Battle of Bita Paka

On 11 September 1914, on the island of New Britain, in the colony of German New Guinea, Australian sailors and soldiers fought a day-long battle for the German radio station at Bita Paka. It was the Australians’ first battle of the First World War and also the first in which Australian soldiers were killed. The British chronology of the war records it under 12 September as the “engagement at Herbertshöhe”, after the nearby seat of the German governor, today’s Kokopo. All modern Australian sources, however, date the fighting to 11 September. The shift of date in the chronology is probably because news from the Pacific reached London with a delay, and on 12 September the Australians also occupied Rabaul.

The objective: the radio station

The radio stations in Germany’s Pacific colonies made it possible to keep in contact with the squadron of Admiral Maximilian von Spee, whose ships threatened Allied shipping. The British therefore asked Australia and New Zealand to destroy these stations. The New Zealanders occupied German Samoa at the end of August, and the Australian expeditionary force, some 1,500 volunteers and naval reservists, sailed for New Britain.

On the morning of 11 September small parties of Australian naval reservists landed unopposed at Herbertshöhe and at nearby Kabakaul. From Kabakaul a patrol of some 25 men set off inland, along a road through dense jungle, towards the radio station hidden a few kilometres from the coast.

Fighting in the jungle

The armed forces of the whole colony numbered only some 60 Germans, mostly reservists, and some 240 Melanesian police. Some of them, posted in ambushes and in trenches across the road, defended the approach to the radio station. At around 9 a.m. the Australians came under fire. One of the first wounded was Able Seaman William Williams. The expedition’s doctor, Captain Brian Pockley, gave him first aid and handed his Red Cross armband to the man carrying the wounded sailor to the rear. He himself was soon hit. Both died that same day aboard the transport HMAS Berrima, about an hour apart. They were the first Australians to die in the war.

The Australians brought up reinforcements from the ships and outflanked the German trenches through the jungle. In the afternoon they took the main position on the road with a bayonet charge. Lieutenant Commander Charles Elwell, who led the assault, was killed. Further groups of defenders surrendered, and in the evening the Australians reached the radio station. It was abandoned and its mast had been brought down, although the equipment was untouched.

Losses and consequences

According to the Australian War Memorial, six Australians were killed and five wounded. Some studies give seven killed. On the defenders’ side one German and some 30 Melanesians were killed, and several dozen were taken prisoner. Allegations were later made that some of the Melanesian prisoners had been bayoneted.

After the battle the German troops and the colonial authorities withdrew inland, to Toma. After a brief siege Governor Eduard Haber agreed to terms of surrender on 17 September, and by the end of the year the Australians had occupied the whole colony. The joy of success was soon clouded by tragedy: on 14 September the submarine HMAS AE1 disappeared without trace near Rabaul with her entire crew of 35. The engagement at Bita Paka was small compared with what awaited the Australians at Gallipoli and in France, but it opened the list of more than 60,000 Australian soldiers killed in the war.