Coming to Rabaul

Japanese Airfield at Rabaul, 1942

A graduate of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1922, Lt. Toshikazu Ohmae stepped onto the pier at Dublon Island, at Truk Atoll. He looked around at the glaring white-painted Fleet Headquarters as the oystershell paving crunched under his feet. He wore his dress whites for he was headed to a meeting with his new boss, Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, commander of the Eighth Fleet, just in time for a move 800 miles due south to Rabaul, on New Britain Island, bastion of the Eleventh Air Fleet. Neither man realized the immense difficulties of this new posting. The calendar showed the 25th day of July, 1942, a quiet day in the war. 

Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, August 1942

Truk as the support base and Rabaul as the frontline combat base would figure in the most important campaign of the war so far. As the men over lunch discussed mundane affairs, American marines, ships and planes were setting out to seize the Eleventh Fleet airfield under construction at Lunga Point, Guadalcanal. The 8th Fleet headquarters was advanced to Rabaul on July 30, just ten days before the American landing on Guadalcanal. Ohmae went on to serve as senior staff officer, Southwest Fleet at Rabaul, through December, 1943.

Of Related Interest: "Perspectives on Japanese Naval Intelligence"