The 12 pounder Krupp Field Gun was captured by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force at Rabaul in August/September 1914.

Immediately upon declaration of war with Germany in August 1914 the urgent need to capture the radio stations in the German colonies of the Pacific was identified. With great haste it was decided to send a combination of naval and military units, to be known as the “Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force ”-six companies of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, a battalion of infantry at war strength (1,023 strong), two machine-gun sections, a signalling section, and a detachment of the Australian Army Medical Corps. The naval reservists were drawn from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia; but, in view of the imperious necessity for rapid organisation, the infantry battalion, the machine-gun and signalling sections, and the medical complement were enlisted in New South Wales¹.

Rabaul being the administrative centre for the German Territory of New Guinea was one of the areas to be occupied. There were no fixed defences at any place in the territory, nor any field artillery, and though there were in Rabaul two guns without limbers, to be used for firing salutes, there was no effective ammunition available for them².

¹. Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918. Volume X – The Australians at Rabaul. The Capture and Administration of the German Possessions in the Southern Pacific (10th edition, 1941). P 23