Bita Paka 1914
The Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) was formed on 6 August 1914. Its sole purpose was to destroy German wireless stations, operating in the Caroline Islands at Nauru and New Britain, which were communicating with the German East Asian Cruiser squadron operating in Pacific waters. The ANMEF was raised separately from the Australian Imperial Force, and comprised 1,500 militia infantry and 500 naval reservists and ex-sailors. On 11 September 1914 shore parties landed unopposed at Rabaul and nearby Kabakaul, where a patrol of 25 Australian naval reservists pushed inland to the wireless station at Bita Paka. There they were engaged by a composite force of German reservists and Melanesian police. In this action Australia suffered six dead and five wounded, and took possession of the wireless station. It was the first Australian action of the First World War. Those Australians killed at Bita Paka were the first Australian troops to die of more than 60,000 killed in the four-year conflict
At Britain’s request a small volunteer force, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force, was assembled in August 1914 to invade German New Guinea and destroy German wireless stations, while New Zealand occupied the Pacific colony of German Samoa and Japan declared war on Germany. By October the Japanese naval forces had seized the German territories of Marianas, the Carolines, Marshall Islands and Palau in Micronesia. Removing a threat on Australia’s doorstep and the acquisition of German New Guinea. (Commonwealth Parliament from 1901 to World War 1) On an emotional level, Australia’s automatic entry to the war was accepted by the Government, the Parliament and the people, ‘ if the Empire is at war—I do not care what the cause of the quarrel may be or who created it—we, as an integral part of the British Empire, are at war and must take our own part in it.’
(Granville Ryrie (LIB/NAT, North Sydney, NSW)Australia's first enlisted men who are on to Rabaul with the Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force. Between the 11th August and 18th August 1914, the Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force recruited, 1,000-strong infantry battalion, 500 naval reservists and ex-seamen, and a 500-strong citizen-battalion from north Queensland.
Rabaul - Bita Paka 1914
Bita Paka was a small radio station established shortly after the start of the war in Kaiser Wilhelm land, German New Guinea. The German South Seas Wireless Company originally planned to construct a high-powered radio station at the site, but this changed with the onset of war and instead only a low-powered station was erected. The radio station became increasingly important to Admiral Spree and his fleet as they fled across the Pacific looking for coal which became increasingly scarce as the war progressed. The force protecting Bita Paka was also responsible for the protection of the nearby capital of Rabaul.
Rabaul was well stocked with the coal that was desperately needed by Germany’s ships fleeing the Pacific. German New Guinea was different from her counterpart colonies in Africa in that it had no Schutztruppe (colonial defence force), but a Polizeitruppe used for putting down rebellions and intervening in tribal wars. The Polizeitruppe had proven effective during the 1910 Sokehs rebellion, and learnt well from their earlier weakness in communication. The German defence at Bita Paka comprised approximately 240 native police soldiers and 50 German officers.
Bita Paka 1914
Colonel William Holmes, Commander of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) (in centre) and two unidentified officers at the wireless station at Bita-Paka after its capture. The first objective of the New Guinea expedition was this wireless station, a few miles inland from Blanche Bay, which at the outbreak of war was still in course of construction, but was hurriedly got ready for use. Colonel William Holmes, Commander of the AN&MEF is in the centre.
Bita-Paka, A section of the interior of the wireless station.
Rabaul - Bita Paka 1914
The firefight at the Bita Paka radio station outside Rabaul on 11 September 1914 was Australia’s first significant military engagement of the Great War. In terms of human losses it was a modest event with 6 Australians, 1 German and 30 German New Guineans killed and 4 Australians and 11 German New Guineans wounded. But the strategic consequences of the Australian victory were enormous. Knocking out a nodal point in the German military radio network in the Pacific was a vital primary objective. But above and beyond that, all of German New Guinea came under Australian control. At one stroke the Australian border was effectively pushed up to the equator, the German threat was removed from the region, and a million souls added to the British Empire. It was a nasty little encounter. A small Australian naval party of 25 men, an officer and a military doctor landed in Blanche Bay and pushed inland about eight kilometres along the dusty road to Bita Paka, with almost impenetrable jungle hemming them in on either side. Able Seaman Billy Williams, a 29-year-old electricity works employee from Northcote in Melbourne became the first Australian serviceman killed in action in the Great War when he was hit in the stomach by a treetop sniper’s bullet. The doctor, 24-year-old Captain Brian Pockley AAMC from Wahroonga in Sydney, was killed by another bullet as he tried to assist the wounded, having selflessly given away his Red Cross brassard to his orderly. Eventually reinforcements arrived and, after a suicidal and initially unsuccessful rush by the Australians at a German trench that barred the road, the German officer in charge of its 20 New Guinean defenders conceded defeat. Two more defended trenches stood between the Australians and the radio station. Using the captured German officer as interlocutor, Lieutenant Thomas Bond RANR from Brisbane, now with some 30 men and a heavy machine gun section, parleyed surrender terms with the remaining Germans. There was one edgy moment when four German officers with holstered pistols appeared on the brink of offering resistance. Bond, however, rushed up and swiftly disarmed them, thus winning the first Australian decoration of the war, a DSO. So, in one day’s fighting, did all of German New Guinea fall into Australian hands. This was the sharp end of the encounter; but strategically speaking much more was going on. The German heavy cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were thought to be in Rabaul. Hence the RAN sent a major naval force to oppose them, consisting of the battlecruiser Australia, cruiser Sydney, three destroyers, the armed troopship Berrima, and two submarines. Colonel William Holmes, a citizen soldier and Boer War veteran who was secretary of the Sydney Water Board in private life, had over 1000 men under his command in the grandly named Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. Rear Admiral George Patey RN commanded the fleet and was the ranking officer. With all of this firepower at their disposal, and the two German cruisers nowhere to be seen, the Australian force far outnumbered and outgunned the German garrison and strategic success was assured.
There are, however, some curious elements to the affair. Why was a lightly-armed naval party deployed initially and the decisive firepower of the machine gunners held back? Meade does not say so, but it is likely that Patey persuaded Holmes to let the navy have first crack. This was a tactical mistake and may have cost lives. Or was it that the advance party exceeded its orders? Some other matters should be noted. However worthy his justification in terms of protecting his own men, Lieutenant Rowland Bowen RAN undoubtedly breached the Geneva convention when he forced a German POW to walk down the road ahead of the Australian party and towards the German trench, though Meade argues otherwise. Also, the Germans planted two big mines under the road that the Australians blithely walked over. Had not the German officer in charge been absent ill with malaria, the mines almost certainly would have been set off by the New Guineans who manned the plungers and many more Australians killed. And then there is the unexplained mystery of the disappearance off Rabaul with all hands of the Australian submarine AE1 three days after the fighting. A month later some renegade Germans on New Ireland flogged a British Methodist missionary as a spy and were later flogged themselves at Holmes’s orders. Finally, there is the strange case of the German Captain Hermann Detzner who eluded captivity in the Saruwaged Mountains of the Huon Peninsula on mainland New Guinea until after 11 November 1918, literally keeping the Kaiser’s flag flying in a string of remote villages. Queensland journalist Kevin Meade has written a spirited and very readable account of the exploits of these almost forgotten heroes recently memorialised with plaques at the Bita Paka cemetery and outside Northcote RSL club. For many years, as Meade readily acknowledges, a small ceremony has taken place each anniversary at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. The last survivor of the Bita Paka firefight, Bill Gothard, died in 1992.
CARL BRIDGE King’s College LondonThe Berrima departing Melboune 1914
Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force Troops boarding the HMAT Berrima at Cockatoo Island
Taking time off in Palm Island for training and to adapt to the change in climate tropical conditions
Australian Machine Gun Section training, Palm Island
The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed at Kabakaul, where a patrol of 25 Australian naval reservists pushed inland to the wireless station at Bita Paka. There they were engaged by a force of German reservists and Melanesian police
Naval Officers of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force to German New Guinea. back row from left to right: Sub Lieutenant Avenal Pickering Hext; Lieutenant Thomas Arthur Bond; Lt Oscar Gillam ; Warrant Officer Gunner Francis John Young, Petty Officer Hoffman, Chief Petty Officer Palmer, WO William David Hunter, CPO Beaton, R, Writer Adam, Lt Stuart William Cameron, Sub Lt Charles Webber, and Petty Officer Instance, .
Second row (seated on chairs) from left to right: Lt Leighton Seymour Bracegirdle, RAN (later Rear Admiral KCVO, CMG, DSO); Captain Joseph Arthur Hamilton Beresford, RAN; Lt Rowland Griffiths Bowen, RAN (later Commander).
Front row from left to right: Writer R Fowler, RANR; Midshipman Harry Alexander Willian, RANR (later Lieutenant Commander); Midshipman James Phillips Stirling, RANR (later Lieutenant Commander); Midshipman Richard Stanley (Stan) Veale, RANR (later Commander); Midshipman Reginald Langdon Buller, RANR (later Lieutenant); Midshipman Charles Matthew Cock, RANR (later Lieutenant); and Writer L Trickey, RANR.
Group portrait of Australian Navy and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) Officers at German New Guinea. Back row (in background), left to right: Gunner Young RAN; unidentified native; unidentified native. Middle row (standing): Midshipman William, Royal Australian Naval Reserve (RANR); Midshipman Cocks, RANR; Signal Boatswain Hunter RAN; Sub-Lieutenant Webber RANR; Lieutenant Marsden CMF; Lt Goadby, CMF; Sub Lt Buller RANR; Midshipman Sage RANR; Lt Read RANR. Front row (sitting): Captain Flood, Australian Army Medical Corps; Lt Gillam RANR; Lieutenant Commander L. S. Bracegirdle DSO, RAN, Commanding Officer (HMAS Penguin tally band); Dr Runge; Paymaster Lieutenant Commander Livesay, Royal Navy.
Outdoor group portrait of officers of the Rabaul Garrison of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. All except two went on to serve overseas with the AIF. Identified from left to right, back row: Lieutenant (Lt) Harold Woodford Johnson (later promoted Major and awarded Military Cross); Lt John Malbon Maughan (later promoted Major and awarded Distinguished Service Order); Lt Ivan Brunker Sherbon (later promoted Captain, awarded Military Cross, killed in action in France on 14 November 1916); Lt Victor Horatio Buller Sampson (later promoted Major and killed in action in France on 19 July 1916); Lt John Ellesmere Westgarth (later promoted Major in the Light Horse); Lt Patrick Kendall Barton Quinn (served as Lieutenant in 35th Battalion); Lt Alan Forbes Anderson (later promoted Major and Mentioned in Despatches); Lt John Ambrose McDowell (later promoted Major and Mentioned in Despatches); Lt Robert Partridge (appointment terminated 4 March 1915); Lt Rupert Markham Sadler (later promoted Lieutenant Colonel, awarded Military Cross, Distinguished Service Order, Mentioned in Despatches, also served in the Second World War); Lt Herbert Leslie Bruce (later promoted Major and awarded Military Cross); and Lt William Charles Meredith Penly (later Lieutenant in 55th Battalion). Front row: Lt Lionel Babington Ravencroft; Major Alexander Windeyer Ralston (later promoted Lieutenant Colonel, awarded Distinguished Service Order, Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George and Mentioned in Despatches on three occasions); Lieutenant Colonel John Paton (later Temporary Brigadier General and awarded Order of St Stanislas - 2nd Class (with swords) (Russia) and Mentioned in Despatches on two occasions); Captain (Capt.) Sydney Percival Goodsell (later promoted Major and awarded Croix de Guerre (France) and Mentioned in Despatches); and Capt. Charles Edye Manning ( later promoted Major, Mentioned in Despatches and killed in action in France on 7 August 1916). H150
William George Vincent Williams
Service Number: 294
Rank: Able Seaman
Unit: Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
Service: Royal Australian Navy
Conflict / Operation: First World War, 1914-1918
Conflict eligibility date: First World War, 1914-1921
Date of death: 11 September 1914
Place of death: Rabaul, Gazelle Peninsula, New Pomerania, Bismarck Archipelago, German New Guinea
Cause of death: Died of wounds
Cemetery or memorial details: Bita Paka War Cemetery, Bita Paka, Rabaul, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Notes: Able Seaman Williams was originally commemorated on panel number 1, he is now listed on panel number 188.
Source: AWM144 Roll of Honour cards, 1914-1918 War, Royal Australian Navy
Robert David Moffatt
Service Number: 121
Rank: Able Seaman
Unit: Naval Brigade (Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force)
Service: Royal Australian Navy
Conflict / Operation: First World War, 1914-1918
Conflict eligibility date: First World War, 1914-1921
Date of death: 12 September 1914
Place of death: Rabaul, New Britain, Pacific Islands
Cause of death: Died of wounds
Age at death: 20
Place of association: Kensington, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cemetery or memorial details: burial at sea of Signalman R.D. Moffatt from the main deck of HMAS Australia
Source: AWM144 Roll of Honour cards, 1914-1918 War, Royal Australian Nav
John Edward Walker
Also known as: John Courtney
Service Number: 45
Rank: Able Seaman
Unit: Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
Service: Royal Australian Navy
Conflict / Operation: First World War, 1914-1918
Conflict eligibility date: First World War, 1914-1921
Date of death: 11 September 1914
Place of death: Rabaul, Gazelle Peninsula, New Pomerania, Bismarck Archipelago, German New Guinea
Cause of death: Killed in action
Place of association: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cemetery or memorial details: Bita Paka War Cemetery, Bita Paka, Rabaul, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Source: AWM144 Roll of Honour cards, 1914-1918 War, Royal Australian Navy
Henry William Street
Service No: 419
Rank: Able Seaman
Unit: Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
Service: Royal Australian Navy
Conflict / Operation: First World War, 1914-1918
Conflict eligibility date: First World War, 1914-1921
Date of death: 11 September 1914
Place of death: Rabaul, Gazelle Peninsula, New Pomerania, Bismarck Archipelago, German New Guinea
Cause of death: Killed in action
Grave Reference: AA. A. 15.Cemetery:RABAUL (BITA PAKA) WAR CEMETERY
Notes: Able Seaman Street was originally commemorated on panel number 1, and is now listed on panel number 188.
Source: AWM144 Roll of Honour cards, 1914-1918 War, Royal Australian Navy
Brian Colden Antill Pockley
Also known as: Brien Colden Antill Pockley
Rank: Captain
Unit: Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
Service: Australian Army
Conflict / Operation: First World War, 1914-1918
Conflict eligibility date: First World War, 1914-1921
Date of death: 11 September 1914
Place of death: German New Guinea
Cause of death: Died of wounds
Age at death: 24
Place of association: Wahroonga, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cemetery or memorial details: Bita Paka War Cemetery, Bita Paka, Rabaul, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Notes: Captain Pockley was originally commemorated on panel number 183, and is now listed on panel number 188.
Source: AWM145 Roll of Honour cards,
1914-1918 War, Army
Charles Bingham Elwell
Rank Lieutenant Commander
Unit: Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
Service: Australian Army
Conflict / Operation: First World War, 1914-1918
Conflict eligibility date: First World War, 1914-1921
Date of death: 11 September 1914
Place of death: German New Guinea
Cause of death: Died of wounds
Age at death: 24
Place of association: 4 Princess Villas Twickenham, William Street, Chalfont, Woollahra Sydney New South Wales
Cemetery or memorial details: Bita Paka War Cemetery, Bita Paka, Rabaul, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Notes: Charles was awarded a Mention in Despatches, which was promulgated in the London Gazette on 11th January 1916 on page 449 at position 6, being commended for services in action during that operation.
Source: AWM145 Roll of Honour cards, 1914-1918 War, Army
Graves of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force killed in action at the landing at Kabakaul in 1914. The original burial place of William George Vincent Williams and Henry William Street was at Herbertshohe, reinterred in another cemetery at Herbertshohe around c 1915-1916 and in 1919 they were reinterred in the Rabaul military cemetery. The identified graves are from left to right: 419 Able Seaman (AB) Henry William Street, who died on 11 September 1914, aged 31 years; 294 AB William G V Williams, who died on 11 September 1914, aged 29 years: and 45 AB John Courtney, who died on 11 September 1914 aged 29 years. AB Williams was the first recorded Australian casualty of the First World War. The original burial place of Pockley, Williams and Street was at Herbertshohe, reinterred in another cemetery at Herbertshohe around c 1915-1916 and in 1919 they were reinterred in the Rabaul military cemetery. Note: Post-war 1950 All the members of the Australian Naval and Military expeditionary Force graves were transferred from Rabaul military cemetery. To Bita-Paka War Cemetery.
Last known photograph of AE1, 9 September 1914 with Yarra and Australia in the background
The day of,14th September 1914 at 7.00 am the destroyer HMAS Parramatta left her night patrol ground off Raluana Point and proceeded at slow speed in the direction of Cape Gazelle to rendezvous with AE1 and conduct a patrol in St George’s Channel to the south and east of the Duke of York Islands. The two vessels met off Herbertshöhe at 8.00 am and exchanged signals before proceeding to Cape Gazelle where they arrived at approximately 9.00 am. HMAS AE1 disappeared with all hands off New Britain on 14 September. The loss of AE1 with her entire complement of 3 officers and 32 sailors was the RAN’s first major tragedy and it marred an otherwise successful operation to seize the German possession in New Guinea and the South Pacific. It is not known what caused AE1 to disappear without trace and since her loss in 1914 several searches have been conducted to establish her whereabouts.
Last known photograph of AE1, 9 September 1914 with Yarra and Australia in the background
The day of,14th September 1914 at 7.00 am the destroyer HMAS Parramatta left her night patrol ground off Raluana Point and proceeded at slow speed in the direction of Cape Gazelle to rendezvous with AE1 and conduct a patrol in St George’s Channel to the south and east of the Duke of York Islands. The two vessels met off Herbertshöhe at 8.00 am and exchanged signals before proceeding to Cape Gazelle where they arrived at approximately 9.00 am. HMAS AE1 disappeared with all hands off New Britain on 14 September. The loss of AE1 with her entire complement of 3 officers and 32 sailors was the RAN’s first major tragedy and it marred an otherwise successful operation to seize the German possession in New Guinea and the South Pacific. It is not known what caused AE1 to disappear without trace and since her loss in 1914 several searches have been conducted to establish her whereabouts.