The Battle of Buna-Gona is often remembered as one of the most brutal battles of the New
Guinea Campaign, if not of the entire war. Under heavy tropical storms, the American and Australian
soldiers had to move through boggy tracks and deep swamps, sometimes neck-deep in the water;
fight against an unseen enemy that shot at them from almost every direction;
and endure a wide range of tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, which further waned
their debilitated strength. At the same time, the defenders were also fighting in some of the most
inhumane conditions. Unable to go far from their bunkers, the Japanese slept side by side with the
dead in posts constantly filling with rainwater. Green flies were everywhere, diarrhea and malaria
were rampant and the stench of the rotting bodies was so bad that the living had to put on gas masks
even despite the humid heat. Today, with this little background in mind, we’ll continue to cover
the Battle of Buna-Gona, as the Allies finally start to make some breakthroughs in the area.
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As we have previously seen, the American forces of the 32nd Division were having a hard time
against the camouflaged and solidly-entrenched Japanese fortifications, as both the Warren and
Urbana Forces struggled to break through the enemy defenses. Despite the increase in artillery power,
General Harding knew that his men needed the kind of support that tanks could provide if
they wanted to prevail, but none would appear this early on in the battle. At Milne Bay,
General Clowes had actually been reinforced with the 2/6th Armoured Regiment in early November,
so efforts had been made to send a squadron of Stuart tanks towards Oro Bay;
yet the available sea craft there was unable to transport such weight, and instead, Clowes
would ultimately be forced to send a platoon of Bren carriers by November 22. In the meantime,
American losses would amount to 492 men, without any sort of meaningful gain to show for it.
This, coupled with Australian reports of the bad performance of American infantry
and the abysmal impression that Harding had left on General Herring, left General
MacArthur in the grip of great disquiet at Port Moresby. Thus, he immediately summoned General
Eichelberger and sent him to the front to inspect Harding’s progress. Upon arrival on December 1,
Eichelberger found both Warren and Urbana Forces trying themselves once more against
the enemy defenses. As usual, Colonel MacNab’s forces would be held on the water’s edge, though
this time two companies would be sent to circle the southern edge of the New Strip to reinforce
the position at the Simemi Creek bridge . Meanwhile, Colonel Mott attempted a flanking
attack on Buna village with strong artillery support; but just as the impetus was mounting,
the leading company unexpectedly pulled back, so the attack would quickly falter. As Eichelberger
was not impressed by this performance, he would decide to personally accompany Generals Harding
and Waldron to the Urbana front to observe the December 2 attack while two of his trusted staff
officers were sent to do the same with Warren Force. MacNab’s plan was to launch a feint towards
Cape Endeiadere after a strong air bombardment while the bulk of the coastal forces probed the
eastern end of New Strip and those forces at the bridge attacked north and northwest.
Yet the attack ended up being completely anticlimactic, as the Allied aircraft launched
an effective air bombardment but failed to signal the conclusion of their runs to the ground forces,
so the Americans could not take advantage of this nor did the Japanese fall for their feint.
Intense and skilful fire would ultimately erase the Americans' intentions in their early stages,
and the deplorable state of the soldiers would be reported by Eichelberger’s staff. A similar
lack of success marked the Urbana Force attack that day, with Eichelberger noting that the front
line was weak, the men hungry and the leadership uninspiring. Thus, he decided to relieve Harding
of his command, placing the 32nd Division under the control of General Waldron. Just as MacArthur
expected, Eichelberger then shuffled his colonels and majors, with Colonel John
Grose taking command of Urbana Force and Colonel Clarence Martin doing the same with Warren Force.
Eichelberger would further give two days of respite for both forces to reorganize,
scheduling another frontal assault with air and artillery support for December 5.
During this time, Martin decided to place the 1st Battalion, 126th Regiment south of the bridge
while the 3rd Battalion, 128th Regiment relieved the 1st Battalion, 128th Regiment on the coast;
and to the west, Grose placed the 2nd Battalion, 128th Regiment on the right and the 2nd Battalion,
126th Regiment on his left. Spearheaded by five Bren carriers that had landed on November 29,
Warren Force started its renewed assault on the morning of December 5.
Yet the carriers had originally been designed for reconnaissance and the rapid transport of
troops across bullet-swept ground, not for tank duties. Under heavy Japanese fire, the carriers’
underbellies would be caught on stumps in the uneven ground, the vehicles rising in the air and
becoming easy targets. Hand grenades were thrown into the carriers and adhesion mines attached to
their sides by roaming Japanese, with anti-tank guns also firing at them. Within twenty minutes,
the five Bren carriers lay abandoned, proof of the dictum that carriers were not tanks. Thus,
the American attack would again falter against the deeply-entrenched enemy positions. On the
Urbana front, however, after nine Kittyhawks strafed the Government Station to prevent any
Japanese reinforcement, Grose decided to launch a four-pronged attack against Buna village.
Although his flank companies would fail to make any meaningful progress against the SNLF marines,
Company E got within 50 yards of the village before it was stopped and a platoon of Company G,
under the command of the German Staff Sergeant Herman Bottcher , took quick advantage of an
opening to overcome a number of enemy positions and halted only when they reached the sea.
There, with eighteen men and one machine-gun, Bottcher dug in on a narrow sand spit just
east of the village, virtually commanding the line between the Government Station on the east
and the village on the west. Additionally, the 128th Regiment would successfully gain control
of Entrance Creek, except for the area of the Coconut Grove which was still strongly held.
Though these were small gains, this is effectively considered as one of the major turning points of
the battle, as Buna village was now completely cut off from landward help, and it would only be a
matter of time for Captain Yasuda’s stronghold to fall. An important aspect of the American success
was that Eichelberger and his staff moved to the frontlines and exhorted the men to
charge the enemy bunkers. Although they regularly came under fire, Eichelberger insisted on being
present with his forward troops to restore their flagging confidence. Because of this,
Waldron would be injured on December 5, getting replaced by Brigadier-General Clovis Byers in
command of the 32nd Division. On the Japanese side, with casualties mounting and promised
reinforcements failing to arrive, morale was starting to slip and food was in short supply.
In the next couple of days, because the swamps and bush had drained the physical strength of his men,
Eichelberger decided to issue a policy of "continued pressure and advance by infiltration"
as a preliminary to the successive reduction of Buna village, the Coconut Grove and the Triangle.
In the meantime, the tenacious Bottcher would have to single-handedly repel wave after wave of
Japanese counterattacks to maintain his corner position; and on December 7, Colonel Clarence
Tomlinsson would take command of Urbana Force as Grose was assigned to command the 127th Regiment,
which was earmarked to reinforce the Americans shortly. By December 11, the 3rd Battalion,
127th Regiment had successfully relieved the battered 2nd Battalion, 126th Regiment
on the Urbana front. On the Warren front, meanwhile, Eichelberger had decided against
any more frontal assaults for the moment, instead concentrating on pinching off individual posts.
He would wait for tanks and fresh Australian troops to be brought from Milne Bay before
resuming his attack with Warren Force, as General Blamey had already prepared the 18th Brigade to
reinforce the American assault because he felt very disappointed by their combat performance.
During this time, Yasuda’s fierce defenders continued to hold their position in the face of
onslaught, with groups of mortars firing at them simultaneously in an improvised “hammer” bombing.
Yet their position would finally become untenable by December 13, and Yasuda would at last evacuate
the village with his remaining 100 men along the coast to Giruwa. On the morning of December 14,
Eichelberger would renew his attack on Buna with the 127th Regiment reinforcements,
but they would find the village empty as they entered. Thus came the fall of Buna village .
Moving to the Gona area, we’ve already seen how the Japanese positions got completely encircled
by the forces of Brigadiers Eather and Dougherty, who now started to gradually squeeze the enemy
perimeter at a high cost for both sides. With casualties mounting up, General Vasey was
considering containing the area while the bulk of his forces moved east to concentrate on Sanananda.
In that regard, on December 2, the 2/14th Battalion was ordered east along the coastal
track in a flanking threat to Sanananda, though the difficult mangrove swamps would
block their advance beyond Basabua. More reinforcements were also starting to arrive,
as the 30th Brigade of Brigadier Porter was earmarked to relieve Eather’s spent units,
and the 39th Battalion of Colonel Honner was sent to reinforce the eastward attack.
Dougherty was placed under command of this force , but he would soon find that no line of approach
could be established through the difficult country on December 3, thus forcing Vasey
to cancel his plan. Instead, he pushed forward the relief of Eather’s 25th Brigade , though the
30th Brigade would instead be sent to fight in the Sanananda front and only the 39th Battalion
would remain under Dougherty’s command. At this point, however, the Australians were alerted
about General Yamagata’s dispersed landing along the coast between the Kumusi and the Amboga, so
Dougherty would decide to launch a renewed assault on December 6 after a pre-dawn mortar barrage.
Yet the smoke made it difficult to locate hidden machine-gun posts and the crossing
lines of fire ensured no significant penetration by the 39th Battalion,
while the attack along the coast would once again bog down against the Japanese heavy fire.
Meanwhile, to the west at Haddy’s village, the unit of Lieutenant Haddy had been reduced to
20 volunteers, all racked with fever and feeling weak. By the night of December 6,
Yamagata’s dispersed forces had reunited with the survivors of the 1st Battalion, 41st Regiment,
totaling some 280 men. Just before a rain-driven midnight, the Japanese started their attack,
rapidly overwhelming the defenders. Yet Haddy’s men would soon be reinforced with the bulk of
the 2/14th Battalion, and in a violent clash, both forces would suffer heavy casualties. Nonetheless,
the Japanese started to encircle them by afternoon and the defenders would be forced to pull back 500
yards, with Lieutenant Haddy dying at the hands of the enemy while fiercely covering the withdrawal.
Nonetheless, Yamagata would be ultimately prevented by the 2/14th Battalion from breaking
through to reinforce the Gona buna defenders. The latter now knew that a major attack was imminent,
and that the end of their brave stand was near, inevitable and irresistible. The non-combatant
Takasago volunteers had successfully held off a superior enemy force for nearly three weeks,
inflicting heavy casualties on the Australians, but their end was nigh. On the morning of December
8, Dougherty was planning to conduct his “last throw” against the enemy,
as his fighting strength was down to 792 men, less than a full strength battalion. As usual,
the defenders had to endure a heavy mortar and artillery barrage, waiting for it to end
so that they could set up again their machine-gun posts and repel the expected infantry advance.
But two minutes before the scheduled end of shelling, the 39th Battalion started its attack
and rapidly smashed the Japanese positions from the south and southeast. As the attackers were
up at the Japanese line before the shelling stopped, machine-gun posts were rushed while
the occupants were still setting up and defenders were subjected to grenade and Bren-gun fire while
they were sheltering from the bombardment. Though the beach-side attack was contained,
several posts on the opposite perimeter fell immediately and the breach provided an opening
for more Australian troops to push in towards the center. By night, the Japanese had lost
control of half their perimeter and the center of their defenses, and in their desperation,
the defenders tried to escape east towards Sanananda through the Australian lines or by
taking to the water and swimming to open sea. Most of them would be cut down by Bren-gunfire, with
only a handful of experienced Takasago volunteers resourcefully breaking through towards Giruwa.
By December 9, the Australians would finally clean out the remaining pockets of resistance
and Dougherty would receive the long-sought and laconic message : “Gona’s gone!”.
Yet with the fall of Gona , they now had to deal with the new threat that emerged to the west:
General Yamagata’s fresh reinforcements. But now, we have to head to the Sanananda front,
where the American forces continued to resist in the Huggins’ Roadblock.
As Captain Huggins successfully held off the Japanese counterattacks, Vasey again planned
to conduct a renewed assault on December 5, yet the frontal attack would soon go to ground after
only 100 yards and the Baetcke Detachment would be decimated as it swung eastward.
The Japanese then continued to attack the Huggins Roadblock, badly wounding its captain and blocking
off all attempts to supply the besieged Americans. As their situation was urgent,
Vasey quickly directed Porter’s 30th Brigade to relieve the worn 16th Brigade on December 6.
The following day, Porter was planning to clear the Japanese from the area south of
the roadblock with an attack by his two fresh albeit poorly-trained battalions.
After the typical artillery barrage, the militia 49th Battalion advanced through the bushes without
detailed briefing or preliminary reconnaissance, and with signal cable that was shorter than the
distance to the Japanese line, so they would have to use runners to communicate with its command.
Soon, they would be met with a wall of enfilading machine-gun fire in thick jungle and scrub, and
although they would successfully overrun a number of Japanese positions and link up with the 2/2nd
Battalion men, the 49th would disastrously suffer 229 casualties, 48% of the battalion strength.
Porter then sent forward the amalgamated 55th/53rd Battalion on the left, but its
attack would also end in disaster, resulting in a further 130 casualties for little gain.
The immediate effect of these huge losses was that a period of comparative pause
and further preparation would develop for about twelve days,
with the Australian command retreating to a policy of constant patrols to probe the enemy positions.
As a final note, on December 8, supplies would finally get through to the roadblock and Huggins
would be successfully evacuated, with Lieutenant Peter Dal Ponte assuming command of his forces.
Dal Ponte would be resupplied again on December 10 while he continued to resist the enemy
counterattacks, but no more supplies would reach him until December 14, with the Americans almost
out of ammunition but still holding the roadblock. Next week, we’ll return to Guadalcanal to cover
the Japanese plans for the Solomon Islands and the start of another American counterattack,
and we’ll also continue with our coverage of the bloody Battle of Buna-Gona,
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