Bougainville campaign (1943-45)

Bougainville Campaign (1943–45)
Part of the Pacific Theatre of World War II
United States Army soldiers hunt Japanese infiltrators on Bougainville in March 1944.
Date 1 November 1943 – 21 August 1945 Location 6°8′S 155°18′E / 6.133°S 155.300°E / -6.133; 155.300Coordinates: 6°8′S 155°18′E / 6.133°S 155.300°E / -6.133; 155.300 Bougainville, Territory of New Guinea (geographically part of the Solomon Islands) Result Allied victory
Belligerents
United States  Australia  New Zealand Colony of Fiji	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Douglas MacArthur William F. Halsey Theodore S.        Wilkinson Alexander A.        Vandegrift Robert Row Allen H. Turnage Robert S. Beightler Roy S. Geiger Oscar W. Griswold H. E. Barrowclough Thomas Blamey Stanley Savige	Hitoshi Imamura Harukichi Hyakutake Mineichi Koga Jinichi Kusaka Tomoshige        Samejima Sentaro Omori Kiyoto Kagawa † Masatane Kanda
Strength
144,000 American troops 30,000 Australian troops 728 aircraft	45,000–65,000 troops 154 aircraft
Casualties and losses
USA: 727 dead Australia: 516 dead	18,500–21,500 dead

The Bougainville Campaign was a series of land and naval battles of the Pacific campaign of World War II between Allied forces and the Empire of Japan. It was part of Operation Cartwheel, the Allied grand strategy in the South Pacific. The campaign took place in the Northern Solomons in two phases. The first phase, in which American troops invaded and held the perimeter around the beachhead at Torokina, lasted from November 1943 through November 1944. The second phase, in which primarily Australian troops went on the offensive, mopping up pockets of starving, isolated but still-determined Japanese, lasted from November 1944 until August 1945, when the last Japanese on the island surrendered. Operations during the final phase of the campaign saw the Australian forces advance north towards the Bonis Peninsula and south towards the main Japanese stronghold around Buin, although the war ended before these two enclaves were completely destroyed.

Before the war, Bougainville had been administered as part of the Australian Territory of New Guinea, even though, geographically, Bougainville is part of the Solomon Islands chain. As a result, within the various accounts of the campaign it is referred to as part of both the New Guinea and the Solomon Islands campaigns.

During their occupation the Japanese constructed naval aircraft bases in the north, east, and south of the island; but none in the west. They developed a naval anchorage at Tonolei Harbor near Buin, their largest base, on the southern coastal plain of Bougainville. On the nearby Treasury and Shortland Islands they built airfields, naval bases and anchorages. These bases helped protect Rabaul, the major Japanese garrison and naval base in Papua New Guinea, while allowing continued expansion to the south-east, down the Solomon Islands chain, to Guadalcanal and New Guinea and beyond. To the Allies, Bougainville would later also be considered vital for neutralizing the Japanese base around Rabaul.

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