Page:Papuan Campaign; The Buna-Sanananda Operation - Armed Forces in Action (1944).djvu/12



URING the early months of 1942 the Japanese were on the offensive everywhere in the Southwest Pacific and their armies seemed to be invincible. On 10 December 1941, Japanese forces landed in the Philippines; on 15 February 1942, Singapore fell; within a month the Netherlands Indies were conquered. Then the attack shifted farther to the southeast, and from Rabaul in New Britain, which had been occupied on 23 January, the Japanese High Command planned a two-pronged drive. One prong was to strike for control of southeastern New Guinea; the other was to thrust through the Solomon Islands to cut the supply line from America to Australia.

Neither attack reached its objective. When a Japanese convoy pushed around the eastern tip of New Guinea threatening Port Moresby and northeastern Australia, it met American naval forces. In the ensuing Battle of the Coral Sea (4–8 May 1942), the Japanese suffered a decisive defeat. Five months later, the Japanese advance toward our supply line in the Southwest Pacific ended when American marines landed (7 August) in the Solomons on Tulagi, Gavutu, Florida, and Guadalcanal.

Failure in their attempt by sea did not end the Japanese effort to capture Port Moresby, which would afford them an invasion base only 340 miles from the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. In July they landed at Buna, Gona, and Sanananda on the northeast coast of Papua and pushed southward across the Papuan Peninsula. The Australians first stopped the enemy and then, joined by American forces, drove him back to his landing bases. The Allied campaign culminated in the capture of those bases. This long and hard counteroffensive not only freed Australia from the imminent threat of invasion, but 1