Page:Papuan Campaign; The Buna-Sanananda Operation - Armed Forces in Action (1944).djvu/15

 to threaten Port Moresby from the east, but this attack had been quickly stopped. After 3 days of heavy fighting, the enemy troops were forced back to the beach and taken off by naval vessels. For the first time, a Japanese force had been evacuated after failing in its mission.

Just as the tide of invasion began to ebb, American troops entered the New Guinea theater of operations. Early in September, when the Japanese threat appeared most grave, the 126th Infantry Combat Team and the 128th Infantry Combat Team, both of the 32d Division, were ordered to Port Moresby from Australia. Each combat team was composed of a regiment of infantry, a platoon of the 114th Engineers, a Collecting Company and a platoon of the Clearing Company of the 107th Medical Battalion with three 25-bed portable hospitals, and a detachment of the 32d Signal Company. The infantry howitzers, divisional artillery, and about two-thirds of the 81-mm mortars were left behind because of the difficulties of transportation to the Buna area.

The 32d Division was a National Guard unit from Michigan and Wisconsin, commanded at this time by Maj. Gen. Edwin F. Harding. It had been sent to Australia in April 1942 and had there received a very brief and sketchy training in jungle warfare. Though the Buna-Sanananda campaign was its first combat experience in World War II, the division could look back on an excellent record in World War I, when it had been one of the first units to reach France.

The transfer of the two combat teams to Port Moresby, partly by plane and partly by boat, was completed on 28 September. The 128th Infantry occupied positions on the Allied left flank to operate up the Goldie River. The 126th Infantry went into bivouac near Port Moresby, while a patrol, under the command of Capt. William F. Boice, proceeded east along the coast to look for a route over the mountains on the Allied right flank.

Allied strategy in New Guinea now began to shift from defense to counterattack. The Japanese, closely pursued by the Australians, continued their rapid retreat toward Kokoda. Intelligence reports indi-

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