- 84 - Pacific War - Invasion of New Georgia, June 27 - July 4, 1943

Last time we spoke about the extensive plans involved in Operation Cartwheel. The allies were crossing their T’s and dotting their I’s. MacArthur was getting closer to unleashing Operation Chronicle, the invasion of Woodlark and Kiriwina islands. MacArthur’s Navy, that being the 7th amphibious fleet are now prime and ready to go. Over in the Solomons, Admiral Halsey’s Operation Toenails likewise had finalized their plans for a full scale invasion of New Georgia. The invasion would consist of multiple amphibious assaults done by countless units all with important missions. It was to be a extraordinary complex operation that would showcase to the Japanese how far American production had come and just how doomed the empire of the rising sun was. In the words of a great wizard “The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great battle of our time”

This episode is the Invasion of New Georgia

Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. 

 

I do want to just start off with a bit of an apology. I am well aware the past few episodes have been extremely heavy on the planning rather than the doing as they say. Again this is the reality of the week by week schedule and this podcast as I hope all of you know follows the Youtube series almost to a T, well almost, I do like to wander off now and then. But today I assure you we are diving into the fray of battle. Ever since the conclusion of operation KE and the allied victory at the Bismarck Sea, the war in the South Pacific had gotten a bit more quiet, but certainly tense. Both sides were looking at another, expecting a major offensive to kick off at any moment. But it would be the allies who would kick off everything by unleashing the start of Operation Cartwheel. The opening shots of Cartwheel would begin with the invasion of Woodlark and Kiriwana islands just off the southeast coast of New Guinea and due south of New Britain.

Colonel MacKechnie’s 162nd regiment continued to prepare their Nassau bay landings just 11 miles south of Salamaua. Ever since April of that year their 1st battalion had been carrying intensive amphibious training at Morobe Harbor. They were being reinforced with the 532nd engineer shore regiment, 542nd engineer amphibian regiment, the 592nd engineer boat regiment under Brigadier William Heavey and with a Papuan infantry battalion who had marched to Buso by mid june. Under orders not to proceed any further north, the spent their time carrying out long-range patrols, gaining valuable intelligence on the enemy. From their intelligence, MacKechnie believed there were about 75 Japanese near the mouth of the Bitoi river, an outpost or two along the beach at Nassau Bay and about 300 Japanese on Cape Dinga which also held an outpost. MacKechnie decided to use Mageri point as a staging base, which held an excellent beach 12 miles north of Morobe with good cover for their landing crafts.They had with them 2 LCMS, 2 captured Japanese barges and 29 Higgens boats. To further augment them, 4 PT boats were assigned to help transport the men, around 150 of them from Morobe.

In the meantime, Brigadier Moten planned to send Captain Dexter’s D company who had just achieved an incredible victory at Lababia ridge where they repelled a Japanese force 10 times their size to march to the Bitoi rivers mouth to divert Japanese attention away from Nassau bay. On top of this one of their platoon’s led by Lt Dave Burke would guide the Americans to the landing beach. Now operation Chronicle was expected to go unopposed, though Krueger did not tell his men that. The Woodlark group consisted of Colonel Cunningham’s 112th cavalry regiment while Kiriwina would receive Colonel Herndon’s 158th regiment. Admiral Barbey’s 7th Amphibious force with the support of Admiral Carpender’s 7th fleet would transport them.

On June the 20th, Krueger set up the 6th Army HQ at Milne Bay. The 6th Army was codenamed the Alamo Force as it assumed control of the majority of US Army units involved in operation Cartwheel. General Kruegers command was actually a bit awkward. Instead of operations being conducted directly by the 6th army, the Alamo force, which was purely an operational entity, basically administration, was in charge…and it was directly under the control of Douglas MacArthur. So as you can imagine for Krueger …well it was like having two of the same hat kind of? In his own words "the inherent difficulties faced by my dual headquarters in planning and administration were aggravated by the command setup, which was a novel one to say the least." Thus Alamo force was on New Guinea while the main body of the 6th Army HQ, the real one was in Brisbane until February 1944, when upon they were merged together. Yes this was a sneaky maneuver by MacArthur to seize control. Ever since the Buna campaign, MacArthur was increasingly unhappy with having to depend primarily on Australian troops. Although on the surface he look to be in a great harmonious relationship with Blamey, in truth MacArthur was extremely critical of the man and the Australians in general. Alamo Force was his way of wedging himself into the chief role for planning and conducting the later stages of the war, thus bypassing Blamey as the allied ground force commander. 

To kick off the operation, Krueger sent advance parties of the regiment groups to secure beachheads in the two islands. At 4pm on June 22nd an advance party of the 112th cavalry regiment led by Major McMains left Milne Bay aboard the destroyer transports Humphreys and Brooks bound for Woodlark. They arrived in the dead of night at Guasopa and unloaded 200 men using 6 Landing crafts. The destroyer transport departed by 4am for Milne Bay. It turned out a Australian coastwatcher, not having been informed of the landing nearly attacked the force with his locally recruited guerrillas. But upon hearing the accents of the troops he quickly realized them to be friend and not foe. The advance party went to work performing reconnaissance, establishing defenses and facilities for the incoming invasion force and clearly marked the beaches for them to land. The next day the 158th infantry regiments advance party led by Lt COlonel FLoyd Powell departed Milne Bay at 6:10 aboard the two destroyer transports. They were accompanied by a detachment of the 59th combat engineer company. They arrived to Kiriwina around midnight, taking their landing craft through a small channel that passed through a reef to the beach at Losuia, code named Red Beach. Their unloading was quite slow due to lack of experience, bringing them the threat of aerial attack by the enemy. Thus the ships were forced to depart partially loaded. 

On June 25th Operation Chronicle officially began. 2600 troops of Colonel Cunninham’s Woodlark force departed Townsville Australia aboard 6 Landing ships, a subchaser and the destroyers Bagley and Henley. As the Woodlark Force slowly and stealthily made its way, 2250 troops of Colonel Herndon’s Kiriwina Force departed Milne Bay aboard 12 Landing crafts, 2 coastal transports and were escorted by Admiral Brabeys destroyers. They successfully landed at Losuia beach at dawn on June 30th completely unopposed and the unloaded process was quite slow. Around the same time, Colonel Cunninghams force landed at Woodlark, also unopposed, but their unloading went much faster. The problem for the team at Kiriwina was an extremely spiny necklace of coral. The landing craft had grounded several hundred yards short of the beach, with only a single one passing over the sandbar to land offshore. Heavy rain and a low tide were hampering the vehicles and thus making it a nightmare. It was the complete opposite story over at woodlark. Their supplies were already loaded onto trucks which drove straight off the landing crafts allowing for an efficient unloading process so the vessels could depart before enemy air attacks might occur.

Meanwhile, B-25’s of the US 5th air force bombed Japanese strong points along the Bitoi river as A-20 Bostons hit supply dumps on the southern side of Nassau Bay on June 29th. The amphibious landing force known as MacKechnie Force departed Mort Bay at dusk on the 29th. PT boats of the 7th fleet took around 210 men of Lt Colonel Harold Taylors 1st battalion, 162nd infantry regiment while 29 of the captured Japanese barges took the 770 men of 2nd Engineer special brigade and two mechanized landing craft took the 532nd engineer boat and shore regiment to Mageri point. They landed in 3 waves and just like woodlark and Kiriwina, it went unopposed seeing all 770 safely landed at Nassau bay. The Japanese defending the immediate area were just 6 guys at an observation post, and offered only a few shouts in defiance before they fled into the jungle. 

On June 30th the men went to work clearing up the beach to create a defensive perimeter, while some units of C company marched south to link up with the incoming papuan infantry battalion. Some other patrols ran into Japanese and were turned away near the bitcoin river. Upon receiving news of the landing, General Nakano ordered the 3rd regiment of the 66th battalion to march south from Salamaua. However the Australians were also applying pressure near Bobdubi so the 3rd regiment could only carry out limited attacks on the allied forces around Nassau bay, before they would perform delaying actions to allow the Nassau garrison to withdraw towards lake salus. The Papuan battalion began attacking the rear of the Japanese 3rd regiment of the 102nd battalion around Cape Dinga causing some casualties when they stormed a Japanese bunker. Nassau Bay would see some minor Japanese air attacks but for the most part things were going smoothly, allowing the seabees to work on the new facilities and airstrips for Woodlark and Kiriwina. Now thats it for MacArthurs half, time to go over to the Solomons.

As you will remember, Admiral Haley’s plan for New Georgia consisted of 5 different landings scattered about the island. Four of these landings were to occur on June 30th. These landings were 1) Wickham Anchorage on the southeast coast of Vangunu 2) Segi Point on the southeastern tip of New Georgia 3) Viru harbor on the southwest coast of New Georgia just a few miles up from Segi and 4) Rendova Harbor on Rendova island just across the Blanche channel from Munda. As a preliminary, Halsey sought to land some reconnaissance teams. The first one to arrive was at Segi point on June 14th consisting of units from the 47th seabees tossed over by PBY’s. They began constructing landing sites for heavy equipment to come over. The next saw units go over to Viru Harbor, then Oloana Bay on Vangunu just a bit west of Wickham Anchorage, another at Rendava harbor and a last one at Rice anchorage. These teams all prepared the way for the future landing teams. However all did not go smoothly, for on June 16th over at Segi Point a dozen scouts being led by the New Zealand coastwatcher Donald Kennedy unsuccessfully ambushed a Japanese patrol. Kennedy had established a defense zone around the village of Segi used local native forces who were using scavenged weapons and they often tried to ambush and kill small Japanese patrols. This patrol they had stumbled upon was a platoon from the 4th company, 229th regiment operating around Viru harbor. They didnt manage to kill any of the Japanese, but instead alerted Colonel Sasaki of allied activity near Segi point and Viru harbor. Sasaki responded by ordered Major Hara Masao the new commander of the 1st battalion with his 3rd company and a machine gun platoon over to Viru harbor the following night. His orders read “settle things”. Luckily Hara had no idea where exactly Kennedy and his guys were so they would have difficulty finding them, but this did mean Japanese activity in the area increased. On June 20th Kennedy made an inaccurate report indicating the Japanese had landed troops in Nono Lagoon prompting Admiral Turner to react. That night Turner sent Companies O and P of Colonel Currins 4th raiders to occupy Segi Point with companies A and D of the 103rd regiment following them the next day. This meant Kennedy and his men were saved, but it also alerted the Japanese of the incoming offensive as allied destroyer transports were spotted around Wickham. This prompted Admiral Kusaka to put the Southeast Fleet on high alert, but further reconnaissance failed to find anything, thus by the 27th the IJN relaxed. This was also partly due to the fact that the IJN believed no invasions would come until late July or August.

It would only be Lt General Sasaki who believed the allies might invade as early as late June, so he had set to work preparing New Georgia’s defenses. Sasaki did not have much time, nor much capable labor as there was a large case of malaria going around. Added to this materials and equipment were hard to come by as supply missions were failing to arrive on time. The terrain on the island was quite an obstacle also. The Japanese dug into coral on the south side of their airfield and establishing communication lines towards the east. In the northern sector Sasaki placed 4 Kure 6th 14cm guns at Enogai point, but Bairoko had basically nothing. East of the airfield practically no defense existed. Sasaki managed at the last minute to construct some gun emplacements at Bairoko ingeniously using blocks of coral, something that the Japanese would really build up in later island warfare. To establish a main line east of the airfield he had the men build extremely strong bunkers to face frontal assaults across the Munda Bar. Communications would be a major issue as all they had to work with was a motor vehicle road that ran along the beach to Lambete and 1000 meters of completed road between the southeast Detachment HQ and 229th infantry HQ. Other than that there were no roads, just some trails which Sasaki described “that turned into slush ponds after rain”. To keep in contact with the troops spread everywhere, Sasaki requested they use an underground cable, but it seems he never got it. Sasaki was forced to spread his men in multiple places seeing company sized units in exposed locations at Wickham Anchorage, Viru harbor and Rendova harbor. These units would have been better used at places like ENogai, Bairoko and Ilangana.

To help with the landings, General Kenney ordered the 5th air force  to launch a heavy raid against Rabaul while Admiral Merrill’s cruisers escorted minelayers up to the Shortland islands to mine the southern entrance to Buin. Merrill’s cruisers also took the time to bombard Faisi, Ballale and the Poporang islands while he dispatched some destroyers to hit Vila. Early on june the 30th B-24’s and B-17s from AirSols hit Kahili and further raids would be made against Munda and Vila throughout the day. 

The night of June 29th was a very stormy one hindering the AirSols and 5th air forces abilities and even Merrill’s ships had difficulty carrying out their tasks. Admirals Turner and Fort departed from Guadalcanal, Tulagi and the Russels to land the forces. Two groups of infantry units code named“barracudas”; 2 companies of the 172nd regiment enroute for Rendova and Companies A and B of the 169th regiment and 1st Commando Fiji Guerillas enroute for Honiavasa went ahead of Turner aboard the faster transports Ward, Lang, Talbot and Zane. They were going to seize Rendova Harbor’s beaches and the Honiavasa passage. The convoys continued their voyage to New Georgia in the early hours of the 30th facing no difficulties and would reach their jump off points in the early morning. The Barracuda groups arrived at 2:25an, successfully landing the first infantry group at Baraulu, Honiavasa and the Sasevele islands securing their staging base. The Rendova group however got a bit lost, leading to a bit of disorder, but they landed nonetheless. 

By 6am the 43rd division begun its landing which was described by the US Marine corps official history as “hurried and having the appearance of a regatta rather than a coordinated landing, it was chaotic in the extreme”. Troops from the 103rd field artillery battalion, Marines from the 9th defense battalion and Seabees from the 24th naval construction battalion secured the beach even though Japanese sniper of the 1st rifle company, Kure 6th and 7th company, 229th regiment were making pot shots at them. There was also the appearance of Japanese Betty’s overhead who circled the landing zone, but did not attack. The Japanese reported back to their commanders “that due to the tenacious interference by enemy fighter planes, a decisive blow could not be struck against the enemy landing convoy. And that the landings were an absolutely miraculous and speedy disembarkation of the enemy”. I believe this showcases another major disparity between the allies and the Japanese, that of amphibious assaults. The allies and Japanese were on par at the beginning of the conflict, neither side understood the science per say, but particularly the American began to really study how it to do it, designing and employing multiple different vehicles to help in its efforts. Meanwhile the Japanese would do little to improve their methodology, thus from their perspective to see how the allies were doing it in mid to late 1943 probably looked like magic. General Hesters 2nd battalion, 172nd regiment quickly established a defensive perimeter around the beachhead. His men had a rough time of digging in due to the ground being heavily waterlogged, nothing like a wet foxhole eh?

Outnumbered and taken by surprise, the Japanese were gradually pushed into the interior suffering heavy casualties in the process. They initially assembled in a coconut plantation behind the initial landing beach known as the Levers plantation. They took up a position hoping to launch a counter attack on the American perimeter. However a week of heavy rain left them fighting miserably in knee deep water and eventually they could not bare it any longer so they withdrew further into the hinterland. Troops of the 172nd regiment pursued many of them shooting down several snipers and machine gun positions as they advanced towards the Pengui river. Near the river the Japanese tried to remain firm meeting the Americans with all they had, but the US mortars rained hell upon them eventually forcing them into a rout. The Japanese would scatter, many aboard makeshift rafts trying to head for the mainland. These efforts would be in vain however as American patrol vessels caught many of them.

Over on Baanga island and around Munda Japanese artillery began opening up on 4 US destroyers sailing through the Blanche channel. The USS Gwin was hit, killing 3 and wounded 7 before the USS Farenholt and Buchanan began to return fire upon the batteries neutralizing them. Just before noon a force of 27 Zeros of the 11th air fleet performed a fighter sweep over the beachhead, but it resulted in nothing more than a few delays and the loss of 4 Zeros to allied fighters. 6000 Americans were soon landed on Rendova. It was grueling work to create the beach head, in the words of the Seabees leader, Commander Roy Whittaker about the conditions his men had to work in “They ceased to look like men; they looked like slimy frogs working in some prehistoric ooze. As they sank to their knees they discarded their clothes. They slung water out of their eyes, cussed their mud-slickened hands, and somehow kept the stuff rolling ashore.” Indeed it was a hell of a time. Tons of bulky B rations, hundreds of barrels of petroleum, thousands of barrack bags filled with personnel items were piled all over the beach. People don’t often ever think about the logistics of war, its usually seen as the unsexy stuff, but it was of critical importance as we have seen countless times in this series. The Seabees were missing heavy bulldozers, army engineers, adequate medical personnel, military police, because yes boys will be boys and a lot of men were stealing stuff. It turned out the reason for a lot of the lack was because Turner loaded the operation for an unopposed landing rather than an offensive one. As reported by Lt COlonel McNenny “equipment and stores carried in the New Georgia operation were excessive. It appears the forward base must be considered as an assembly area for launching the assault.” Colonel George W. McHenry wrote in his notes, “Believe too much gear for initial landing. Stress what [is] necessary to fight and eat. Bring other up after secure.” By 3pm, most of Turners stuff was unloaded and his vessels were preparing their withdrawal.

Admiral Kusaka and General Imamura had already been alarmed by the landings at Nassau Bay, and were shocked to find out at 6:50 Rendova was seeing landings. In response they unleashed an air strike at around 3:45pm. Led by Lt Commander Nakamura Genzo, 26 Betty’s and 24 Zeros came in to attack the departing convoy. they were intercepted by 48 allied aircraft made up of F4U Corsairs and F6F Hellcats and were met with heavy anti aircraft fire. The Japanese lost a 10 Zeros and 19th Bettys in the mayhem. However a single Betty was able to release a torpedo which struck Turners flagship McCawley, killing 15 sailors and wounding 8 others. Turner luckily survived the hit and transferred his flag to Farenholt. Rear Admiral Theodore Wilkinson remained aboard the McCawley as she began being towed by the cargo ship Libra. Later in the afternoon, another Japanese wave of 21 Zeros, 9 Vals and 13 F1M Floatplanes showed up attacking the convoy. The McCawley was strafed, but managed to fight back with their anti aircraft guns shooting 3 planes down. By 6:60pm it seemed the McCawley was going to sink so Admiral Wilkinson ordered her abandoned. Later on at 8:22 a PT boat would actually misidentify the doomed McCawley as an enemy ship and torpedoed her twice, sinking her. The poor fleet tug Pawnee who was tugging her at the time narrowly was hit as well. At 5:20, 21 Zeros and 9 Vals would launch their last attack, but it was extremely disorderly and amounted to nothing. By the end of the day, AirSols had destroyed nearly a quarter of Kusaka’s air strength while only losing 17 fighters in the process. The losses were so grave, Kusaka was forced to ask Imamura to commit the 6th air division to help out in the future. When the IJN is asking the IJA for help, you know the shit has really hit the fan.

Now over to the east, Admiral Fort was performing his 3 simultaneous landings. At Wickham Anchorage, Fort was going to land Companies N and Q of the 4th raiders along with Lt Colonel Lester Browns 2nd battalion, 103rd regiment. They would touch down on a 500 yard strip of beach at Olona Bay. The 4th raiders would lead the charge heading their in the first destroyer transports, but mother nature was cruel that day leading to 6 Higgins boats getting wrecked and seeing Raiders scattered all over the area. One platoon got stranded on a reef 7 miles west of the landing point, not fun at all. Brown’s landing craft infantry meanwhile had no difficulty in landing on the marked beach. After reuniting with the scattered Raiders, Brown learnt there were enemy bases at Kearuku Village and Vuru. In response to this he sent Company E of the Raiders to hit Vuru while the bulk of his forces would capture Kearuku. The advance was slowed by rain, allowing Colonel Sasaki to send word to his men over at Wickham to withdraw to the northern coast of New Georgia as they were outnumbered and outgunned. However there was no way for them to do this as their barges were scattered in the Marovo Lagoon. Thus the Japanese found themselves under fire from the north side of the Kairuku river and by nightfall were being pushed towards Segi Point where their artillery was set up. The men defending Vuru had it worse and were easily scattered by E Company.

The next day the Japanese began unleashing their artillery, prompting Brown to request air and naval support to allow his men to hit Segi. However the support would only be able to come on July 3rd and by that time the Japanese had managed to escape. When July 3rd came, some US destroyers and 18 Dauntless dive bombers bombed Segi point. When Browns troops went in they killed 7 dazed Japanese and captured one. Because of the preemptive capture of Segi, the plans had to change in regards to Viru harbor. On the morning of june 28th, Colonel Curren ordered a single company to use rubber boats and go up the Choi river all the way to the western end of Nono Lagoon. From there the Raiders would march overland to hit the Japanese bivouacs at Tombe and Tetemara, hoping to link up with B company of the 103rd regiment. But now with Segi point taken, Currin instead left with his two companies to land at a village just a bit west of Nono Lagoon. However along the Choi river they would run into Japanese patrols, delaying them heavily. By june 30th, some of Forts destroyers would enter Viru Harbor expecting to find Currins Raiders, only to be met with 3 inch field gun fire from the Japanese at Tetemara. The destroyers left in haste and landed a company at Segi point to help the Raiders out. Currin that morning split his forces, sending P company to attack Tombe while the rest would circle west of the harbor, cross the mango river and attack Tetemara.

After marching through endless swamps, by July 1st Currin and his men were prepared to attack, but Sasaki had also decided to order the withdrawal of forces at Viru who were now marching overland towards Munda. At 8:45 the Raiders stormed Tombe, overwhelming the few defenders there. 15 minutes later, 17 Dauntless began bombing Tetemara disrupting Japanese artillery crews. An hour later the Japanese artillery opened fire against the raiders, but they fought through the rain of shells and machine gun bullets. Taking the Japanese machine gun nests caused heavy casualties. At 4pm Currin ordered a final push, seeing Tetemara taken after 30 minutes. Major Hara alongside 160 Japanese would manage to escape into the jungle, heading for Munda. Though the eastern landings saw some heavy resistance, all of the objectives were met. 

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The allies' successful amphibious assaults proved how far they had come and the Japanese could only look on in wonder at the marvel it was. Now the allies would keep pressing further and further north, one island at a time until the Solomons and New Guinea were liberated.