Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Death in the Bismarck Sea
- 2 Opposing forces
- 3 Warfe's tigers
- 4 Supply lines
- 5 Mubo stalemate
- 6 On Lababia Ridge
- 7 On Bobdubi Ridge
- 8 Yanks
- 9 Mubo falls
- 10 ‘A bit of a stoush’
- 11 The forbidden mountain
- 12 Roosevelt Ridge
- 13 Old Vickers
- 14 Komiatum Ridge
- 15 Across the Frisco
- 16 Salamaua falls
- Appendix: Place names
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Death in the Bismarck Sea
- 2 Opposing forces
- 3 Warfe's tigers
- 4 Supply lines
- 5 Mubo stalemate
- 6 On Lababia Ridge
- 7 On Bobdubi Ridge
- 8 Yanks
- 9 Mubo falls
- 10 ‘A bit of a stoush’
- 11 The forbidden mountain
- 12 Roosevelt Ridge
- 13 Old Vickers
- 14 Komiatum Ridge
- 15 Across the Frisco
- 16 Salamaua falls
- Appendix: Place names
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Following the Bismarck Sea debacle, the Japanese command realised that merchant ship convoys to Lae were no longer a viable option. Alternative means of transporting supplies and troops had to be found, and this would require brilliant organisational skill. Destroyers, submarines and landing barges would all be utilised as well as rugged jungle tracks.
Of the almost 4000 troops from the Lae convoy who survived, more than half reached the New Guinea mainland, the rest returning to Rabaul. Around a thousand troops reached Lae by destroyer, mainly those rescued from the first ship sunk, the Kyokusei Maru. Other surviving troops who had been landed at Tuluvu and around Finschhafen had made their way down to Lae over the following weeks. On 13 March six Japanese bombers with fighter cover landed at Lae, bringing in unit commanders, one of whom was the commander of the Eighteenth Army, Lieutenant-General Hatazo Adachi.
Supply considerations limited the Japanese force at Lae and Salamaua to 10,000 men. With 2500 of these men from the 7th Naval Base Unit, the army component was limited to 7500 men. The Eighteenth Army Chief of Staff, Major-General Kane Yoshihara, later wrote, ‘In the face of the enemy who was making a decisive attack it was as though we were a candle in the wind. It was an agonising situation to command the operations of such an army in this area.’ To maximise their effect, Adachi had to ensure the majority of those 7500 men were front-line troops.
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- Information
- To Salamaua , pp. 78 - 105Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010