Ultimate Tropical Nightmare (Bougainville), March, 1988

The article is ab out Bougainville, which had 35,000 Japanese troops on it at the time. It was necessary to take the island to provide an airstrip for US fighters that could protect the US bombers and torpedo planes attacking abaul. Athe island is 150 miles long and 80 miles wide.

It was also a very difficult island to invade. Heavy surf made landings risky. Much of the area was marked “unexplored.” There was plenty of jungle, and an uneven surface.

The Japanese commander was Lieut. Gen. Harukichi Hyakutake. His troops included the group responsible for the Rape of Nanking. He was confident of victory.

The US Navy began it's bombardment around dawn. Four landing craft was knocked out by a Japanese 75mm gun, but by noon almost every Japanese bunker had been silenced. 14,000 Marines were landed, with 39 killed during the landing.

A Japanese group moved south from Rabaul to help the troops on Bougainville. The US forces hit the group at night and the Japanese retreated. Later that morning 100 Japanese carrier-based planes attacked the US sea force, but they did little damage and lost 20 planes in the fight.

The US then did a daring raid on Rabaul itself, damaging a number of Japanese ships and shooting down 25 planes. The attack was repeated another day. The Japanese fought back, but in two weeks they lost 121 of 173 carrier planes. 75% of the dive-bomber crews and 40% of the torpedo-bomber crews were killed. (This was all happening at a time when Japan was having less and less success replacing planes, much less coming up with good pilots.)

The Japanese commander on Bougainville kept using small groups to attack the Marines, and each time the small group was defeated. An example was Piva Forks, where the Marines lost 162 either killed our wounded, and the Japanese lost 1,300, all killed.

The US had an airfield going even before the island was actually taken, and used it to attack Rabaul.

Hyakutake decided in March of 1944 to have his remaining 15,000 men make one great thrust at the American lines. He figured there were around 30,000 Americans, but there were over twice that number. The attacks ultimately failed. The article says 25 Japanese were taken prisoner.

Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page