John “Skip” Bailey

10.1
Japanese Explanation of the Fate of A9-244 Crew

After being handed over to the Japanese 81st Naval Garrison Unit and imprisoned in Rabaul, Skip and his crew, endured the fate of many POWs. They were imprisoned in what was known before the war as W.R. Carpenters building in Rabaul. Pre-war it housed the companies headquarters and was used as a trading store. In 1942 the Keibitai or Naval Special Police of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 8th Base Force of the 81st Naval Guard Unit took over the building.

W. R. Carpenter Building, Malaguna Road, Rabaul [32]

Skip and his crew, along with many others, were imprisoned here until 25th November 1943. From that date, many contradictory accounts have emerged as to the fate of prisoners.

The War Crimes Trials after the war attempted to unravel what happened to many those captured by the Japanese and held in Rabaul. Many Japanese officers attempted to shift the blame from their own activities to the “perils of war”. They said many prisoners had drowned on ships containing POWs being sent to Japan. When asked by War Crimes investigators, after the war, for information on the POWs, the Japanese blamed the lack of information on the destruction of records as a result of the bombing, and subsequent fires, in record offices in Tokyo and Rabaul by Allied bombers.

At the war’s beginning, Japan experienced shortages of oil, iron ore and other metals, which were the pre-requisites for waging a war. They solved this problem by expanding throughout Asia and conquering the countries to the west and south of Japan, that had these resources. They did have coal which together with the metals they seized, allowed it to manufacture the armaments they needed.

However, by 1942 as the tide of war turned and with more men being conscripted into the armed forces, the Japanese were running short of labour for its industries and resorted to shipping approximately 36,000 Allied POWs to Japan to work in the mines and industrial complexes. 3,500 of these died in captivity. Millions of Asian people from occupied areas were also forced to work in their home countries and Japan for the Japanese war effort. [33]

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[32] National Library of Australia
[33] Wikipedia