Operation Cartwheel was a major military operation for the Allies in the Pacific theatre of World War II. Cartwheel was an operation aimed at neutralising the major Japanese base at Rabaul. The operation was directed by the Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA), General Douglas MacArthur, whose forces had advanced along the northeast coast of New Guinea and occupied nearby islands. Allied forces from the South Pacific Area, under Admiral William Halsey, advanced through the Solomon Islands toward Bougainville. The Allied forces involved were from Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the US, and various Pacific Islands.
The eastern part of the Territory of New Guinea, and the northern Solomon Islands; the area in which Operation Cartwheel took place, from June 1943.
US Marines hit three feet (1 metre) of rough water as they leave their LST to take the beach at Cape Gloucester, New Britain. 26 December 1943. (Source: National Archives)
Elkton III Plan, March 1943.
Rabaul is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain. It lies about 600 kilometres to the east of the island of New Guinea. Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash from a volcanic eruption in its harbor. During the eruption, ash was sent thousands of metres into the air, and the subsequent rain of ash caused 80% of the buildings in Rabaul to collapse. After the eruption the capital was moved to Kokopo, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) away. Rabaul is continually threatened by volcanic activity, because it is on the edge of the Rabaul caldera, a flooded caldera of a large pyroclastic shield.
Rabaul from the Vulcanology Observatory, with the old town to the left and the new town to the right
1890s photo of Parkinson family, Rabaul
Queen Emma's living room in Rabaul in 1914 when German New Guinea was seized and occupied by Australia
Robert Louis Stevenson's piano in Queen Emma's Rabaul living room in 1914