Rabaul… never really remembered
Posted on: Mon 30 Jul 2018
Rabaul, New Guinea 1942… He was born in Adelaide and went to school here, but in 1942, an eleven year old Australian boy, his mother and step father were taken to a remote location in New Guinea for execution by the Japanese invaders. Why? …and what led up to that moment? What was the outcome? It’s a story that begins in Adelaide, leaves a trail through other Australian States and finishes on that fateful day in Rabaul. Journalist Ian Townsend tells us about this long forgotten footnote to one of the most shameful episodes in Australian military history. Rabaul… Ian Townsend says “…it’s never really had the chance to be remembered…..”
76 years after his execution let’s not forget Dickie and the nearly 1500 Australian civilians and soldiers who died in Australia’s worst military and civilian disaster of WW2.
Interviewer Helen Meyer
Main photo: Dickie Manson at Manly Beach, NSW 1940. (Photo from Manson Family via Ian Townsend)
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
