Qualla: Henry Reid Bay

Henry Reid Bay: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The name on the charts is a misspelling that stuck. When the Methodist missionary George Brown visited this deep inlet on New Britain's southern coast in January 1878, he named it for his benefactor in Tasmania - the philanthropist Henry Reed. Somewhere between Brown's journals and the first official maps, a single letter slipped, and Reed became Reid. The local name, Homhovulu Harbor, is older than either version. The bay itself is a deep penetration of the larger Wide Bay, bounded by two headlands: Zungen Point to the north, a name the Germans gave for its tongue-like shape, and Cape Turner to the south. In 1942, this quiet coastline became the site of one of the war's most brutal massacres. In 1945, it became the staging ground for the battle that ended Australian offensive operations on New Britain.

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Henry Reid Bay: Rivers, Plantations, and a Causeway

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The geography around Henry Reid Bay is shaped by two river systems that keep drifting. The Mevelo - also called the Mavelo or Mävlu in older maps - is the main drainage, with tributaries that merge inland before emptying near the head of the bay. The Waitavalo, known variously as...

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Henry Reid Bay: Before the Missionaries

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The people Brown met at Henry Reid Bay in 1878 were not the same people his earlier visit had found there. Two tribal language groups had long shared this coast. The Gaktei, coming down from the mountains of the Gazelle isthmus, had been in what Danish anthropologist Richard Park...

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Henry Reid Bay: The Tol Plantation Massacre

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When Japanese troops landed at Rabaul on 23 January 1942, the small Australian garrison known as Lark Force was quickly overwhelmed. The survivors scattered, trying to escape along New Britain's north and south coasts in small groups. On the morning of 3 February, five barges car...

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Henry Reid Bay: The Return, Three Years Later

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The men who died at Tol were left where they fell, their bodies covered with palm fronds by the Japanese troops who killed them. For three years their remains lay scattered through the plantation and the jungle around Henry Reid Bay, with no way for the Australian Army to reach t...

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Henry Reid Bay: The Wulwut Crossing

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The same ground that had been the site of massacre in 1942 became a contested battlefield in 1945. The Australian 6th Brigade, pushing north from Jacquinot Bay, needed to cross the Waitavalo - the river also known as the Wulwut - to reach the high ground above Tol and Waitavalo p...

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