New Guinea campaign
Oxford Companion to US Military History:
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New Guinea Campaign
(1942–44)
Probably few of the 685,407 Americans sent to the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) through 1944 knew much about New Guinea prior to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor—initiating the American entrance into World War II. Nevertheless, the New Guinea campaign began in summer 1942 when Japan attempted to isolate Australia through an overland attack from Buna to Port Moresby. This attack resulted in the first American action on that mountainous and jungle‐covered island. After the Australians successfully defended Port Moresby along the Kokoda Trail, U.S. forces launched an unsuccessful strike against the Japanese at Buna on the island's northern coast. Impatient with the lack of progress, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, chief of SWPA, replaced the commander, Maj. Gen. Edwin Forrest Harding, with Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger, who initially fared no better. However, MacArthur pushed Eichelberger onward, and the enemy force was finally defeated on 22 January 1943 through a grueling battle of attrition.
After the Buna campaign, MacArthur created the Sixth U.S. Army under the command of Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger. Although historians have largely overlooked Krueger's overall role in New Guinea, he coordinated the various services and developed operational plans that made MacArthur's strategy a success.
Krueger's first order was an attack on Saidor in January 1944 as part of an effort to seize the Vitiaz Strait. Next, MacArthur wanted Hansa Bay, but intercepted and decrypted Japanese Army messages (through ULTRA) tipped off SWPA leaders that the Japanese were expecting a landing there. So, he directed Krueger to seize Hollandia in April 1944. Thus began a string of amphibious assaults along the northern coast of New Guinea. Following Hollandia came Wakde and Biak in May 1944, and Noemfoor and Sansapor in July 1944. By the fall of 1944, the Sixth Army had secured New Guinea sufficiently to invade the Philippines.
Both sides invested heavily in the campaign. The Japanese committed 180,000 men, while the Allies employed five Australian divisions and six American divisions. The Americans suffered approximately 16,850 casualties and the Australians over 17,000. The Japanese lost the most, with 123,000 killed.
The New Guinea campaign was important for several reasons. It protected Australia and provided a stepladder for the liberation of the Philippines; it demonstrated the valuable role of Krueger; it illustrated the American strategy of leapfrogging, one that emphasized bypassing Japanese strongholds while capturing less defended areas; and it reflected MacArthur's obsessive desire to return to the Philippines as quickly as possible.
[See also Philippines, Liberation of the; World War II, U.S. Naval Operations in: The Pacific.]
Bibliography
- Robert Ross Smith, The Approach to the Philippines, 1953.
- Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 8: New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944–August 1944, 1962.
- Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan, 1985.
- Edward J. Drea, MacArthur's ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan, 1942–1945, 1992.
- Kevin C. Holzimmer, Walter Krueger, Douglas MacArthur, and the Pacific War: The Wakde‐Sarmi Campaign as a Case Study,
Journal of Military History ,59 (October 1995), pp. 661–85. - Stephen R. Taaffe, MacArthur's Jungle War: The 1944 New Guinea Campaign, 1998
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New Guinea campaign
Oxford Dictionary of the US Military:
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New Guinea Campaign
(1942-44) an attack on Port Moresby by the Japanese in an attempt to isolate Australia. The attack began in the summer of 1942, when the Japanese were secure on the island's northern coast, in Buna. The Australians rebuffed that attack, and by January 1943, American forces defeated the Japanese at Buna. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, head of the Southwest Pacific Area, subsequently created the 6th U.S. Army, under the efficient command of Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, which captured the northern coast by the fall of 1944.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
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New Guinea campaign
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The New Guinea campaign (1942–1945) was one of the major military campaigns of World War II.[citation needed]
Before the war, the island of New Guinea was split between:
- Territory of New Guinea, the north-eastern part of the island of New Guinea and surrounding islands, controlled by Australia under a League of Nations Mandate;
- Territory of Papua the south-eastern part of the island of New Guinea, an Australian colony and;
- Dutch New Guinea, the western part of the island (later known as West Papua).
New Guinea was strategically important because it was a major landmass to the immediate north of Australia. Its large land area provided locations for large land, air and naval bases.[citation needed]
Fighting between Allied and Japanese forces commenced with the Japanese assault on Rabaul on 23 January 1942. Rabaul became the forward base for the Japanese campaigns in mainland New Guinea, including the pivotal Kokoda Track campaign of July 1942–January 1943, and the Battle of Buna-Gona. Fighting in some parts of New Guinea continued until the war ended in August 1945.
General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander in the South West Pacific Area, led the Allied forces. MacArthur was based in Melbourne, Brisbane and Manila. The Japanese 8th Area Army, under General Hitoshi Imamura, was responsible for both the New Guinea and Solomon Islands campaigns. Imamura was based at Rabaul. The Japanese 18th Army, under Lieutenant General Hatazō Adachi, was responsible for Japanese operations on mainland New Guinea.
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Contents
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Major battles and sub-campaigns
- Operation R (1942)
- Bombing of Rabaul (1942)
- Action off Bougainville (1942)
- Operation SR (1942)
- Operation Mo (1942)
- Battle of the Coral Sea (1942)
- Kokoda Track campaign (1942)
- Battle of Milne Bay (1942)
- Battle of Buna-Gona (1942–1943)
- Battle of Wau (1943)
- Battle of the Bismarck Sea (1943)
- Operation Cartwheel (1943)
- Salamaua-Lae campaign (1943)
- Landing at Nassau Bay
- First Battle of Mubo
- First Battle of Bobdubi
- Battle of Lababia Ridge
- Second Battle of Bobdubi
- Second Battle of Mubo
- Battle of Roosevelt Ridge
- Battle of Mount Tambu
- Operation Postern
- Bombing of Wewak
- Bombing of Rabaul (1943)
- Finisterre Range campaign (1943–1944: Including a series of actions known as the Battle of Shaggy Ridge)
- Ramu Valley campaign
- Battle of Johns' Knoll-Trevor's Ridge
- Battle of The Pimple
- Battle of Cam's Saddle
- Operation Cutthroat
- Battle of Faria Ridge
- Battle of Prothero I and II
- Battle of McCaughey's Knoll
- Battle of Kankiryo Saddle
- Huon Peninsula campaign (1943–1944)
- Bougainville campaign (1943–1945)
- New Britain campaign (1943–1945)
- Admiralty Islands campaign (1944)
- Western New Guinea campaign (1944–1945)
See also
Media related to New Guinea campaign at Wikimedia Commons
Additional reading
- Dexter, David (1961). Volume VI – The New Guinea Offensives. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/chapter.asp?volume=22. Retrieved 2006-12-16.
- Drea, Edward J. (1998). In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-1708-0.
- Gailey, Harry A. (2004). MacArthur's Victory: The War In New Guinea 1943-1944. New York: Random House. ISBN.
- Leary, William M. (2004). We Shall Return!: MacArthur's Commanders and the Defeat of Japan, 1942-1945. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-9105-X.
- McCarthy, Dudley (1959). Volume V – South–West Pacific Area – First Year: Kokoda to Wau. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/chapter.asp?volume=21. Retrieved 2006-12-16.
- Taafe, Stephen R. (2006). MacArthur's Jungle War: The 1944 New Guinea Campaign. Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.A.: University Press Of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-0870-2.
- Zaloga, Steven J. Japanese Tanks 1939-45. Osprey, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84603-091-8.
- Hungerford, T.A.G. (1952). The Ridge and the River. Sydney: Angus & Roberston. Republished by Penguin, 1992; ISBN 0-14-300174-4.
Further reading
- Nelson, Hank. "Report on Historical Sources on Australia and Japan at war in Papua and New Guinea, 1942-45". http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/sources.html. Retrieved 2006-12-13.
- The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific, Volume I. Reports of General MacArthur. United States Army Center of Military History. http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/MacArthur%20Reports/MacArthur%20V1/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-12-08.
- "Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, Volume II - Part I". Reports of General MacArthur. United States Army Center of Military History. http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/MacArthur%20Reports/MacArthur%20V2%20P1/macarthurv2.htm#contents. Retrieved 2006-12-08. Translation of the official record by the Japanese Demobilization Bureaux detailing the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy's participation in the Southwest Pacific area of the Pacific War.
- Anderson, Charles R.. Papua. World War II Campaign Brochures. Washington D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 72-7. http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/papua/papua.htm.
- Drea, Edward J.. Papua. World War II Campaign Brochures. Washington D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 72-9. http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/new-guinea/ng.htm.
References
- ^ [[Casualties were from the Companies E & F of the 128th Infantry Regiment of the 32nd Division. See [1].]]
External links
- National Archive Video of Hollandia Bay, New Guinea Invasion
- A film clip ALLIES STUDY POST-WAR SECURITY ETC. (1944) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
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Oxford Companion to US Military History
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