Fall of Salamaua

On Saturday 7 March an Allied reconnaissance plane sighted the invasion fleet north of the Vitiaz Straits, heading southward. Following a custom that was to become familiar to the Allies through the South-West Pacific campaign, the enemy made use of a weather front that reached Salamaua that afternoon to protect his ships as they moved inshore, and the landing took place in continuous rain, with poor visibility, under a 600 feet cloud base that effectively screened the convoy from air attack. It was then 2.30 am on Sunday.

At the Salamaua aerodrome personnel were by then putting into effect orders received from Port Moresby to destroy petrol and all other supplies when it became obvious that the station must fall. The RAAF Hudson reconnaissance plane that had sighted the convoy earlier added to general difficulties by becoming weatherbound on the strip, but was cleared by means of flares lit, amidst enemy bullets, by WO Burke. Then, after the flares had been extinguished, our personnel crossed the runways for the hills, evacuating through enemy positions and across a bridge which was immediately afterwards demolished.

Soon afterwards, WO Burke took up his position at Komiatum, a hill station where two signallers and a portable transmitter had been sent several days previously, when invasion seemed imminent.

PO Viall, a RAAF officer who had come to Salamaua on an independent mission connected with selection of a site for signals communication in the event of the station's capture, had already taken up a position in the hills before the general evacuation, so that there were then two transmitters—incidentally, the only ones of a portable nature in New Guinea at the time—by means of which intelligence and weather reports to Port Moresby were kept up at regular intervals. That, of course, involved changing position after each few days to avoid location of the transmitters by the enemy. At the time, the Salamaua garrison knew nothing of the approaching American carrier force, but the men were heartened to see, from their hilltop vantage points, about 50 Allied planes attack the invasion convoy. About 15 of the Japanese ships were put out of action, mostly sunk, around the shores of the Huon Gulf.

For the next eight weeks the RAAF party moved around the hills, keeping up regular reports of the Salamaua weather, together with observations of an intelligence nature. These involved trips to convenient mountain tops by WO Burke who risked capture frequently by approaching to the outskirts of the enemy-held aerodrome to obtain information. At the end of two months they had been forced back to Mubo, twelve miles inland, living precariously on supplies brought by native carriers whenever possible from Wau.

When orders came to move over the Owen Stanley Range to Port Moresby WO Burke set out with a transmitter, theodolite and other instruments on the long trip to the south coast. From Mubo he crossed the mountain trail, across ranges 10 000 feet high, to Kerema, thence 30 days walking to Yule Island, existing on short rations of rice and an occasional piece of sugarcane from a native garden, or sometimes a pigeon.

He reached Port Moresby by coastal launch from Yule Island, full of malaria, having lost two stone in weight on the trip.

Bureau of Meteorology