War at the End of the World Read online

  ALSO BY JAMES P. DUFFY

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  Target: America: Hitler’s Plan to Attack the United States

  Hitler’s Secret Pirate Fleet: The Deadliest Ships of World War II

  Target Hitler: The Plots to Kill Adolf Hitler

  Hitler Slept Late: And Other Blunders That Cost Him the War

  Lincoln’s Admiral: The Civil War Campaigns of David Farragut

  NAL CALIBER

  Published by New American Library,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  This book is an original publication of New American Library.

  First Printing, January 2016

  Copyright © James P. Duffy, 2016

  Maps by Chris Erichsen

  Front jacket photographs: planes © Everett Historical/Shutterstock Images; mountains © Minden Pictures/Getty Images; soldier © Getty Images. Back jacket photograph © Corbis.

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  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-61109-8

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Duffy, James P., 1941–

  War at the end of the world: Douglas MacArthur and the forgotten fight for New Guinea, 1942–1945/James P. Duffy.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-451-41830-2

  1. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—New Guinea. 2. MacArthur, Douglas, 1880–1964. I. Title.

  D767.95.D84 2016

  940.54'265—dc23 2015019828

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Version_1

  To the memory of Mary Gallagher

  In addition to all our other difficulties, there was New Guinea itself, as tough and tenacious an enemy as the Japanese.

  —GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR

  Heaven is Java; hell is Burma; but no one returns alive from New Guinea.

  —SAYING POPULAR AMONG JAPANESE SOLDIERS

  CONTENTS

  Also by James P. Duffy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  List of Maps

  INTRODUCTION

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE: 1942

  CHAPTER 1. “This Is War, Not a Sunday School Picnic”

  CHAPTER 2. “Every Man for Himself”

  CHAPTER 3. First Landings in New Guinea

  CHAPTER 4. A General in Search of an Army

  CHAPTER 5. To Port Moresby by Sea

  CHAPTER 6. Second Landings in New Guinea

  CHAPTER 7. Death Along the Kokoda Track

  CHAPTER 8. First Defeat at Milne Bay

  CHAPTER 9. “Take Buna, or Not Come Back Alive”

  PART TWO: 1943

  CHAPTER 10. Sailing the Bismarck Sea

  CHAPTER 11. Assault on Salamaua

  CHAPTER 12. Pincers Around Lae

  CHAPTER 13. War on the Huon Peninsula

  CHAPTER 14. Invasion Across the Straits

  PART THREE: 1944

  CHAPTER 15. The General and the Admiralties

  CHAPTER 16. Reckless and Persecution

  CHAPTER 17. Next Stop: Wakde

  CHAPTER 18. Bloody Biak

  CHAPTER 19. The General, the President, and the Admiral

  CHAPTER 20. Breakout from Wewak

  CHAPTER 21. Island-Hopping to Victory

  EPILOGUE

  Photographs

  Acknowledgments

  Bibliography

  Source Notes

  Index

  MAPS

  The Japanese Plan for War, December 1941

  Rabaul and Vicinity, 1941

  The Japanese Advance into the Solomons–New Guinea Area, January–July 1942

  The Pacific Areas, 1 August 1942

  Japanese Thrust Across Mountains Toward Port Moresby

  The Huon Peninsula and the Straits

  Southwest Pacific Operations, September 1943–February 1944

  Admiralty Islands

  Hollandia-Aitape Operations

  New Guinea, 1942–1944

  Biak Island Operation

  Morotai Island Operation

  INTRODUCTION

  It was four years of some of the worst warfare in history. Fought in monsoon-soaked jungles, debilitating heat; impassable mountains; torrential rivers; animal-, insect-, and disease-infested swamps—the combat raged across what one American soldier called “a green hell on earth.”

  The war for New Guinea is perhaps the least-known campaign of World War II, yet was one of the most crucial. Gaining control of New Guinea was the cornerstone of the Japanese war strategy. So badly did the Japanese want the island that they dramatically depleted their defense of their other strongholds by pulling tens of thousands of troops, dozens of warships, and hundreds of aircraft into the quagmire of New Guinea. The more resources they committed, the more important the campaign became to the Imperial General Staff.

  For the Americans, victory in New Guinea was pivotal in breaking the Japanese war machine, the vital first step in a long march through the South and central Pacific to the Japanese Home Islands and the ultimate destruction of the Japanese Empire. The vast number of troops, ships, and warplanes that the Japanese pulled away from other fronts to commit to New Guinea contributed directly to Allied successes at places such as Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan and Iwo Jima. Japanese generals themselves, interrogated after the war, concluded that the New Guinea campaign had contributed a good deal to their losing the war.

  This book is the story of the almost four-year campaign for control of New Guinea. From January 23, 1942, when the Japanese first landed on New Guinea, until the last holdouts in the mountain jungles surrendered on September 11, 1945, the fighting was virtually nonstop.

  Emboldened by easy successes throughout the Pacific and Southeast Asia, the Japanese could not know that the world’s second-largest island would ultimately break them. New Guinea would halt their juggernaut, just as the attempt to take Moscow broke both Napoleon and Hitler. Similarities between the events in Russia and those in New Guinea are striking. After sweeping across Europe in a succession of victories, the Germans were stopped at the Moscow suburbs by a combination of heavy snows, subfreezing temperatures, difficult terrain, a breakdown in their supply system, and militia-type defenders who fought ferociously until regular army units could arrive from Siberia. In New Guinea, the Japanese were slowed by monsoons that turned tracks and paths into raging streams and difficult terrain th
at drastically reduced their ability to resupply units in the field, before being stopped by militia and volunteer units who inflicted severe losses on the invaders until American and Australian regular army troops could arrive.

  Winning the war in New Guinea was of personal importance to Allied commander in chief General Douglas MacArthur. His avowed “I shall return” to the Philippines could be accomplished only after taking New Guinea. For MacArthur, there was no way around New Guinea. He could not bypass the island and leave tens of thousands of enemy troops in his rear. The road to Manila was through New Guinea.

  PROLOGUE

  Historians differ on the start of World War II in the Pacific-Asia theaters. The earliest any can agree on is September 18, 1931, when soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army stationed as guards along the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway in the Chinese province of Manchuria set off a minor explosion along the railway that did little damage. They quickly blamed the incident on “Chinese bandits” and used it as an opportunity to fire a series of artillery shells into a nearby garrison of the Chinese army. The Chinese returned fire. Fighting broke out and grew in intensity as it spread, leading finally to the Japanese occupation of all of Manchuria. They soon renamed the province Manchukuo, and installed a puppet government.

  When news of the incident reached the West, United States secretary of state Henry Stimson urged President Herbert Hoover to impose economic sanctions on Japan. General Douglas MacArthur, then chief of staff of the U.S. Army, supported Stimson, but to no avail, as Hoover decided not to provoke Tokyo.1

  A second date used by some for the start of World War II is July 7, 1937, when Japanese soldiers stationed in north China used the temporary disappearance of one of their own to open fire on Chinese troops across the Marco Polo Bridge that spanned the Yunting River near Peking. Local Japanese commanders wanted control of the vital bridge for their planned occupation of Peking. Following a series of failed cease-fires and truces, serious fighting broke out between Nationalist Chinese troops and Japanese forces, leading ultimately to the bloody battle for Shanghai in August 1937.2

  Japanese expansion continued from there, based largely on the country’s economic and resource needs. As General MacArthur later described it, “They lacked sugar, so they took Formosa; they lacked iron so they took Manchuria; they lacked hard coal and timber so they invaded China. They lacked security so they took Korea.”3

  With all this land captured, they still needed the nickel and other minerals from Malaya, and the oil and rubber from the Dutch East Indies. In fact, Japanese plans called for complete hegemony over much of China, Southeast Asia, and the western Pacific, which included the Philippines. They desired to establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, with a defensive perimeter running from the Kuril Islands in the north to the island of New Britain, off the coast of New Guinea, then turning west to include northwestern New Guinea and ultimately ending around Malaya, Burma, and Thailand. As Japanese planners viewed the situation, the greatest dangers to meeting their goal were the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor, and the United States Far East Air Force, headquartered in the Philippines. To negate these risks, they boldly launched near-simultaneous attacks at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines on December 7 and 8, 1941.4

  Following the devastation on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, the Japanese blitzkrieg swept across the western Pacific and Southeast Asia, scoring one victory after another. In December 1941 a pair of American possessions in the Pacific, Guam and Wake Island, fell to Japan. The following months saw Imperial forces conquer Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.

  To retain their authority over these lands, Tokyo’s war planners knew they had to prevent American forces from building up in Australia. How to do this was the overarching question that dominated Japan’s military policies throughout the South Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Japanese Army heatedly disagreed on the answer. The navy was in favor of occupying at least Australia’s northeastern portion, but the army was against it. Close to one million army troops were already committed to the war and occupation of China, Southeast Asia, and Manchuria, where they were worried about a possible Soviet invasion. Even if they succeeded in invading and taking control of a portion of the Australian continent, Japan would inevitably face a continuing war of attrition there. The army favored instead a naval blockade that would sufficiently isolate Australia from the United States. Either way, the key to driving Australia out of the war was New Guinea, from which bombers could threaten and even attack Australian cities, and from which Imperial ships could patrol the entrances to Australian ports.

  When war came to the southwest Pacific in January 1942, Australia could not have been less prepared. The four combat divisions of the Australian Imperial Force were serving alongside other British Empire troops in North Africa and on the Malay Peninsula, as were nine squadrons of the Royal Australian Air Force. The five cruisers—two heavy, three light—of the Royal Australian Navy were returning to Australian waters following several months of service in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. With the exception of one armored division that had no tanks, virtually no trained soldiers were left to defend a nation of slightly over seven million people. The defense of Australia was left to militia troops who required several months of training before they were ready to face Japanese combat forces. Air defenses for the nearly three-million-square-mile nation amounted to twenty-nine Hudson medium bombers and fourteen Catalina flying boats. Defense against air attacks would rely to a large degree on a small number of Australian-built training planes called Wirraways, which were almost useless in air combat.5

  Such was the condition of the forces charged with the defense of Australia and New Guinea in January 1942, as a large Japanese war fleet steamed south.

  Part One

  1942

  CHAPTER 1

  “This Is War, Not a Sunday School Picnic”

  As the huge four-engine flying boat roared in over the lagoon, Truk Harbor below bristled with activity: massive warships steamed in and out, while dozens of freighters unloaded their cargo into massive warehouses. Rich green jungle reached out into the deep blue waters of the lagoon. Presiding over all, shore batteries of antiaircraft guns jutted from dozens of volcanic and coral islands that dotted the area. Truk defied an enemy to approach.

  A triumphant wave of attacks across the South Pacific had further energized an already-confident Imperial Navy. Now, on January 3, 1942, just four weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, an assembly of top army officers were flying in for a rare meeting with their naval counterparts, with whom they seldom agreed on anything. Aboard the plane, Major General Tomitaro Horii, commander of the Imperial Japanese Army’s South Seas Detachment, and several of his regimental and battalion commanders braced for landing. As the flying boat skimmed the glittering waters, the officers were quiet and tense.

  Truk was part of the Carolines, a string of tiny islands which had been mandated to Japan by the League of Nations following the First World War. Now, Truk Island was home to the Japanese Empire’s southern military base. Known as the Gibraltar of the Pacific, it was Japan’s most formidable base in the South Pacific.

  Within minutes of landing, the army officers clambered off the aircraft into the bright morning sunlight and onto a boat that ferried them to Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue’s flagship, the Katori. The fifty-three-year-old admiral, who had earlier served as military attaché to several European nations, was bringing the two services together to discuss plans for the invasion of New Guinea, which lay just eleven hundred miles to the southwest. Governed primarily by Australia, with a smaller portion under Dutch rule, New Guinea would be their largest and most challenging target to date. The immense island, off the northern coast of Australia, was notorious for its hostile terrain: impenetrable shorelines, dense jungles, steep mountains, rain that seemed never to stop, and a na
tive population rumored to include cannibals. Yet as the officers all knew, New Guinea was the gateway to Australia, an Allied nation that must be neutralized—either through invasion and occupation, or by cutting her supply and communication lines to the United States.

  General Horii had been selected to lead the New Guinea invasion, his last and most fateful assignment. At age fifty-one, Horii was a seasoned and respected commander, a combat officer who often personally led his men into battle. During the 1930s, he had served in China, fighting in the Shanghai Incident of 1932, which had left ten thousand Chinese civilians dead. The Japanese atrocities had affected Horii deeply, and they would influence him as he took command in the Pacific War.1

  In 1940 the Imperial Army had promoted Horii to major general and assigned him command of the South Seas Detachment, an elite amphibious landing unit that was part of the Imperial Navy’s South Seas Force. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the detachment participated in the successful battle for Wake Island against U.S. forces, then joined in on the swift move south that conquered island after island. During this period, Horii distinguished himself from his contemporaries, many of whom either ordered despicable acts or looked the other way when they were committed. Disturbed by his colleagues’ atrocities, he issued a written order to his men, titled “Guide to Soldiers in the South Seas,” that explicitly forbade “looting, violating women, and the needless killing or injuring of local inhabitants.”2

  Now, Horii’s first targets were two smaller islands east of New Guinea: New Britain and New Ireland. Gaining control of New Britain’s town of Rabaul was key. Ideally situated as a prospective base of operations, Rabaul was nestled snugly inside the deep-anchorage Simpson Harbor, protected on three sides by mostly mountainous terrain. The only entrance was through Blanche Bay, which opened into the St. George’s Channel, separating New Britain and New Ireland. From Rabaul, Japanese warships could control the surrounding sea, including the Solomon Islands to the southeast. What was more, the town’s two operating airports would enable Japanese aircraft to dominate the skies.