New Guinea campaign

New Guinea campaign
January 7, 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.

Before the war, the island of New Guinea was split between:

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.

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.

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Philippines 1941–1942 – Dutch East Indies 1941–42 – Portuguese Timor – Australia – New Guinea – Philippines 1944–45 – Borneo 1945
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French Indochina – Nauru - Thailand – Malaya – Hawaii - America - Hong Kong – Philippines – Guam – Wake – Marshalls & Gilberts - Dutch East Indies – New Guinea – Singapore – Australia – Indian Ocean – Doolittle Raid – Solomons - Coral Sea

Contents

Major battles and sub-campaigns

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

Further reading

External links


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