After the small break of the last couple of weeks, we return to the main theater of the Pacific War,
where the astounding consequences of the Battle of Midway continued to resonate in the minds of
the key figures of the war. Yamamoto had been outmaneuvered, outsmarted and he had suffered
terrible losses in the battle, from which the IJN may never recover. But worst of all, he had
finally surrendered the initiative to the American commanders, who immediately began to plan the
first Allied offensives of the Pacific War. Join us as we delve into Admiral King’s and General
MacArthur’s plans for the future, as well as the first incursions into the region of New Guinea.
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Back in late April and early May, the Japanese were rejoicing after their great string
of victories across the Pacific. They had subdued their enemy in Southeast Asia
and had put a great threat on both Ceylon and Hawaii. Such was their triumph that they found
that all of their initial objectives for the war had already been achieved, and now they
needed to start planning the next steps of their “liberation” of the Orient. As we will recall,
both the IJA and the IJN commanders had different objectives in mind, but even inside the IJN,
there was a huge argument between Nagano’s and Yamamoto’s followers. The compromise
they reached resulted in the decision to carry out the invasions of Port Moresby and Midway,
which as we have recently seen, turned out to be a disaster for the Empire. But this compromise
also included a planned invasion of Fiji, New Caledonia and Samoa, codenamed Operation FS,
which was going to take place after the successful destruction of the Pacific Fleet at Midway.
This operation aimed to completely neutralize Australia by cutting it off from the United
States, since the Japanese had already achieved supremacy over the Indian Ocean after their April
raid there . Thus, on May 18, the 17th Army was established to carry out Operation FS,
under the command of Lieutenant-General Hyakutake Harukichi. The coming defeat at Midway, however,
would soon show that plans were definitely going to need a change.
On July 11, while the troops were steadily making preparations for combat,
the operation was finally cancelled and Hyakutake was given a new objective: to capture Port Moresby
and any other strategic points in the eastern part of the New Guinea island.
With the loss of 4 Japanese fleet carriers, an amphibious assault was no longer an option,
so instead, Hyakutake’s forces were to land on the east coast of New Guinea and execute an overland
drive across the towering Owen Stanley Range towards Port Moresby. Meanwhile, during this
period, General MacArthur continued to organize his unified command over the Southwest Pacific.
He had much work to do, as the air, naval and land forces there were inadequate both in number
and in training. In the same conditions, he had already fought and lost the Philippines Campaign.
Thankfully, the governments of Australia and New Zealand tended to be in agreement
so that they could grant complete cooperation to the American general. This allowed MacArthur to
develop the defenses of Australia, to reorganize the Australian Army and to integrate their forces
arriving from the Mediterranean Front with the American units. In that regard, by June, MacArthur
could count with ten Australian and two American divisions for his Allied Land Forces, totaling
around 400000 men under the overall leadership of Australian General Sir Thomas Blamey.
The defense of Australia was divided into four major commands,
with the 1st Australian Army of Lieutenant-General Sir John Lavarack holding Eastern Australia ; the
2nd Australian Army of Lieutenant-General Sir Iven Mackay at Southern Australia ; the
Northern Territory Force of Major-General Edmund Herring, located mainly around Darwin;
and the Australian 3rd Corps defending Western Australia , led by General Bennett,
who had managed to escape Singapore before its fall. Furthermore, the New Guinea Force was formed
in April under the command of Major-General Basil Morris, tasked with the defense of the territories
of Papua and New Guinea. It consisted of the Papuan Infantry Battalion and the 14th and 30th
Australian Brigades at Port Moresby, as well as the remnants of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles,
which continued to monitor the Japanese presence in the Huon Gulf region. Upon
assuming his command, MacArthur had determined that a passive defense was strategically unsound,
instead planning to move forward more than a thousand miles into eastern Papua
and to construct airfields to disrupt any Japanese attempt at invading Port Moresby.
He was limited by the meager resources at his disposal, but he was determined to make the
best of them while developing the rest of the Australian and American forces for the future.
In April, the remnants of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles were also reinforced with
a platoon of Australian commandos , forming the guerrilla unit known as Kanga Force, which
was tasked with harassing and interrupting the development of Japanese bases at Lae and Salamaua.
One month later, MacArthur and Blamey had decided to employ the Kanga Force to execute a limited
offensive from the gold mines of Wau. As May progressed, Major Norman Fleay’s Kanga Force
continued to make preparations for a series of raids over Lae and Salamaua; but he was at the
same time threatened by the possible Japanese advance on the Bulolo Valley, so he was forced
to defend the valuable air installations at Wau and to postpone the raids for a later date.
After June 7, however, the victory at Midway would show that the situation had changed
and that it was now favorable to finally take the offensive. Yet there was still the matter
of what would be the objective of the operation, a target that should justify the employment of
the limited resources available. To the north, the Japanese presence in the Aleutians was worrying,
but the danger was remote and the possibility of strategic gain was very small. In the Central
Pacific, the IJN was still seen as an enemy too strong to defeat, and the danger to Hawaii was
tiny due to the recent triumph at Midway. To the south, at last, the danger against New Guinea and
Australia was imminent, something that would end up determining the choice of the Allied objective.
While MacArthur and Blamey planned the defense of New Guinea and a possible counterattack to
recapture Lae and Salamaua, Admirals Nimitz and King were also planning to conduct their own
offensive against the southern Solomon Islands, intended to open a path for an eventual drive
against Rabaul, the major Japanese base in the South Pacific. From the start of the war,
the British believed that King staunchly opposed the strategy of “Europe First”, but the American
admiral actually strongly believed in it. It was his aggressive style that made him uneasy about
leaving any resources idle in the Atlantic if they could be used in the Pacific. In that regard,
he argued that some sort of offensive against Japan should be conducted to prevent the enemies
from becoming so firmly entrenched that it would be extremely difficult to dislodge them.
To appease the Army planners, he had successfully established a series of strongpoints in the South
Pacific from where he intended to launch the drive northwards into the Solomons, using only Marine
forces for it. Yet concurrently, General MacArthur also had his own plans for an offensive in the
region. On June 8, he presented his plans for a full-scale assault against New Britain and New
Ireland intended to gain control of Rabaul and the strategic Bismarck Archipelago in just 14 days.
For this, he requested a division trained for amphibious operations,
possibly the 1st Marine Division, and three carriers to support the offensive.
This bold plan, codenamed Tulsa, had the support of the Army Chief of Staff,
General George Marshall, and was very well received in Washington.
Everyone there agreed on the desirability of the operation and the need for speed, but a conflict
soon erupted with Admiral King, who wanted the operation to be commanded by the Navy, as it was
“primarily of a naval and amphibious character”. MacArthur disagreed with this and wanted the Army
to lead the offensive; after all, the objective of the operation did fall into his area of command.
Thus, with the issue of command soon becoming a contest between Army and Navy,
MacArthur was denied the marine division and the aircraft carriers that he had requested. Another
reason this plan was opposed is because King, with the support of Rear-Admiral Charles Cooke, Chief
of the Navy War Plans Division, pointed out that the enemy air bases in the region were too strong
and could therefore place the carriers in grave danger. For them, it would be safer to go slowly
up the Solomons to Rabaul, eliminating the enemy air bases as they went along. MacArthur had to
agree on this matter, recognizing the necessity of gaining positions on the Solomons and on the north
coast of New Guinea as the preliminary steps for an invasion of New Britain. But on the subject of
command, he would definitely not yield. His first draft of Operation Tulsa, though, would be rapidly
discarded nonetheless, as it needed revision for the excessively-rapid timing of the operation.
In the meantime, MacArthur was also planning to construct an important air base over Milne Bay.
This base could secure Port Moresby’s eastern flank and could also pave the way for an attack
on Buna while avoiding any movement over the harsh Owen Stanley mountains. On June 12,
he finally authorized the construction of a secret base at Gili Gili over the head of Milne Bay.
Ten days later, a company of the 46th American Engineer Battalion and two
companies and a machine-gun platoon of the 55th Australian Battalion were secretly and skillfully
transported along the coast to the site of the projected base, in what was known as Operation
Fall River. The operation was very successful and was unhampered by the enemy; as if the Japanese
had discovered them, they would have made every effort to prevent the construction of this base.
In addition to this, MacArthur also ordered the construction of another airbase at Merauke,
located on the southern coast of Dutch New Guinea, intending to protect Port Moresby’s western flank.
Furthermore, by late June, the time was finally ripe for Kanga Force to launch its first raid
on Japanese land. Reinforced with the 2/5th Independent Company of Major Thomas Kneen,
Major Fleay finally had sufficient men to both maintain a large force in the Bulolo Valley
and at the same time conduct a number of raids. Among his objectives were Heath’s Plantation on
the way to Lae, the Japanese major base in Salamaua and Lae’s own air installations. He
finally decided to launch two raids: one over Heath’s Plantation and another over Salamaua.
During the early hours of June 29, a collection of some 70 raiders led by Captain Norman Winning,
including Australian commandos and NGVR veterans, conducted a very successful raid over Salamaua.
Dividing his forces into 7 parties and executing an impressive scouting operation to know the weak
spots of the invaders, Winning inflicted several casualties on the Japanese, captured many vital
documents and blew up a bridge, some houses at Kela Point and the native hospital without losing
a single man. Additionally, the mortar party got to fire a total of 36 bombs over Salamaua,
scoring a critical hit at a strongpost on the neck of the isthmus. By midday, all Australian forces
had managed to withdraw without a pursuit from the enemy, successfully concluding their first raid.
The success of this attack also left the Japanese feeling very nervous about the security of their
main base, so they decided to reinforce Salamaua with a further 200 soldiers,
thus limiting the resources of the invaders. Two days later, another company of around 70 men
under the command of Major Kneen launched the raid over Heath’s Plantation. Under an incessant rain,
the raiders stealthily killed the sentries on the plantation and then commenced the assault
on Heath while also blowing up a bridge in front of the farm to cause chaos among the Japanese.
In the ensuing firefight, much damage had been inflicted to the house and around 40 Japanese
were supposedly killed, but the action was called off after Major Kneen was shot on the chest and
soon died of his wounds. Leaderless, the Australians could successfully escape to the west,
but the success of this raid was not as big as that of Winning. Nonetheless, an unexpected blow
had been struck at the invaders, resulting in a general increase in the Allied morale.
Yet a retaliation was expected, so Fleay and the guerrilla Kanga Force
had to go into hiding. Meanwhile, discussions for the future offensive were still raging on.
With no compromise reached, on June 25, Admiral King submitted his own draft for
the invasion of the Solomons, to be carried out exclusively by Marines and Navy units,
and with some support from MacArthur’s aircraft, ships and submarines. Such was his resolution that
he went ahead and ordered Nimitz to commence preparations for the forthcoming operation.
Marshall didn’t oppose this plan, but he kept MacArthur’s claim to command of the offensive;
yet King responded to him that he didn’t need MacArthur or his forces for the operation,
bluntly warning that he was ready to open the offensive at any time. When MacArthur
discovered this, he rapidly refused to grant any support for the invasion of the Solomons
and he outright accused the Navy of hoping to gain complete control over national defense and reduce
the Army to a training and supply organization. In response, Marshall quickly appeased him by
reminding him of his duty to fight the Japanese in the war and then set up to work on a compromise
between Army and Navy. On June 30, he personally met with Admiral King to discuss the matter
and finally struck a compromise on the troublesome question of command. Thus, on July 2, a directive
was issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the New Britain-New Ireland-New Guinea offensive, to
be conducted in three phases . The first phase , under the command of Vice-Admiral Robert Ghormley
and his South Pacific Area, called for an assault on Tulagi and the southern Solomons, which would
be the stepping stone for the whole operation. The second phase was the seizure of Lae, Salamaua, the
northeast coast of New Guinea and the remainder of the Solomon Islands, which would be conducted by
MacArthur and his Southwest Pacific Area, although exactly when this shift of command would happen
was reserved for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the third phase, which was the final attack on
Rabaul and its adjacent positions, would also be under MacArthur’s command. This diplomatic
victory by Marshall would lay the foundations for the future operations against the Japanese,
which would see some of the most bitter fighting of the entire Pacific War. Next week, however,
we will turn back to China and see the final conclusion of the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign,
as the Japanese withdraw back to their original positions and cause much damage over the civilian
populations with the employment of biological warfare. If you don’t want to miss our episodes,
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