Instead of adapting American tactics to the environment to achieve victory, American commanders won by adapting the environment to their tactics.

The jungle was not just wooded terrain writ large. It was a totally different physical environment that required almost all a man's energy and determination just to survive its rigors. That these men would turn from existing to fighting is probably more attributable to a primordial urge for survival than sound doctrine and leadership.

From the perspective of the combat soldier, it is easy to criticize the staffs at division and corps levels for insensitivity, lack of realism, and outright stupidity. The simple truth is that without the centralized direction the staff provided (as divorced from reality as it unfortunately sometimes became in the confusion of battle), platoons and companies would just mill around purposelessly in the jungle thicket. Without the coercive power of staff orders, it is doubtful that the understandably reluctant combat troops would move forward of their own volition against a dangerous, armed foe. And, at least at Aitape, to a surprising extent, the personalities of the higher commanders who issued the orders impressed themselves on the conduct of the battle.

Both opposing commanders ignored advice from line units-Krueger by his reconnaissance in force and Adachi by his shift of the 41st Division to attack Afua. The mission of Persecution Task Force was to defend Aitape; that of 18th Army, to attack Aitape. General Krueger with his Ultra knowledge changed defense to preemptive attack, apparently, because he perceived Aitape as a sideshow to be concluded as expeditiously as possible in order that he might move on to a more important theater of operations, namely the Philippines. Krueger reacted to changing strategic considerations-particularly the strategic debate between MacArthur and Nimitz concerning future operations against either Formosa or the Philippines-and pressured his subordinate commanders to conclude the campaign promptly. Although his methods may seem overbearing to some, tactics is the handmaiden of strategy. Without a coherent strategy, the best tactics cannot produce overall victory. Yet a sound strategy can capitalize on conventional tactics. MacArthur's imaginative strategy exploited 6th Army's orthodox tactics to the greatest extent possible.

Krueger's reconnaissance in force, conducted to "develop the battle," is entirely out of keeping with his otherwise methodical and plodding generalship, which almost cost him his career in the Philippines. [4]

General Cunningham preferred to stand on the defensive and await Japanese onslaughts, always fearful that his vulnerable position was about to be outflanked. General Hall apparently believed tactics could be universally applied, as his textbook envelopment, totally misplaced in the jungles, revealed. Their common opponent, General Adachi, put his faith in the intangibles of battle, and his operational orders and tactical assault formations were uninspired and, as the battle continued, inflexible. To achieve victory, Adachi's tactics had to be exceptional to compensate for 18th Army's shortcomings. His operational plans suggest that his North China perspective did not accommodate itself to the drastically altered conditions of jungle combat. Adachi, like his American counterparts, had been trained to fight one type of way, but told to fight an entirely different one.

These judgments must be understood in the human dimension of leadership. The general officers applied their accumulated military wisdom in accordance with doctrine and experience. They were conventional, not exceptional, battlefield leaders. Officers like Krueger, Hall, Gill, Martin, and Cunningham did nothing spectacular, but they won battles, campaigns, and ultimately the Pacific War with their methodical, almost abstract, style of leadership. [5]

They were soldiers who understood the basic principles of warfare and applied them in battle.

At the lowest stratum was the combat soldier, and the tactics that both sides used were more conventional than innovative. It is true that there were successful ambushes, but the usual firefight-if there is such a thingwitnessed American infantrymen pulling back and calling for artillery fire to saturate the suspected Japanese positions. After the bombardment, the Americans cautiously advanced to count the dead. [6]

It was methodical and calculated small unit tactics. One must also recognize the important psychological benefits on the morale of combat troops from just hearing the sound of friendly artillery. Perhaps these tactics were appropriate to the nature of the original defensive mission, because everyone vaguely realized that 18th Army had to attack or wither away.

The de facto change of mission and pressure from above to wrap up the campaign demonstrated the limitations of such orthodox tactical concepts. It should be remembered that the presence of many brave men and a few heroic ones who were willing to lead in such conditions made stereotyped tactics work. That the Japanese accommodated the Americans by charging in dense ranks straight into American guns speaks poorly of Japanese tactical innovation. The original Japanese attack on a narrow front did consider the jungle terrain. Adachi's subsequent enveloping maneuver treated the jungle as if it did not exist.

The only time that the Japanese seemed unconventional was after dark, and that was in part because the Americans simply ceased military operations after nightfall, thus surrendering the night to the enemy. Conversely, Japanese infantry doctrine stressed night training and operations. By daylight reconnaissance and trail marking, they marked passages for nighttime movement. The Japanese had been trained to operate at night, and they did. But despite all their emphasis on night training, the Japanese found night fighting extremely difficult to coordinate.

Nonetheless, the Americans never seemed to adapt and take advantage of Japanese errors. The 112th Cavalry's one night march of the campaign, the retreat from the Driniumor, nearly resulted in mob chaos. But was this a deficiency of the infantrymen and cavalrymen along the Driniumor or a basic failure of the U.S. Army to emphasize practical night combat training? After the Papua campaign, the 32d Infantry Division refitted and retrained in Australia. According to their training table, the division stressed night operations. But these lessons were not applied extensively along the Driniumor. It does appear that the 32d Division and the 112th Cavalry closed down at night.

In the jungle combat, the troop and squadron commanders of the 112th Cavalry placed great reliance on the qualities and initiative of junior officers to lead patrols, to lead attacks, to supervise their men, and to scout-all desirable achievements. Yet they recognized that they overburdened these young officers with too many tasks in the oppressive climate. [7]

A glance at the casualty figures demonstrates clearly enough that the junior officers of the 112th shared the dangers of combat with their men. In most cases, they led, but the cumulative burden of responsibility, fatigue, and combat used them up at a fast rate.

The casualty returns of the 112th's Driniumor battle provide much area for speculation. Overall, approximately 320 cavalrymen were killed, wounded, or missing, [8] and the Americans claimed to have killed 1,604 Japanese, an exchange ratio of roughly 1:5 in terms of gross casualties. Until I August, however, the exchange ratio was about 1:1.5 or 1:2 in the cavalrymen's favor, after which it skyrocketed to 1:8, coincidentally with the Japanese massed frontal attacks against the 112th in early August.

Yet, it is difficult to determine with any exactitude a turning point on the Driniumor. Rather, it was a grinding battle of attrition, the ironic ending to a classic example of maneuver warfare. In any case, it was certainly easier to kill men whose formations were disorganized and whose army was breaking apart than to kill them when their organization was intact and functional, despite one side's overpowering materiel superiority. This, of course, harks back to the theories of the nineteenth century French military theorist Ardant DuPicq.

The matter of casualties from friendly fire is unsettling. At least 27, and possibly 35, of the 112th's approximately 320 casualties were victims of friendly fire, or 9 to 10.5 percent. The discouraging feature of these statistics is that they may actually be lower than a commander should expect in jungle combat. A detailed study of U.S. Army casualties on BougainvilleNew Georgia and Burma showed that in the first instance, 66 of 393 total casualties "were due to the fire of their own troops. In the former 15.7 percent of the dead and in Burma 16 percent were due to our own fire." [9]

This report also stated that carelessness, poor discipline, lack of leadership and judgment, and poor dissemination of information all contributed to the problem. Yet, this same report recognized from empirical data that veteran troops did perform better in combat because they could recognize and react to the stimuli of battle. Perhaps the cumulative effects of a protracted combat situation-not only the actual fighting but also all the other functions required to make combat possible (marching, preparing defenses, organizing attacks, resupplying, eating, personal hygiene, even resting)-drained the body and spirit. The results of such aggregate weariness possibly were the lethal mistakes of friendly fire. [10]

The final casualty account should be understood in the context of the overall campaign. There were slightly more than 55,000 Allied troops, mostly Americans, at Aitape. Among these troops perhaps twelve infantry battalion equivalent size units bore the brunt of the fighting.*

*The units were the 128th Infantry, 127th Infantry, 124th Infantry, and 112th Cavalry. The 163d Regimental Combat Team departed early, the 169th Infantry arrived late.