Word: rabaul
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...singing sent a charge of shock through the bar: "Monday and Monday, Tuesday, Wed nesday, Thursday, Friday and Friday.". It was a battle song of the Japanese Imperial Navy, extolling daily dedication to the glory of Nippon. As the singing died away, the men spontaneously turned to reminiscences of Rabaul and Savo Island, Bataan and Okinawa. "Wasn't it great," said one, "those days...
...stale canape. Nevertheless, Australian Navy Commander Trevor Howard tricks him into a position as a plane spotter (code designation: Mother Goose) on a remote islet near New Guinea. Soon he has to rescue Caron and her seven giggling schoolgirl charges, who have fled the French consulate school at Rabaul...
...islanders grabbed spears, clubs and stones, which they had hidden in the sand, and attacked the Australians. Battered and bleeding, the tax collectors fled to their boats, injuring themselves further as they stumbled over the sharp coral. Three days later, when a reinforced police patrol flew in from Rabaul with steel helmets, shields, tear gas and rifles, they found Lokano deserted. Everybody for miles around had vanished into the swampy jungle to wait in safety till Johnson could arrive to liberate them...
...cultures, this simple admiring social gesture might have earned no more than an unappreciative slap. But the Tolais have been nursing a grudge against the Sepiks for years-ever since the Sepiks began migrating from the New Guinea mainland two decades ago and rose in status as laborers around Rabaul. The pinched tribeswoman called her cousin to avenge her insult. A Sepik pitched in to help the pincher. Soon it was tribe against tribe. Tolais with white-painted faces armed themselves with baskets of stones and heavy sticks. The more imaginative Sepiks stuck hibiscus blooms in their hair for battle...
Tourists were quick to note that the riot was strictly a native affair; no one seemed mad at the white population of Rabaul. "My friends will be green with envy," said an Australian woman as she posed in the middle of a crowd of weapon-waving natives. But the Sydney Morning Herald took a less lighthearted view. "This outburst of savagery," said an irate editorial, "should provide a convincing answer to those members of the United Nations Trustee Council who last month voted for immediate independence for Papua and New Guinea...