Melanesian Nightmare

The Japanese target is Port Moresby. If they could take that, then they could gain enough control over New Guinea to use it to launch attacks on Australian cities.

The Japanese move overland to attack the port.

Fierce battles erupt between the approaching Japanese and the allied troops moving to intercept them.

A Japanese troop convoy heads out to help their men on New Guinea.

Allied planes make ready to attack the convoy.

This is the three-day Battle of the Bismarck sea. All 8 Japanese transports are sunk, and over 3000 Japanese troops die.

An LST, landing-ship-tank, which was a new kind of ship for the war.

Here's a fork-lift carrying supplies into an LST. Notice that you can't even see the top of the entrance, the ship is that big.

Night-time bombardment of an island target.

The Japanese resistance is strong.

The LSTs unload their cargo.

The Japanese military tries to hold western New Guinea.

Japanese planes attack the landing craft.

Allied paratroops land to take over a area with an airstrip.

The video tells how tens of thousands of Japanese troops are bypassed and cut off from aid, and how the allies advance over a thousand miles closer to Tokyo in a period of about a year.

For most people in Japan, though, everything they hear indicates that things are still going fine for Japan, even though they are losing island after island and battle after battle.

One of the rare scenes I've found of Japanese dead being returned home in white boxes containing their cremated remains.



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