

  Photograph of author by Patrick Hamilton

  Map copyright © Maxime Plasse 2017