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Australia committed relatively little to the development or defense of Rabaul. Between 19 Rabaul remained a backwater a place for copra planters on New Britain to ship their product to market. Rabaul would never become a Singapore or a Hong Kong. The port was not on the way to anywhere, on an isolated island far from trade routes. Simpson Harbor, despite its excellence, was in the wrong place for Australia to use it much. Rabaul remained the most important town in New Britain. Volcanoes made the town too dangerous for a territorial governor, but the harbor was simply too good to abandon. The territorial capital was moved to Lae, on New Guinea. In 1937, Tavurvur and Vulcan, two volcanoes near Rabaul, exploded, killing over 500 and flattening the town. The town was in an active volcano zone and minor eruptions were frequent.
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Rabaul was still the capital of the Mandate territory, but experienced relatively little growth. Australia renamed all of the islands, retaining only the German name for the sea north of New Britain. Following the war’s end the League of Nations mandated control of German New Guinea to Australia.
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After World War I started Australian troops captured Rabaul. Taking advantage of the magnificent harbor, the Germans built the province’s capital on the north end of Simpson Harbor, naming the town Rabaul. Twelve years later, in 1884, New Britain, New Ireland, the northern Solomon Islands, and the northeastern quarter of New Guinea were annexed by Germany, becoming German New Guinea. Named the harbor for himself and the larger bay for his ship.
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It came to the attention of the outside world in 1872 when the frigate HMS Blanche, commanded by Captain Cortland Simpson, surveyed the waters around New Britain. Since its creation by a violent volcanic explosion in the seventh century AD, Simpson Harbor was largely overlooked by everyone except those native to New Britain or neighboring islands, such as New Ireland. This picture shows Simpson Harbor in early 1943. Large, deep, and sheltered, it could anchor a fleet, and the largest ship could anchor close to shore. Simpson Harbor gave Rabaul one of the finest anchorages in the Pacific. The result is an anchorage deep enough for the greatest draft ship ever built, and large enough to accommodate the world’s largest fleet within a sheltered haven. This entrance feeds into a channel roughly perpendicular to Blanche Bay, formed by the sheltering ridges of New Britain and New Ireland. Blanche Bay’s entrance to the ocean lies some 45 degrees from the main axis of Simpson Harbor. Simpson Harbor is protected on three sides by volcanic mountains, with the entrance to the harbor emptying into Blanche Bay. The depth through much of the harbor exceeds 27 fathoms. Set on the eastern end of New Britain, it is a marvelous deep-water harbor, 2 miles wide by 4 miles long, with water depths of 8 fathoms literally a stone’s throw from the shore. INTRODUCTION Simpson Harbor has the finest anchorage in the Southwest Pacific. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHRONOLOGY ATTACKERS’ CAPABILITIES DEFENDERS’ CAPABILITIES CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES THE CAMPAIGN AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS FURTHER READING