At the Feet of the Mother

As MacArthur's unexpected swoop into the Admiralty Islands last week tightened a noose around the Bismarck Archipelago (see map), attention was fixed on a Jap-held prize on the northern tip of New Britain. Rabaul, a great naval and air base, only 830 miles from Truk, may be MacArthur's next target.

In the years before the war, Rabaul (pop. 8,000) dozed comfortably in the Pacific sun, its chief activities coconut culture and administration of the Australian-mandated Territory of New Guinea. Planters' bungalows stood among green lawns and lush gardens. Tree-shaded avenues curved past government buildings, warehouses, hotels, churches, the New South Wales Bank, the racecourse.

Rabaul and its fine harbor dozed on volcanic fires. On a day in May 1937, the fires awoke. In the harbor, Vulcan Island exploded. Shipping was destroyed. Plantations were ruined. The town quaked for two terror-filled days. When it was over, the people swept up the pumice and tried to settle back into their hothouse calm. They did--until January 1942, when the Japs arrived.

From the Solomons, New Guinea. For 19 months, Rabaul has been the main objective of MacArthur's slow campaign across the eastern end of the New Guinea Peninsula, and of the Allies' converging drive up the ladder of the Solomons.

From the time Allied forces occupied Bougainville and brought Rabaul within easy bomber range, it has taken an almost daily hammering from the air, was hit by almost 3,000 tons in February alone. No other Jap base in the South Pacific has absorbed such destruction. U.S. destroyers even steamed in to shell it.

By last week Allied flyers reported that all Jap ships had left, that Jap planes were no longer in the area in any strength. Although the stranded Jap garrison would no doubt resist to the bloody end, Rabaul lay wide-open to an amphibious invasion.

"Mother," the cloud-shrouded tallest of Rabaul's volcanic peaks, and the lesser "Daughters" on either side, brooded somberly. Australian officials recalled the report which was made by vulcanologists more than three years ago after an inspection of Rabaul's treacherous strata: another eruption was likely to occur at any moment.

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