Commonwealth War Graves Commission 10
July 2002
PORT MORESBY (BOMANA) WAR
CEMETERY
Papua New Guinea
Location Information.
Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery lies
approximately 19 kilometres north of Port Moresby on the road to Nine
Mile, and is approached from the main road by a short side road called
Pilgrims Way.
Historical Information.
After the Japanese landed at Lae and
Salamaua in March 1942, Port Moresby became their chief objective. They
decided to attack by sea, and assembled an amphibious expedition for the
purpose, which set out early in May, but they were intercepted and heavily
defeated by American air and naval forces in the Coral Sea, and what
remained of the Japanese expedition returned to Rabaul. After this defeat
they decided to advance on Port Moresby overland and the attack was
launched from Buna and Gona in September 1942.
Early in 1942, and almost without
resistance, the Japanese established a considerable force and developed a
useful base on Bougainville, the largest and most northerly of the Solomon
Islands. This they held until Americans and Australians began offensive
operations towards the end of 1943, when Bougainville was the only one of
these islands remaining in Japanese hands. By August 1945, when the
Japanese surrendered, most of the island had been recovered.
Those who died in the fighting in Papua
and Bougainville are buried in PORT MORESBY (BOMANA) WAR CEMETERY, their
graves brought in by the Australian Army Graves Service from burial
grounds in the areas where the fighting had taken place. The unidentified
soldiers of the United Kingdom forces were all from the Royal Artillery,
captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore; they died in captivity
and were buried on the island of Bailale in the Solomons. These men were
later re-buried in a temporary war cemetery at Torokina on Bougainville
Island before being transferred to their permanent resting place at Port
Moresby.
The cemetery contains 3,819 Commonwealth
burials of the Second World War, 702 of them unidentified.
The PORT MORESBY MEMORIAL stands behind
the cemetery and commemorates almost 750 men of the Australian Army
(including Papua and New Guinea local forces), the Australian Merchant
Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force who lost their lives in the
operations in Papua and who have no known graves. Men of the Royal
Australian Navy who died in the south-west Pacific region, and have no
known grave but the sea, are commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial
in England, along with many of their comrades of the Royal Navy and of
other Commonwealth Naval Forces.
Bougainville casualties who have no known
graves are commemorated on a memorial at Suva, Fiji. |