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NEW BRITAIN: Private W. Cook and the seven other PoWs are taken to Tol Plantation by their Japanese captors. There they are tied up in groups of two or three and eventually taken out by their captors to be executed. Private Cook’s group of three are asked in sign language if they prefer to be shot or bayoneted. They ask to be shot. They are instead all bayoneted in the back repeatedly. Private Cook receives five wounds and is left for dead; unable to hold his breath and is bayoneted a further six times. Private Cook, still alive, manages to untie his hands and makes his way to the beach. At dusk he sees the smoke from a camp fire and staggers towards it. The next morning he finds a small party under the command of Colonel Scanlan. Private Cook survives the war although he loses his voice as a result of a bayonet wound to his throat.

Bastards.

Private Cook’s group of three are asked in sign language if they prefer to be shot or bayoneted. They ask to be shot. They are instead all bayoneted in the back repeatedly.

Use of edged weapons and swords had a preferred religious symbolism to the Japanese.

Bruce Gamble, a historian who has done extensive research on Rabaul, actually dates the massacre to have begun on February 4th. The 200+ men who where gathering around the Tol Plantation were surprised by the Japanese on the morning of the 3rd. Some escaped into the surrounding jungle, but about 170 were captured. The next day, the Japanese began taking the men into the jungle in small groups to execute them. Private Cook of the 2/10 Field Ambulance unit is just one of a few stories of survivors from this event.

The news of the event reached the commander on the island, Colonel John Scanlan causing him to decide to surrender rather than risk another incident like the one at Tol.