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INTRODUCTION
In 1994 the island of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, shook with the rage of two active volcanoes. Vulcan and Tavurvur (Matupit) exploded with such power that plumes of white ash were hurled 20 kilometres into the stratosphere. Back on earth, Rabaul's lush tropical landscape and its colourful and vibrant township
suffocated under a thick blanket of ash. Waves of boiling pumice poured down the mountain sides and into the harbour - one of the world's richest wartime graveyards.
On the harbour bed lay a myriad of historic wrecks, including numerous World War II aircraft and ships captured in our 1988 documentary titled Wreck Diving Rabaul.
During these latest eruptions the sea bed rose and fell in a dramatic display of nature's might.
Have these historic treasures now been buried under a thick, covering of pumice?....Has the violent volcanic eruptions uncovered new wrecks...
including the Australian submarine AE1, which mysteriously disappeared in 1914? Later this year our specialist television crew will dive beneath the still-smoking volcano of Rabaul to seek the answers to these questions.
The fast-paced action of Diving into the Ring of Fire will also show the evacuation of Rabaul as well as actual footage of Vulcan and Tavurvur at the height of the eruptions.
Our dive team will be using the very latest in underwater video and diving technology. This includes underwater communications and lighting, as well as digital underwater camera systems that can be monitored from the surface.
In 1988 Richard Swansborough and a team of divers travelled to Rabaul in Papua New Guinea to film his successful documentary, “Wreck Diving Rabaul”
This program featured many of Rabaul’s famous wartime wrecks including the “Kenshin Maru” and “Hakai Maru”, as well as a Japanese Zero fighter aircraft that still lay, fully intact, on the seafloor of Simpson Harbour.
BACKGROUND
In 1994, Richard again returned to Rabaul, to record the devastating volcanic eruptions which virtually obliterated the township.One of the first people in after martial law was declared, Richard found himself in a grey, deserted landscape, visiting the ghostlike remnants of the town of
Rabaul, buried under 2 metres of volcanic ash. All set in an undulating grey vista, which remarkably, used to be lush tropical jungle. Simpson Harbour, Rabaul’s beautiful natural harbour, itself an extinct volcano crater, was coated thick with floating volcano pumice. No one knew what had happened to Rabaul’s famous wrecks, shipwrecks which were second only to those in Truk Lagoon, for the harbour floor had lifted and then dropped during the earthquakes and volcanic upheaval.
Rabaul has had a chequered history... firstly, with a massive volcanic eruption in 1937, which wreaked havoc on the town and its harbour, then in 1942 the rebuilt
and restored township was invaded by Japanese forces.
The Japanese turned Rabaul into their main army and naval base. Crucial in their conquests of the remainder of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Bougainville, the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). It was also high strategic importance in their attacks on Port Moresby and continental Australia.
Some exited at sea level to meet with submarines, re-supplying the garrison, which were in turn being re-armed themselves.
As the tide of war turned, the Allies turned their attention to Rabaul, bombing and battering its anti-aircraft defences, and sinking some 154 large freighters, 70 cargo ships, 517 barges and four submarines in and around Rabaul, whilst virtually obliterating the town in the process.
Cut off from Imperial Japan, after 1944 the Japanese garrison was left to be starved into submission by war's end. Some of the wrecks were eventually salvaged for scrap after the war but many remained to become a magnet for scuba divers from the early 1970s onwards.
Rabaul was rebuilt, to reappear once more, as one of the most beautiful towns in the tropics, complete with colourful shading Bougainvilleas, Frangipanis and Jacaranda trees.
In 1994, fifty years after Japanese occupation, the town was again devastated. The surrounding volcanoes of Matupit and Vulcan exploded, drowning the town
in ash and debris, driving people from their homes, destroying both jungle and gardens. The eruptions also covered the harbour in pumice, as well as raising and then lowering the harbour floor.
Wrecks which had been popular dive locations disappeared, whilst others, lost to memory, reappeared as if by magic. Richard was fascinated, not only by what he saw in the ruin and devastation, but by the possibilities and the questions the eruptions raised.
When the pumice and the harbour water cleared what new treasures would lie revealed?
Was the famous "Georges" wreck, which previously hung so perilously off the reef face still there or had it slid down to the depths below? Did the Submarine Base tunnels and Sub Base itself still exist? What about the 400 kilometres of man-made tunnels; were they still accessable or had they collapsed during the tremor?
Was the Japanese biplane he had filmed, still sitting intact at a depth of 30 metres depth... and what of the Zero fighter aircraft? ..
Here was ideal material for the making of a fascinating television sequel to his earlier documentary... and to the volcanic eruptions themselves.
Consequently, Richard is again leading this latest expedition to Rabaul, to find and film the answers to some of these questions...
AIMS OF THE EXPEDITION
To locate and record changes to the underwater aircraft and shipwrecks which we explored during our previous 1988 expedition.
To locate and record any other shipwrecks that have been revealed by the Rabaul eruptions, including “AE1”, Australia’s first naval submarine .
To explore some of the 400 kilometres of WW11 man made tunnels around Rabaul.
To gain access and record interiors of Admiral Yamamota’s WW11 bunker.
To record on video from a helicopter, the present volcanic activity of Matupit.
To climb to the peak of Vulcan’s crater and
examine and record the uniquely formed volcanic landscape.
Discover if the Megapod bird still survives at the base of Matupit, where they usually bury their eggs in the hot volcanic soil.
Visit the ancient Tolai people of Rabaul and record their unique culture.
