Hope Albert Kaufmann: A Detailed Biography
Early Life and Family
Hope Albert Kaufmann was born on 28 August 1909 in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, the younger son of Albert Isaac Louis Kaufmann and Mabel Fanny (Mabella Fanny) Johnston. [1] He grew up in a close-knit family with at least one older brother, Louis Robert Ernest “Lou” Kaufmann, who was born in Geelong in 1901. [1][2] The Kaufmann family had strong roots in the Geelong district, and this local connection would remain important throughout Hope’s life.
Hope’s mother, Mabel, died before his marriage, and his father continued to be described as “of Geelong” in later newspaper reports. [1] The family’s background was solidly middle-class, and the brothers’ later military service suggests a strong sense of duty and patriotism. Louis would also enlist in the Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF), serving as a Staff Sergeant in an Australian Port Detachment, indicating a family tradition of wartime service. [1][2]
As a young adult, Hope resided in the Newtown and Chilwell area of Corio, Victoria, close to central Geelong. [1] Electoral and residence data place him in Newtown and Chilwell in 1931 and again in 1942, showing continuity of residence and suggesting that he remained closely tied to his home district until he enlisted and embarked for overseas service. [1]
Early Life and Family (Marriage and Social Life)
On 19 August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Hope married Gloria Nancy Wallace at St Joseph’s Church, Malvern, Victoria. [1] A contemporary newspaper report described the wedding as being “quietly celebrated,” with the Reverend Father O’Hea officiating and Mr Douglas Wallace acting as best man. [1][3] Gloria was the youngest daughter of Mrs C. A. Wallace and the late Mr Wallace of Elwood, indicating that she too came from a respectable urban Melbourne family. [1]
The report gives a rare glimpse of the couple’s social world. Gloria wore an ensemble of magnolia fine wool with matching accessories and a single mauve orchid fastened to her coat, while the reception at the Hotel Windsor was decorated with pink carnations and pastel-shaded flowers. [1] This description suggests a tasteful, if modest, middle-class celebration on the eve of war. No children are recorded from the marriage, and the couple’s domestic life together appears to have been tragically brief, curtailed by Hope’s military service and subsequent death. [1]
Hope’s brother Louis followed a different wartime path, enlisting in 1940 while living at Skipton, Victoria, and later being discharged in April 1943 as a Staff Sergeant with an Australian Port Detachment in the 2nd AIF. [1][2] Louis returned to civilian life, dying at Geelong in 1974, and his wife Una Mary Allard died in 1984, underlining the contrast between the surviving brother’s post-war family life and Hope’s early death in 1942. [1][2]
Military Service
During the Second World War, Hope Albert Kaufmann enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force and served in the Australian Infantry. [1] His military rank was Lance Sergeant and his service number was VX24108, indicating enlistment in Victoria. [1] He was posted to the 2/22 Battalion, Second AIF, part of the Australian Army’s 8th Division units allocated to the defence of Australia’s northern approaches.
The 2/22 Battalion formed the bulk of “Lark Force,” a composite garrison sent to Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, then part of the Australian-mandated Territory of New Guinea. [4][5] The battalion, about 900 men strong, arrived in Rabaul around Anzac Day 1941 and was combined with local New Guinea Volunteer Rifles units, coastal and anti-aircraft batteries, and elements of the 2/10th Field Ambulance and 17th Anti-Tank Battery to form Lark Force. [6][7] Their role was to protect the key airfields at Lakunai and Vunakanau and the seaplane base at Simpson Harbour, providing early warning of Japanese movements through the islands to Australia’s north. [4][8]
Lark Force, including the 2/22 Battalion, was chronically under-resourced and significantly outnumbered by the Japanese forces that would confront them. [4][5] By December 1941, as war with Japan commenced, Rabaul’s garrison of roughly 1,400 Australian troops faced the prospect of a major enemy landing. [6] Nevertheless, the 2/22 Battalion spent months constructing defensive positions and acclimatising to tropical conditions, preparing as best they could for an anticipated Japanese assault. [7] As a Lance Sergeant in the battalion, Hope would have borne responsibility for leading and managing a small group of men under increasingly difficult and dangerous conditions.
Circumstances of Death
The Japanese invasion of Rabaul began on 23 January 1942, when some 5,000 Japanese troops landed, overwhelming Lark Force, which was outnumbered by nearly five to one. [5][8] In the face of overwhelming air and ground attacks, resistance collapsed, and the garrison commander, Colonel Scanlan, is recorded as issuing an “every man for himself” order. [5] The fall of Rabaul was one of the worst Australian defeats of the war, resulting in extensive casualties, mass surrender, and, over subsequent months, deaths in captivity and at sea. [9][10]
On 4 February 1942, groups of Australian soldiers and civilians from Rabaul who had been attempting to escape or had surrendered were captured by Japanese forces at Tol and Waitavalo plantations on New Britain. [11][9] Contemporary and later accounts describe how between 123 and 150 Australian soldiers and civilians were bayoneted, shot, or both, after surrendering, in what became known as the Tol and Waitavalo massacres. [11][9] Many of these victims were from 2/22 Battalion and attached units who had fled south from Rabaul following the invasion. [9][5]
The official record for Lance Sergeant Hope Albert Kaufmann gives his date of death as 4 February 1942 in Papua New Guinea, which aligns with the date of the Tol-Waitavalo massacres during the chaotic retreat from Rabaul. [1][3] While his exact fate is not individually documented in surviving records, it is highly likely that he died during or as a result of these massacres, along with many comrades from the 2/22 Battalion and associated units. [11][9] Overall, it is estimated that around 1,400 of the 1,700 Australian men present at Rabaul at the time of invasion died through combat, massacre, sinking (notably on the Montevideo Maru), disease, or hardship while attempting to escape. [9]
Burial and Commemoration
Hope Albert Kaufmann is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) as a Lance Sergeant in the Australian Infantry, 2/22 Battalion, Second AIF, with service number VX24108. [1][4] His place of commemoration is the Rabaul (Bita Paka) War Cemetery and Rabaul Memorial, located near Kokopo, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. [1] Within this cemetery and memorial complex, his name appears on Panel 16 of the Rabaul Memorial, which honours those who have no known grave but who died in the New Britain and New Ireland campaigns. [1][4]
The CWGC record confirms his date of death as 4 February 1942 and records him as the son of Albert Isaac Louis Kaufmann and Mabel Fanny Kaufmann, and the husband of Gloria Nancy Kaufmann of Elwood, Victoria. [1] This matches the family details found in genealogical and newspaper sources, linking the official commemoration to the personal story of his family in Geelong and Melbourne. [1][3] In addition to his CWGC commemoration, Hope is also remembered on a Find a Grave memorial (ID 23808242), which further records his service and sacrifice and provides a focal point for family and researchers unable to visit Papua New Guinea. [1]
The Rabaul (Bita Paka) War Cemetery and Rabaul Memorial collectively commemorate hundreds of Australian soldiers and airmen who died during the defence of New Britain and in subsequent captivity. [4][8] In this setting, Hope’s name stands among many of his comrades from the 2/22 Battalion and other elements of Lark Force, reflecting the scale of the losses suffered by this small garrison in early 1942. [9][5]
Legacy
Within his extended family, Hope Albert Kaufmann’s memory has been preserved through genealogical research and local historical work. The Mundarra and Mundarra Park Soldier Settlement history notes that his elder brother Louis’s younger brother “died on Rabaul in 1942 with the 2/22 Infantry Battalion, 2nd AIF,” explicitly linking Hope’s death to the Rabaul campaign. [1][2] This family-level remembrance keeps his story alive alongside that of Louis, who survived the war and returned to Geelong. [1]
More broadly, Hope’s service and death form part of the collective memory of Lark Force and the 2/22 Battalion. Modern accounts of the fall of Rabaul, the Tol and Waitavalo massacres, and the sinking of the Montevideo Maru stress the heavy price paid by Australian forces in New Britain, with casualty estimates suggesting an 82 per cent death rate among the 1,700 Australian men present at the time of the Japanese invasion. [9][10] The 2/22 Battalion is often described as having been “sacrificed” as part of a flawed strategy of deploying small, isolated forces (“penny packeting”) in the path of a far stronger enemy. [5] In this context, Lance Sergeant Hope Albert Kaufmann’s story illustrates both the courage and the vulnerability of those sent to defend Australia’s northern approaches in 1941–42.
Today, Hope is remembered not only on official memorials but also within online communities and local histories that honour the men of the 2/22 Battalion and Lark Force. [5][12] His life story—rooted in Geelong and Newtown and Chilwell, crowned by marriage to Gloria Nancy Wallace in Malvern, and cut short in the desperate retreat from Rabaul—embodies the personal cost of a campaign that remains one of the most tragic chapters in Australia’s wartime history. [1][4]
Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Hope-Albert-Kaufmann.pdf
[2] Mundarra & Mundarra Park Soldier Settlement (WW2), Edenhope https://www.swvic.au/casterton/mundarra-soldier-settlement-WW2.htm
[3] 18 Mar 1946 – Family Notices – Trove – National Library of Australia https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22234835
[4] Fall of Rabaul – Australian War Memorial https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/fallofrabaul
[5] 2nd/22nd Infantry Battalion – Virtual War Memorial Australia https://vwma.org.au/explore/units/542
[6] Fall of Rabaul – Anzac Portal – DVA https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/world-war-ii-1939-1945/events/japanese-advance-december-1941-march-1942/fall-rabaul
[7] A R Tolmer – 22nd Battalion (Lark Force) https://www.soldierspng.com/?page_id=5505
[8] Battle for Australia Association Fall of Rabaul – January 1942 https://www.battleforaustralia.asn.au/Rabaul.php
[9] Montevideo Maru – pngvr https://pngvr.weebly.com/montevideo-maru1.html
[10] Antimalarial Drug Supply Issues during the Second World War – JMVH https://jmvh.org/article/antimalarial-drug-supply-issues-during-world-war-ii/
[11] ARTHUR GULLIDGE & THE BAND OF THE 2/22ND BATTALION https://rusinsw.org.au/Monographs/Monograph10.pdf
[12] 2/22nd Battalion 2nd AIF – Facebook https://www.facebook.com/222ndBattalion2ndAif/
[13] Japanese march on Rabaul, New Britain 1942 – Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/492497106546332/posts/854514700344569/
[14] [PDF] Memorial News 18 https://montevideo-maru.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/18September10.pdf
[15] 2/2nd Battalion (Australia) – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2/2nd_Battalion_(Australia)
[16] https://artilleryocshistory.org/uploads/1/4/5/9/145902858/faocs_ww_ii_kia_a-e_book_1.pdf
[17] A Regiment in Action https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234781277.pdf
[18] On this day 23 January 1942 Rabaul was invaded by Japanese … https://www.facebook.com/SalvosMuseums/posts/on-this-day-23-january-1942-rabaul-was-invaded-by-japanese-military-forces-the-2/2363945240464709/
[19] [PDF] Homages from Monthly Meetings AUSTRALIAN MILITARY HISTORY https://northbeach-rsl.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/HOMAGE-History-Book-V2-2024-08-12.pdf
[20] What’s the story? [49th Armored Infantry Battalion] https://worldwartwoveterans.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Whats-the-story-Company-B-49th-Armored-Infantry-Battalion.pdf
[21] HEADQUARTERS https://29thdivisionassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/AAR-42-Historical-Record-1942.pdf