Addendum 24: The World War II New Guinea Campaign (1942-1945)

Additional information for Chapter 6 Surviving the Japanese invasion

The following is sourced from the book “Papuan Campaign: The Buna-Sanananda Operation”, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D.C., 1990 :

“The New Guinea Campaign (1942-1945) was one of the major military campaigns of World War II. Approximately 216,000 Japanese, Australian and American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and New Guinea locals died during the New Guinea Campaign. 

Immediately after the Japanese bombing of Darwin on 19th February 1942, and six weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on 7th December 1941, the War Cabinet of the Australian Government in Canberra declared Martial Law in Darwin. Rabaul in New Britain, a part of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea administered by Australia on behalf of the League on Nations, had been overrun by the Japanese and was being used as their forward base for the sea-borne invasion of Port Moresby to control Cook Strait and prevent American use of it.

The situation was made even more acute because Singapore had fallen to the Japanese on 15th February 1942, and Churchill had withdrawn British Forces out of Asia to fight the European war. The American Alliance became critical to Australia’s survival against the Japanese sweep southwards through Burma, Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines, with the fear that they would not stop at Port Moresby, and the Australian mainland would be next. In such a climate of fear the declaration of Martial Law in Darwin made perfect sense.

The provision of the declaration of Martial Law is a provision of the Australian Defence Act under the Constitution of Australia to provide the assistance of the Australian Military forces (Army, Navy and Air Force) to the Civil Administration of an area in times of crisis to maintain civil order and also assist in the restoration of damage in situations of calamity. Examples of this since World War II include the dispatch of the Australian Forces to Darwin in 1974 to assist Darwin under Martial Law to recover from the impact of Cyclone Tracy, severe bushfires in all States, and the floods in Queensland in 2010. In such circumstances the Civil Government continues to administer the law of the State or Territory. What then happened in Papua New Guinea in 1942 exceeded the provisions of Martial Law.

The American defeat of the Japanese carrier fleet in the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the concurrent defeat of the Japanese troops at Milne Bay, had prevented the sea-borne invasion of Port Moresby, and it became apparent that the Japanese were planning an overland invasion of Port Moresby across the Owen Stanley Ranges, along what became known as the ‘Kokoda Trail’.

This meant that Australia had to act quickly to reinforce the military defence of Port Moresby as it was the strategic centre of operations in Papua New Guinea. What made it more difficult was that the troops available for this were inexperienced Militia, as Australia’s regular military forces were still deployed in the Middle East, and yet to be brought back to defend Australia.

The declaration of Martial Law in Darwin was “extended” to Papua and New Guinea, but it quickly became evident that the state of civil government there was inadequate to cope with the anticipated crisis of the Japanese overland invasion. Conditions in Port Moresby were akin to the Wild West of America after the Civil War, and Sir Paul Hasluck in his “The Government and the People 1942-45: Bombs on Australia Soil: The enemy at the gate. Page 136 described the situation as: ---

The sad news of Rabaul had been trickling through. Lawlessness and looting in Port Moresby and desertions by the police resulted from the raids, and were even more damaging than the bombs. The Government in Canberra seemed to be slow to grasp what had happened and was happening, and their messages to Port Moresby were unrealistic and imprecise, but a decision for the "temporary" cessation of civil administration in Papua was made on the 6th February 1942 and in the subsequent days the Territories Branch got busy on the regulations, which, when eventually published on 12th February, 1942 led the way to the assumption of control by the G .O .C. of the 8th Military District on or about 15th February, 1942 the exact nature of the action that suspended civil administration and the time when it was effective being a matter of legal argument” ..... that “temporary” cessation of civil administration in the two territories lasted from February 1942 until June 1946: five years of military occupation.

What may have been originally conceived as bringing Martial Law to the two separate and distinct territories of Papua and New Guinea, in line with what had happened in Darwin, went much further. Papua and New Guinea were put under Military Occupation, with what was to become ANGAU run as military administration in support of the War effort and requirements.”

In the confusion and urgency of War this crucial change in the status of the two territories was barely understood by the European / non-native population of the two territories, and even less communicated to and understood by the indigenous / native population.