Cape Gloucester: The Green Inferno (2024)

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by Bernard C. Nalty

On the early morningof 26 December 1943,Marines poised offthe coast of Japanese-heldNew Britaincould barely make out the mile-highbulk of Mount Talawe againsta sky growing light with the approachof dawn. Flame billowedfrom the guns of American andAustralian cruisers and destroyers,shattering the early morning calm.The men of the 1st Marine Division,commanded by Major GeneralWilliam H. Rupertus, a veteranof expeditionary duty in Haiti andChina and of the recently concludedGuadalcanal campaign,steeled themselves as they waitedfor daylight and the signal to assaultthe Yellow Beaches near CapeGloucester in the northwestern partof the island. For 90 minutes, thefire support ships blazed away, tryingto neutralize whole areas ratherthan destroy pinpoint targets, sincedense jungle concealed most of theindividual fortifications and supplydumps. After the day dawned andH-Hour drew near, Army airmenjoined the preliminary bombardment.Four-engine ConsolidatedLiberator B-24 bombers, flying sohigh that the Marines offshorecould barely see them, dropped500-pound bombs inland of thebeaches, scoring a hit on a fueldump at the Cape Gloucester airfieldcomplex and igniting a fierygeyser that leapt hundreds of feetinto the air. Twin-engine NorthAmerican Mitchell B-25 mediumbombers and Douglas Havoc A-20light bombers, attacking fromlower altitude, pounced on the onlyJapanese antiaircraft gun rashenough to open fire.

The warships then shifted theirattention to the assault beaches,and the landing craft carrying thetwo battalions of Colonel Julian N.Frisbie's 7th Marines started shoreward.An LCI [Landing Craft, Infantry]mounting multiple rocketlaunchers took position on theflank of the first wave bound foreach of the two beaches and unleasheda barrage intended to keepthe enemy pinned down after thecruisers and destroyers shiftedtheir fire to avoid endangering theassault troops. At 0746, the LCVPs[Landing Craft, Vehicles and Personnel]of the first wave bound forYellow Beach 1 grounded on a narrowstrip of black sand that measuredperhaps 500 yards from oneflank to the other, and the leadingelements of the 3d Battalion, commandedby Lieutenant ColonelWilliam K. Williams, started inland.Two minutes later, LieutenantColonel John E. Weber's 1stBattalion, on the left of the otherunit, emerged on Yellow Beach 2,separated from Yellow 1 by a thousandyards of jungle and embracing700 yards of shoreline. Neitherbattalion encountered organizedresistance. A smoke screen, whichlater drifted across the beaches andhampered the approach of laterwaves of landing craft, blinded theJapanese observers on Target Hilloverlooking the beachhead, and nodefenders manned the trenchesand log-and-earth bunkers thatmight have raked the assault forcewith fire.

The Yellow Beaches, on the eastcoast of the broad peninsula thatculminated at Cape Gloucester, providedaccess to the main objective,the two airfields at the northern tipof the cape. By capturing this airfield[pg2]complex, the reinforced 1stMarine Division, designated theBackhander Task Force, would enableAllied airmen to intensify theirattack on the Japanese fortress ofRabaul, roughly 300 miles away atthe northeastern extremity of NewBritain. Although the capture of theYellow Beaches held the key to theNew Britain campaign, two subsidiarylandings also took place: thefirst on 15 December at CapeMerkus on Arawe Bay along thesouth coast; and the second on D-Day,26 December, at Green Beachon the northwest coast opposite themain landing sites.

Two Secondary Landings

The first subsidiary landing tookplace on 15 December 1943 at distantCape Merkus, across theArawe channel from the islet ofArawe. Although it had a limitedpurpose—disrupting the movementof motorized barges and othersmall craft that moved men andsupplies along the southern coast ofNew Britain and diverting attentionfrom Cape Gloucester—it nevertheless[pg3]encountered stiff resistance.Marine amphibian tractor crewsused both the new, armored Buffaloand the older, slower, and more vulnerableAlligator to carry soldiers ofthe 112th Cavalry, who made themain landings on Orange Beach atthe western edge of Cape Merkus.Fire from the destroyer USS Conyngham,supplemented by rocket-equippedDUKWs and a submarinechaser that doubled as a controlcraft, and a last-minute bombing byB-25s silenced the beach defensesand enabled the Buffaloes to crushthe surviving Japanese machineguns that survived the naval andaerial bombardment. Less successfulwere two diversionary landings bysoldiers paddling ashore in rubberboats. Savage fire forced one groupto turn back short of its objectiveeast of Orange Beach, but the othergained a lodgment on Pilelo Islandand killed the handful of Japanesefound there. An enemy airman hadreported that the assault force wasapproaching Cape Merkus, andfighters and bombers from Rabaulattacked within two hours of thelanding. Sporadic air strikes continuedthroughout December, althoughwith diminishing ferocity, and theJapanese shifted troops to meet thethreat in the south.

The other secondary landingtook place on the morning of 26 December.The 1,500-man StonefaceGroup—designated Battalion LandingTeam 21 and built around the2d Battalion, 1st Marines, underLieutenant Colonel James M. Masters,Sr.—started toward GreenBeach, supported by 5-inch gunfirefrom the American destroyers Reidand Smith. LCMs [Landing Craft,Medium] carried DUKW amphibiantrucks, driven by soldiers andfitted with rocket launchers. TheDUKWs opened fire from the landingcraft as the assault force approachedthe beach, performing thesame function as the rocket-firingLCIs at the Yellow Beaches on theopposite side of the peninsula. Thefirst wave landed at 0748, with twoothers following it ashore. TheMarines encountered no oppositionas they carved out a beachhead1,200 yards wide and extending 500yards inland. The Stoneface Grouphad the mission of severing thecoastal trail that passed just west ofMount Talawe, thus preventing thepassage of reinforcements to theCape Gloucester airfields.

The trail net proved difficult tofind and follow. Villagers clearedgarden plots, tilled them until thejungle reclaimed them, and thenabandoned the land and moved on,leaving a maze of trails, some faintand others fresh, that led nowhere.The Japanese were slow, however,to take advantage of the confusion[pg4]caused by the tangle of paths. Notuntil the early hours of 30 December,did the enemy attack the GreenBeach force. Taking advantage ofheavy rain that muffled sounds andreduced visibility, the Japaneseclosed with the Marines, who calleddown mortar fire within 15 yards oftheir defensive wire. A battery ofthe 11th Marines, reorganized as aninfantry unit because the cannoneerscould not find suitable positionsfor their 75mm howitzers,shored up the defenses. One Marinein particular, Gunnery SergeantGuiseppe Guilano, Jr., seemed tomaterialize at critical moments, firinga light machine gun from thehip; his heroism earned him theNavy Cross. Some of the Japanesesucceeded in penetrating the position,but a counterattack led by FirstLieutenant Jim G. Paulos of CompanyG killed them or drove themoff. The savage fighting cost CombatTeam 21 six Marines killed and17 wounded; at least 89 Japaneseperished, and five surrendered. On11 January 1944, the reinforced battalionset out to rejoin the division,the troops moving overland, theheavy equipment and the woundedtraveling in landing craft.

MacArthur's Marines

After the fierce battles at Guadalcanalin the South Pacific Area, the1st Marine Division underwent rehabilitationin Australia, which laywithin General MacArthur's SouthwestPacific Area. Once the divisionhad recovered from the ordeal ofthe Solomon Islands fighting, itgave MacArthur a trained amphibiousunit that he desperately neededto fulfill his ambitions for the captureof Rabaul. Theoretically, the 1stMarine Division was subordinate toGeneral Sir Thomas Blamey, theAustralian officer in command ofthe Allied Land Forces, andBlamey's nominal subordinate,Lieutenant General Walter Kreuger,commanding the Sixth U.S. Army.But in actual practice, MacArthurbypassed Blamey and dealt directlywith Kreuger.

When the 1st Marine Division becameavailable to MacArthur, hestill intended to seize Rabaul andbreak the back of Japanese resistancein the region. Always concernedabout air cover for his amphibiousoperations, MacArthurplanned to use the Marines to capturethe airfields at Cape Gloucester.Aircraft based there would thensupport the division when, after abrief period of recuperation, it attackedRabaul. The decision to bypassRabaul eliminated the landingsthere, but the Marines would neverthelessseize the Cape Gloucesterairfields, which seemed essential forneutralizing the base.

The initial concept of operations,which called for the conquest of[pg5]western New Britain preliminary tostorming Rabaul, split the 1st MarineDivision, sending CombatTeam A (the 5th Marines, reinforced,less one battalion in reserve)against Gasmata on the southerncoast of the island, while CombatTeam C (the 7th Marines, reinforced)seized a beachhead near theprincipal objective, the airfields onCape Gloucester. The Army's 503dParachute Infantry would exploitthe Cape Gloucester beachhead,while Combat Team B (the reinforced1st Marines) provided a reservefor the operation.

Revisions came swiftly, and bylate October 1943 the plan no longermentioned capturing Rabaul, tacitacceptance of the modified Alliedstrategy, and also satisfied an objectionraised by General Rupertus. Thedivision commander had protestedsplitting Combat Team C, andKreuger agreed to employ all threebattalions for the main assault, substitutinga battalion from CombatTeam B, the 1st Marines, for thelanding on the west coast. The airbornelanding at Cape Gloucester remainedin the plan, however, eventhough Rupertus had warned thatbad weather could delay the dropand jeopardize the Marine battalionsalready fighting ashore. The alteredversion earmarked Army troops forthe landing on the southern coast,which Kreuger's staff shifted fromGasmata to Arawe, a site closer toAllied airfields and farther fromRabaul with its troops and aircraft.Although Combat Team B wouldput one battalion ashore southwestof the airfields, the remaining twobattalions of the 1st Marines were tofollow up the assault on CapeGloucester by Combat Team C. Thedivision reserve, Combat Team A,might employ elements of the 5thMarines to reinforce the CapeGloucester landings or conduct operationsagainst the offshore islandswest of New Britain.

During a routine briefing on 14December, just one day before thelandings at Arawe, MacArthur off-handedlyasked how the Marinesfelt about the scheme of maneuverat Cape Gloucester. Colonel EdwinA. Pollock, the division's operationsofficer, seized the opportunity anddeclared that the Marines objectedto the plan because it depended on arapid advance inland by a single reinforcedregiment to prevent heavylosses among the lightly armedparatroops. Better, he believed, tostrengthen the amphibious forcesthan to try for an aerial envelopmentthat might fail or be delayedby the weather. Although he madeno comment at the time, MacArthurmay well have heeded what Pollocksaid; whatever the reason, Kreuger'sstaff eliminated the airborne portion,directed the two battalions ofthe 1st Marines still with CombatTeam B to land immediately afterthe assault waves, sustaining themomentum of their attack, andalerted the division reserve to providefurther reinforcement.

The Japanese inWestern New Britain

A mixture of combat and servicetroops operated in western NewBritain. The 1st and 8th ShippingRegiments used motorized barges toshuttle troops and cargo along thecoast from Rabaul to Cape Merkus,Cape Gloucester, and acrossDampier Strait to Rooke Island. Forlonger movements, for example toNew Guinea, the 5th Sea TransportBattalion manned a fleet of trawlersand schooners, supplemented bydestroyers of the Imperial JapaneseNavy when speed seemed essential.The troops actually defendingwestern New Britain included theMatsuda Force, established in September1943 under the command ofMajor General Iwao Matsuda, aspecialist in military transportation,who nevertheless had commandedan infantry regiment in Manchuria.When he arrived on New Britain inFebruary of that year, Matsudatook over the 4th Shipping Command,an administrative headquartersthat provided staff officers forthe Matsuda Force. His principalcombat units were the understrength65th Infantry Brigade—consistingof the 141st Infantry, battle-testedin the conquest of thePhilippines, plus artillery and antiaircraftunits—and those componentsof the 51st Division not committedto the unsuccessful defenseof New Guinea. Matsuda establishedthe headquarters for hisjury-rigged force near Kalingi,along the coastal trail northwest ofMount Talawe, within five miles ofthe Cape Gloucester airfields, butthe location would change to reflectthe tactical situation.

As the year 1943 wore on, the Alliedthreat to New Britain increased.Consequently, General Hitoshi Imamura,who commanded the EighthArea Army from a headquarters atRabaul, assigned the Matsuda Forceto the 17th Division, under LieutenantGeneral Yasushi Sakai, recentlyarrived from Shanghai. Fourconvoys were to have carriedSakai's division, but the second andthird lost one ship to submarine torpedoesand another to a mine, whileair attack damaged a third. Becauseof these losses, which claimed some1,200 lives, the last convoy did notsail, depriving the division of morethan 3,000 replacements and servicetroops. Sakai deployed the best ofhis forces to western New Britain,entrusting them to Matsuda's tacticalcommand.

Establishing the Beachhead

The landings at Cape Merkus inmid-December caused Matsuda toshift his troops to meet the threat,but this redeployment did not accountfor the lack of resistance at[pg6]the Yellow Beaches. The Japanesegeneral, familiar with the terrain ofwestern New Britain, did not believethat the Americans wouldstorm these strips of sand extendingonly a few yards inland and backedby swamp. Matsuda might havethought differently had he seen theAmerican maps, which labeled thearea beyond the beaches as "dampflat," even though aerial photographstaken after preliminary airstrikes had revealed no shadowwithin the bomb craters, evidenceof a water level high enough to fillthese depressions to the brim. Sincethe airfields were the obvious prize,Matsuda did not believe that theMarines would plunge into themuck and risk becoming boggeddown short of their goal.

Besides forfeiting the immediateadvantage of opposing the assaultforce at the water's edge, Matsuda'stroops suffered the long-term, indirecteffects of the erosion of Japanesefortunes that began at Guadalcanaland on New Guinea and continuedat New Georgia and Bougainville.The Allies, in addition, dominatedthe skies over New Britain, bluntingthe air attacks on the Cape Merkusbeachhead and bombing almost atwill throughout the island. Althoughair strikes caused little measurabledamage, save at Rabaul, they demoralizedthe defenders, who alreadysuffered shortages of suppliesand medicine because of air andsubmarine attacks on seagoing convoysand coastal shipping. An inadequatenetwork of primitive trails,which tended to hug the coastline,increased Matsuda's dependence onbarges, but this traffic, hampered bythe American capture of CapeMerkus, proved vulnerable to aircraftand later to torpedo craft andimprovised gunboats.

The two battalions that landedon the Yellow Beaches—Weber's onthe left and Williams's on theright—crossed the sands in a fewstrides, and plunged through a wallof undergrowth into the damp flat,where a Marine might be sloggingthrough knee-deep mud, step into ahole, and end up, as one on themsaid, "damp up to your neck." Acounterattack delivered as the assaultwaves wallowed through thedamp flat might have inflicted severecasualties, but Matsuda lackedthe vehicles or roads to shift histroops in time to exploit the terrain.Although immobile on the ground,the Japanese retaliated by air.American radar detected a flight ofenemy aircraft approaching fromRabaul; Army Air Forces P-38s intercepted,but a few Japanesebombers evaded the fighters, sankthe destroyer Brownson with two directhits, and damaged another.

The first enemy bombers arrivedas a squadron of Army B-25s flewover the LSTs [Landing Ships, Tank]en route to attack targets at BorgenBay south of the Yellow Beaches.Gunners on board the ships openedfire at the aircraft milling overhead,mistaking friend for foe, downingtwo American bombers, and damagingtwo others. The survivors,shaken by the experience, droppedtheir bombs too soon, hitting theartillery positions of the 11thMarines at the left flank of YellowBeach 1, killing one and wounding14 others. A battalion commanderin the artillery regiment recalled"trying to dig a hole with mynose," as the bombs exploded, "tryingto get down into the groundjust a little bit further."

[pg7]By the time of the air action onthe afternoon of D-Day, the 1stMarine Division had already establisheda beachhead. The assaultbattalions of the 7th Marines initiallypushed ahead, capturingTarget Hill on the left flank, andthen paused to await reinforcements.During the day, two morebattalions arrived. The 3d Battalion,1st Marines—designatedLanding Team 31 and led by LieutenantColonel Joseph F. Hankins,a Reserve officer who also was acrack shooter—came ashore at0815 on Yellow Beach 1, passedthrough the 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, and veered to the northwestto lead the way toward theairfields. By 0845, the 2d Battalion,7th Marines, under LieutenantColonel Odell M. Conoley, landedand began wading through thedamp flat to take its place betweenthe regiment's 1st and 3d Battalionsas the beachhead expanded.The next infantry unit, the 1st Battalion,1st Marines, reached YellowBeach 1 at 1300 to join that regiment's3d Battalion, commandedby Hankins, in advancing on theairfields. The 11th Marines, despitethe accidental bombing, set up itsartillery, an operation in which theamphibian tractor played a vitalpart. Some of the tractors broughtlightweight 75mm howitzers fromthe LSTs directly to the battery firingpositions; others broke trailthrough the undergrowth for tractorspulling the heavier 105mmweapons.

Meanwhile, Army trucks loadedwith supplies rolled ashore from theLSTs. Logistics plans called for thesevehicles to move forward and functionas mobile supply dumps, butthe damp flat proved impassable bywheeled vehicles, and the driverstended to abandon the trucks toavoid being left behind when theshipping moved out, hurried alongby the threat from Japanesebombers. Ultimately, Marines had tobuild roads, corduroying them withlogs when necessary, or shift thecargo to amphibian tractors. Despitecareful planning and hard work onD-Day, the convoy sailed with about100 tons of supplies still on board.

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While reinforcements and cargocrossed the beach, the Marines advancinginland encountered the firstserious Japanese resistance. Shortlyafter 1000 on 26 December, Hankins's3d Battalion, 1st Marines,pushed ahead, advancing in a columnof companies because aswamp on the left narrowed thefrontage. Fire from camouflagedbunkers killed Captain Joseph A.Terzi, commander of Company K,posthumously awarded the NavyCross for heroism while leading theattack, and his executive officer,Captain Philip A. Wilheit. Thesturdy bunkers proved imperviousto bazooka rockets, which failed todetonate in the soft earth coveringthe structures, and to fire from37mm guns, which could not penetratethe logs protecting the occupants.An Alligator that had deliveredsupplies for Company K triedto crush one of the bunkers but becamewedged between two trees.Japanese riflemen burst from coverand killed the tractor's two machinegunners, neither of them protectedby armor, before the driver couldbreak free. Again lunging ahead, thetractor caved in one bunker, silencingits fire and enabling Marine riflemento isolate three others anddestroy them in succession, killing25 Japanese. A platoon of M4 Shermantanks joined the company intime to lead the advance beyondthis first strongpoint.

Japanese service troops—especiallythe men of the 1st ShippingEngineers and the 1st DebarkationUnit—provided most of the initialopposition, but Matsuda hadalerted his nearby infantry units toconverge on the beachhead. Oneenemy battalion, under MajorShinichi Takabe, moved into positionlate on the afternoon of D-Day,opposite Conoley's 2d Battalion, 7thMarines, which clung to a crescent-shapedposition, both of its flankssharply refused and resting on themarshland to the rear. After sunset,the darkness beneath the forestcanopy became absolute, piercedonly by muzzle flashes as the intensityof the firing increased.

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The Japanese clearly werepreparing to counterattack. Conoley'sbattalion had a dwindling supplyof ammunition, but amphibiantractors could not begin makingsupply runs until it became lightenough for the drivers to avoid treeroots and fallen trunks as they navigatedthe damp flat. To aid the battalionin the dangerous period beforethe skies grew pale, LieutenantColonel Lewis B. Puller, the executiveofficer of the 7th Marines, organizedthe men of the regimentalHeadquarters and Service Companyinto carrying parties to loadthemselves down with ammunitionand wade through the dangerousswamp. One misstep, and a Marineburdened with bandoliers of rifleammunition or containers of mortarshells could stumble and drown.When Colonel Frisbie, the regimentalcommander, decided to reinforceConoley's Marines with Battery D,1st Special Weapons Battalion,Puller had the men leave their37mm guns behind and carry ammunitioninstead. A guide fromConoley's headquarters met the columnthat Puller had pressed intoservice and began leading them forward,when a blinding downpour,driven by a monsoon gale, obscuredlandmarks and forced the heavilyladen Marines to wade blindly onward,each man clinging to the beltof the one ahead of him. Not until0805, some twelve hours after thecolumn started off, did the menreach their goal, put down theirloads, and take up their rifles.

Conoley's Marines had in themeantime been fighting for theirlives since the storm first struck. Acurtain of rain prevented mortarcrews from seeing their aimingstakes, indeed, the battalion commanderdescribed the men as firing"by guess and by God." Mud got onthe small-arms ammunition, at timesjamming rifles and machine guns.Although forced to abandon water-filledfoxholes, the defenders hungon. With the coming of dawn, Takabe'ssoldiers gravitated toward theright flank of Conoley's unit, perhapsin a conscious effort to outflankthe position, or possibly forced inthat direction by the fury of the battalion'sdefensive fire. An envelopmentwas in the making when BatteryD arrived and moved into thethreatened area, forcing the Japaneseto break off the action and regroup.

The Capture of theCape Gloucester Airfields

The 1st Marine Division's overallplan of maneuver called for ColonelFrisbie's Combat Team C, the reinforced7th Marines, to hold a beachheadanchored at Target Hill, whileCombat Team B, Colonel William A.Whaling's 1st Marines, reinforcedbut without the 2d Battalion ashoreat Green Beach, advanced on theairfields. Because of the buildup inpreparation for the attack on Conoley'sbattalion, General Rupertus requestedthat Kreuger release the divisionreserve, Combat Team A,Colonel John T. Selden's reinforced5th Marines. The Army generalagreed, sending the 1st and 2d Battalions,followed a day later by the3d Battalion. The division commanderdecided to land the team onBlue Beach, roughly three miles tothe right of the Yellow Beaches. Theuse of Blue Beach would haveplaced the 5th Marines closer toCape Gloucester and the airfields,but not every element of Selden'sCombat Team A got the word.Some units touched down on theYellow Beaches instead and had tomove on foot or in vehicles to theintended destination.

While Rupertus laid plans tocommit the reserve, Whaling's combatteam advanced toward the CapeGloucester airfields. The Marinesencountered only sporadic resistanceat first, but Army Air Forceslight bombers spotted danger intheir path—a maze of trenches andbunkers stretching inland from apromontory that soon earned the[pg11]nickname Hell's Point. The Japanesehad built these defenses to protectthe beaches where Matsuda expectedthe Americans to land.Leading the advance, the 3d Battalion,1st Marines, under LieutenantColonel Hankins, struck the Hell'sPoint position on the flank, ratherthan head-on, but overrunning thecomplex nevertheless would provea deadly task.

Rupertus delayed the attack byHankins to provide time for the divisionreserve, Selden's 5thMarines, to come ashore. On themorning of 28 December, after abombardment by the 2d Battalion,11th Marines, and strikes by ArmyAir Forces A-20s, the assault troopsencountered another delay, waitingfor an hour so that an additionalplatoon of M4 Sherman mediumtanks could increase the weight ofthe attack. At 1100, Hankins's 3dBattalion, 1st Marines, movedahead, Company I and the supportingtanks leading the way. Whaling,at about the same time, sent his regiment'sCompany A throughswamp and jungle to seize the inlandpoint of the ridge extendingfrom Hell's Point. Despite the obstaclesin its path, Company Aburst from the jungle at about 1145and advanced across a field of tallgrass until stopped by intenseJapanese fire. By late afternoon,Whaling abandoned the maneuver.Both Company A and the defenderswere exhausted and short of ammunition;the Marines withdrew behinda barrage fired by the 2d Battalion,11th Marines, and theJapanese abandoned their positionsafter dark.

Roughly 15 minutes after CompanyA assaulted the inland terminusof the ridge, Company I and theattached tanks collided with themain defenses, which the Japanesehad modified since the 26 Decemberlandings, cutting new gunports inbunkers, hacking fire lanes in theundergrowth, and shifting men andweapons to oppose an attack alongthe coastal trail parallel to shore insteadof over the beach. Advancingin a drenching rain, the Marines encountereda succession of jungle-covered,mutually supporting positionsprotected by barbed wire andmines. The hour's wait for tankspaid dividends, as the Shermans,protected by riflemen, crushedbunkers and destroyed the weaponsinside. During the fight, Company Idrifted to its left, and Hankins usedCompany K, reinforced with a platoonof medium tanks, to close thegap between the coastal track andHell's Point itself. This unit employedthe same tactics as CompanyI. A rifle squad followed each of theM4 tanks, which cracked open thebunkers, twelve in all, and fired inside;the accompanying riflementhen killed anyone attempting tofight or flee. More than 260 Japaneseperished in the fighting at Hell'sPoint, at the cost of 9 Marines killedand 36 wounded.

With the defenses of Hell's Pointshattered, the two battalions of the5th Marines, which came ashore onthe morning of 29 December,joined later that day in the advanceon the airfield. The 1st Battalion,commanded by Major William H.Barba, and the 2d Battalion, underLieutenant Colonel Lewis H. Walt,moved out in a column, Barba'sunit leading the way. In front of theMarines lay a swamp, described asonly a few inches deep, but thedepth, because of the continuingdownpour, proved as much as fivefeet, "making it quite hard," Seldenacknowledged, "for some of theyoungsters who were not muchmore than 5 feet in height." Thetime lost in wading through theswamp delayed the attack, and theleading elements chose a piece ofopen and comparatively dryground, where they established aperimeter while the rest of theforce caught up.

[pg12]Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion, 1stMarines, attacking through that regiment's3d Battalion, encounteredonly scattered resistance, mainlysniper fire, as it pushed along thecoast beyond Hell's Point. Halftrackscarrying 75mm guns,medium tanks, artillery, and even apair of rocket-firing DUKWs supportedthe advance, which broughtthe battalion, commanded by LieutenantColonel Walker A. Reaves, tothe edge of Airfield No. 2. Whendaylight faded on 29 December, the1st Battalion, 1st Marines, held aline extending inland from thecoast; on its left were the 3d Battalion,1st Marines, and the 2d Battalion,5th Marines, forming a semicirclearound the airfield.

The Japanese officer responsiblefor defending the airfields, ColonelKouki Sumiya of the 53d Infantry,had fallen back on 29 December,trading space for time as he gatheredhis surviving troops for the defenseof Razorback Hill, a ridge runningdiagonally across thesouthwestern approaches to AirfieldNo. 2. The 1st and 2d Battalions, 5thMarines, attacked on 30 Decembersupported by tanks and artillery.Sumiya's troops had constructedsome sturdy bunkers, but the chest-highgrass that covered RazorbackHill did not impede the attackerslike the jungle at Hell's Point. TheJapanese fought gallantly to holdthe position, at times stalling the advancingMarines, but the defendershad neither the numbers nor thefirepower to prevail. Typical of theday's fighting, one platoon of CompanyF from Selden's regiment beatback two separate banzai attacks, beforetanks enabled the Marines toshatter the bunkers in their path andkill the enemy within. By dusk on30 December, the landing force hadoverrun the defenses of the airfields,and at noon of the following dayGeneral Rupertus had the Americanflag raised beside the wreckage of aJapanese bomber at Airfield No. 2,the larger of the airstrips.

The 1st Marine Division thusseized the principal objective of theCape Gloucester fighting, but theairstrips proved of marginal valueto the Allied forces. Indeed, theJapanese had already abandonedthe prewar facility, Airfield No. 1,which was thickly overgrown withtall, coarse kunai grass. Craters fromAmerican bombs pockmarked thesurface of Airfield No. 2, and afterits capture Japanese hit-and-runraiders added a few of their own,despite antiaircraft fire from the12th Defense Battalion. Army aviationengineers worked around theclock to return Airfield No. 2 to operation,a task that took until theend of January 1944. Army aircraftbased here defended against air attacksfor as long as Rabaul remainedan active air base and also supportedoperations on the ground.

Clearing the Shoresof Borgen Bay

While General Rupertus personallydirected the capture of the airfields,the Assistant Division Commander,[pg13]Brigadier General Lemuel C.Shepherd, Jr., came ashore on D-Day,26 December, and took commandof the beachhead. Besides coordinatingthe logistics activity there,Shepherd assumed responsibility forexpanding the perimeter to the southwestand securing the shores of BorgenBay. He had a variety of shoreparty, engineer, transportation, andother service troops to handle thelogistics chores. The 3d Battalion ofColonel Selden's 5th Marines—theremaining component of the divisionreserve—arrived on 30 and 31 Decemberto help the 7th Marines enlargethe beachhead.

Shepherd had sketchy knowledgeof Japanese deployment west andsouth of the Yellow Beaches. Densevegetation concealed streams,swamps, and even ridge lines, as wellas bunkers and trenches. The progresstoward the airfields seemed to indicateJapanese weakness in that areaand possible strength in the vicinityof the Yellow Beaches and BorgenBay. To resolve the uncertainty aboutthe enemy's numbers and intentions,Shepherd issued orders on 1 January1944 to probe Japanese defenses beginningthe following morning.

In the meantime, the Japanese defenders,under Colonel KenshiroKatayama, commander of the 141stInfantry, were preparing for an attackof their own. General Matsudaentrusted three reinforced battalionsto Katayama, who intended to hurlthem against Target Hill, which heconsidered the anchor of the beachheadline. Since Matsuda believedthat roughly 2,500 Marines wereashore on New Britain, 10 percent ofthe actual total, Katayama's forceseemed strong enough for the jobassigned it.

Katayama needed time to gatherhis strength, enabling Shepherd tomake the first move, beginning atmid-morning on 2 January to realignhis forces. The 1st Battalion,7th Marines, stood fast in the vicinityof Target Hill, the 2d Battalion remainedin place along a stream alreadyknown as Suicide Creek, andthe regiment's 3d Battalion beganpivoting to face generally south.Meanwhile, the 3d Battalion, 5thMarines, pushed into the jungle tocome abreast of the 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, on the inland flank. As theunits pivoted, they had to cross SuicideCreek in order to squeeze outthe 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, whichwould become Shepherd's reserve.

The change of direction provedextremely difficult in vegetation sothick that, in the words of one Marine:"You'd step from your line,take say ten paces, and turn aroundto guide on your buddy. And nobodythere.... I can tell you, it was avery small war, and a very lonelybusiness." The Japanese defenders,moreover, had dug in south of SuicideCreek, and from these positionsthey repulsed every attempt to crossthe stream that day. A stalemate ensued,as Seabees from Company C,17th Marines, built a corduroy roadthrough the damp flat behind theYellow Beaches so that tanks couldmove forward to punch through thedefenses of Suicide Creek.

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While the Marine advance stalledat Suicide Creek, awaiting the arrivalof tanks, Katayama attacked TargetHill. On the night of 2 January, takingadvantage of the darkness,Japanese infantry cut steps in thelower slopes so the troops couldclimb more easily. Instead of reconnoiteringthe thinly held lines ofCompany A, 7th Marines, and tryingto infiltrate, the enemy followed apreconceived plan to the letter, advancedup the steps, and at midnightstormed the strongest of the company'sdefenses. Japanese mortarbarrages fired to soften the defensesand screen the approach could notconceal the sound of the troopsworking their way up the hill, andthe Marines were ready. Althoughthe Japanese supporting fire provedgenerally inaccurate, one roundscored a direct hit on a machine-gunposition, killing two Marines andwounding the gunner, who kept firingthe weapon until someone elsecould take over. This gun fired some5,000 rounds and helped blunt theJapanese thrust, which ended bydawn of 3 January. Nowhere did theJapanese crack the lines of the 1stBattalion, 7th Marines, or loosen itsgrip on Target Hill.

The body of a Japanese officerkilled at Target Hill yielded documentsthat cast new light on theJapanese defenses south of SuicideCreek. A crudely drawn map revealedthe existence of AogiriRidge, an enemy strongpoint unknownto General Shepherd's intelligencesection. Observers on TargetHill tried to locate the ridge and thetrail network the enemy was using,but the jungle canopy frustratedtheir efforts.

While the Marines on Target Hilltabulated the results of the fightingthere—patrols discovered 40 bodies,and captured documents, whentranslated, listed 46 Japanese killed,54 wounded, and two missing—andused field glasses to scan thejungle south of Suicide Creek, the17th Marines completed the roadthat would enable medium tanks totest the defenses of that stream.[pg15]During the afternoon of 3 January, atrio of Sherman tanks reached thecreek only to discover that the bankdropped off too sharply for them tonegotiate. The engineers sent for abulldozer, which arrived, loweredits blade, and began gouging at thelip of the embankment. Realizingthe danger if tanks succeeded incrossing the creek, the Japaneseopened fire on the bulldozer,wounding the driver. A volunteerclimbed onto the exposed driver'sseat and took over until he, too, waswounded. Another Marine steppedforward, but instead of climbingonto the machine, he walked alongside,using its bulk for cover as hemanipulated the controls with ashovel and an axe handle. By dark,he had finished the job of convertingthe impassable bank into a readilynegotiated ramp.

On the morning of 4 January, thefirst tank clanked down the rampand across the stream. As the Shermanemerged on the other side,Marine riflemen cut down twoJapanese soldiers trying to detonatemagnetic mines against its sides.Other medium tanks followed, alsoaccompanied by infantry, and brokeopen the bunkers that barred theway. The 3d Battalion, 7th Marines,and the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines,surged onward past the creek,squeezing out the 2d Battalion, 7thMarines, which crossed in the wakeof those two units to come abreastof them on the far right of the linethat closed in on the jungle concealingAogiri Ridge. The 1st Battalion,7th Marines, thereupon joined thesouthward advance, tying in withthe 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, topresent a four-battalion front thatincluded the 2d Battalion and 3dBattalions, 7th Marines.

Once across Suicide Creek, theMarines groped for Aogiri Ridge,which for a time simply seemed tobe another name for Hill 150, a terrainfeature that appeared on Americanmaps. The advance rapidlyoverran the hill, but Japanese resistancein the vicinity did not diminish.On 7 January, enemy firewounded Lieutenant Colonel DavidS. MacDougal, commanding officerof the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines. Hisexecutive officer, Major JosephSkoczylas, took over until he, too,was wounded. Lieutenant ColonelLewis B. Puller, temporarily in commandof the 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, assumed responsibility forboth battalions until the arrival on[pg16]the morning of 8 January of LieutenantColonel Lewis W. Walt, recentlyassigned as executive officerof the 5th Marines, who took overthe regiment's 3d Battalion.

Upon assuming command of thebattalion, Walt continued the previousday's attack. As his Marinesbraved savage fire and thick jungle,they began moving up a rapidlysteepening slope. As night approached,the battalion formed aperimeter and dug in. RandomJapanese fire and sudden skirmishespunctuated the darkness. The natureof the terrain and the determinedresistance convinced Waltthat he had found Aogiri Ridge.

Walt's battalion needed the shockaction and firepower of tanks, butdrenching rain, mud, and rampagingstreams stopped the armoredvehicles. The heaviest weapon thatthe Marines managed to bring forwardwas a single 37mm gun, manhandledinto position on the afternoonof 9 January, While the 11thMarines hammered the crest of AogiriRidge, the 1st and 3d Battalions,7th Marines, probed the flanks ofthe position and Walt's 3d Battalion,5th Marines, pushed ahead in thecenter, seizing a narrow segment ofthe slope, its apex just short of thecrest. By dusk, said the 1st MarineDivision's special action report,Walt's men had "reached the limitof their physical endurance andmorale was low. It was a question ofwhether or not they could hold theirhard-earned gains." The crew of the37mm gun opened fire in support ofthe afternoon's final attack, but afterjust three rounds, four of the ninemen handling the weapon werekilled or wounded. Walt called forvolunteers; when no one responded,he and his runner crawled to thegun and began pushing the weaponup the incline. Twice more the gunbarked, cutting a swath through theundergrowth, and a third round ofcanister destroyed a machine gun.[pg17]Other Marines then took over fromWalt and the runner, with new volunteersreplacing those cut down bythe enemy. The improvised crewkept firing canister rounds everyfew yards until they had wrestledthe weapon to the crest. There theMarines dug in, as close as ten yardsto the bunkers the Japanese hadbuilt on the crest and reverse slope.

At 0115 on the morning of 10 January,the Japanese emerged fromtheir positions and charged througha curtain of rain, shouting and firingas they came. The Marinesclinging to Aogiri Ridge broke upthis attack and three others that followed,firing off almost all their ammunitionin doing so. A carryingparty scaled the muddy slope withbelts and clips for the machine gunsand rifles, but there barely was timeto distribute the ammunition beforethe Japanese launched the fifth attackof the morning. Marine artillerytore into the enemy, as forwardobservers, their visionobstructed by rain and jungle, adjustedfire by sound more than bysight, moving 105mm concentrationsto within 50 yards of the Marineinfantrymen. A Japanese officeremerged from the darkness and ranalmost to Walt's foxhole before fragmentsfrom a shell bursting in thetrees overhead cut him down. Thisproved to be the high-water markof the counterattack against AogiriRidge, for the Japanese tide recededas the daylight grew brighter. At0800, when the Marines moved forward,they did not encounter evenone living Japanese on the terrainfeature they renamed Walt's Ridgein honor of their commander, whor*ceived the Navy Cross for his inspirationalleadership.

One Japanese stronghold in thevicinity of Aogiri Ridge still survived,a supply dump located alonga trail linking the ridge to Hill 150.On 11 January, Lieutenant ColonelWeber's 1st Battalion, 7th Marines,supported by a pair of half-tracksand a platoon of light tanks, eliminatedthis pocket in four hours offighting. Fifteen days of combatsince the landings on 26 December,had cost the division 180 killed and636 wounded in action.

The next objective, Hill 660, layat the left of General Shepherd'szone of action, just inland of thecoastal track. The 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, commanded since 9 Januaryby Lieutenant Colonel HenryW. Buse, Jr., got the assignment ofseizing the hill. In preparation forBuse's attack, Captain Joseph W.Buckley, commander of theWeapons Company, 7th Marines,set up a task force to bypass Hill660 and block the coastal trail beyondthat objective. Buckley'sgroup—two platoons of infantry, aplatoon of 37mm guns, two lighttanks, two half-tracks mounting75mm guns, a platoon of pioneersfrom the 17th Marines with a bulldozer,and one of the Army'srocket-firing DUKWs—pushedthrough the mud and set up a roadblockathwart the line of retreatfrom Hill 660. The Japanese directedlong-range plunging fireagainst Buckley's command as itadvanced roughly one mile alongthe trail. Because of their flat trajectory,his 75mm and 37mm guns[pg18]could not destroy the enemy's automaticweapons, but the Marinessucceeded in forcing the hostilegunners to keep their heads down.As they advanced, Buckley's menunreeled telephone wire to maintaincontact with higher headquarters.Once the roadblock was inplace and camouflaged, the captainrequested that a truck bring hotmeals for his men. When the vehiclebogged down, he sent the bulldozerto push it free.

After aerial bombardment andpreparatory artillery fire, Buse'sbattalion started up the hill at about0930 on 13 January. His supportingtanks could not negotiate theravines that scarred the hillside. Indeed,the going became so steepthat riflemen sometimes had tosling arms, seize handholds amongthe vines, and pull themselves upward.[pg19]The Japanese suddenlyopened fire from hurriedly dugtrenches at the crest, pinning downthe Marines climbing toward themuntil mortar fire silenced the enemyweapons, which lacked overheadcover. Buse's riflemen followedclosely behind the mortar barrage,scattering the defenders, some ofwhom tried to escape along thecoastal trail, where Buckley's taskforce waited to cut them down.

Apparently delayed by torrentialrain, the Japanese did not counterattackHill 660 until 16 January.Roughly two companies ofKatayama's troops stormed up thesouthwestern slope only to beslaughtered by mortar, artillery, andsmall-arms fire. Many of thoselucky enough to survive tried tobreak through Buckley's roadblock,where 48 of the enemy perished.

With the capture of Hill 660, thenature of the campaign changed.The assault phase had captured itsobjective and eliminated the possibilityof a Japanese counterattackagainst the airfield complex. Next,the Marines would repulse theJapanese who harassed the secondarybeachhead at Cape Merkusand secure the mountainous, jungle-coveredinterior of Cape Gloucester,south of the airfields and betweenthe Green and Yellow Beaches.

The Mopping-upBegins in the West

At Cape Merkus on the southcoast of western New Britain, thefighting proved desultory in comparisonto the violent struggle inthe vicinity of Cape Gloucester. TheJapanese in the south remained contentto take advantage of the densejungle and contain the 112th Cavalryon the Cape Merkus peninsula.Major Shinjiro Komori, the Japanesecommander there, believed that thelanding force intended to capturean abandoned airfield at CapeMerkus, an installation that did notfigure in American plans. A seriesof concealed bunkers, boasting integratedfields of fire, held the lightlyarmed cavalrymen in check, as thedefenders directed harassing fire atthe beachhead.

Because the cavalry unit lackedheavy weapons, a call went out forthose of the 1st Marine Division'stanks that had remained behind atFinschhafen, New Guinea, becausearmor enough was already churningup the mud of Cape Gloucester.Company B, 1st Marine Tank Battalion,with 18 M5A1 light tanksmounting 37mm guns, and the 2dBattalion, 158th Infantry, arrived atCape Merkus, moved into positionby 15 January and attacked on thefollowing day. A squadron of ArmyAir Forces B-24s dropped 1,000-poundbombs on the jungle-covereddefenses, B-25s followed up, andmortars and artillery joined in thebombardment, after which two platoonsof tanks, ten vehicles in all,and two companies of infantrysurged forward. Some of the tanksbogged down in the rain-soakedsoil, and tank retrievers had to pullthem free. Despite mud and nearlyimpenetrable thickets, the tank-infantryteams found and destroyedmost of the bunkers. Having eliminatedthe source of harassing fire,the troops pulled back after destroyinga tank immobilized by athrown track so that the enemycould not use it as a pillbox. Anothertank, trapped in a crater, alsowas earmarked for destruction, butArmy engineers managed to free itand bring it back.

The attack on 16 January brokethe back of Japanese resistance. Komoriordered a retreat to the vicinityof the airstrip, but the 112thCavalry launched an attack thatcaught the slowly moving defendersand inflicted further casualties.By the time the enemy dug in todefend the airfield, which theAmericans had no intention of seizing,Komori's men had suffered 116killed, 117 wounded, 14 dead ofdisease, and another 80 too ill tofight. The Japanese hung on despitesickness and starvation, until 24February, when Komori receivedorders to join in a general retreat byMatsuda Force.

Across the island, after the victoriesat Walt's Ridge and Hill 660,the 5th Marines concentrated onseizing control of the shores of Borgen[pg20]Bay, immediately to the east.Major Barba's 1st Battalion followedthe coastal trail until 20 January,when the column collided witha Japanese stronghold at NatamoPoint. Translations of documentscaptured earlier in the fighting revealedthat at least one platoon,supported by automatic weaponshad dug in there. Artillery and airstrikes failed to suppress the Japanesefire, demonstrating that the capturedpapers were sadly out of date,since at least a company—armedwith 20mm, 37mm, and 75mmweapons—checked the advance.Marine reinforcements, includingmedium tanks, arrived in landingcraft on 23 January, and that afternoon,supported by artillery and arocket-firing DUKW, Companies Cand D overran Natamo Point. Thebattalion commander then dispatchedpatrols inland along thewest bank of the Natamo River tooutflank the strong positions on theeast bank near the mouth of thestream. While the Marines were executingthis maneuver, the Japaneseabandoned their prepared defensesand retreated eastward.

Success at Cape Gloucester andBorgen Bay enabled the 5th Marinesto probe the trails leading inland towardthe village of Magairapua,where Katayama once had hisheadquarters, and beyond. Elementsof the regiment's 1st and 2dBattalions and of the 2d Battalion,1st Marines—temporarily attachedto the 5th Marines—led the wayinto the interior as one element inan effort to trap the enemy troopsstill in western New Britain.

In another part of this effort,Company L, 1st Marines, led byCaptain Ronald J. Slay, pursued theJapanese retreating from CapeGloucester toward Mount Talawe.Slay and his Marines crossed themountain's eastern slope, threadedtheir way through a cluster oflesser outcroppings like Mount[pg21]Langila, and in the saddle betweenMounts Talawe and Tangi encounteredfour unoccupied bunkers situatedto defend the junction of thetrack they had been following withanother trail running east and west.The company had found the maineast-west route from Sag Sag on thecoast to the village of Agulupellaand ultimately to Natamo Point onthe northern coast.

To exploit the discovery, a compositepatrol from the 1st Marines,under the command of CaptainNickolai Stevenson, pushed southalong that trail Slay had followed,while a composite company from the7th Marines, under Captain PrestonS. Parish, landed at Sag Sag on thewest coast and advanced along theeast-west track. An Australian reserveofficer, William G. Wiedeman,who had been an Episcopal missionaryat Sag Sag, served as Parish'sguide and contact with the nativepopulace. When determined oppositionstopped Stevenson short of thetrail junction near Mount Talawe,Captain George P. Hunt's CompanyK, 1st Marines, renewed the attack.

On 28 January, Hunt concludedhe had brought the Japanese to bayand attacked. For three hours thatafternoon, his Marines tried unsuccessfullyto break though a line ofbunkers concealed by jungle growth,losing 15 killed or wounded. WhenHunt withdrew beyond reach ofthe Japanese mortars that hadscourged his company during theaction, the enemy emerged fromcover and attempted to pursue, abold but foolish move that exposedthe troops to deadly fire thatcleared the way for an advance tothe trail junction. Hunt and Parishjoined forces and probed farther,only to be stopped by a Japaneseambush. At this point, MajorWilliam J. Piper, Jr., the executiveofficer of the 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, assumed command, renewedthe pursuit on 30 January,and discovered the enemy had fled.Shortly afterward Piper's combinedpatrol made contact with those dispatchedinland by the 5th Marines.

[pg22]

Thus far, a vigorous pursuit alongthe coast and on the inland trails hadfailed to ensnare the Japanese. TheMarines captured Matsuda's abandonedheadquarters in the shadowof Mount Talawe and a cache of documentsthat the enemy buried ratherthan burned, perhaps because smokewould almost certainly bring airstrikes or artillery fire, but the Japanesegeneral and his troops escaped.Where had Matsuda Force gone?

Since a trail net led from thevicinity of Mount Talawe to thesouth, General Shepherd concludedthat Matsuda was headed in thatdirection. The assistant divisioncommander therefore organized acomposite battalion of six reinforcedrifle companies, some 3,900officers and men in all, which GeneralRupertus entrusted to LieutenantColonel Puller. This patrolwas to advance from Agulupella onthe east-west track, down the so-calledGovernment Trail all the wayto Gilnit, a village on the Itni River,inland of Cape Bushing on NewBritain's southern coast. BeforePuller could set out, informationdiscovered at Matsuda's formerheadquarters and translated revealedthat the enemy actually wasretreating to the northeast. As a result,Rupertus detached the recentlyarrived 1st Battalion, 5thMarines, and reduced Puller'sforce from almost 4,000 to fewerthan 400, still too many to be suppliedby the 150 native bearers assignedto the column for the marchthrough the jungle to Gilnit.

During the trek, Puller's Marinesdepended heavily on suppliesdropped from airplanes. Piper Cubscapable at best of carrying two casesof rations in addition to the pilot andobserver, deposited their loads at villagesalong the way, and Fifth AirForce B-17s dropped cargo by the ton.Supplies delivered from the skymade the patrol possible but did littleto ameliorate the discomfort of theMarines slogging through the mud.

Despite this assistance from theair, the march to Gilnit taxed the ingenuityof the Marines involved andhardened them for future action.This toughening-up seemed especiallydesirable to Puller, who hadled many a patrol during the Americanintervention in Nicaragua, 1927-1933.The division's supply clerks,aware of the officer's disdain forcreature comforts, were startled byrequisitions from the patrol for hundredsof bottles of insect repellent.[pg24]Puller had his reasons, however. Accordingto one veteran of the Gilnitoperation, "We were always soakedand everything we owned was likewise,and that lotion made the bestdamned stuff to start a fire with thatyou ever saw."

As Puller's Marines pushed towardGilnit on the Itni River, theykilled perhaps 75 Japanese and capturedone straggler, along withsome weapons and odds and endsof equipment. An abandoned packcontained an American flag, probablycaptured by a soldier of the141st Infantry during Japan's conquestof the Philippines. Afterreaching Gilnit, the patrol fannedout but encountered no opposition.Puller's Marines made contact withan Army patrol from the CapeMerkus beachhead and thenheaded toward the north coast, beginningon 16 February.

To the west, Company B, 1stMarines, boarded landing craft on12 February and crossed theDampier Strait to occupy Rooke Island,some fifteen miles from thecoast of New Britain. The division'sintelligence specialists concludedcorrectly that the garrison had departed.Indeed, the transfer beganon 6 December 1943, roughly threeweeks before the landings at CapeGloucester, when Colonel Jiro Satoand half of his 500-man 51st ReconnaissanceRegiment, sailed off toCape Bushing. Sato then led hiscommand up the Itni River andjoined the main body of the MatsudaForce east of Mount Talawe. Insteadof committing Sato's troops to thedefense of Hill 660, Matsuda directedhim to delay the elements ofthe 5th Marines and 1st Marinesthat were converging over the inlandtrail net. Sato succeeded inchecking the Hunt patrol on 28 Januaryand buying time for Matsuda'sretreat, not to the south, but, as thedocuments captured at the general'sabandoned headquarters confirmed,along the northern coast, with the51st Reconnaissance Regiment initiallyserving as the rear guard.

Once the Marines realized whatMatsuda had in mind, cutting theline of retreat assumed the highestpriority, as demonstrated by thewithdrawal of the 1st Battalion, 5thMarines, from the Puller patrol onthe very eve of the march toward[pg25]Gilnit. As early as 3 February, Rupertusconcluded that the Japanesecould no longer mount a counterattackon the airfields and began devotingall his energy and resourcesto destroying the retreating Japanese.The division commander choseSelden's 5th Marines, now restoredto three-battalion strength, to conductthe pursuit. While Petras andhis light aircraft scouted the coastaltrack, landing craft stood ready toembark elements of the regimentand position them to cut off and destroythe Matsuda Force. Bad weatherhampered Selden's Marines; cloudsconcealed the enemy from aerialobservation, and a boiling surfruled out landings over certainbeaches. With about 5,000 Marines,and some Army dog handlers andtheir animals, the colonel rotatedhis battalions, sending out freshtroops each day and using 10 LCMsin attempts to leapfrog the retreatingJapanese. "With few exceptions,men were not called upon to makemarches on two successive days,"Selden recalled. "After a one-dayhike, they either remained at thatcamp for three or four days ormade the next jump by LCMs." Atany point along the coastal track,the enemy might have concealedhimself in the dense jungle andsprung a deadly ambush, but hedid not. Selden, for instance, expecteda battle for the Japanese supplypoint at Iboki Point, but theenemy faded away. Instead of encounteringresistance by a determinedand skillful rear guard, the5th Marines found only stragglers,some of them sick or wounded.Nevertheless, the regimental commandercould take pride in maintainingunremitting pressure onthe retreating enemy "without lossor even having a man wounded"and occupying Iboki Point on 24February.

Meanwhile, American amphibiousforces had seized Kwajalein andEniwetok Atolls in the Marshall Islands,as the Central Pacific offensivegathered momentum. Furtherto complicate Japanese strategy, carrierstrikes proved that Truk had becometoo vulnerable to continueserving as a major naval base. Theenemy, conscious of the threat to hisinner perimeter that was developingto the north, decided to pull backhis fleet units from Truk and his aircraftfrom Rabaul. On 19 February—justtwo days after the Americansinvaded Eniwetok—Japanese fightersat Rabaul took off for the lasttime to challenge an American airraid. When the bombers returned onthe following day, not a single operationalJapanese fighter remained atthe airfields there.

The defense of Rabaul now dependedexclusively on groundforces. Lieutenant General YusashiSakai, in command of the 17th Division,received orders to scrap hisplan to dig in near Cape Hoskinsand instead proceed to Rabaul. Thegeneral believed that suppliesenough had been positioned alongthe trail net to enable at least themost vigorous of Matsuda's troopsto stay ahead of the Marines andreach the fortress. The remainingself-propelled barges could carryheavy equipment and those troopsmost needed to defend Rabaul, aswell as the sick and wounded. Theretreat, however, promised to be anordeal for the Japanese. Selden hadalready demonstrated how swiftlythe Marines could move, taking advantageof American control of theskies and the coastal waters, and atwo-week march separated thenearest of Matsuda's soldiers fromtheir destination. Attrition wouldbe heavy, but those who could contributethe least to the defense ofRabaul seemed the likeliest to fallby the wayside.

The Japanese forces retreating toRabaul included the defenders ofCape Merkus, where a stalematehad prevailed after the limitedAmerican attack on 16 January hadsent Komori's troops reeling backbeyond the airstrip. At Augitni, avillage east of the Aria River southwestof Iboki Point, Komori reportedto Colonel Sato of the 51stReconnaissance Regiment, which hadconcluded the rear-guard actionthat enabled the Matsuda Force tocross the stream and take the trailthrough Augitni to Linga Linga andeastward along the coast. When thetwo commands met, Sato broke outa supply of sake he had been carrying,and the officers exchangedtoasts well into the night.

Meanwhile, Captain KiyomatsuTerunuma organized a task forcebuilt around the 1st Battalion, 54thInfantry, and prepared to defend theTalasea area near the base of theWillaumez Peninsula against a possiblelanding by the pursuingMarines. The Terunuma Force hadthe mission of holding out longenough for Matsuda Force to slippast on the way to Rabaul. On 6March, the leading elements of Matsuda'scolumn reached the base ofthe Willaumez Peninsula, and Komori,leading the way for Sato'srear guard, started from Augitni towardLinga Linga.

The Landings at Volupai

By coincidence, 6 March was theday chosen for the reinforced 5thMarines, now commanded byColonel Oliver P. Smith, to land onthe west coast of the WillaumezPeninsula midway between baseand tip. The intelligence section ofdivision headquarters believed thatJapanese strength between Talasea,the site of a crude airstrip, andCape Hoskins, across Kimbe Bayfrom Willaumez Peninsula, equaledthat of the Smith's command, butthat most of the enemy troops defendedCape Hoskins. The intelligenceestimate proved correct, forSakai had been preparing a last-ditch[pg26]defense of Cape Hoskins,when word arrived to retreat all theway to Rabaul.

To discover the extent of Japanesepreparations in the immediatevicinity of Volupai, a reconnaissanceteam landed from a torpedoboat at Bagum, a village about ninemiles from Red Beach, the site chosenfor the assault landing. FlightLieutenant G. H. Rodney Marslandof the Royal Australian Air Force,First Lieutenant John D. Bradbeer—thedivision's chief scout, whohad participated in three similar reconnaissancepatrols of the CapeGloucester area before the 26 Decemberinvasion—and two nativebearers remained ashore for 24hours and learned that Red Beachwas lightly defended. Their sources,principally natives who hadworked at a plantation that Marslandhad operated in the area beforethe war, confirmed Marine estimatesof Terunuma's aggregateforce—some 600 men, two thirds ofthem located near Talasea, armedwith mortars and artillery.

Bristol Beauforts of the RoyalAustralian Air Force based at KiriwinaIsland bombed the Volupai-Talasearegion for three days andthen conducted a last-minute striketo compensate for the absence ofnaval gunfire. Smith's force, designatedLanding Team A, loaded intoa small flotilla of landing craft, escortedby torpedo boats, and set outfrom Iboki Point. LieutenantColonel Robert Amory, Jr., an Armyofficer in command of an engineerboat unit, took command of the collectionof small craft, some of themmanned by his soldiers and the othersby sailors. A storm buffeted theformation, and after the seas grewcalm, the boat carrying the Armyair liaison party broke down. MajorGordon D. Gayle, the new commanderof the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines,who already was behind schedule,risked further delay by taking thedisabled craft in tow. Gayle felt thatCombat Team A's need for the liaisonparty's radio equipment justifiedhis action.

At 0835 on 6 March, the first ofthe amphibian tractors carrying theassault troops clawed their wayonto Red Beach. During the movementshoreward, Sherman tanks inArmy LCMs opened fire with machine[pg27]guns and stood ready to directtheir 75mm weapons against anyJapanese gunner who might opposethe landing. Aside from hard-to-pinpointsmall-arms fire, the oppositionconsisted mainly of barragesfrom mortars, screened by the terrainfrom the flat-trajectory cannonof the tanks. When Japanese mortarshells began bursting among the approachinglanding craft, CaptainTheodore A. Petras, at the controlsof one of the division's Piper Cubs,dived low over the mortar positionsand dropped hand grenades fromthe supply he carried on all hisflights. Natives had warned Marslandand Bradbeer of a machine-gunnest dominating the beach from theslopes of Little Mount Worri, but themen of the 1st Battalion, 5thMarines, leading the way, found itabandoned and encountered no seriousopposition as they dug in toprotect the beachhead.

Meanwhile, Gayle's Marinespressed their attack, with fourmedium tanks supporting CompanyE as it tried to push farther inland.One of the Shermans boggeddown almost immediately in thesoft sand of Red Beach, but theother three continued in column.The tank in the lead lost momentumon a muddy rise, and twoJapanese soldiers carrying landmines burst from cover to attack it.Riflemen of Company E cut downone of them, but the other detonatedhis mine against the vehicle,killing himself and a Marine whotried to stop him. The explosionjammed the turret and stunned thecrewmen, who were furthershaken, but not wounded, when anantitank grenade exploded againstthe armor. The damaged Shermangot out of the way; when the othertwo tanks had passed, it returnedto the trail only to hit a mine thatdisabled it.

Despite the loss of two tanks, onetemporarily immobilized on thebeach and the other out of action permanently,Gayle's battalion continuedits advance. During the fightingon the approaches to the Volupai coconutplantation, the body of a Japanesesoldier yielded a map showingenemy dispositions around Talasea.By mid-afternoon, Smith's regimentalintelligence section was disseminatingthe information, which provedvaluable in future operations.

While Company E of Gayle's battalionfollowed the trail toward theplantation, Company G kept pace,crossing the western shoulder ofLittle Mount Worri. Five Army AirForces P-39s from Airfield No. 2 atCape Gloucester arrived overheadto support Gayle's attack, but thepilots could not locate the troopsbelow and instead bombed CapeHoskins, where there was no dangerof hitting the Marines. Evenwithout the aerial attack, the 2dBattalion, 5th Marines, overran theplantation by dusk and dug in forthe night; the unit counted the bodiesof 35 Japanese killed during theday's fighting.

On D-Day, Combat Team A lost13 killed and 71 wounded, with artillerybatteries rather than riflecompanies suffering the greaternumber of casualties. The 2d Battalion,11th Marines, set up its 75mmpack howitzers on the open beach,exposed to fire from the 90mm mortarsupon which Petras had ineffectuallyshowered his hand grenades.Some of the corpsmen at Red Beach,who went to the assistance ofwounded artillerymen, became casualtiesthemselves. Nine of theMarines killed on 6 March weremembers of the artillery unit, alongwith 29 of the wounded. Nevertheless,the gunners succeeded in registeringtheir fires in the afternoonand harassing the enemy throughoutthe night.

While the Marines prepared torenew the attack on the second day,Terunuma deployed his troops tooppose them and keep open the lineof retreat of the Matsuda Force. Indoing so, the Japanese commanderfell back from his prepared positionson the fringes of Volupai Plantation—includingthe mortar pitsthat had raised such havoc with the2d Battalion, 11th Marines—anddug in on the northwest slopes ofMount Schleuther, overlooking thetrail leading from the plantation to[pg28]Bitokara village on the coast. Assoon as he realized what the enemyhad in mind, Gayle sent Company Fuphill to thwart the Japanese plan,while Company E remained on thetrail and built up a base of fire. Onthe right flank of the maneuver element,Company F, the weapons platoonburst from the undergrowthand surprised Japanese machinegunners setting up their weapon,killing them and turning the gunagainst the enemy. The advance ofCompany F caught the Japanese inmid-deployment and drove themback after killing some 40 of them.Gayle's battalion established anighttime perimeter that extendedfrom Mount Schleuther to the trailand embraced a portion of both.

The action on 7 March representeda departure from plan. Smithhad intended that both Barba andGayle attack, with the 3d Battalion,5th Marines, commanded since 12January by Lieutenant ColonelHarold O. Deakin, assuming responsibilityfor the defense of thebeachhead. The landing craft thathad carried the assault troops departedfrom Red Beach during D-Day,some of them carrying the seriouslywounded, in order to pick upthe 3d Battalion at Iboki Point andbring it to Volupai. The day waswaning by the time enough landingcraft were on hand for Deakin's battalion.For the reinforcements to arrivein time for an attack on themorning of 7 March would requirea dangerous nighttime approach toVolupai, through uncharted watersstudded with sharp outcroppings ofcoral that could lay open the hull ofa landing craft. Rupertus decidedthat the risks of such a move outweighedthe advantages and canceledit at the last moment. No boatstarted the return voyage to RedBeach until after dawn on 7 March,delaying the arrival of Deakin's battalionuntil late afternoon. On thatday, therefore, Barba's 1st Battalionhad only enough time to send CompanyC a short distance inland on atrail that passed to the right of LittleMount Worri, en route to the villageof Liappo. When the trail peteredout among the trees and vines, theMarines hacked their way forwarduntil they ran out of daylight shortof their objective.

On 8 March, the 1st Battalion, 5thMarines, resumed the advance,Companies A and B moving on parallelpaths leading east of LittleMount Worri. Members of CompanyA, peering through dense undergrowth,saw a figure in a Japaneseuniform and opened fire. Theperson was not a Japanese, however,but a native wearing clothingdiscarded by the enemy and servingas a guide for Company B. Thefirst shots triggered an exchange offire that wounded the guide, killedone Marine, and wounded a numberof others. Afterward, the advanceresumed, but once again theformidable terrain—muddy ravineschoked with brush and vines—slowedthe Marines, and the sun setwith the battalion still on the trail.

Meanwhile, Gayle's 2d Battalionprobed deeper into Terunuma's defenses.Patrols ranged ahead on themorning of 8 March and found theJapanese dug in at Bitokara Mission,but the enemy fell back before theMarines could storm the position.Gayle's troops occupied Bitokaraand pushed as far as Talasea, takingover the abandoned airstrip. Otherpatrols from this battalion started upthe steep slopes of Mount Schleutherand collided with Terunuma's mainstrength. Fire from small arms, a90mm mortar, and a 75mm field gunkilled or wounded 18 Marines.Rather than press his attack in thegathering darkness, Gayle pulledback from the mountain and dug inat Bitokara Mission so artillery andmortars could hammer the defensesthroughout the night, but he left onecompany to defend the Talaseaairstrip.

[pg29]

On the morning of 9 March, CompanyG of Gayle's battalion advancedup Mount Schleuther whileCompanies B and C from Barba'scommand cleared the villagesaround the base. Company G expectedto encounter intense oppositionduring its part of the coordinatedattack, but Terunuma haddecamped from the mountain top,leaving behind one dead, two stragglers,and an artillery piece. Theenemy, however, had festooned theabandoned 75mm gun with vinesthat served as trip wires for a boobytrap. When the Marines hacked atthe vines to examine the weaponmore closely, they released the firingpin and detonated a round in thechamber. Since the Japanese guncrew had plugged the bore beforefleeing, the resulting explosion rupturedthe breech block and woundedone of Gayle's men.

Besides yielding the dominantterrain, Terunuma chose not to defendany of the villages clustered atthe base of the mountain. The 5thMarines thus opened a route acrossthe Willaumez Peninsula to supportfurther operations against Matsuda'sline of retreat. Since 6 March,Colonel Smith's force had killed anestimated 150 Japanese at the costof 17 Marines killed and 114wounded, most of the casualtiessuffered on the first day. The finalphase of the fighting that began onRed Beach consisted of securingGarua Island, abandoned by theJapanese, for American use, a taskfinished on 9 March.

The results of the action at thebase of the Willaumez Peninsulaproved mixed. The grass airstrip atTalasea lacked the length to accommodatefighters, but the division'sliaison planes made extensive useof it, landing on either side of thecarcass of a Japanese aircraft untilthe wreckage could be hauled away.The trail net, essentially a web ofmuddy paths, required long hoursof hard work by Company F, 17thMarines, and Army engineers, whoused a 10-ton wrecker to recoverthree Sherman tanks that had becomemired during the fighting. By10 March, the trails could support afurther advance. Two days later, elementsof Deakin's 3d Battalion, 5thMarines, having moved inlandfrom the beachhead, provided aguard of honor as Colonel Smithand his executive officer, LieutenantColonel Henry W. Buse, raised overBitokara the same flag that hadflown over Airfield No. 2 at CapeGloucester.

Final Combat and Relief

The flotilla of Army LCMs andNavy LCTs that supported the Volupailandings inflicted further damageon Japanese coastal traffic, alreadyhard hit by air strikes. On 9March, a convoy of landing craft carryingsupplies around the tip of thepeninsula for delivery to the advancingMarines at Talasea spotted fourenemy barges, beached and sloppilycamouflaged. An LCT took thebarges under fire from its 20mm cannonand machine guns, destroyingone of the Japanese craft. Later thatday, two LCMs used the 37mm gunof the Marine light tank that eachwas carrying, to fire upon anotherbarge beached on the peninsula.

The enemy tried to make the bestpossible use of the dwindling numberof barges, but the bulk of Matsuda'stroops moved overland,screened by Terunuma's men duringthe transit of the base of theWillaumez Peninsula. About a hundredJapanese dug in at Garilli, butby the time Company K of Deakin's3d Battalion, 5th Marines, attackedon 11 March, the enemy had fallenback to a new trail block aboutthree miles distant. For four days,the Marines fought a succession ofsharp actions, as the Japanese retreateda few hundred yards at atime, dragging with them a 75mmgun that anchored each of the[pg30]blocking positions. On 16 March,Deakin himself joined Company K,arriving in an LCM that also carrieda section of 81mm mortars. TheJapanese turned their cannon seawardto deal with this threat butfailed to hit the landing craft.Shortly after the Marine mortarslanded and went into action,Terunuma's men again withdrew,but this time they simply fadedaway, since the bulk of MatsudaForce had escaped to the east.

Having secured the Red Beach-GaruaBay-Talasea area, the 5thMarines dispatched patrols southwardto the base of the WillaumezPeninsula, capturing only the occasionalstraggler and confirming thedeparture of the main body of Matsuda'scommand. The 1st MarineDivision established a comfortableheadquarters, training sites, a hospitalthat utilized captured stocks ofJapanese medicine, and a rest areathat featured swimming off theGarua beaches and bathing in hotsprings ashore. The Navy built abase on the Willaumez Peninsulafor torpedo boats that harried thesurviving Japanese barges. Unfortunately,on 27 March, the second daythe base was operating, Allied aircraftmistook two of the boats forJapanese craft and attacked, killingfive sailors and wounding 18.

One of the courses taught at thenew Garua training center soughtto produce amphibious scouts forthe division's future operations.The school's headquarters decidedthat a reconnaissance of CapeHoskins would serve as a suitablegraduation exercise, since aerial observershad seen no sign of enemyactivity there. On 13 April, SecondLieutenant Richard R. Breen, accompaniedby Lieutenant Marslandof the Royal Australian Air Force,embarked with 16 trainees, two nativeguides, and a rifle platoon fromthe 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, in apair of LCMs. While two instructorsstood by in one of the landing craft,the platoon established a trail block,and the future scouts advanced towardthe Cape Hoskins airfield, nolonger used by the Japanese. Enroute to the objective, however, thepatrol encountered fire from smallarms and mortars, but the Marineshad apparently learned theirlessons well, for they succeeded inbreaking off the action and escapedwithout suffering casualties.

Meanwhile, the Japanese retreatcontinued. Komori's troops, blazingthe trail for Sato's command fromAugitni to the northern coast, encountereda disheartening numberof hungry stragglers as theymarched toward a supply depot atKandoka, roughly 10 miles west ofthe Willaumez Peninsula. Crossingthe Kuhu River, Komori's soldierscame under ineffectual fire from anAmerican landing craft. The rain-swollenVia River, broader than theKuhu, proved a more serious obstacle,requiring a detour lasting twodays to reach a point where thestream narrowed. Komori's provisionsran out on 17 March, forcingthe soldiers to subsist on taro, birdsand fish, and vegetables from villagegarden plots, supplemented bysome welcome coconuts gatheredfrom a plantation at Linga Linga.After losing additional time and adozen lives crossing yet anotherriver, the Kapaluk, Komori's troopsstraggled into Kandoka on the 24th,only to discover that the food andother supplies had been carried offtoward Rabaul. Despite this crushingdisappointment, Komoripressed on, his men continuing tolive off the land as best they could.Five more men drowned in the fast-movingwaters of the Kulu River,and a native hired as a guide defected.Already weakened physically,Komori came down with anattack of malaria, but he forcedhimself to continue.

The survivors struggled onwardtoward Cape Hoskins and ultimatelyRabaul. On 9 April, EasterSunday, four half-starved Japanesewandered onto the San RemoPlantation, where Gayle's battalion[pg31]had bivouacked after pursuingthe enemy eastward from theWillaumez Peninsula. The Marineunit was preparing to pass in reviewfor the regimental commanderlater that day, when a sentrysaw the intruders and opened fire.The ensuing skirmish killed threeof the enemy. One of the deadproved to be Major Komori; hispack contained a rusty revolverand a diary describing the sufferingsof his command.

Colonel Sato, with the rest of therear guard for the Matsuda Force, setout from Augitni on 7 March, oneday after Komori, who sent backword on the 19th that patrols fromthe 5th Marines had fanned out fromthe Willaumez Peninsula, where thereinforced regiment had landed almosttwo weeks earlier. When Satoreached Linga Linga and cameacross a bivouac abandoned by aMarine patrol, his force had dwindledto just 250 men, less than halfthe number that started out. He receiveda shock the following daywhen American landing craft appearedas his men prepared to crossthe Kapaluk River. He immediatelyset up a perimeter to beat back theexpected attack, but the boats werecarrying elements of the 2d Battalion,1st Marines, under MajorCharles H. Brush, Jr. A patrol fromBrush's Company F landed on abeach beyond Kandoka, the formersite of a Japanese supply cache, anddispatched one platoon, led by FirstLieutenant William C. Schleip, westwardalong the coastal track, even asSato, aware only of the general locationof the landing, groped eastwardtoward the village. On 26 March, thetwo collided, the Japanese surprisingthe Marines in the act of crossinga small stream and pinning themdown for some three hours until theapproach of reinforcements fromCompany F forced the enemy tobreak off the action, take to the jungle,and bypass Kandoka.

As the head of Sato's column disappearedin the jungle, one of thedivision's light airplanes, scoutinglanding sites for Brush's battalion,sighted the tail near Linga Linga.The pilot, Captain Petras, turnedover the controls to Brigadier GeneralEarl C. Long, also a pilot,sketched the location of the Japanese,and dropped the map to one ofthe troop-laden landing craft. Petrasthen led the way to an undefendedbeach, where Brush's Marineswaded ashore and set out in pursuitof Sato. On 30 March, Second LieutenantRichard B. Watkins, at thehead of an eight-man patrol, spotteda pair of Japanese, their riflesslung, who turned out to be membersof a 73-man patrol, far toomany for Watkins to handle.

Once the enemy column hadmoved off, Watkins and his menhurried to Kandoka, where he reportedto Major Brush and obtainedmortars and machine guns beforeagain taking to the trail. Brush followed,bringing a reinforced rifleplatoon to increase the Marine firepower.Meanwhile, the Japanese encounteredyet another Marine patrol,this one led by Sergeant FrankChliek, which took up a position onhigh ground that commanded thetrail. When they heard Chliek'sgroup open fire, Watkins and Brushhurried to its aid; the resultingslaughter killed 55 Japanese, includingColonel Sato, who died swordin hand, but the Marines did notsuffer even one casualty.

On 9 April, the 3d Battalion, 1stMarines, under Lieutenant ColonelHankins, replaced Brush's 1st Battalionand continued the search forenemy stragglers. The bulk of theMatsuda Force, and whatever suppliesit could transport, had by thistime retreated to Cape Hoskins andbeyond, and Army troops were takingover from the Marines. Almostfour months had elapsed since thelanding at Cape Gloucester; clearlythe time had come for the amphibioustroops to move on to an operationthat would make better use oftheir specialized training andequipment. The final action foughtby the Leathernecks took place on22 April, when an ambush sprungby the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines,killed 20 Japanese and resulted inthe last Marine fatality of the campaign.In seizing western NewBritain as part of the isolation ofRabaul, the division suffered 310killed in action and 1,083 wounded,roughly one-fourth the estimatedJapanese casualties.

Early in February 1944, after thecapture of the Cape Gloucester airfieldsbut before the landing atVolupai, General Rupertus warnedthat his 1st Marine Division mightremain on New Britain indefinitely.Having the unit tied down for anextended period alarmed the recentlyappointed Commandant ofthe Marine Corps, General Vandegrift."Six months there," he remarked,referring to an extendedcommitment in New Britain, "and itwill no longer be a well-trained amphibiousdivision." Vandegrifturged Admiral Ernest J. King, theChief of Naval Operations, to helppry the division from MacArthur'sgrasp so it could again undertakeamphibious operations. AdmiralChester W. Nimitz, Commander inChief, Pacific Ocean Areas, wantedthe division for the impending invasionof the Palau Islands, the captureof which would protect theflank of MacArthur's advance tothe Philippines. In order to obtainthe Marines, Nimitz made theArmy's 40th Infantry Divisionavailable to MacArthur, in effectswapping a division capable of takingover the New Britain campaignfor one that could spearhead theamphibious offensive against Japan.MacArthur, however, briefly retainedcontrol of one component ofthe Marine division—Company A,[pg32]1st Tank Battalion. That unit'smedium tanks landed on 22 Aprilat Hollandia on the northern coastof New Guinea, but a swamp justbeyond the beachhead preventedthe Shermans from supporting theadvance inland.

The commanding general of theArmy's 40th Infantry Division, MajorGeneral Rapp Brush, arrived at NewBritain on 10 April to arrange for therelief. His advance echelon arrivedon the 23d and the remainder of thedivision five days later. The 1st MarineDivision departed in two echelonson 6 April and 4 May. Left behindwas the 12th Defense Battalion,which continued to provide antiaircraftdefense for the Cape Gloucesterairfields until relieved by an Armyunit late in May.

In a campaign lasting fourmonths, the 1st Marine Division hadplunged into the unforgiving jungleand overwhelmed a determined andresolute enemy, capturing the CapeGloucester airfields and driving theJapanese from western New Britain.A number of factors helped theMarines defeat nature and theJapanese. Allied control of the airand the sea provided mobility anddisrupted the coastal barge trafficupon which the enemy had to dependfor the movement of largequantities of supplies, especiallybadly needed medicines, during theretreat to Rabaul. Warships andlanding craft armed with rockets—supplementedby such improvisationsas tanks or rocket-equippedamphibian trucks firing from landingcraft—supported the landings,but the size of the island and thelack of fixed coastal defenses limitedthe effectiveness of the variousforms of naval gunfire. Using superiorengineering skills, the Marinesdefied swamp and undergrowth tobring forward tanks that crushedenemy emplacements and added tothe already formidable Americanfirepower. Although photo analysis,an art that improved rapidly, misinterpretedthe nature of the dampflat, Marine intelligence made excellentuse of captured Japanese documentsthroughout the campaign. Inthe last analysis, the courage and enduranceof the average Marine madevictory possible, as he braved discomfort,disease, and violent deathduring his time in the green inferno.

Sources

Three books have proved essential tothis account of the fighting on NewBritain. Lieutenant Colonel Frank O.Hough, USMCR, dealt at length with thecampaign in The Island War: The UnitedStates Marine Corps in the Pacific (Philadelphia:J. B. Lippincott, 1947). With MajorJohn Crown, USMCR, he wrote the officialMarine Corps historical monograph: TheNew Britain Campaign (Washington: HistoricalBranch, G-3 Division, HQMC,1952). The third of these essential volumesis Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Major Douglas T.Kane, USMC, Isolation of Rabaul—Historyof U. S. Marine Corps Operations in WorldWar II, vol 2 (Washington: HistoricalBranch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1963.)

Other valuable sources include: WesleyFrank Craven and James Lea Cate,eds., The Pacific: Guadalcanal to Saipan,August 1942-July 1944—The Army AirForces in World War II, vol 4 (Washington:Office of Air Force History, reprint1983); George McMillan, The Old Breed:A History of the First Marine Division inWorld War II (Washington: Infantry JournalPress, 1949); John Miller, Jr., TheUnited States Army in World War II; TheWar in the Pacific: CARTWHEEL, The Reductionof Rabaul (Washington: Office ofChief of Military History, 1959); SamuelEliot Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier,22 July 1942-1 May 1944—A Historyof United States Naval Operations in WorldWar II, vol 6 (Boston: Little, Brown, andCompany, 1950).

The Marine Corps Gazette printed fourarticles analyzing aspects of the NewBritain campaign: Lieutenant ColonelRobert B. Luckey, USMC, "Cannon, Mud,and Japs," vol 28, no 10 (October 1944);George McMillan, "Scouting at CapeGloucester," vol 30, no 5 (May 1946); andFletcher Pratt, "Marines Under MacArthur:Cape Gloucester," vol 31, no 12 (December1947); and "Marines Under MacArthur:Willaumez," vol 32, no 1 (January 1947).

Of the Marine Corps oral history interviewsof participants in the New Britainfighting, the most valuable were withGenerals Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., andEdwin A. Pollock and Lieutenant GeneralsHenry W. Buse, Lewis J. Fields, RobertB. Luckey, and John N. McLaughlin.

Almost three dozen collections of personalpapers deal in one way or anotherwith the campaign, some of them providingnarratives of varying length and othersphotographs or maps. The most enlighteningcommentary came from thepapers of Major Sherwood Moran,USMCR, before the war a missionary inJapan and during the fighting an intelligencespecialist with the 1st Marine Division,who discussed everything from copingwith the weather to understandingthe motivation of the Japanese soldier.

About the Author

Bernard C. Nalty served as a civilian memberof the Historical Branch, G-3 Division,HQMC, from October 1956 to September1961. In collaboration with Henry I. Shaw, Jr.,and Edwin T. Turnbladh, he wrote Central PacificDrive, volume 3 of the History of U.S. MarineCorps Operations in World War II, and healso completed a number of short historicalstudies, some of which appeared as articles inLeatherneck or Marine Corps Gazette. He joined the history office of theJoint Chiefs of Staff in 1961, transferring in 1964 to the Air Force historyprogram, from which he retired in January 1994.

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in theWorld War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines bythe History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observanceof the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part bya bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband,Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a PurpleHeart.

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR.
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
Benis M. Frank

CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT
George C. MacGillivray

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION
Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information
Specialist; Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical Center
Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

1994
PCN 190 003128 00