BBBB: Basic Bitapaka Battlefield Background

21/01/2022

The German SMS Komet,that became the HMAS Una after the 1914 Battle for Bitapaka .

By:Horatio J. Kookaburra

A sad duty is at hand: the men named for re-burial at Rabaul in the album caption of this photo - LCDR Charles Ellwell [Spelt Elwell elsewhere] , Captain Pockley, AB Williams and AB Street - were four of the six Australians killed on Sept 11,1914 in what was called the Battle of Bita Paka.

A Clash with entrenched reservist German colonial militia and their Melanesian forces defending a strategically important wireless station at that place, which was inland from Kabakaul and Herbertshohe on New Britain, on the Toma Ridge Road.

It was believed that the wireless station - one of two in the general Rabaul area of New Britain, was used to communicate with Von Spee's German Asiatic Squadron.

First to die in the series of ambushes and skirmishes for the wireless station was Naval Reservist Able Seaman Billy Williams, of Northcote, a Melbourne suburb, after being shot in the stomach.

He would be forever memorialized as the first Australian battle casualty of WWI.

His unit's medical officer, Captain Brian Pockley, a Sydney doctor, was fatally wounded going to Williams's assistance, and would be decorated for his sacrifice.

Both are among those being carried here on HMAS UNA/SMS Komet for re-burial in Rabaul Cemetery.

Photo: Courtesy of the Naval Historical Society of Australia.

13/11/2021

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/claims-of-australian-war-crimes-in-first-wwi-engagement/5734180

One hundred years ago today, Australians took part in one of the first engagements of World War One, the Battle of Bita Paka in Papua New Guinea. Now a recently discovered eyewitness account appears to confirm rumours of Australian soldiers executing prisoners there. Ian Townsend reports.

13/11/2021

https://sites.google.com/site/simpsonhafen/rabaul-1902-1914

Dr. Albert Hahl (1868, Gern - 1945) was a German colonial administrator. In 1897, he was acting Landeshauptmann (Governor) of the German New Guinea Company and from 1902 to 1919, was Governor of German New Guinea. In 1903 he founded the town of Rabaul, which became the capital of the colony.

13/11/2021

Captain Brian Colden Antill Pockley, Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC), Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF). Capt Pockley was shot on Bita Paka Road near Kabakaul, 11 September 1914, removed to HMAS Berrima where he died of his wounds; the first Australian officer to be killed in the First World War. After they encountered German soldiers on Bita Paka Road, Able Seaman William Williams was shot in the stomach and Pockley had given his red cross armband to another naval serviceman, Stoker Kember, to carry Williams to the rear. This was done to protect the transporting of the wounded Williams; Pockley was shot shortly after. Pockley and Williams were taken back to HMAS Berrima, one of the ships that had carried the Australian force to Rabaul and they both died on board that afternoon. Six Australians were killed and four wounded in the battle of Bita Paka. "Pockley's action in giving up his red cross badge, and thus protecting another man's life at the price of his own, was consonant with the best traditions of the Australian army, and afforded a noble foundation for those of Australian Army Medical Corps in the war," wrote author S. S. Mackenzie in the official history, The Australians at Rabaul.