Guadalcanal and Papua

On July 2, 1942, having decided to take positive steps to secure the lines of communication between the United States and Australia, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a directive to the commanders in the Pacific to begin offensive operations in the southwest Pacific. The campaign was to proceed in three stages: first, the seizure of Tulagi in the Solomon Islands and the Santa Cruz Islands (some 300 miles [450 km] east of the Solomons); second, the occupation of the central and northern Solomons and of the northeast coast of New Guinea as far as the Lae-Salamaua area; third, the seizure of Rabaul and of other areas in the Bismarck Archipelago. The first stage was to be controlled by Vice Adm. Robert L. Ghormley, commander of the South Pacific Area (part of Nimitz’s Pacific Ocean Areas command), within which the southern Solomons were now included, having previously belonged to the Southwest Pacific Area. The second and the third stages were to be conducted under MacArthur’s strategic direction.

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On July 6, 1942, the Japanese landed troops on Guadalcanal in the southern Solomons and began constructing an air base. The Allies reacted quickly, hastening preparations to move into the southern Solomons in order to strike before the Japanese were firmly entrenched and to secure a base from which to stage later advances toward Rabaul. On August 7 the U.S. 1st Marine Division staged an amphibious landing against negligible opposition, beginning the six-month Battle of Guadalcanal. By nightfall the following day, they were in possession of the Japanese airfield at Lunga Point on Guadalcanal (subsequently named Henderson Field) and Tulagi’s excellent harbour. This operation was the first major Allied offensive in the Pacific War.

Initially, the Allies’ task on Guadalcanal had been easy, but the Japanese were determined to hold the island and began sending reinforcements south from Rabaul and dispatching naval units to engage Allied vessels, bombard Allied positions ashore, sink Allied transports, and protect their own reinforcements. On the night of August 8–9, 1942, Japanese cruisers and destroyers made a surprise attack on Allied naval forces protecting the landing areas and sank four cruisers and one destroyer (two Japanese cruisers were damaged, one of which was sunk on August 10 by a U.S. submarine). In the Battle of the Eastern Solomons (August 23–25), Allied land- and carrier-based aircraft sank a Japanese light carrier, a destroyer, and a submarine and damaged a cruiser and a seaplane carrier, while Allied naval losses were a destroyer sunk and the heavy carrier Enterprise severely damaged. The U.S. carrier Saratoga was damaged severely on August 31, and Japanese submarines sank the U.S. carrier Wasp and damaged a battleship on September 15.

During these actions the Japanese had landed more than 6,000 fresh troops on Guadalcanal to reinforce what remained of the original 7,500-man garrison. On August 20–21 they ineffectually attacked the Marine beachhead, following with a second assault on September 12–14. On September 18 a U.S. Marine regimental combat team arrived to reinforce the 1st Marine Division, just in time to help it repel additional Japanese ground attacks. By mid-October the Japanese had assembled about 22,000 troops on the island in preparation for an all-out assault against some 23,000 defenders, who now comprised the 1st Marine Division and two regimental combat teams. Further attempts by the Japanese to reinforce their troops on Guadalcanal and to bombard Allied positions there led to the naval battles of Cape Esperance and of the Santa Cruz Islands. Two Japanese cruisers and two destroyers were sunk and three carriers and two destroyers damaged; the Allies lost the U.S. carrier Hornet and two destroyers, with six other ships damaged. The Japanese ground attack (October 20–29) was a failure.

The Allies continued to bolster their air and ground strength at Guadalcanal until by mid-November there were two U.S. Marine Corps divisions (less one infantry regiment), two U.S. Army regimental combat teams, and most of a U.S. Army infantry regiment. The Japanese organized another large-scale attempt to reinforce the island (November 13–15), but they lost 2 battleships, 3 destroyers, 1 cruiser, 2 submarines, and 11 transports and support craft in the effort. The Allies lost 2 cruisers and 7 destroyers sunk and 1 battleship and 1 cruiser damaged. Most importantly from a strategic standpoint, of the nearly 12,500 Japanese troops who attempted to land, only about 4,000 managed to get ashore, and they were without supplies or ammunition. Eight Japanese destroyers tried to land more troops on November 30, but they withdrew after one destroyer had been sunk and another severely damaged. This action, the Battle of Tassafaronga, cost Allied naval elements one cruiser sunk and three damaged.

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U.S. Army and Marine Corps troops gradually expanded their hold on Guadalcanal as fresh reinforcements were brought in, and the 1st Marine Division was relieved. By January 5, 1943, the Allied garrison there amounted to about 44,000 men, opposing about 22,500 Japanese. By this time major command changes had also taken place within the Allied organization. In October 1942 Adm. William “Bull” Halsey had taken Ghormley’s place in the South Pacific Area and on January 2, 1943, ground operations on Guadalcanal passed from the command of Maj. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift to Maj. Gen. Alexander M. Patch. Steady pressure from the U.S. 14th Corps was pushing the Japanese northward, and early in January they decided to evacuate their remaining troops. During the first week of February 1943 about 12,000 Japanese escaped during a series of destroyer sorties. The Japanese had lost more than 24,000 men in the campaign, while Allied combat losses were about 1,600 men killed and 4,250 wounded (these numbers do not reflect the significant casualties from disease). Naval losses were, on the Allied side, 2 heavy carriers, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 14 destroyers; on the Japanese, 2 battleships, 1 light carrier, 3 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, 11 destroyers, and 6 submarines. On February 21, 1943, the U.S. 43rd Infantry Division began an unopposed occupation of the Russell Islands, where further bases were to be developed to support the advance on Rabaul.

While operations at Guadalcanal were underway, another major ground action was taking place in Eastern New Guinea. In accordance with the directive of July 2, 1942, MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area headquarters had laid careful plans to secure Eastern New Guinea and to establish bases from which operations against the Lae-Salamaua area and New Britain could be mounted. Before these plans could be realized, however, the Japanese moved into the north coast of Papua to begin an attempt to take Port Moresby by overland action. On July 21 the Japanese began putting troops ashore near Gona. From here, a month later, Japanese troops began an overland march via the Kokoda Trail, a difficult route defended by Australian infantry, and by mid-September the advance Japanese elements were less than 35 miles (56 km) from Port Moresby. The Japanese, however, were exhausted by disease and by the difficulties of their arduous advance, low in supplies, and nearly starving. Unable to continue, they halted and a week later were ordered to withdraw toward Kokoda pending the outcome of operations at Guadalcanal.

Pursued by two Australian infantry brigades, the Japanese fell back to Buna and Gona, where by November 18, 1942, they had assembled about 7,500 men. By that time two regiments of the U.S. 32nd Infantry Division were near the front, and on November 19 one of the regiments, together with the Australians, began attacks against the firmly entrenched Japanese. In the next two months, the Japanese moved about 3,000 fresh troops in by small craft, while the Allies committed three more Australian infantry brigades, an Australian cavalry regiment, a Papuan infantry battalion, the rest of the U.S. 32nd Infantry Division, and another U.S. infantry regiment. Until mid-January 1943, operations were under Australian Lieut. Gen. Edmund F. Herring and U.S. Lieut. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger.

Gona fell to the Australians on December 9, 1942 and Buna village to the Americans on December 14. The Americans took the fortified administrative centre at Buna Mission on January 2, 1943, while the Australians moved into Sanananda on January 18. On January 22 the last resistance was over. The Japanese, indeed, had decided to withdraw from the area more than three weeks earlier, at the same time that they had written off Guadalcanal. The Allies’ capture of Guadalcanal and Papua ended the six-month effort to halt the Japanese drive south. The line of communications to Australia and New Zealand was now secure.

Other incidents of the Papuan campaign included a Japanese attempt to outflank Port Moresby to the east by seizing Milne Bay. On August 26, 1942, the Japanese began putting 1,900 men ashore there. The defenders, two Australian infantry brigades and U.S. Army engineers, held firm, and on September 4 the Japanese evacuated their 1,300 remaining troops. Goodenough Island, off southeastern New Guinea, was taken by the Australians on October 22–26, 1942, against scattered opposition from Japanese stranded there during supply runs to New Guinea.

Altogether, the Papuan operations had cost the Japanese nearly 12,000 men killed and 350 captured, while about 4,000 escaped to the Lae-Salamaua area or to New Britain. Allied combat losses were approximately 3,300 killed and 5,500 wounded. The operations had been undertaken principally by ground and air units, with Allied naval forces contributing only small craft. The Allied air forces had played a considerably greater role, interdicting Japanese supply lines and flying Allied supplies and reinforcements to the front.

Japanese strategy after Guadalcanal

The fall of Guadalcanal forced the Japanese leaders to realize that Japan was now on the defensive and that the prospects for the future were increasingly gloomy. On March 25, 1943, the Naval General Staff accordingly mapped out a new policy, which called for strengthening Japan’s remaining defensive positions while launching every possible counterattack. On the same day, the Army and Navy high commands agreed to give priority to the defense of New Guinea with secondary emphasis on the Solomon Islands. To gain time, concentrated air attacks were launched from carriers against Allied positions in New Guinea, where the situation had deteriorated rapidly between early and mid-April. At this time the Japanese forces there were under the direct command of Yamamoto, but April 18 he was killed in an ambush by U.S. fighters when he and his staff were flying from Rabaul to Buin. His death was a significant blow to the Japanese Navy.

When the new Allied offensives were directed to Attu in the Aleutians in May 1943 the Japanese realized that their overextended defense line was now threatened everywhere. They still could not do anything to intercept the enemy invasion of the weakly defended island. At the end of June the Allies’ simultaneous landings on Rendova Island and New Georgia in the Solomons and at Nassau Bay in New Guinea confronted the Japanese with a more serious predicament. By August 5, when the air base at Munda in New Georgia fell to the Allies, the defeat of the Japanese forces in the Solomons was virtually assured. The Nassau Bay landing, followed by offensives along the coast of Huon Gulf, immediately endangered the weak New Guinea defense perimeter at Salamaua and Lae, whence the Japanese garrison was forced to retreat overland. The ever worsening situation in the Pacific thus led the Japanese to an overall review of war plans and to a new policy decision on September 30, 1943. A final defensive line was to be established from West New Guinea and the Carolines to the Marianas by the spring of 1944. This perimeter was to be held at all cost and to be used as a base for counterattacks. Accordingly, vigorous efforts were made to organize a new mobile land-based air force of over 700 planes under the 1st Air Fleet. Meanwhile, the attrition of the Japanese armed forces continued as the two Allied drives from the Solomons and New Guinea increased in tempo. Landings at Finschhafen on the Huon Peninsula in September and at Cape Torokina on Bougainville Island in November meant that Rabaul, a key to the Japanese defense in the theatre, would soon be encircled by the Allies. The Allied landings in the Gilberts later in November and on New Britain in December reinforced the threat of encirclement, but the Japanese, especially the Navy, still clung to Rabaul and even threw its precious carrier force into the battle.

To cope with the new threat, the Japanese Navy hurriedly mapped out a new defense plan, code-named Operation “A,” based on two pillars: the land-based air forces, centring around the newly formed 1st Air Fleet (1,055 planes) deployed in the Marianas, in the Carolines, and in West New Guinea; and a sea force of three regular carriers and six minor carriers, with 450 planes in all. In the event of an enemy landing at any point of the final defense line, the land-based air forces were to launch their attacks first and then the naval forces, in concert with those attacks, were to proceed west of the defense line and to deliver a decisive blow. Adm. Koga Mineichi—Yamamoto’s successor and one of the main proponents of the plan—and his staff were killed flying from Palau to Mindanao (in the Philippines) on March 31, 1944. Thereupon, Adm. Toyoda Soemu, Koga’s successor, activated Operation “A.” The 1st Air Fleet, however, could only manage sporadic attacks, and it was only a matter of time before the Japanese home islands would be under threat from the Allies.