Commonwealth War Graves
Commission 10 July 2002
LAE WAR CEMETERY
Papua New Guinea
Location Information.
Lae is a town and port at
the mouth of the Markham River on the Huon Gulf. Lae War Cemetery is
located adjacent to the Botanical Gardens in the centre of Lae.
Historical Information.
In the early months of
1942, Japan enjoyed a crushing superiority in the air, and it was Lae
and its neighbouring airfields that were the objects of the first
Japanese attack on New Guinea. Lae and Salamaua were bombed on 21
January 1942 by 100 planes, but the land forces did not enter the
territory until 7 March, when 3,000 Japanese landed at Lae. There were
landings too at Salamaua, followed on 21 July by further landings at
Buna and Gona on the east coast in preparation for a drive through the
Owen Stanley Mountains across the Papuan peninsula to Port Moresby. The
vital stage of the New Guinea campaign dates from that time. Lae became
one of the bases from which the southward drive was launched and
maintained until it was stopped at loribaiwa Ridge, a point within 60
kilometres of Port Moresby.
LAE WAR CEMETERY
was commenced in 1944 by the Australian Army Graves Service and handed
over to the Commission in 1947. It contains the graves of men who lost
their lives during the New Guinea campaign whose graves were brought
here from the temporary military cemeteries in areas where the fighting
took place. The Indian casualties were soldiers of the army of undivided
India who had been taken prisoner during the fighting in Malaya and Hong
Kong. The great majority of the unidentified were recovered between But
airfield and Wewak, where they had died while employed in working
parties. Of the two men belonging to the army of the United Kingdom, one
was attached to 219th Australian Infantry Battalion and the other was a
member of the Hong Kong-Singapore Royal Artillery. The naval casualties
were killed, or died of injuries received, on H.M. Ships King George V,
Glenearn and Empire Arquebus, and the four men of the Merchant Navy were
killed when the S.S. Gorgon was bombed and damaged in Milne Bay in April
1943.
The cemetery contains
2,818 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 444 of them
unidentified.
Prior to the First World
War, north-eastern New Guinea and certain adjacent islands were German
possessions, and were occupied by Australian Forces on 12 September
1914. Several cemeteries in New Guinea contain the graves of men who
died during that war. There is one such grave in Lae War Cemetery,
brought in from a burial ground where permanent maintenance could not be
assured.
|