The JOLLY ROGERS of WW II

When MacArthur arrived in Australia after evacuating Bataan, he was a General in search of an offensive army. The Americans did not yet have a fighting force in the Pacific, and the Australians were committed in North Africa, enroute to Pacific stations, or in training or garrison in Australia. At one point in early 1942, there were four operational P-40 fighter planes and one B-17 bomber. The only combat-worthy division was Australian, and it was needed to defend Australia, not for offensive operations.

MacArthur was not going to wait for the Japanese to attack Australia. He wanted to use Port Moresby as a base of operations to move up through New Guinea and advance to the Philippines. His problem, besides the Japanese, would be supply. He had to prove that the New Guinea campaign would be the definitive campaign to get back to the Philippines and win the war.

While MacArthur and his staff wanted to return to Manila, not all of the Allies were so inclined. Nimitz favored advancing through the central Pacific, and the British and her Dominions thought Java should be the primary focus. Thus began the Allied interservice rivalry between the Army and the Navy.

MacArthur, for his part, wanted to advance with American forces as soon as he could. In November 1942 he marched unprepared and undersupplied American troops on Buna. They were driven back to the beach, barely holding on to their landing zone. MacArthur’s staff sent glowing communiques claiming advance, and declared Buna secure. While the American public was happy with victory, the Australians were landed to actually take the objective. Buna was declared secure, but fighting continued. The Australian government was privately unhappy with the casualties and with the credit going to the Americans, who would not have succeeded without the Australians. Plus, the Australian public felt the primary goal should be developing a deense in case the Japanese invade Australia.

The Australians marched over the Owen Stanley mountain range to take Kokoda. MacArthur began landing forces in a series of protracted engagements that were slow progress up the back of New Guinea. While he was making progress, he wasn’t advancing according to timetable and more and more of his supplies were going to Guadalcanal, where the War Department was realizing the major fight was.

New Guinea, for the Japanese, was their Vietnam. Entire units disappeared into he jungle, never to be heard from again. The Australians on the Owen Stanleys found cannibalism among the dead and dying Japanese they encountered. Imperial Army Air Forces were suffering huge casualties.

By 1944, MacArthur was landing with little opposition in the Morotai Islands. The American industrial might was beginning to tell, and he planned to use the Morotais to jump off into the Philippines.
New Guinea was some of the most difficult terrain in the South Pacific. Its size and lack cartography made it a difficult campaign for both sides.

held Rabaul until they surrendered at the end of the war in August 1945.

A little history of Rabaul, capital of the Territory of New Guinea.

Rabaul's proximity to its volcanoes has always been a source of concern. In 1878 before being established as a town an eruption caused the formation of Vulcan in the harbour.
Rabaul has a large, nearly enclosed harbour, Simpson Harbour. Use of this harbour for the Imperial Japanese Navy was one of the motivations for the Japanese invasion in 1942
Colonial period and aftermath
In 1910 the German colonial government during the administration of Governor Albert Hahl moved offices, the district court, a hospital and customs and postal facilities from Herbertshöhe (today’s Kokopo) to Simpsonhafen. That settlement was thus substantially enlarged with official buildings and housing and renamed Rabaul, meaning mangrove in Kuanua (the local language) as the new town was partially built on a reclaimed mangrove swamp.
At the outset of World War I, at the behest of Great Britain, Australia occupied German New Guinea with the volunteer Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. Following Germany's defeat at the end of the war, the occupied territory was delegated in 1920 to Australia as a League of Nations Mandate (Class C). Rabaul became the capital of the Territory of New Guinea.

1937 eruption

Under the Australian administration, Rabaul developed into a regional base. Then in 1937, catastrophic volcanic eruptions destroyed the town after the two volcanoes, Tavurvur and Vulcan, exploded. 507 people were killed, and there was widespread damage.
Following this, the Australian administration for the Territory of New Guinea decided to move the territorial headquarters to the safer location of Lae. All long-term steps to re-establish the territorial headquarters at Rabaul were forestalled during World War II.

By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor it was apparent they would soon attack Rabaul. So, by December 1941, all women and children were evacuated. In January 1942 Rabaul was heavily bombed by the Japs, and on 23 January the Battle of Rabaul began with the landing of thousands of Japanese naval landing forces.
During their occupation the Japanese developed Rabaul into a much more powerful base than the Australians had planned after the 1937 volcanic eruptions, with long term consequences for the town in the post-war period. The Japanese army dug many kilometres of tunnels as shelter from the Allied air forces. By 1943 there were about 110,000 Japanese troops based in Rabaul. The Japanese army also set up brothels in Rabaul where "perhaps 2,000 or more women were deceived and forced into prostitution of a most demanding kind," according to Emeritus Professor Hank Nelson from the Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS).

On 18 April 1943, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was shot down and killed by a United States P-38 Lightning over south Bougainville after taking off from Rabaul. Japanese communications giving Yamamoto's flight itinerary were decrypted by United States Navy cryptographers. Sixteen United States Army Air Forces P-38 Lightning fighters took off from Guadalcanal and destroyed the two bombers of the Yamamoto flight and damaged some of the escorting Japanese fighters.
Instead of capturing Rabaul, the Allied forces bypassed it by establishing a ring of airfields and naval bases on the islands around it. Cut off from re-supply and under continual air attacks as part of Operation Cartwheel, the base became useless. The Japanese

Japanese Decision to Abandon New Guinea

30 Sep 1943

On 30 Sep 1943, the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo, Japan endorsed a plan to reduce Japan's defense perimeter, a plan which was drew up 15 days before. This new defense perimeter went from Burma through Dutch New Guinea, the Caroline Islands, and finally to the Marshall Islands. Although it was a serious effort to consolidate conquests and to shorten supply lines, this plan meant the abandonment of 300,000 troops outside of the perimeter, who were unable to be evacuated easily due to Allied air superiority. At this time, 120,000 Japanese personnel were located in eastern New Guinea island, many groups of which were running out of food and supplies. First Lieutenant Toshiro Kuroki commanded the Third Company of the 20th Engineer Regiment attached to the 20th Division, stationed in New Guinea at the time. He recalled the rice supplies running thin as days wore on:

Potatoes, potatoes! The battle in the Finschhafen area was full of potatoes. It would be impossible to live without potatoes. Since our arrival on November 11 we have had hardly any rice. We added a few potatoes to what rice we have had and continued the fight. We have an army, a division and an area army, with a commander-in-chief, a divisional commander, a chief of staff, a director of intelligence and what have you, but in the front line we have to contend with a rotten supply situation and live a dog's life on potatoes.

You will not find many smiling faces among the men in the ranks in New Guinea. They are always hungry; every other word has something to do with eating. At the sight of potatoes their eyes gleam and their mouths water. The divisional commander and the staff officers do not seem to realize that the only way the men can drag out their lives from day to day is by this endless hunt for potatoes. How can they complain about slackness and expect miracles when most of our effort goes into looking for something to eat!

With the Japanese troops stranded, Allied troops began their slow movement across this second largest island in the world.

• The Battle of Cape Gloucester
  15 Dec 1943-22 Apr 1944

  On 15 Dec 1943, American 112th Cavalry Regiment landed at Arawe on the island of New Britain in the Bismarck Islands to disrupt Japanese supply lines, paving the way for the main invasion force of Major General William H. Rupertus' US 1st Marine Division that arrived on 26 Dec. Opposite of the American landers was Major General Iwao Matsuda's Japanese 17th Division, who resisted the American advance. Although the action on New Britain lasted through the following five months, the Allies had already achieved their goal with the invasion: with American troops present on the island, the use of airfields by the Japanese were limited, therefore further contributing to the primary objective of isolating the island stronghold of Rabaul.

• Admiralty Islands
  26 Feb-25 Mar 1944

  With a similar goal as New Britain, MacArthur wanted the Admiralty Islands to cut off Rabaul. Additionally, gaining the Admiralty Islands would secure the right flank of the Allied advance across the northern coast of New Guinea. Intelligence photos given to MacArthur showed airfields that appear abandoned, confusing his staff the actual number of defenders there; it was the tactic of Colonel Yoshio Ezaki, who wished to remain mysterious and keep his enemies guessing on his strength. All Ezaki's men were hidden in the jungles, ordered not to fire at enemy aircraft. US Army Air Forces thought the island was only held by a small number of Japanese troops, while the Army thought Ezaki's strength was somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000. Ezaki's actual strength was about 4,450.

  On 29 Feb, Vice Admiral Thomas Kinkaid's ship provided transport for part of Brigadier General William Chase's First Cavalry Division, about 1,000 dismounted men, to Los Negros. Unlike typical amphibious assaults, the landing force was small, largely due to the lack of intelligence on Japanese strength. They were ordered to secure the nearby airfield, and either fall back if the airfield if it was heavily defended or hold the airfield if only moderately defended; in both cases, they would be reinforced later. The landing was conducted with surprise, and the airfield was taken relatively easily by the 2nd Squadron of the 5th Cavalry Regiment. They set up a defensive line near the coast so that any attacking Japanese would need to dash across the open airfield with little cover. Repeated Japanese counterattacks, all in the form of small night attacks during the next few nights, instilled fear with American soldiers, but all of the attacks were fought off. The support force finally arrived on 4 Feb, followed by the arrival of the 12th Cavalry Regiment on 6 Mar and the 2nd Cavalry Brigade on 9 Mar. The 2nd Cavalry Brigade secured the small adjacent islands over the following few days, including the landing on Manus on 15 Mar to occupy the Japanese airfield on that island.

  Los Negros Island was cleared of Japanese forces on 25 Mar, but Manus Island was not cleared until May. At the Admiralty Islands, about 4,400 Japanese were killed and 75 prisoners were taken. The Americans, all of whom belonged to the US 1st Cavalry Division (Special), suffered 290 killed and 977 wounded. Despite outnumbering the American forces at the start of the battle, which was extremely rare at this stage of war, Colonel Ezaki was unable to capitalize on the numerical advantage to secure a victory, which would have provided the morale boost that Japan desperately needed. With Admiralty Islands under Allied control, MacArthur commented that "the noose was complete." Rabaul was now choked off with its large garrison of troops idling in frustration.

• Aitape and Hollandia
  22 Apr 1944-Aug 1944

  On 22 Apr 1944, a two-pronged attack was launched to attack Aitape and Hollandia on the northern coast of New Guinea island in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. MacArthur had hopes that these two locations would provide the valuable airfields needed to further his attack across the island, and perhaps even bomber fields that might later be used to attack the Philippine Islands. Both landing forces achieved complete surprise. "No withering fire met us at the beach", said MacArthur. "Instead, there was only disorder-rice still boiling in pots, weapons and personal equipment of every kind abandoned. No more than token resistance was met at any point, and there was no interference from the enemy's air or naval forces. In postwar interrogations, Jo Iimura, a Japanese defender in the region at the time, said "[t]he allied invasion of Hollandia and Aitape was a complete surprise to us. After considering the past operational tactics of the enemy... we believed they would attempt to acquire an important position somewhere east of Aitape.... Because we misjudged... we were neither able to reinforce nor send war supplies to their defending units."

  Once on land, however, Eichelberger's troops discovered that Lieutenant General Hatazo Adachi's 18th Army had regrouped. Adachi's men counterattacked in strength multiple times near Aitape, causing serious casualties. "I cannot find any means nor method which will solve this situation strategically or tactically", said Adachi to his troops. "Therefore, I intend to overcome this by relying on our Japanese Bushido." The first of the such massed attacks took place on 11 Jul, attacking in multiple waves despite heavy casualties from Allied machine guns and artillery. For the next two weeks the Japanese attacks persisted, but to little success. Adachi later acknowledged that he felt he lost ten thousand men during the offensive. On 13 Jul, the Allied forces launched a double enveloping counteroffensive that divided Adachi's remaining troops into two groups, soon rendering them useless. All effective resistance ceased on 10 Aug, though small elements harassed Allied troops in the region until the end of the war.

• Wakde
  17 May 1944-Aug 1944

  Even before Aitape and Hollandia were secured, MacArthur had already marked Wakde as his next target, mainly due to the fact that Aitape had proved to be unsuitable for the building of major airfields. Lieutenant General Walter Krueger's Sixth Army ("Alamo Force") landed at Wakde on 17 May. They met a similar level of stubborn resistance at Wakde mainly because of Wakde being well established with numerous storage depots. MacArthur claimed to have gained Wakde as an usable base of future operations, but some troops were bogged down in the area until nearly the end of the war.

• Biak
  27 May 1944-22 Jul 1944

  Across Geelvink Bay north of western New Guinea island lay the island of Biak and its three airfields, which could prove to be dangerous as Allied troop transports operated closer and closer to the western tip of New Guinea. With its additional strategic value as an excellent jump-off point for the Philippines, MacArthur sent Major General Fuller and his 41st Division on Operation Hurricane to take the island. "The light enemy resistance at the beachhead held little hint of what was to come", recalled MacArthur. Lieutenant Colonel Naoyuki Kuzume put up a fierce defense that included tanks, which was rare for Japanese troops in this theater of the Pacific War. Kuzume utilized his knowledge of the island's topography and devised a brilliant defense plan that fully utilized the terrain. He was further reinforced by the Second Amphibious Brigade of the Southern Army from Mindanao via "Tokyo Express" during Operation Kon. His effective defense even rendered the airfields, newly captured by the Allies, useless. On 28 Jun, Kuzume's command post, located in one of the numerous caves, was breached. He committed ritual suicide. The remaining caves continued to fight ferociously. Frustrated American troops soon discovered the brutal tactic of simply dynamiting the caves, causing the cave roofs to collapse on the defenders hiding inside. The island was finally secured on 22 Jul.

  At the conclusion of the Biak actions, Americans killed all but 150 of the 7,200 Japanese defenders (the 150 escaped), while losing 438 of their own. The Americans, similar to other Pacific actions, lost more men from the front lines to diseases than deaths and battle wounds. Biak turned out to be an important battle for another reason. It was the first time Japanese troops effectively used caves as defensive strongholds. Before this point, Japanese troops defended the islands at the beach; when all was lost, surviving troops formed a banzai charge, and the battle was over. After the battle, the Japanese began to include caves as an option, which dramatically increased American casualty rates during operations to secure the subsequent islands.

• Noemfoor
  2-7 Jul 1944

  Allied troops landed on the island of Noemfoor, a small island directly west of Biak in Dutch New Guinea, on 2 Jul. After sporadic resistance, the island was declared secure on 7 Jul.

  Vogelkop Peninsula and the Conclusion of the New Guinea-Papua Campaign

  The last obstacle in liberating all of New Guinea island was the Vogelkop Peninsula in Dutch New Guinea. The Japanese resistance on the peninsula gathered at Manokwari, and MacArthur did not wish to contest with this force. Instead, his "hit 'em where they ain't" strategy took the Allied forces to a number of undefended beaches near Cape Opmaria and Sansapor. Like Rabaul, the 25,000 men at Manokwari were now stranded, frustratingly idling uselessly.

  In Sep 1944, Allied troops occupied the Halmahera Islands, concluding the New Guinea Campaign. MacArthur was now only several hundred miles from the Philippines. In his memoir, MacArthur attributed to the Allied victory over New Guinea to mobility and the ability to achieve surprise at key confrontations. Additionally, he also insisted that his refusal to deploy military governors over conquered regions helped his command focus on the task at hand. Instead, he brought in Dutch and Australian civil administrators immediately after the area had been deemed secure. "The success of this method was reflected in the complete lack of friction between the various governments concerned", he noted.

  Although Allied attention would move toward the Philippine Islands by this time, small pockets of Japanese resistance would continue to fight until late May 1945.

  Sources:
  Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences
  William Manchester, American Caesar
  William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness
  Gordon Rottman, World War II US Cavalry Units
  Dan van der Vat, The Pacific Campaign
  Wikipedia

  New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 3 Timeline