Located
on Wide Bay, about 50km south of Rabaul.
Tol
Plantation
Some 160 Australian garrison at Rabaul were either captured, killed,
or bayoneted to death at Tol Plantation after the Japanese occupation.
Investigators finally discovered the fate of Lark Force in 1945,
when the area was re-occupied after Japanese surrender.
Tol Australian Memorial
Simple stone memorial with a brass plaque dedicated to the Australians killed at the plantation. For most
of those massacred, their only grave was the sea or the bush at Tol
Plantation, where those massacred were never properly buried. The memorial reads:
Erected in honour of 160 members of the Lark Force and the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles who lost their lies here at Tol plantation on the 4th February 1942 while prisoners of war of the Japanese Army.
2/22nd Battalion Lark Force Association
May 1987
Erected by
Members 3rd Brigade Australian Army
Exercise 'Rabaul Wakabout' |
B-17E "Why Don't We Do THis More Often" 41-2429
Pilot Pease shot down August 7, 1942. Discovered 1946
Kalai Plantation
Located on the west side of Wide Bay.
Brian Bennett adds:
"Years ago the then manager of Kalai Plantation
wrote to me in regard to his knowledge of aircraft wrecks in the area and mentioned the remains of a Japanese K1-61 fighter in the plantation (nothing left now) and the wreckage of B17E 41-2429."
