Victory in Papua

432 Pages·1957·18.033 MB·English

by  Samuel Milner

F o r e wd o r
This is a companion volume to the one on Guadalcanal in the series on the
war in the Pacific. Both record the operations designed to halt the advance
of the enemy toward the vital transpacific line of communications with Australia
and secure Australia as a base. Success in Papua and Guadalcanal, achieved
in February 1943, put the Allied forces in a position to neutralize Rabaul and,
this accomplished, to advance to the Philippines.
The present volume concentrates on the action of one United States Army
division. In telling the story of a comparatively limited number of troops, the
author has been able to present the combat experience of small units in sharper
focus than has been possible in most of the other full-scale campaign volumes.
The campaign abounds in lessons. Of these one of the most vital is the fre-
quent necessity for all commanders to evaluate their own actions by asking them-
selves this question: "How could I have helped, how should I have helped, how
can I help my subordinates to accomplish their assigned tasks?"
Washington, D. C. A. C. SMITH
15 March 1955 Maj. Gen., U. S. A.
Chief of Military History
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The Author
Mr. Samuel Milner holds a graduate degree in history from the University
of Alberta and has done further graduate work in political science at the Uni-
versity of Minnesota. During World War II, he served in Australia and New
Guinea as a historian with the Air Transport Command, Army Air Forces. Upon
completing Victory in Papua he left the Office, Chief of Military History, to
become historian of the Air Weather Service, U.S. Air Force.
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Preface
The strategic significance of the Papuan Campaign can be briefly stated. In
addition to blunting the Japanese thrust toward Australia and the transpacific
line of communications, it put General MacArthur's forces in a favorable position
to take the offensive. But this little known campaign is significant for still
another reason. It was the battle test of a large hitherto-inexperienced
U. S. Army force and its commanders under the conditions which were to attend
much of the ground fighting in the Pacific. Costly in casualties and suffering,
it taught lessons that the Army had to learn if it was to cope with the Japanese
under conditions of tropical warfare.
Since the official records of this early campaign were quite poor, the task of
portraying American ground action in it accurately required that a great deal of
essential information be found elsewhere. This supplementary information was
secured in large part from participants whose names are to be found in the
Bibliographical Note at the end of the volume All of them have my thanks,
and certain of them who went to great lengths to help me have my special thanks.
The following (ranks as of February 1952 when the manuscript was completed)
are in the latter category: Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger, Maj. Gen. Clovis E.
Byers, Maj. Gen. Jens A. Doe, Maj. Gen. Edwin F. Harding, Maj. Gen. Clarence
A. Martin, Maj. Gen. Albert W. Waldron, Col. Bernd G. Baetcke, Col. Charles
R. Dawley, Col. John E. Grose, Col. Alexander J. MacNab, Col. Kelsie E. Miller,
Col. Herbert A. Smith, Col. Clarence M. Tomlinson, Lt. Col. Peter L. Dal Ponte,
Lt. Col. Herbert M. Smith, Lt. Col. Bert Zeeff, and Maj. Robert H. Odell. A
true picture of conditions as they existed at the time could not have been given
without their help.
To tell the Australian side of the story adequately also required more informa-
tion than was to be found in the available sources. That I never lacked for such
information was due principally to Gavin Long, the Official Australian War
Historian and to two members of his staff, John Balfour and Dudley McCarthy.
McCarthy's draft chapters on Australian action on the Sanananda front were
invaluable in helping me to round out the picture of the fighting that went on
on that front. Lt. Col. Peter S. Teesdale-Smith, a participant in the campaign
and a member of the Australian Military Mission in Washington during the time
that this book was in preparation, helped me greatly in making Australian action
come alive.
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