(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
A German fought alongside Australian soldiers in their first and little known battle in the Great War.
Commemorations this week will mark the Australian engagement and the soldiers who fought and died in the then German colony of New Guinea in 1914.
Bita Paka was a vital German radio station relaying orders to the Imperial Navy fleet across the Pacific and Australia was charged with destroying it.
The battle claimed the lives of six Australians, one German and dozens of New Guineans fighting for the Kaiser.
But the Australian success was tarnished by accusations of looting and breaching the rules of war.
Stefan Armbruster reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
"Well, they did this. Landed in the morning of 11 September 1914, landed at daylight. Well, they got going and they hadn't gone far before they were opposed by trenches across the road and fired on."
The late Colonel Basil Holmes recalls Australia's first battle against the Germans, and the first casualties.
This recording made in 1988 is the only one known to exist of a witness to events 100 years ago.
"Well, they were held up and it was during this firing that Captain Brian Pockley of the Australian Army Medical Corps was very fatally wounded and four or five other men were wounded or killed."
Basil Holmes was aide de camp to his father, Major General William Holmes who led the Australian Naval and Expeditionary Force from Sydney to what was then the German colony of Kaiser Wilhelmsland in New Guinea.
Bita Paka has passed largely forgotten, except for people like historian David Howell.
"The battle of Bita Paka only went for one day and it was over fairly quickly, and then of course in the next year, 1915 we have the battle of Gallipoli and the ANZAC landings, where most people think the first action happened.
David Howell has spent years researching this significant moment in Australian history.
"This operation is Australia's first ever operation as a country, and Australia requested we be sent north to capture the German territories of New Guinea to our north to capture the German wireless station. Now Germany had a squadron of ships that patrolled through the Pacific and South East Asia and by taking out that wireless station they stopped that threat of those German ships, the same ships that would have most likely sunk those ships taking our troops over to Europe and ultimately Gallipoli."
War was declared on August 4, by August 19 Major General William Holmes had raised a force of about 4,000 men on a flotilla of nine ships.
"The gist of the orders were that you will go and seize the wireless station in German New Guinea and put it out of action. You will militarily occupy all the islands of German New Guinea south of the Equator."
It was a hasty departure and the orders were vague.
"Nobody knew where the wireless station was. So it was decided that somebody knew it was 30 miles or thereabouts from Rabaul. Well, we looked at 30 miles from Rabaul. It's very likely to be down Herbertshohe way."
After three weeks at sea, about 50 soldiers and sailors landed in New Guinea to capture the station and Australia suffered its first casualties as David Howell explains.
"Billy Williams, the able seaman from North Cote in Victoria, and he certainly was the first casualty, followed by captain Pockley who took his Red Cross armband off and performed the first feat of bravery, if you will, in the Great War for Australia but little is known about about the rest." Billy Williams, the able seaman from North Cote in Victoria, and he certainly was the first casualty, followed by captain Pockley who took his Red Cross armband off and performed the first feat of bravery, if you will, in the Great War for Australia but little is known about about the rest of the men that lost their lives on that day, including John Courtney who was advancing through the jungle and he was shot in the chest and the base of the skull and killed outright."
HMAS Cerebus in Victoria holds many mementos from the battle and curator Toni Munday has spent years tracking down the stories of those who served.
"Timothy Sullivan, he got shot nine times, can you imagine, he got hit and he advanced, he got hit and he advanced, he got hit and he advanced, nine times, yet in our official war record he is not given a special mention, it's just, 'Oh, he got wounded'.
By the end of the day six Australians, one German and several dozen New Guineans were dead and the battle was over.
"Finally we captured the German officer in command of this trench and made him stop his men from firing. We took him as a prisoner to go to show us where the wireless station was. The German Lieutenant Kempf, his name was, Leutnant Kempf, he shouted out all the time going along the road, 'Leutnant Kempf, nicht schiessen. Leutnant Kempf, nicht schiessen'. They walked up the road and found the wireless station. The Germans had already put it out of action themselves."
Australians did capture one of the most valuable pieces of intelligence to the allies in the war, the German code books.
They proved vital in destroying the Germany navy harassing shipping in the Indian and Pacific oceans, including the sinking of the battle cruiser Emden.
Toni Munday says there was recognition for some of those who served in Australia's first military engagment were recognised.
"The first medals for Australia were awarded for the battle of Bita Paka. Thomas Bond, Lieutenant Bond recieved the DSO and there was something like nine other commendations."
Three days after the Bita Paka, tragedy struck the Australian force in New Guinea in what historian David Howell says is a mystery to this day.
"It shouldn't go without mention the loss of Australia's first submarine, the AE1, it was the loss of Australia's first ship and unfortunately was lost with all hands and to this day hasn't been found."
The Australian force went on to capture the German colonial capital of Rabaul and many of prisoners of war.
Colonel Basil Holmes recalls that's when they found there was a German "native speaker" in the Australian ranks.
"We were not furnished with a German speaking man in the force, but luckily we found in the force a German speaking private soldier who could speak, whose mother tongue was German and he prepared all these documents, translated the English documents from English into German."
When SBS provided HMAS Cerebus curator Toni Munday with Basil Holmes' recording, she identified the mystery German from archival records.
"I've looked at the official history records, and on page 69, it talks about corporal Conrad Constance Eitel as the interpreter and then another piece that talks about how he's a German working in Hong Kong quite high up in the government there."
The Australian occupying force spent four months in New Guinea before being relieved and boredom set in from regular garrison duty.
Soldiers were caught committing crimes like looting Rabaul's Chinatown and then an incident with the remaining German civilians.
A local parson named Cox was bashed up by German planters for informing on them to the Australians and Major General William Holmes enforced order.
"So my father sent a special expedition out and captured them and brought them into Rabaul where they were tried and found guilty of beating this parson. So my father said he had nowhere to lock them up. He'd punish them as they had punished the parson. So he ordered them to be beaten."
Colonel Basil Holmes says in the eyes of the Australian government it tarnished an otherwise successful operation.
"Before he got back. Word got out, word got out. The Germans, the German nation, had heard and they made a great scene about it, which the Australian Government had to answer. The Australian Government took it out on my father by being very rude to him. They never treated him, for all he'd done there they never ever gave him any decorations or never gave him any congratulations. The only thing was that when he got back to Australia they did put him in command of the 5th Brigade AIF and he raised the 5th Brigade AIF and took it to Gallipoli."
