70th anniversary of Rabaul bombing today

Lest we forget, today is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of beatiful RABAUL, EAST NEW BRITAIN,  in World War 11 by the Japanese.

 Rabaul was bombed on January 4, 1942 followed by Morobe gold towns Lae, Salamaua, and Bulolo on January 21.

To go into detail about the long and bitter fighting that took place between Lae Salamaua and Wau in 1942 and 1943 would fill pages.

Many hundreds of Japanese, Australians, Chinese as well as Papua New Guineans were killed in the two years of fighting.

  I'm going to write a series of articles this year about the 70th anniversary of WW11 in New Guinea, and hopefully, people can start realising that Rabaul, Lae, Salamaua and Wau were just as important - if not more important - that Kokoda.