South Sea Horizons
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06/18/09
Lark Force Wilderness Track: A lucky find in a bookshop, sparked a new life passion
By Ilya Gridneff - AAP News (PNG Correspondent)
For Pete McGuinness, a lucky find in a bookshop sparked a new life passion that led to an emotional and physical journey to retrace his father's World War II efforts in Papua New Guinea.
As a young boy, McGuinness had grown up with his father Patrick John McGuinness's stories about the ill-fated 2/22nd battalion named Lark Force who were ill-prepared, ill-equipped and outnumbered against the Japanese invasion of Rabaul in PNG's island of East New Britain.
McGuinness, 54, from Mildura in country Victoria, said his father miraculously survived the disastrous Rabaul defence after the Japanese invaded on January 23, 1942.
After his father died, the stories stopped and when his family moved to Mildura in 1972 their annual trip to Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance to mark the invasion also ended.
As time passed the Lark Force memory faded.
It wasn't until Christmas 2006, when McGuinness visited the Australian War Memorial, that the Lark Force legacy was reignited in his mind.
"I went to the memorial's bookstore and found the book called Little Hell. I didn't even know anything about it," he said.
"I opened it at the exact page, 124, and there he was. My father!
"There is a photo of my father with his slouch hat on, in pyjamas, with his arm around a nurse," he said laughing.
The passion and curiosity returned and so did the tragic tales of Japanese soldiers killing 160 Australian prisoners of war in the Tol Plantation massacre near Rabaul.
McGuinness and five others with Lark Force connections last month spent three tough days trekking through the same rugged ground.
The South Sea Horizons trek is touted as an alternative pilgrimage for those unable to meet the more popular albeit tougher Kokoda challenge.
"It's hard and relentless. It just went on and on. Even our short trek," McGuinness said.
"I was thinking about some of the stories where they've got a can of bully beef between them, they've got dysentery, they're crawling on their hands and knees, but we're eating well.
"It meant everything to me," he said.
Fellow trekker, Craig Nesbit, 46, from Melbourne, said Australians needed to spread their WWII focus wider than Kokoda.
"This is probably as significant as any battle, as significant as probably Gallipoli for the Second World War," he said.
South Sea Horizons' Kori Chan said their walk offered more than Kokoda treks because Rabaul has an active volcano and is full of military history including 500km of Japanese tunnels and remaining war relics.
"The track itself aims to commemorate the Lark Force but more than anything it is a wilderness walk and you get to experience the rich and untouched culture of the Bainings peoples," he said.
"Because it is new it's a lot more rugged, dense jungle," he said.
Chan said the trek was driving much needed tourism revenue into East New Britain's rural areas.
"The main source of income has been logging, so we want to protect the forests but at the same time show there is a value in doing so.
"A tourism boom would be a good way for that to happen," he said.
