The 70th Anniversary of V-J Day, which commemorates the victory over the Japanese Empire after a nearly four-year brutal struggle, has recently occurred. With the passage of this event, it is quite sobering upon gazing at a map of the Pacific Ocean to contemplate how the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) could have extended their blitzkrieg well to the south and southeast of their initial conquests along the Pacific rim (i.e., Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore) as well as Burma and the Philippine and the Netherlands East Indies (NEI and now Indonesia) Archipelagoes; to ultimately isolate the Antipodes, thereby, prolonging the war or, perhaps, even compelling the Allies to sue for a negotiated peace.
Now all that was left separating the arid Northern Territories of the Australian continent from the Japanese juggernaut were a few Australian Militia troops in the garrison at Port Moresby on the southern coast of Papuan New Guinea. Darwin, an administrative seat in the Northwest Territories of Australia, was, in fact, bombed by the Japanese on February 19, 1942 for the first time. The Australian government, with most of its Australian Imperial Force (AIF) serving in the Middle East, could only muster modest militia reinforcements for the country’s defense.
The Japanese were presented with a military decision borne out from their string of rapid conquests; namely, should there be a further expansion southeastwards, seizing many other South Pacific island groups, in order to cut the long oceanic supply lines from the United States to Australia and New Zealand, effecting their isolation as a forward military base or “springboard” for an Allied counteroffensive. Again, staring at a map of the massive Pacific Ocean, ultimate and successive Japanese occupation and airfield construction on New Caledonia along with the Solomon, New Hebrides, Fiji, Samoan, and Tonga Islands would interdict sea lane traffic from Pearl Harbor and the American West Coast to Australia’s eastern coast cities of Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne as well as New Zealand. However, the IJA decided to move southward from NEI in mid-January 1942, first to New Britain, in the Bismarck Archipelago, with Rabaul’s seizure and from there to occupy key positions along the northern coast of Papuan New Guinea at Buna and Gona as well as at Lae in Northeast New Guinea. By so doing, the Japanese High Command left the South Pacific supply routes open to Australia and New Zealand.
Later, this strategic omission by the Japanese military to delay the seizure of the Allied southeastern Pacific island possessions, along with the capture of Port Moresby across the Arafura Sea from northern Australia, would have to be rectified. To that end, the islet of Tulagi, across from the larger island of Guadalcanal, in the Southern Solomon Islands was seized by the IJN as a seaplane base in early May 1942; however, an amphibious assault to capture Port Moresby on the southern Papuan coast was contemporaneously thwarted in the first carrier-borne aircraft “duel” at the Battle of the Coral Sea. While still reeling from the IJN defeat after the Battle of Midway in early June 1942, Japanese infantry; from Davao in the Philippines, from Java in the NEI, and from Rabaul, were amassed to prepare for an overland attack on Port Moresby across Papuan New Guinea’s Owen Stanley Range from the newly-established northern Papuan coast garrisons at Buna and Gona by the end of July 1942.
Along with these actions, Guadalcanal was soon occupied by the Japanese in late June 1942 in order to construct an airfield in the Southern Solomons for the overdue southeastward advance to interdict the sea lanes to the Antipodes. American aircraft on July 4, 1942 first noted the rudimentary airfield construction on Guadalcanal’s northern coastal Lunga Plain, which consequently aroused the U.S. War Planners, chief among them Adm Ernest J. King, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet.
The tenacious defense, although in retreat, by the inexperienced Australian Militia followed by the battle-tested AIF brigades across the Kokoda Trail and southwards towards Port Moresby culminated in a stalling of the Japanese infantry assault to take that locale just under 30 air miles away with its searchlights visible to the enemy at night. After an almost two-month grueling jungle and mountainous offensive, the Japanese positioned themselves along the ridge at Ioribaiwa and the Australian infantry on the nearby Imita Ridge, where each side stood firm in mid-September 1942. The Japanese did not stop their advance for a lack of military zeal, but rather due to orders to retreat back towards Buna and Gona since further reinforcements could not be committed for the final push to Port Moresby since a contentious struggle was unfolding to the east in the Solomon Sea on Guadalcanal.
As the serendipity of warfare was to have it, the 1st Marine Division (Reinforced), under the command of Maj Gen Alexander A. Vandegrift, hastily invaded Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942 with the strategic goal to capture and defend the almost completed airfield on Lunga Plain that had been built by the Japanese. Recognizing that American possession of the newly-christened Henderson Field could thwart their southeastward drive toward the New Hebrides, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoan Islands, the IJA and IJN committed huge military assets to wrest control of Guadalcanal from the Americans. This was to become a six-month struggle of will between both combatants. American ground, naval, and air forces, eventually under the overall command of Vice-Adm William F. Halsey, maintained possession of the airfield through a harrowing perimeter defense against repeated Japanese infantry assaults along with near-continuous naval and aerial bombardment. Both the IJN and U.S. Navy were to suffer grievously in the waters off Guadalcanal amid horrific surface and aerial combat engagements. However, the gallant stand by the Marines and contingents of the U.S. Army “Americal” (23rd) Infantry Division followed by an American counteroffensive necessitated the Japanese evacuation from Guadalcanal in early February 1943.
Events in Papua remained quite bellicose during this time. Australian infantry and some American engineers repelled an enemy amphibious assault at Milne Bay in late August-early September 1942. Soon thereafter, the Japanese withdrew back up the Kokoda Trail and took to their reinforced defenses at Buna and Gona awaiting Gen Douglas A. MacArthur’s Australian-American offensive that commenced in November 1942. AIF brigades; along with the unblooded U.S. Army 32nd and 41st Infantry Divisions, comprised of American National Guard soldiers, fought a gruesome frontal assault battle against the fixed Japanese entrenchments. It would not be until January 1943, until the Japanese forces at Buna and Gona would be vanquished, thereby ending any realistic enemy plans to capture Port Moresby and wreak havoc on Northern Australia.
These seminal Allied offensives in Papua, New Guinea as well as on Guadalcanal, along with the U.S. Navy’s carrier-borne actions at Coral Sea and Midway, brought the Japanese juggernaut to an end. Japan would now have to go on the defensive in the South and Southwest Pacific to protect their bastion at Rabaul from a developing Allied pincer strategy comprised of MacArthur’s northern coastal New Guinea offensive and Halsey’s amphibious assaults up the Solomon Island chain. THE ROAD TO V-J DAY HAD JUST BEEN OPENED.
By Jon Diamond
Author Jon Diamond has done extensive research on the roles of the Australian and American Forces in the Pacific Theater. His book, New Guinea provides hundreds of stunning photographs which capture all aspects of this important time during the Second World War.
There is also an upcoming Stackpole Military Photo Series book on Guadalcanal, arriving in early 2016.
Follow