. [60] A total of 7,200 Japanese troops assembled at Genjem and then attempted to withdraw overland to Sarmi; only around 1,000 reached their destination. [8] ICPOAs first officer in charge was Cmdr. [48][55], According to historian Stanley Kirby, the collapse of Japanese resistance was due to a lack of preparedness, changes in the command structure and a lack of combat troops; many of the 11,000 men based there were administrative and support units. This airfield was of great value to the Australians during the fighting for northeast Papua. [47], I-Go demonstrated that the Japanese command was not learning the lessons of air power that the Allies were. At Sanananda the swamp and jungle were typhus-ridden crawling roots reached out into stagnant pools infested with mosquitoes and numerous crawling insects every foxhole filled with water. The beach was narrow, though, and only allowed two LCMs to land at a time, while the even bigger LSTs had to remain offshore where they were cross loaded on to LVTs. Neither Kitazono nor Endo had been able to prepare a comprehensive defensive plan, and in any event had neither the men nor the resources to carry it out. [7][8] Over the next year, the Japanese built up the area into a major air and naval base. Army units in the South Pacific were transferred to MacArthurs direct control in June, and the U.S. 13th Air Force was moved to the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) to form, with the U.S. 5th Air Force, the new Far Eastern Air Force, which was commanded by Gen. George C. Kenney in addition to his position as commander of Allied Air Forces SWPA. On December 7, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, severely damaging the US Pacific Fleet. Actual Allied losses amounted to one destroyer, one oiler, one corvette, two cargo ships and approximately 25 aircraft. These particular records were shipped to JICPOA in Hawaii and most of those identified as having no military value were then shipped to the Pacific Military Intelligence Service Research Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, for translation. Seven LSTs were also assigned. [4][32] The shortage of shipping meant that each ship had to be loaded as efficiently as possible, using a technique known as combat loading to ensure that the most important stores and equipment could be unloaded quickly. 141, for example, contained random poems of a Prisoner of War. Late the next month at Biak, an island in Geelvink Bay, New Guinea, CIC agents seized the records of the finance office, post office, bank, and Japanese headquarters. [11] Adachi continued to plan to make a last stand at Hollandia if he was defeated at Hansa Bay. ", Samuel Eliot Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, p. 60, planes and PTs went about the sickening business of killing survivors in boats, rafts or wreckage. The experience of the green US 32nd Infantry Division, just out of training camp and utterly unschooled in jungle warfare, was nearly disastrous. [citation needed]. This bombing operation was also the moment in the New Guinea campaign when Japanese air power no longer threatened the Allies. This deception effort proved successful. On 17 September, the Japanese had reached the village of Ioribaiwa, just 30 kilometres (20mi) from the Allied airdrome at Port Moresby. [58], Japanese casualties amounted to 3,300 killed and 600 wounded in combat;[59] a further 1,146 were killed or died in the area up to 27 September 1944. The Japanese defended Biak valiantly, even managing at one point to bring in 1,100 reinforcements, but they were finally overcome in early August. [57] Stephen R. Taaffe reached a similar conclusion. When the Allied forces began to advance, more documents were captured and a much higher proportion was official. Incidence of malaria was almost one hundred per cent. Blog of the Textual Records Division at the National Archives. The Japanese entered Lae and Salamaua, two locations on Huon Gulf, on 8 March 1942 unopposed. Allied planners believed that the two beaches were connected by a road, and that another road suitable for vehicle traffic ran inland towards Lake Sentani. The headland was formed by the Cyclops Mountains, a mountain ridge rising steeply to 7,000 feet (2,100m) and was backed by Lake Sentani, extending 15 miles (24km) east to west. Interrogation of a prisoner confirmed the fact that supplies were being unloaded at Lae from enemy submarines. Primary Image: The US pursued a two-pronged offensive across the central and southwest Pacific to . [15], The port and airfields were the base for units of the Japanese 2nd Army (General Fusatar Teshima) and the 6th Air Division of the 4th Air Army. The air defences consisted of P-39 and P-40 fighters. However, this is contradictory to the total number of Japanese combat deaths calculated across most individual battles in the campaign. region: "", "[32], "Also formidable was the tenacity of the enemy, who would fight to the death in these stinking holes, starving, diseased and with their dead rotting and unburied beside them. Documents captured during the Philippine operations also proved useful. Then began the grueling Kokoda Track campaign, a brutal experience for both the Japanese and Australian troops involved. Before June, between 20 and 25 P-39s had been lost in air combat, while three more had been destroyed on the ground and eight had been destroyed in landings by accident. Later, the procedure was altered again to cope with the tons of documents captured at main Japanese bases. Pre-landing reconnaissance efforts were hampered by the destruction of the Australian scouting party that was landed in the area by submarine in late March, and the reality of the terrain was only discovered through aerial intelligence that arrived too late. In early June, US Army engineers, Australian infantry and an anti-aircraft battery were landed near the Lever Brothers coconut plantation at Gili Gili, and work was begun on an airfield. West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, formerly known as Dutch New Guinea. Historians acknowledge that the deciphering of the Z Plan was one of the greatest single intelligence feats of the war in the South West Pacific Area. [34][35] During the same period, American air and naval forces sank many of the Japanese ships which were attempting to transport reinforcements to the Hollandia and Wewak areas; these attacks were guided by intelligence gained from breaking the Japanese codes. In early 1943, it became apparent, as the Allies assumed the offensive, that the volume of documents captured would far exceed the capacity of personnel available to translate each and every document in full. Task Force 74, under British Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, consisted of the cruisers HMAS Australia and Shropshire plus several destroyers, while Task Force 75 was made up of three U.S. cruisers, Phoenix, Nashville and Boise under Rear Admiral Russell Berkey. 9, Japanese-English Medical Dictionary; No. On 5 March, Imperial General Headquarters by Navy . [3] Of these, only one was considered to be complete. Allied casualties amounted to 157 killed and 1,057 wounded. [13] See Seventy Years Ago: Colonel Sidney F. Mashbir and the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), September-October 1942.. As the body of available material continued to grow, individual studies based on information available to ATIS were produced as Information Bulletins on subjects of general interest. MacArthur, with a firm foothold in New Guinea, was determined to move next to the Philippines, from which he had been driven after Pearl Harbor, and from there launch the final attack on the Japanese home islands. After the Japanese invasion of New Guinea the Americans, aided by Australian troops, organized a series of landings and other offensive actions against the Japanese in New Guinea. Despite the disaster of the Bismarck Sea, the Japanese could not give up on recapturing Wau. In many instances these organizations were staffed with translators trained in military and naval language schools in the United States. [29] The Japanese arrived and the 25 August 7 September Battle of Milne Bay was underway. Edwards also spoke with Graves Registration units about the importance of acquiring from the bodies of enemy soldiers everything with Japanese writing. 17 with Allied and Japanese Operations Among Natives of Dutch New Guinea; No. 'We are repeating the failure of Guadalcanal. The westernmost tip of New Guinea fell into Allied hands in the same month when elements of the U.S. 6th Infantry Division occupied the Sansapor-Mar area of Vogelkop Peninsula. On 24 April, the beach became more congested with the arrival of scheduled reinforcements and further equipment, as well as two transports and seven LSTs carrying troops, including the corps commander and his headquarters, which had been diverted from Tanahmerah Bay. Background. Adachi's decision may have been motivated by a belief that Hansa Bay would be the target of the next Allied amphibious landing and that he could reinforce Hollandia at a later date. During the first week of March 1945, I Corps ATIS Advanced Echelon on Luzon translated four top secret Japanese operational orders made between February 26th-March 2nd. The beach quickly became congested, as it had also been the center of a Japanese supply dump prior to the assault, and engineers had to work to clear the area with bulldozers and construct a roadway to the beach's only exit. As a result, a system of thorough Screening, i.e., the rapid examination of documents and the extraction (partial translations) therefrom of the more important material only, was given added prominence. In early 1945, in the vicinity of Bhamo in northern Burma, CIC CIT No. Limited Distribution Reports were special reports, highly classified, consisting of translations of documents possessing information of the highest intelligence value or of immediate importance, issued from time to time as directed. Backed by a swamp just 30 yards from the shoreline, and with just one exit trail unsuitable for vehicles, it quickly became congested. [11] For the same reasons, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander Allied Forces South West Pacific Area was determined to hold it. See Appendix I for information about the ATIS publication program. The Japanese at Rabaul and other bases on New Britain would have easily overwhelmed any such effort (by mid-September, MacArthur's entire naval force under Vice Admiral Arthur S. Carpender consisted of 5 cruisers, 8 destroyers, 20 submarines, and 7 small craft). In March 1943, a document was captured showing the submarine schedule between Lae, New Guinea, and New Britain. It is important to note that all ATIS units maintained close relations with the CIC units and Australian Army Field Security Service, since these units were largely responsible for the collection and dispatch of captured documents in forward areas to the language personnel stationed with tactical units. The plane in which Koga was flying crashed at sea, with no survivors. 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