The A to Z of World War II by Anne Sharp Wells

Author:Anne Sharp Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780810870260
Publisher: Scarecrow Press

NEW GUINEA CAMPAIGN. Contest between Allied and Japanese forces, which lasted from 1942 to 1945. The first phase of the campaign focused on the Papuan peninsula. In March 1942, Japanese forces from Rabaul (q.v.) captured Salamaua and Lae on the northeastern coast of New Guinea (q.v.), with the ultimate goal of taking Port Moresby (q.v.), the Papuan city on the southern coast held by Australian soldiers. If Japan (q.v.) controlled Port Moresby, it could threaten Australia (q.v.) and cut Allied supply lines. In early May, the Japanese attempted to capture Port Moresby by sea but were stopped in the Battle of the Coral Sea (q.v). Two months later, Japanese forces landed at Buna and Gona on the Papuan peninsula and began to move overland toward Port Moresby on the Kokoda trail, an arduous path through jungles and the rugged Owen Stanley Mountains. With overextended lines and Australian resistance, the Japanese forces, under Major General Tomitoro Horii, halted 30 miles from Port Moresby and began to withdraw on September 17. During the same period, Japanese forces tried to support the overland operation by making an amphibious landing at Milne Bay (q.v.), where Allied forces were building airfields to protect Port Moresby; the Japanese withdrew by September 6. General Douglas MacArthur (q.v.), commander of the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) (q.v.), ordered a coun-teroffensive to begin on October 1, with the Australians, under General Thomas A. Blarney (q.v.), pursuing the retreating Japanese troops on land, while U.S. forces were transported by sea and air to other points. The Australian and American troops converged on Buna, where they fought for weeks before the lengthy, costly battle for Papua ended on January 22, 1943.

Occurring next was the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (q.v.), March 1–4, 1943, in which the Allied Air Forces under Lieutenant General George C. Kenney (q.v.) annihilated a Japanese convoy bringing reinforcements to the Lae area. Major ground operations commenced on June 30 as part of Operation Cartwheel (q.v.), which involved coordinated offensives by forces of Admiral William F. Halsey’s South Pacific Area (q.v.) and MacArthur’s SWPA theater to assault ultimately the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul. The final objective was later changed to the isolation of Rabaul rather than its capture. By the start of Cartwheel, the SWPA forces also included for the first time the U.S. Sixth Army under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger (q.v.). The main SWPA targets were Wau and Salamaua, taken by Australian soldiers in heavy fighting, and Lae and Finschhafen, captured by American troops in actions that included a major airborne operation (q.v.) at Nadzab. Opposing them was the Japanese Eighteenth Army under Lieutenant General Hatazo Adachi (q.v.), which was gradually pushed farther to the west. In March 1944, Adachi’s army was transferred from the administration of the Eighth Area Army on Rabaul to the Second Area Army under General Korechika Anami (q.v.) in the Netherlands East Indies (q.v.).

In April 1944, Australian troops moving overland seized Madang, previously Adachi’s headquarters. At the same time, in a massive operation

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