The view of a volcano and Rabaul (hidden) across the bay from the cabin

Time will bring to light whatever is hidden;
it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.
~ Horace
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I went to Rabaul, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea with a specific agenda. My father served in the Pacific on a US Navy destroyer during WWII. And my minor in college had been history with a concentration on WWII history. Rabaul had been a major Japanese stronghold from 1942 to 1945. I wanted to see it first hand.

In conversation with my. host in Lae, I mentioined that I wanted to visit Rabaul on the island of East New Britain. He said he had a friend who had a small resort there and that he’d make a reservation for me. So kind. As I write this, I am newly aware of how cared for I was all of the time I was in Papua New Guinea.

I flew in on a small plane that landed on a grass runway. My host was there to meet me. He took me to one of his lovely rustic cabins across the bay from the airport and the town of Rabaul. Perfect! All of it: Yet another kind host, the rustic cabin, the view, the ambiance overall. 

It was a relaxing time. Hot and humid with a hint of breeze now and then. In the mornings I snorkeled, swam, went to the market in town, and visited a few of the abandoned bunkers that still remained. I read and sat in an outdoor swing in the afternoons. There wasn’t much else to see or do.

“Is there anything else would you recommend that I might want to see?” I asked my host. He said he thought I might enjoy walking in a large coconut grove; that I would find it interesting given my interest in WWII history. He gave me no more details than that.

The coconut grove
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As I approached it, the grove was thick and the interior looked dark. I imagined that I would just be leisurely walking among the coconut trees. Thus, it wasn’t until I was in the midst of the grove that I saw the wreckage of several Japanese planes. One even still had the red sun painted on its wing. The grove had overtaken the bombed out airfield and had grown up around the wreckage.

A destroyed Japanese plane
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People used the somewhat open areas around the planes to nurture coconut tree seedlings. A profound scene really.

Cultivating seedlings amidst the damaged planes
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The visit to the coconut grove was definitely the highlight of my visit to the island. What was inside the grove was surprisingly different from what I imagined when I looked at it from outside. What’s the trope? “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”

In 1994 a volcano near Rabaul erupted. It was the mountain that was my view from the cabin. The town was 80% destroyed by heavy ash and the people were relocated to the other side of the bay where I had stayed. Also, in 2015 I watched a PBS show focused on traveling in Papua New Guinea. One stop was Rabaul. At one point, the travelers, riding in a pickup, passed right by what was left of the coconut grove. Nothing but stumps. The narrator talked about how the grove, just outside of Rabaul, had been the location of a Japanese airstrip during WWII.

Another destroyed Japanese plane