Rabaul airfield today

[Yamamoto]

I used Mapquest and could zoom all the way in. The iarfield is still visable. I would have thought the jungle would have covered it up a long time ago.

It only shows one runway. Were there others at Rabaul? Maybe they were dirt.

Yamamoto

[Nikademus]

I think there were up to nine strips at one point but dont quote me on that.

Only one was concrete i believe.

[Yamamoto]

And here's Port Moresby as well. You can clearly see multiple runways in this one.

Yamamoto

[Reg]

Originally posted by Yamamoto
It only shows one runway. Were there others at Rabaul? Maybe they were dirt.

Yamamoto

The attached map is from 'Air War Against Japan 1943- 1945' by George Odgers (Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1957). It shows the major airfields around Rabaul. Note that they are not actuallly 'in' Rabaul but in the general area of the town.

The same applies to Port Moresby where there were many wartime airfields (their names such as '7 Mile Strip 'might give you a clue as to their location....).

Cheers,
Reg.

[Yamamoto]

Based on Reg's map, I think I may have been zoomed in on the wrong air base. I think this is the right one because the topography matches his map.

Yamamoto

[JohnK]

Rabaul became a reasonably large small city after the war, over 15,000, so I would doubt airfields would be abandoned to the jungle...they likely became the airport.

However, much of the area has been destroyed by the eruptions of the volcanoes of the Rabaul Caldera since 1994 (the flooded caldera was the harbor) so some of the terrain is likely unrecognizable.

[LargeSlowTarget]

... I have just scanned the Rabaul map from Morison's vol. VI and was going to post it, only to discover that Reg has beaten me to this! *growl*

Well, I post it anyway because it shows more of the topography, including the volcanos that can be seen in Yamamoto's second Rabaul picture - looks like that one indeed shows Lakunai air base.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Here's some info paraphrased from Eric Bergerud's book 'Fire in the Sky - the Air War in the South Pacific'':

Before the war, the Lakunai air base had been a small civilian airstrip. The Australians started to improve it into a modest fighter field in Feb 1941. They also built a new air base at Vunakanau for light bombers.
The Japanese further improved those bases after they had seized Rabaul in January 1942. Lakunai became the main fighter strip with a 4.300 by 630 feet runway (concrete or just graded? Bergerud doesn't seem to mention this, or I missed it) and revetments for 90 fighters and 10 bombers. Vunakanau became the main bomber field with a graded surface of 5.200 by 720 feet, which included a concrete portion of 4.200 by 135 feet. It had 90 fighter and 60 bomber revetments.

When things began to heat up in late 1942, the Japanese constructed another bomber strip at Rapopo with a concrete surface of 4.600 by 630 feet and 10 fighter / 94 bomber revetments.
For the Japanese Army Air Force construction also began at Keravat, but drainage problems of the unpaved 4.200 foot strip made it usable only for emergency purposes.
The last field to be built was another fighter strip at Tobera. The runway was covered with interlocking steel plates (rather unusual for Japanese air bases) and had revetments for 75 fighters.

Bergerud writes that a big problem of Japanese air base construction were the taxiways conecting the revetments with the runways. Since they were all left unpaved, depending on weather they either created dust clouds or mud lakes, impeding aircraft movements. Furthermore they were susceptible for 'soft spots' (e.g. badly filled bomb craters) which could easily lead to landing gear damage and thus a mission kill.

Fishing in troubled waters, I would guess that today's Rabaul has no use for five strips. And JohnK, since they are seperated by miles of rough terrain, they cannot "became the airport". I suspect that at least Keravat and Tobera have been abandoned to the jungle because of usability/maintenance issues. Most likely Lakunai is in use as civilian airport again, since it is closest to Rabaul city. I would also suspect some military forces in the area which might use one of the remaining fields. Maybe our ANZAC friends can shed some light on this...

[spruance]

check out...


http://www.pacificwrecks.com/walkabout/ ... trips.html

[LargeSlowTarget]

Interesting site, thank you!