History of the Second World War (87 page)

The long-planned American offensive was due to open on June 30 — with a three-fold stroke — when General Krueger’s U.S. Army force would land on the Kiriwina and Woodlark (or Murua) Islands in the Trobriand group; the New Guinea Force (mainly Australian) under General Herring would land near Salamaua in the Huon Gulf; and the troops under Admiral Halsey would land in New Georgia.

The landing in the Trobriands proved easy, as no opposition was met, and the building of airfields began at once. The fresh New Guinea move started well, and the American landing in support of the Australians met no serious opposition, but the Japanese force in this part (about 6,000) was not pushed back to the outskirts of Salamaua until the middle of August — and the American advance force here was then told to wait for the intended main landings on the Huon Peninsula, prior to the attack on Lae, the main objective, The third-prong stroke, by Halsey’s forces against New Georgia, proved still more difficult.

The large island of New Georgia had a Japanese garrison of about 10,000 troops, the formidableness of which was multiplied by the mountainous jungle and wet climate. The obstacle was made worse by the orders of Imperial G.H.Q. that it was to be held as long as possible. Moreover, the difficulties of invasion were increased by the reefs on the north-east coast and the surrounding belt of islands on the south and west.

The American plan was to carry out a three-piece landing. The main one, of divisional scale, was to be made on the west coast island of Rendova, whence it was intended to cross the five-mile straits and land near the important airfield at Munda Point. As soon as this hop had been achieved, a smaller force was to land on the north coast of New Georgia, ten miles from Munda, and thereby cut the Japanese off from seaborne reinforcements. There were also to be three subsidiary landings in the south. The naval covering force comprised five carriers, three battleships, nine cruisers and twenty-nine destroyers, while the air force allotted was about 530 planes.

A coastwatcher’s report that the Japanese were moving into the southern part of New Georgia led Halsey to begin the initial landing there on June 21, instead of waiting until the 30th, but no opposition was met, and the other subsidiary landings in that sector were successfully made on the 30th.

As for the main landing on Rendova Island, the 6,000 American troops employed in it soon overcame its garrison of only 200 Japanese, and the follow-up landings near Munda were made during the first week of July. That week and the next, small Japanese naval forces made several ripostes, as in the Guadalcanal campaign, and managed to inflict considerable damage on the cruisers, while slipping ashore in all some 3,000 troops.

On shore, the inexperienced American division employed in this operation made very slow progress in its jungle advance on Munda after crossing the straits from Rendova — despite immense air, artillery, and naval gun support. Reports on its state of poor morale led to a further one and a half divisions being ordered to New Georgia. By August 5, however, Munda and the surrounding area were at last captured, although most of the Japanese garrison was able to withdraw to the adjoining northerly island of Kolombangara. Moreover, in further sea actions the American domination of the sky caused the Japanese to suffer disadvantageous naval losses.

By far the most important effect of the Americans’ slow progress in New Georgia was that it led Halsey, and other American leaders, to recognise the drawbacks of such a step-by-step advance, and to realise that it gave the enemy ample time to strengthen his next line of defence. Such a process was forfeiting the great advantage of air and naval superiority. So it was now decided that Kolombangara, with its garrison of over 10,000 Japanese, should be scaled off, and left ‘to wither on the vine’, while the American forces moved on to the large but lightly defended island of Vella Lavella, which the Japanese held with a garrison of only 250 men. (This was a case of planned ‘by-passing’, and an improvement on what had happened in the Aleutian Islands.) Moreover, to establish an airfield on Vella Lavella would bring them within a hundred miles of Bougainville, the most westerly islands of the Solomons.

The landing on Vella Lavella took place on August 15, even before the occupation of New Georgia was completed. Moreover, the hopes of General Sasaki, the local Japanese commander, that he might maintain a prolonged resistance in Kolombangara, were also annulled by higher level orders to abandon the Central Solomons and fall back to Bougainville. At the end of September and early October, in successive nights, the large garrison of Kolombangara, and the small garrison of Vella Lavella, were evacuated.

In all, the Japanese lost about 2,500 killed in the New Georgia campaign, and seventeen warships, while the Allies lost about 1,000 killed (though many more from sickness) and about six warships. In the air, moreover, the Japanese losses were much heavier.

The Allies’ pressure on Salamaua in August had been maintained largely to cloak, and distract Japanese attention from, the preparations for their attack on Lae and the Huon Peninsula — whose ports and airfields were wanted for the coming bound northward into the island of New Britain, as well as to cover their flank during that bound.

In tackling the Huon Peninsula, MacArthur’s plan was to combine an amphibious, an airborne, and an overland attack. This three-fold nature made it a complex operation, and he had sufficient resources to rely on one kind had it been desired. On September 5 his amphibious force landed the bulk of the 9th Australian Division just east of Lae. Next day the 503rd U.S. Parachute Regiment was dropped on the disused Nadzab airfield northwest of Lae — the first airborne operation by the Allies in the Pacific — and as soon as this airfield was made usable the 7th Australian Division was flown in by transport aircraft. Meanwhile the overland Australian-American advance on Salamaua was resumed.

The converging attacks met little opposition. For the Japanese Imperial G.H.Q. had realised that their one division in the area was likely to be cut off, and sanctioned the withdrawal of this division across the mountainous peninsula towards Kiari, some fifty miles beyond Lae. So Salamaua was evacuated on September 11, and Lae on the 15th. But Japanese hopes of holding on to the port of Finschhafen at the tip of the peninsula were frustrated by the landing there on the 22nd of an Australian brigade from the Amphibious Force. Although the Japanese brought another division forward as reinforcement they were gradually pushed back along the coast. Meanwhile the 7th Australian Division was advancing, more quickly, up the Markham River valley from Lae, and early in October reached Dumpu, barely fifty miles from the next important point, and port, Madang — 160 miles north-west of Lae. By the end of 1943 the Allied forces were poised to launch a two-pronged threat, along the coast and through the interior, at Madang — although their progress was behind schedule.

By September, 1943, it was at last clear to Imperial G.H.Q. that its previous optimistic estimates of the situation, and the prospect, would have to be revised. Japan’s forces were stretched too thinly over too large an area, and the Americans had recovered from their early defeat in an unexpectedly short time. Both in the air and on the sea they now had the upper hand. It became clear to the Japanese they would have to draw in their horns and shorten their defensive arc. For beyond the pressure this was suffering on its flanks, there was the potential menace from Pearl Harbor, in the centre, where Admiral Nimitz now had the largest number of ships ever amassed since Admiral Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet of World War I.

Japan’s precarious military situation was accentuated by her weak economic foundations. Her production of aircraft was inadequate to meet America’s challenge, and she was proving unable to protect her merchant shipping.

The ‘New Operational Policy’ laid down by Imperial G.H.Q. in mid-September was based on an estimate of the minimum area essential for the fulfilment of Japan’s war aims. In this the minimum, termed the ‘absolute national defence sphere’, extended from Burma along the Malay barrier to Western New Guinea, and from there to the Carolines, the Marianas, and up to the Kuriles. This contraction of the defensive arc meant that most of New Guinea, and all the Bismarcks (including Rabaul), the Solomons, the Gilberts, and the Marshalls were now considered, and classed, as non-essential — although they were to be held for a further six months. By then, it was hoped, the minimum or ‘absolute’ area would have been developed into an invulnerable barrier, Japan’s aircraft production trebled, and the Combined Fleet built up sufficiently to challenge the U.S. Pacific Fleet in battle once again.

Meanwhile the Japanese forces in the South-west Pacific were called on to hold back an Allied strength now amounting to some twenty divisions, supported by nearly 3,000 aircraft. The Japanese had three divisions in eastern New Guinea, one in New Britain, one in Bougainville, while a sixth was on the way. Yet there were still twenty-six divisions in China, and fifteen in Manchuria — to face the possibility of a Russian invasion — so that in land forces the Japanese weakness lay not in numbers but in distribution.

On the Allied side, the slow progress made MacArthur all the more eager to press on, especially since he knew that the American Joint Chiefs of Staff were now inclined to give priority to the central Pacific drive, as shorter in distance and likely to be shorter in time. His sense of urgency was increased by their expressed view that the capture of Rabaul was not essential and that this strongly defended point might well be by-passed and left isolated. Admiral Halsey, too, was a natural thruster, and his eagerness to expedite his advance through the Solomons was increased by the fact that many of his ships, as well as the 2nd Marine Division, were being recalled to help the central Pacific drive.

THE BOUGAINVILLE CAMPAIGN

This large island, the most westerly of the Solomons, had a Japanese garrison of nearly 40,000 troops, and 20,000 sailors, the bulk in the south of the island. Halsey was by now so reduced in ships and landing-craft that he could only land one reinforced division at the outset. Its landing place, shrewdly chosen, was in Empress Augusta Bay on the weakly defended west coast — and with good terrain for building airfields.

After heavy air bombardment of the Japanese air bases on Bougainville, and the preliminary seizure of the islands on the approach to Bougainville, the landings were made on November 1 — to the surprise of the Japanese, who felt sure that the attack would come in the south, where the surf was slighter. Japanese air and naval counterattacks were beaten off, while inflicting much less damage than they suffered themselves. Air attacks on Rabaul by the American carrier forces, as well as by the Allied air force in New Guinea, were also of great effect in nullifying the intervention of the recently reinforced Japanese air strength at Rabaul. A significant lesson for the future was the way that fast carrier forces proved able to operate in areas that were apparently well covered by the Japanese land-based aircraft.

On land, the American troops, reinforced by a further division, gradually expanded their beachheads into a comfortably large bridgehead more than ten miles wide, and by mid-December had 44,000 ashore to hold it. The reaction of the Japanese was slow because they continued to believe that the main American effort would come elsewhere. Even when they came to realise that the Empress Augusta Bay landing was the main threat, their countermoves were further delayed by having to bring their forces back through fifty miles of jungle from the main position in the south. As a consequence they did little until the end of February, and there was a prolonged state of stalemate.

THE CAPTURE OF THE BISMARCKS AND THE ADMIRALTIES

Meanwhile the Allied advance in New Guinea continued. On January 2, 1944, MacArthur landed a U.S. force of nearly 7,000 men at Saidor, midway between the Huon Peninsula and Madang, and that force was soon doubled. Thus the weak and weary remains of the Japanese force, of similar size, which was trying to hold on at Sio, just west of the peninsula, had its coastal line of retreat blocked. It only managed to wriggle out of the trap by a long and round-about march through the mountainous jungle, a retreat in which it lost several thousand more men. At the same time the converging Australian pincer was pressing on again from Dumpu in the Markham Valley towards the coast, which it reached on April 13. On April 24 MacArthur’s forces occupied Madang, without meeting serious opposition. For Japanese Imperial G.H.Q. had been driven to accelerate the withdrawal, and order their troops in New Guinea to fall back to Wewak, nearly 200 miles farther to the west.

MacArthur launched his next stroke even before the Huon Peninsula was cleared. On December 15 General Krueger’s ‘Alamo’ force had begun landing on the south-west coast of New Britain near Arawe, and then just after Christmas the bulk of this force of two divisions landed on the western tip near Cape Gloucester, to gain the airfield there. For although the idea of attacking Rabaul had been discarded, MacArthur wanted to obtain two-sided control of the straits as a safeguard to the flank of his continued westward drive in New Guinea. The western end of New Britain, where the Americans landed, was held by a detachment of about 8,000 Japanese troops recently arrived from China, but they were separated by a wide stretch of wild country from Rabaul — 300 miles distant at the other end of this large crescent-shaped island and they could only be given scanty air support as the 7th Air Division had just been moved back to the Celebes area, 2,000 miles farther west. Thus the Japanese force near Cape Gloucester offered little resistance, and soon set out on a long retreat towards Rabaul.

Then at the end of February a reconnaissance force of the dismounted 1st Cavalry Division landed in the Admiralty Islands (250 miles north of Cape Gloucester) — which had several airfields, and room for many more, while there was also a very large sheltered anchorage. The Japanese garrison, of some 4,000, put up a stiffer fight than had been expected, but was overcome after the main part of the U.S. force had landed on March 9, and taken the Japanese in rear. By mid-March the Americans had secured their principal objectives, and could start work on converting the Admiralties into a major base — although the remains of the Japanese continued fighting until May, when they were completely wiped out.