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airdromes, and the powerful civilian radio facility operated by Amalgamated Wireless of Australasia was untouched.
    The next raid occurred on the afternoon of January 6, when nine huge Kawanishi flying boats returned to hit Vunakanau again. This time, with no early warning from “Con” Page, the attack caused serious damage: a direction-finding station smashed, a Wirraway destroyed, a Hudson damaged by a near miss, and the runway pocked with craters. The Japanese reported “intense” antiaircraft fire, which caused minor damage to one Kawanishi. Four Wirraways took off to intercept the flying boats, but due to their pitiful climb rate only one managed to get close enough to open fire. Flight Lieutenant Bruce H. Anderson chased the formation beyond New Ireland and expended all of his ammunition at a retreating bomber from maximum range. Although he failed to register any hits, he was credited with being the first Allied fighter pilot to engage the enemy in the Southwest Pacific. The achievement counted for very little, however, and Bill Brookes noted sourly that “the enemy took advantage of cloud cover and their superior height to get away.”
    The following morning, another rikko formation attacked Vunakanau. Page radioed the alarm at 1030, having counted eighteen Type 96 bombers overhead. Wirraways took off immediately, but the Japanese bombers dropped their ordnance on the airdrome without opposition because the Australian planes were too underpowered to catch them.
    On this occasion the bombardiers’ aim was accurate. Two parked planes—the Wirraway assigned to Bruce Anderson and a Hudson loaded with bombs—caught fire. Anderson and another pilot attempted to save the Wirraway, but John Lerew noticed the danger posed by the burningHudson and shouted a warning. The squadron doctor drove up in his sedan just as the bomber’s fuel tank erupted, and all four men dived under the vehicle. Seconds later the Hudson’s bombs exploded, peppering the car with debris. After struggling from beneath the car, Lerew marveled at the shallow space he and the others had squeezed into when the need was urgent.
    THE JAPANESE CEASED raiding for several days, sending only a few reconnaissance flights over Rabaul instead of bombers. During the same period, a specially prepared Hudson of 6 Squadron flew a photoreconnaissance mission from Kavieng to Truk lagoon on January 9. The crew returned from the daring flight, the longest undertaken by the RAAF to date, with evidence that a large enemy fleet was gathering in the lagoon.
    The 24th Air Flotilla resumed its bombing campaign on the morning of January 16, when another formation of rikko destroyed stockpiles of fuel, bombs, and flares at Vunakanau. Two Wirraways tried to intercept the Mitsubishis but never got closer than a thousand yards—nowhere near effective gunnery range. “Owing to the superior speed of the enemy,” noted Brookes, “they had no trouble escaping.”
    Six hours after the first attack, a handful of flying boats dropped strings of fragmentation bombs on Lakunai, narrowly missing the ordnance dumps. Bombs exploded all around Lerew and several other men sheltering in slit trenches, but no one on the ground was hurt. From the systematic nature of the attacks, it was obvious to everyone in Rabaul that the Japanese were preparing to invade. Harold Page, the senior territorial official, pleaded with the government in Canberra to evacuate the remaining civilians. The Norwegian freighter Herstein , docked at Rabaul since early January after unloading a cargo of aviation fuel and bombs, had plenty of space available, but the officials in Canberra were adamant: the vessel was to take on a load of copra. Stunned that the government was more concerned about a few tons of coconut meat than two hundred civilians, Page continued to appeal for evacuation. Finally he received a terse message: “No one is to take the place of the copra on the Herstein.”
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