Darkest Hour The True Story of Lark Force at Rabaul - Australia's Worst Military Disaster of World War II
Author: Bruce Gamble

For most of World War II, the mention of Japan's island stronghold sent shudders through thousands of Allied airmen. Some called it "Fortress Rabaul," an apt name for the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese forces in the Southwest Pacific.

January 23, 1942, New Britain. It was 2:30 a.m., the darkest hour of the day and, for the defenders of this Southwest Pacific island, soon to be the wars darkest hour. Fifteen hundred men and six nurses, Lark Force, had been deployed to New Britain to fortify and defend Rabaul, capital of Australia's mandated territories.

Once they'd completed their work on the strategic port and its two airfields, the group mostly volunteers from Victoria settled into the routine of garrison duties, confident of being relieved within a year.