Author(s): Raden Dunbar

History

The war, the people, the crime, the cover-up, and finally the truth. An engaging book revealing the shocking truth of the Kavieng Massacre in March 1944. During the push southward in the Pacific by the Japanese during World War II, a large group of expa-triate Australian men and German Catholic mission-aries were trapped on New Ireland, many interned by the Japanese in September 1942 at Kavieng. They disappeared without trace in March 1944. The Australian Government commenced a largely secret enquiry into the fate of these missing civilians, dis-covering that all the Kavieng internees had been secretly murdered by their captors. The Japanese naval officers responsible for the Kavieng massacre elaborately concealed their embarrassing crime to mislead Australian investigations. This concealment was successful and delayed revelation of the truth until 1947.