13 Facts About Rabaul

Rabaul is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain.

Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash from a volcanic eruption in its harbour.

Rabaul is continually threatened by volcanic activity, because it is on the edge of the Rabaul caldera, a flooded caldera of a large pyroclastic shield.

Rabaul was planned and built around the harbour area known as Simpsonhafen during the German New Guinea administration, which controlled the region between 1884 and formally through 1919.

Rabaul was selected as the capital of the German New Guinea administration in 1905, and the administrative offices were transferred there in 1910.

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Rabaul was captured by the British Empire during the early days of World War I It became the capital of the Australian-mandated Territory of New Guinea until 1937, when it was first destroyed by a volcano.

That settlement was thus substantially enlarged with official buildings and housing and renamed Rabaul, meaning mangrove in Kuanua as the new town was partially built on a reclaimed mangrove swamp.

At the outset of World War I, at the behest of Great Britain, Australia – as one of the Dominions of the British Empire – defeated the German military garrison in Rabaul and occupied the territory with the volunteer Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force.

Rabaul was heavily bombed by Japanese aircraft starting from January 4 1942.

Military personnel, and most civilians who had remained in Rabaul, were placed aboard the Montevideo Maru, which was sunk off the Philippines in June 1942.

The neutralisation of Rabaul took until the end of the war and was only completed following the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

However, Rabaul did not resume its pre-1937 role as capital, which was taken over by Port Moresby for the entirety of the two territories.

Rabaul Airport was destroyed in the 1994 eruption, and, since the approach involved flying over the Tavurvur crater, it was abandoned.