Vunakanau Airfield (Site)

 Second World War 1939-1945  Add category

Constructed by the Royal Australian Air Force before the Second World War, Vunakanau was the main airfield for Australian forces before and during the early stages of the Second World War. Coming under concentrated Japanese attack starting on January 20, 1942, the airfields ten fighters and four bombers attempted in vain to repulse over 100 Japanese bombers and their escorts. On January 22nd, the Australian base commander dispatched his last message; "Nos Morituri To Salutamus" (Latin: "from those who are about to die, we salute you") to Melbourne and abandoned the base to the Japanese.

Heavily fortified and expanded by Japanese forces, Vunakanau became the principal Japanese airfield in the Rabaul area. The base was continually expanded throughout 1943, eventually including two parallel 5,100ft runways and 64 bomber and 81 fighter revetments. Heavy anti-aircraft defenses consisted of 15 heavy, 14 medium and 12 light guns and 3 searchlight batteries. Fighters from the 1st Sentai arrived in late January 1942, followed in February by bombers from the 4th Kokutai, their ranks swelling as the airfield was expanded.

Allied forces were quick to act on the large Japanese base, and began a long campaign of bombing raids on the airfield in May 1942, which eventually ended in mid-1944 after the airfield had been bombed over 55 times. The sharp increase in Allied air raids during late 1943 and early 1944 and their use of white phosphorus bombs dropped with parachutes to retard their fall decimated the aircraft staged on the ground, as well as their air and ground crews. Japanese forces withdrew all flyable combat aircraft from Vunakanau in February 1944, but the airfields potent AA batteries remained operational through the end of the war, when the base surrendered to Australians forces in September 1945.

The main runway of the airfield was maintained until the 1980's when it was finally abandoned in favor of more modern facilities. Today little evidence of the airbase remains onsite.


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