New Guinea campaign

7 January 1943. Australian forces attack Japanese positions near Buna. Members of the 2/12th Infantry Battalion advance as Stuart tanks from the 2/6th Armoured Regiment attack Japanese pillboxes. An upward-firing machine gun on the tank spray treetops to clear them of snipers. (Photographer: George Silk).

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).

An Allied A-20 bomber attacks Japanese shipping during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, March, 1943.

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.

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)
  

  

  22 April 1944. US LVTs (Landing Vehicles Tracked) in the foreground head for the invasion beaches at Humboldt Bay, Netherlands New Guinea, during the Hollandia landing as the cruisers USS Boise (firing tracer shells, right center) and USS Phoenix bombard the shore. (Photographer: Tech 4 Henry C. Manger.)
• 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
    • Landing at Lae
    • Landing at Nadzab
• 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)
  • Battle of Scarlet Beach
  • Battle of Finschhafen
  • Battle of Sattelberg
  • Battle of Jivevaneng
  • Battle of Wareo
  • Battle of Sio
  • Landing at Saidor
• Bougainville campaign (1943–1945)
• New Britain campaign (1943–1945)
• Admiralty Islands campaign (1944)
• Western New Guinea campaign (1944–1945)
  • Operations Reckless and Persecution
    • Landing at Aitape
    • Landing at Hollandia
  • Battle of Wakde
  • Battle of Lone Tree Hill (1944)
  • Battle of Morotai
  • Battle of Biak
  • Battle of Noemfoor
  • Battle of Driniumor River
  • Battle of Sansapor
  • Aitape-Wewak campaign

Two dead Japanese soldiers in a water filled shell hole somewhere in New Guinea.

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 081319105X. 
• 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 0700608702. 
• 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 0-143-00174-4.

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". 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. 

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]