New Guinea campaign

New Guinea Campaign
Part of the Pacific Theater of World War II
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 sprays treetops to clear them of snipers. (Photographer: George Silk).
Date 23 January 1942 – August 1945 Location New Guinea Result Allied victory
Belligerents
United States Australia New Guinea Netherlands New Zealand United Kingdom Fiji	Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Douglas MacArthur George Brett Herbert F. Leary Thomas Blamey	Hitoshi Imamura Hatazō Adachi Heisuke Abe †

The New Guinea campaign of the Pacific War lasted from January 1942 until the end of the war in August 1945. In the initial phase in 1942, the Empire of Japan invaded the Australian-administered territories of the New Guinea Mandate (23 January) and Papua (8 March) and overran western New Guinea (beginning 29/30 March), which was a part of the Netherlands East Indies. In the second phase, the Allies cleared the Japanese first from Papua, then the Mandate and finally from the Dutch colony.

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.

The campaign 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.

{{Campaignbox Pacific 1941}h]]]]

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.)

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

• 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

Further reading

• Dexter, David (1961). Volume VI – The New Guinea Offensives. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 16 December 2006.
• 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. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Gailey, Harry A. (2004). MacArthur's Victory: The War In New Guinea 1943–1944. New York: Random House. ISBN. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• 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. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• 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. Retrieved 16 December 2006.
• 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. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• 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 & Robertson. Republished by Penguin, 1992; ISBN 0-14-300174-4.
• Nelson, Hank. "Report on Historical Sources on Australia and Japan at war in Papua and New Guinea, 1942–45". Retrieved 13 December 2006. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help)
• The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific, Volume I. Reports of General MacArthur. United States Army Center of Military History. Retrieved 8 December 2006. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help)
• "Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, Volume II – Part I". Reports of General MacArthur. United States Army Center of Military History. Retrieved 8 December 2006. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help) 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.
• Drea, Edward J. Papua. World War II Campaign Brochures. Washington D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 72-9.
• I. C. B. Dear; M. R. D. Foot, eds. (2001). "New Guinea campaign". The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198604464.
• Japanese Research Division (1950). Sumatra Invasion and Southwest Area Naval Mopping-Up Operations, January 1942 – May 1942. Japanese Monographs, No. 79A. General Headquarters Far East Command, Foreign Histories Division.

External links

• National Archive Video of Hollandia Bay, New Guinea Invasion
• A film clip ALLIES STUDY POST-WAR SECURITY ETC. (1944) is available for viewing at the Internet Archive