THE CARDS STACK UP AGAINST JAPAN

NEW GUINEA AND THE SOLOMONS

After Japan's lightning success of the first two months of 1942, there had been a strong body of opinion in the Japanese High Command, particularly in the Navy, that Japan should press on and take Australia, partly for the resources it offered and the prestige of its capture, but more as a means of preventing its becoming the base for an Allied counterattack. Those who disagreed with the idea of conquering Australia did so largely on the grounds that its sheer size would make it impossibly expensive to hold and garrison. That view, as we know, prevailed.

Nonetheless, it was agreed that New Guinea - the second largest island in the world - should be taken for its strategic position. During May 1942, Japan's planned capture of Port Moresby in New Guinea from the sea had been thwarted by the Battle of the Coral Sea, but on July 21st Major-General Tomataro Horii's South Seas Detachment had landed east of Gona with the intention of taking Port Moresby from the landward side, across the Owen Stanley mountains, via the village of Kokoda. To US and European military planners, this would have seemed an impossible task, but the training and native skills of the Japanese soldiers made them as capable of marching through jungle and apparently impenetrable vegetation as the western armies were of marching along a highway. In fact, the Japanese believed from aerial reconnaissance that there was a road over the mountains; only later did they discover it to be a two feet wide path known as the Kokoda Track.

By July 28th, the advance party had taken all the initial territory between their beach-head and Kokoda with virtually no resistance, and had captured Kokoda itself with surprising ease, largely because the Allies had not so far taken the Japanese attack as a serious threat to New Guinea as a whole, or to Port Moresby in particular. On August 24th, General Horii arrived in Kokoda at the head of 8,500 troops that had been put ashore in the wake of the initial landing. He found that a force of Australians - some of them relatively raw militiamen, the rest battle veterans recently returned from North Africa - was putting up a determined stand in the mountains at Isurava. His bombardment of their positions marked the beginning of a bitter struggle; not only did the Australians hold that position for three hard days, inflicting massive casualties on the Japanese, but they made Horii's army fight for every inch of that mountain trail.

The Owen Stanley Mountains are a series of steep, jungle-clad ridges rising to 7,000 feet and more, interspersed with deep valleys. Rivers, disease, the local wildlife and the damp all contributed to making the battle a miserable one for the Australians. Although they fought tenaciously and well, Japanese skill in jungle warfare enabled Horii's infantry to advance inexorably through the raw jungle by a series of the same outflanking movements that had defeated the British Army in Malaya earlier in the year. By mid-September, the Japanese were within thirty-two miles of their objective, Port Moresby, and Horii called a halt on Ioribaiwa Ridge because his supply lines were getting stretched and because, in any event, he had orders not so attempt to take Port Moresby until he was reinforced from the sea via nearby Milne Bay.

Japanese attempts to land those reinforcements went badly. First, the army units assigned to the landing were diverted to Guadalcanal because of the US Marine Corps landing there. Then, because the Japanese discovered that the Allies were building an airfield overlooking Milne Bay, the site for the landing was switched to a nearby obscure coconut growing area called Gili-Gili, which not even the Japanese knew well. When the landings took place on August 25th, most things that could go wrong did. One detachment of the Japanese Marines was attacked by Allied aircraft and stranded without its invasion barges miles from its proper landing place. Another Marine unit landed miles from its target and was faced with a long march over densely vegetated hills to rejoin the fight. But this second group, under Commander Hayashi, was made of tough stuff. Fighting only at night, and advancing with a psychologically devastating flame thrower, Hayashi advanced to the airfield that the US Engineers were building between Rabi and Gili-Gili. There he called up reinforcements and, once they had arrived, launched a ferocious attack on August 31st. To Hayashi's considerable surprise, the Japanese encountered effective, indeed, devastating resistance, and by morning were forced to withdraw, with the Australian defenders in hot pursuit. During the retreat, Hayashi lost his life and his deputy was wounded. Over 600 Japanese soldiers were killed, another 300 were wounded. The Japanese force asked for and were sent an evacuation force, and by September 6th all the survivors were on their way back to Rabaul. The attempt to reinforce Horii's Port Moresby assault had failed, after the great success of the most hazardous part of the endeavour - the actual crossing of the mountains. Only thirty miles or so from Port Moresby, the assault had seemed certain to succeed. What had gone wrong?

The simple answer was - Japanese Intelligence. Between the end of June and the end of August, 4,500 Australian infantry, 3,000 Australian engineers and 1,300 American engineers had been brought into the Milne Bay area. This the Japanese did not know, and did not calculate for, so based all their tactics on the assumption that their opposition was of less than half the strength they actually encountered on the day of the invasion. They were not usually so careless. Now Horii was obliged to pay the cost of that carelessness.

With studied calm, the Allied troops waited. The attack that Horii and the Japanese troops expected did not come, for the Australians knew that his army's supplies were running out and that sooner or later Horii would be obliged to retreat with a hungry army. Desperate attempts by the Japanese to get supplies in from the other side of the mountains failed. On September 24th, the Japanese High Command ordered Horii to withdraw back across the mountains to the coast at Buna. The order was a shattering, unimaginable blow to the pride not only of the officers of Horii's army, but also to the ordinary soldiers. They had been brought up to believe that under no circumstance could a Japanese soldier retreat. When they were ordered to do so, the psychological blow was such that their morale evaporated. Hungry and ashamed, they ran for their lives.

Two days after the retreat began, the Australians counter-attacked. In hot pursuit, they were stopped on October 21st in the mountains by a rearguard unit positioned by Horii to hold out as long as possible and delay the Australian advance. With suicidal intensity, this small Japanese force did its job well. Despite almost equal determination, the Australians did not manage to break through until October 28th, which gave Horii sufficient time to evacuate Kokoda and set up his final defensive positions at Oivi and Gorari, below the mountains near the Kumusi River.

The Australians reached Oivi first, on November 5th 1942, and heavy fighting ensued, with the attackers making little headway against well organised Japanese defence. Five days later, Australian troops attacked Gorari, and quickly overcame resistance. Now the defenders of Oivi risked being cut off if they did not head for the sea. They retreated again, along the river towards the coast. In small units, the South Seas Detachment crossed the Kumusi and headed for Buna. When they reached the coast, those that survived were in appalling condition. Starvation, Allied bombing, malaria and infected wounds wrought havoc with Horii's army. Horii had himself been killed attempting to cross the Kumusi on a raft to rejoin his soldiers. But, somehow, having completed the retreat, and thereby discharged their orders under grave adversity, the surviving Japanese soldiers' morale recovered, and they set about a spirited defence of their position at Buna. Japanese reinforcements arrived from Rabaul, in New Britain, their Australian attackers themselves became bogged down by the same problems of disease as had afflicted the Japanese, and by the end of November, no further Allied progress was being made at Buna.

General Douglas MacArthur responded to this situation from his base in Australia by sending US General Robert L. Eichelberger and 15,000 fresh troops to take Buna. His orders to Eichelberger were direct and to the point. "Take Buna, or don't come back alive".

Eichelberger was one of those remarkable Generals - Rommel was another - who genuinely and without affectation lead from the front because they know no other way. He wore badges of rank within view of snipers despite the common practice of not doing so. He operated from command posts only yards from his enemy. His example revitalised the Australian troops' morale and determination and brought great spirit and bravery from the Americans. Early in December, a remarkable exploit by one Sergeant Bottcher and his platoon of eighteen US soldiers had resulted in the capture and holding of a vital position on the beach between the two halves of the Japanese force. This gave the subsequent major assault on December 18th, when tanks and infantry advanced on 150 Japanese bunkers in the face of deadly fire, a real chance of success. Despite enormous casualties - something like half of the Australians taking part were killed or wounded - the Allied force established itself in strength along the coast. Gradually the battle went the way of the Allies, but losses both to Japanese arms and to malaria and other diseases remained very high. Incredibly, General Eichelberger managed to go through the whole campaign without injury or illness, and, at the end of January, was able to report to General MacArthur that Buna was once more in the possession of the Allies.

For two more years, almost to the end of the Pacific war, the battle for New Guinea was to continue, as the American and Australian troops pushed the Japanese ever further northward in an endless battle of pocket and foxhole, sniper and ambush. The fight for New Guinea was hard on both sides. It was, in a sense, a microcosm of the Pacific war - yet it was unique. It was the island to end all islands in a war to reclaim islands.

The Solomons

The battle for Guadalcanal, which was taking place at the same time as the events in New Guinea, ended after a hard and bloody campaign with total victory for the US Marines in February 1943. Japanese and American commentators alike were to reflect with hindsight that Guadalcanal was the beginning of the end for Japan. After that first battle for the Solomons, Japan was never to achieve another advance. For the next two and a half years, she was to be in retreat.

For the time being, however, there was no sign of defeatism in the Japanese approach to their problems in the Solomon Islands. They were, quite simply, determined to hold on to them at all costs, and to surrender nothing without a major battle. Fresh Japanese infantry, aircraft and ships were rushed to the Solomons after the debacle of Guadalcanal, and a major air offensive was launched in April 1943 against Allied bases in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, although it did not achieve anything very significant. Admiral Yamamoto, who had planned and executed the attack on Pearl Harbor, decided to visit the area in May for a factfinding and morale-boosting tour, and had coded messages sent to local commanders so that they knew when he was coming. Unfortunately for him, he still did not know that the American Navy was able to decode virtually all Japanese naval transmissions. The news of Yamamoto's travel arrangements was communicated to Admiral Halsey, and he in turn set up a reception committee.

Yamamoto was due to arrive on Bougainville, in the Northern Solomons, at 9.30am on April 18th. With split second timing, an American squadron of eighteen P-38 Lightnings that had flown at the very limit of their range from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal pounced on his aircraft as it landed, shot it up on the runway, and killed Japan's greatest leader. As a psychological blow, following the Japanese reverses in New Guinea and Guadalcanal, the killing of Yamamoto was unparalleled during Japan's war until the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Allied campaign in the Solomon Islands was one half of the strategy agreed by the Allies in the summer of 1943 by which the attack that the Japanese were expecting on their heavily defended southern Pacific base at Rabaul should be abandoned. Instead, the Allies put General Douglas MacArthur in command of a two pronged pincer movement around the base in New Britain which would both recapture the Solomon Islands in the North-East and New Guinea to the South-West, while at the same time cutting off from reinforcement and supplies the Japanese forces in Rabaul. Thus the battles in New Guinea as the US forces fought their way slowly North-West after the capture of Buna from the Japanese, and the island-hopping forays along the chain of the Solomons, were part of one and the same campaign. Admiral Halsey, who commanded the US forces in the Solomons, was therefore under the overall command of General MacArthur. His objective was Bougainville, the northernmost island of the archipelago, but there was little chance of attacking Bougainville without first gaining the islands between as bases to provide fighter cover for the landings.

Halsey began with an assault on New Georgia, which offered an ideal base for fighters at Munda airfield, but which was almost unassailable by conventional amphibious landing techniques because of the coral reefs around the island and the narrowness of the channels through which landing craft would have to pass. Halsey therefore planned a preliminary series of landings on neighbouring islands from which to attack from the air before putting his ground forces at risk. After a few small unopposed landings at the southern end of New Georgia itself and on nearby Vangunu Island, 6,000 men of the US 43rd Infantry Division landed on the night of 29/30 June on Rendova Island, South-West of New Georgia and, without too many problems, secured the island. Two days later, the rest of Major-General John Hester's 43rd Infantry Division landed successfully at Zanana on the southern coast of New Georgia, and another smaller force landed on the northern coast.

Their joint attempt to capture Munda did not go well. The Japanese defenders were determined, well dug-in, armed to the teeth and well supplied. The heat and the jungle terrain were devastating to inexperienced troops. Despite reinforcements, the advance slowed to a halt within five days. Encouraged, the Japanese commander called up reinforcements from Rabaul. Despite a series of "Tokyo Express" naval battles North of New Georgia as the US Navy attempted to stop the troop transports - a situation reminiscent of the earlier battles around Guadalcanal - some 2,000 Japanese soldiers were successfully put ashore to join Major-General Sasaki's defenders. The inexperienced American troops soon learned of the Japanese predilection for night attacks, and of their skill in jungle warfare. US losses were high, and their success minimal.

Six weeks after the initial landing, the American forces were only half way to their first objective at Munda, despite reinforcements. To inject new resolve into the campaign, Major-General Oscar Griswold, commander of XIV Corps, decided to take over in New Georgia and get some results. A major attack with additional artillery began on July 25th, but progress remained slow. Griswold reacted by replacing General Hester with Major-General John Hodge, who had been at Guadalcanal, and gradually the campaign gathered momentum. On August 4th, the 43rd finally took Munda, although at enormous cost, and Halsey had got his first island airfield North of Henderson Field. By August 14th it was in operation. By the end of August, all remaining Japanese troops on New Georgia had been flushed out.

The next target in the Solomon Islands was Kolombangara, which also had a useful airstrip, and therefore a force of Japanese defenders, commanded by that same General Sasaki who had recently been ejected from New Georgia. Sasaki had, in fact, 10,000 troops under his command, and was planning his counter-attack on New Georgia to assuage the dishonour of his recent defeat. Reinforcements were being brought in from Rabaul to take part in this attack, and the transports and their escorts bringing them were being attacked by US PT boats from Rendova. One of those PT boats was commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy. After his boat was run down by a Japanese destroyer, he managed first to get himself ashore, and then to carry out a one-man seaborne rescue operation which saved most of his crew. He swam miles despite injuries to his back. The future President was tough as well as charismatic.

Five days later three of a force of four Japanese warships attempting to reinforce Sasaki's army were torpedoed by American destroyers, and took to the bottom almost two whole battalions of Japanese soldiers. Nonetheless, some got through, and Admiral Halsey began to like less and less the idea of another grinding offensive against an even more suicidally determined Sasaki. So he decided instead to go around Kolombangara and take Vella Lavella, just North-West of his original target. There, he reasoned, he could build an airfield from scratch, then isolate Sasaki and bring him down gradually. Moreover, Vella Lavella was that much closer to Bougainville, the ultimate objective in the Solomons.

On August 15th, part of the 25th Division landed on Vella Lavella against some resistance from the air but comparatively little on the ground. This provedto be because there were few Japanese on the island. As military historian Lieutenant-Colonel Bauer put it, the Americans had more trouble finding them than defeating them. By the end of September, Vella Lavella was securely in Allied hands, and a detachment of New Zealanders had taken over its custody from the American troops that had captured it. At about the same time, General Sasaki was ordered to evacuate Kolombangara, and early in October some 9,000 Japanese troops were successfully pulled back to Bougainville despite the energetic efforts of the US Navy to stop them. Now there were some 40,000 Japanese troops on Bougainville, under the overall command of General Hyakutake, late of Guadalcanal, plus a further 20,000 Japanese Navy men. A tough nut for Halsey to crack.

He decided to employ again the strategy of bypassing the objective in order to isolate it, and resolved to attempt an amphibious landing at the relatively lightly defended Empress Augusta Bay region in the centre of the Western coast of Bougainville, where he could establish airfields and attack the supply convoys from Rabaul bringing reinforcements to the Japanese forces in the North and South of the island. To confuse the Japanese as to his objectives, two small diversionary landings were staged, on 27th October in the Treasury Islands to the South (by New Zealand troops) and later the same day on Choiseul to the East (US Marines). For a week, these assaults caused a lot of noise and confusion, and diverted attention from the Empress Augusta Bay landing, which, when it took place on November 1st, met very little opposition. The Japanese had believed that nobody would be mad enough to land on such open marshy land.

The commander of the Marines landing at Empress Augusta Bay was the formidable General Vandegrift, who had led the conquest of Guadalcanal. He quickly captured a substantial beach-head and organised effective defences against air attack. The Japanese attempted to counterattack against the beach-head both by air and by sea, but in both cases encountered stiff opposition and suffered severe losses - although the US Navy fared almost as badly as the Japanese in the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay overnight on August 1st/2nd. Halsey struck back with two carrier borne air strikes against the Japanese bases at Rabaul on November 5th and 11th, which pushed the Japanese Navy back to safer bases further North, and thereby reduced the pressure on Bougainville and the other Solomon Islands.

On November 8th, the 37th Infantry Division landed to reinforce Vandegrift's force, and he began to enlarge his beach-head. He never looked back. Gradually the Japanese were pushed further and further from the beach-head, although with no major American assault. In March 1944, Hyatuke made his last attempt to push the Americans off Bougainville but achieved nothing more than the loss of 6,000 troops. He had lost the battle, and never again attacked in force. During the first half of 1944, the US troops on Bougainville were replaced with Australians, and the Americans moved on to capture more islands on their relentless journey to Tokyo. Rabaul had, by the two successes of the campaigns in the Solomons and in New Guinea, been successfully isolated from the rest of the Japanese war effort, and could be disregarded as an effective war base.

Almost as important was the huge drain on Japanese human and arms resources caused by their losses in the twin campaigns of New Guinea and the Solomons. Their army, navy and air force could never recover from the slaughter, and their ability to counterattack was relentlessly reduced as each successive island campaign was won. The seal had been affixed to Japan's eventual defeat. It was a matter of time - and determination.